USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Sketches of Boston, past and present, and of some places in its vicinity > Part 3
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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
To the same master passion, dread of the English hierarchy, and the saine main purpose, civil independence, may be attributed, in a great de- gree, the nature of the government which the principal civil and spirit- ual influences of the time established, and, notwithstanding its many ob- jectionable features, the willing submission to it of the people.
It cannot be questioned that the constitution of the State, as sketche !! in the first laws of our ancestors, was a skilful combination of both civil and ecclesiastical powers. Church and state were very curiously and effi. ciently interwoven with each other. It is usual to attribute to religious bigotry the submission of the mass of the people to a system thus stern and exclusive. It may, however, with quite as much justice, be resolved into love of independence and political sagacity.
The great body of the first emigrants doubtless coincided in general re- ligious views with those whose influence predominated in their church and state. They had consequently no personal objection to the stern dis. cipline their political system established. They had also the sagacity to foresee that a system which by its rigor should exclude from power all who did not concur with their religious views, would have a direct ten. dency to deter those in other countries from emigrating to their settle- ment, who did not agree with the general plan of policy they had adopt- ed, and of consequence to increase the probability of their escape from the interference of their ancient oppressors, and the chance of success in laying the foundation of the free commonwealth they contemplated. They also doubtless perceived, that with the unqualified possession of the elective franchise, they had little reason to apprehend that they could not easily control or annihilate any ill effect upon their political system, aris- ing from the union of church and state, should it become insupportable.
There is abundant evidence that the submission of the people to this new form of church and state combination was not owing to ignorance, or to indifference to the true principles of civil and religious liberty Notwithstanding the strong attachment of the early emigrants to their
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civil. and their alinost blind devotion to their ecclesiastical leaders, when either, presuming on their influence, attempted any thing inconsistent with general liberty, a corrective is seen almost immediately applied by the spirit and intelligence of the people.
In this respect, the character of the people of Boston has been at all times distinguished. In every period of our history, they have been sec- ond to none in quickness to discern or in readiness to meet every exigen- cy, fearlessly hazarding life and fortune in support of the liberties of the commonwealth. It would be easy to maintain these positions by a re- currence to the annals of each successive age, and particularly to facts connected with our revolutionary struggle. A few instances only will be noticed, and those selected from the earliest times.
A natural jealousy soon sprung up in the metropolis as to the inten- tions of their civil and ecclesiastical leaders. In 1634 the people began to fear, lest, by reelecting Winthrop, they " should make way for a Gov- ernor for life." They accordingly gave some indications of a design to elect another person. Upon which John Cotton, their great ecclesiastical head, then at the height of his popularity, preached a discourse to the General Court, and delivered this doctrine : " that a magistrate ought not to be turned out, without just cause, no more than a magistrate might turn out a private man from his freehold, without trial." To show their dislike of the doctrine by the most practical of evidences, our ancestors gave the political divine and his adherents a succession of lessons, for which they were probably the wiser all the rest of their lives. They turned out Winthrop at the very same election, and put in Dudley. The year after, they turned out Dudley and put in Haynes. The year after, they turned out Haynes and put in Vane. So much for the first broach- ing, in Boston, of the doctrine that public office is of the nature of free- hold.
In 1635, an attempt was made by the General Court to elect a certain number of magistrates as councillors for life. Although Cotton was the author also of this project, and notwithstanding his influence, yet such was the spirit displayed by our ancestors on the occasion, that within three years the General Court was compelled to pass a vote, denying any such intent, and declaring that the persons so chosen should not be ac- counted magistrates or have any authority in consequence of such elec- tion.
In 1636, the great Antinomian controversy divided the country. Bos- ton was for the covenant of grace; the General Court for the covenant of works. Under pretence of the apprehension of a riot, the General Court adjourned to Newtown, and expelled the Boston deputies for daring to remonstrate. Boston, indignant at this infringement of its liberties, was about electing the same deputies a second time. At the earnest solicita- tion of Cotton, however, they chose others. One of these was also ex-
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pelled by the Court ; and a writ having issued to the town ordering a new election, they refused making any return to the warrant, - a contempt which the General Court did not think it wise to resent.
In 1639, there being vacancies in the Board of Assistants, the governor and magistrates met and nominated three persons, " not with intent," as they said, " to lead the people's choice of these, nor to divert them from any other, but only to propound for consideration (which any freeman may do), and so leave the people to use their liberties according to their consciences." The result was, that the people did use their liberties ac- cording to their consciences. They chose not a man of them. So much for the first legislative caucus in our history. It probably would have been happy for their posterity, if the people had always treated like nominations with as little ceremony.
About this time also the General Court took exception at the length of the " lectures," then the great delight of the people, and at the ill effects resulting from their frequency ; whereby poor people were led greatly to neglect their affairs; to the great hazard also of their health, owing to their long continuance in the night. Boston expressed strong dislike at this interference, " fearing that the precedent might enthrall them to the civil power, and, besides, be a blemish upon them with their posterity, as though they needed to be regulated by the civil magistrate, and raise an ill-savor of their coldness, as if it were possible for the people of Boston to complain of too much preaching."
The magistrates, fearful Jest the people should break their bords, were content to apologize, to abandon the scheme of shortening lectures or diminishing their number, and to rest satisfied with a general understand- ing that assemblies should break up in such season as that people, dwel- ling a mile or two off, might get home by daylight. Winthrop, on this occasion, passes the following eulogium on the people of Boston, which every period of their history amply confirms : - "They were generally of that understanding and moderation, as that they would be easily guided in their way by any rule from Scripture or sound reason."
It is curious and instructive to trace the principles of our constitution, as they were successively suggested by circumstances, and gradually gained by the intelligence and daring spirit of the people. For the first four years after their emigration, the freemen, like other corporations, met and transacted business in a body. At this time the people attained a representation under the name of deputies, who sat in the same room with the magistrates, to whose negative all their proceedings were sub- jected. Next arose the struggle about the negative, which lasted for ten years, and eventuated in the separation of the General Court into two branches, with each a negative on the other. Then came the jealousy of the deputies concerning the magistrates, as proceeding too much by their discretion for want of positive laws, and the demand by the deputies that
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persons should be appointed to frame a body of fundamental laws in re- semblance of the English Magna Charta.
After this occurred the controversy relative to the powers of the magis- trates, during the recess of the General Court; concerning which, when the deputies found that no compromise could be made, and the magis- trates declared that, "if occasion required, they should act according to the power and trust committed to them," the speaker of the House in his place replied, - " THEN, GENTLEMEN, YOU WILL NOT BE OBEYED."
In every period of our early history, the friends of the ancient hier- archy and monarchy were assiduous in their endeavors to introduce a form of government on the principle of an efficient colonial relation. Our ancestors were no less vigilant to avail themselves of their local situ- ation and of the difficulties of the parent state to defeat those attempts; - or, in their language, " to avoid and protract." They lived, however, under a perpetual apprehension that a royal governor would be imposed upon them by the law of force. Their resolution never faltered on the point of resistance, to the extent of their power. Notwithstanding Bos- ton would have been the scene of the struggle, and the first victim to it, yet its inhabitants never shrunk from their duty through fear of danger, and were always among the foremost to prepare for every exigency. Castle Island was fortified chiefly, and the battery at the north end of the town, and that called the " Sconce," wholly, by the voluntary contribu- tions of its inhabitants. After the restoration of Charles the Second, their instructions to their representatives in the General Court breathe one uniform spirit, -- " not to recede from their just rights and privileges as secured by the patent." When, in 1662, the king's commissioners came to Boston, the inhabitants, to show their spirit in support of their own laws, took measures to have them all arrested for a breach of the Saturday evening law; and actually brought them before the magistrate for riotous and abusive carriage. When Randolph, in 1634, came with his quo warranto against their charter, on the question being taken in town meeting, " whether the freemen were minded that the General Court should make full submission and entire resignation of their charter, and of the privileges therein granted, to his Majesty's pleasure," - Boston resolved in the negative, without a dissentient.
In 1639, the tyranny of Andros, the governor appointed by James the Second, having become insupportable to the whole country, Boston rose, like one man; took the battery on Fort Hill by assault in open day ; made prisoners of the king's governor, and the captain of the king's frigate, then lying in the harbor ; and restored, with the concurrence of the country, the authority of the old charter leaders.
By accepting the charter of William and Mary, in 1692. the people of Massachusetts first yielded their claims of independence to the crown. It is only requisite to read the official account of the agents of the colony,
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to perceive both the resistance they made to that charter, and the neces- sity which compelled their acceptance of it. Those agents were told by the king's ministers, that they " must take that or none " ; - that " their consent to it was not asked" ; - that if "they would not submit to the king's pleasure, they must take what would follow." "The opinion of our lawyers," says the agents, "was, that a passive submission to the new, was not a surrender of the old charter; and that their taking up with this did not make the people of Massachusetts, in law, uncapable of obtaining all their old privileges, whenever a favorable opportunity should present itself." In the year 1776, nearly a century afterwards, that " favorable opportunity did present itself," and the people of Mas- sachusetts, in conformity with the opinion of their learned counsel and faithful agents, did vindicate and obtain all their " old privileges " of self-government.
Under the new colonial government, thus authoritatively imposed upon them, arose new parties and new struggles ; - prerogative men, earnest for a permanent salary for the king's governor ; - patriots, resisting such an establishment, and indignant at the negative exercised by that officer.
At the end of the first century after the settlement, three generations of men had passed away. For vigor, boldness, enterprise, and a self-sacri- ficing spirit, Massachusetts stood unrivalled. She had added wealth and extensive dominion to the English crown. She had turned a barren wil- derness into a cultivated field, and instead of barbarous tribes had planted civilized communities. She had prevented France from taking possession of the whole of North America ; conquered Port Royal and Acadia; and attempted the conquest of Canada with a fleet of thirty two sail and two thousand men. At one time a fifth of her whole effective male population was in arms. When Nevis was plundered by Iberville, she voluntarily transmitted two thousand pounds sterling for the relief of the inhabitants of that island. By these exertions her resources were exhausted, her treasury was impoverished, and she stood bereft, and "alone with her glory."
Boston shared in the embarrassments of the commonwealth. Her com. merce was crippled by severe revenue laws, and by a depreciated curren- cy. Her population did not exceed fifteen thousand. In September, 1730, she was prevented from all notice of this anniversary by the desolations of the small-pox.
Notwithstanding the darkness of these clouds which overhung Massa- chusetts and its metropolis at the close of the first century, in other as- pects the dawn of a brighter day may be discerned. The exclusive policy in matters of religion, to which the state had been subjected, began gradu- ally to give place to a more perfect liberty. Literature was exchanging subtile metaphysics, quaint conceits, and unwieldy lore, for inartificial reasoning, simple taste, and natural thought. Dummer defended the
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colony in language polished in the society of Pope and of Bolingbroke. Coleman, Cooper, Chauncy, Bowdoin, and others of that constellation, were on the horizon. By their side shone the star of Franklin ; its early brightness giving promise of its meridian splendors. Even now began to appear signs of revolution. Voices of complaint and murmur were heard in the air. "Spirits finely touched and to fine issues," - willing and fearless, - breathing unutterable things, flashed along the darkness. In the sky were seen streaming lights. indicating the approach of luminaries yet below the horizon; Adams, Hancock, Otis, Warren; leaders of a glorious host; - precursors of eventful times; "with fear of change perplexing monarchs "
It would be appropriate, did space permit, to speak of these luminaries, in connection with our revolution; to trace the principles, which dic- tated the first emigration of the founders of this metropolis, through the several stages of their development ; and to show that the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, itself, and all the struggles which preceded it, and all the voluntary sacrifices, the self-devotion, and the sufferings to which the people of that day submitted, for the attainment of independence, were, so far as respects Massachusetts, but the natural and inevitable consequences of the terms of that noble engagement, made by our ances- tors, in August, 1629, the year before their emigration ; - which may well be denominated, from its early and later results, the first and original declaration of independence by Massachusetts.
" By God's assistance, we will be ready in our persons, and with such of our families as are to go with us, to embark for the said plan- tation by the first of March next, to pass the scas (under God's protec- tion) to inhabit and continue in New England. Provided always, that before the last of September next, THE WHOLE GOVERNMENT, TOGETHER WITH THE PATENT, BE FIRST LEGALLY TRANSFERRED AND ESTABLISHED, TO REMAIN WITH US AND OTHERS, WHICH SHALL INHABIT THE SAID PLAN- TATION." -Generous resolution ! Noble foresight ! Sublime self-devo- tion ; chastened and directed by a wisdom, faithful and prospective of distant consequences ! Well may we exclaim, - "This policy over- topped all the policy of this world."
For the advancement of the three great objects which were the scope of the policy of our ancestors, - intellectual power, religious liberty, and civil liberty, - Boston has in no period been surpassed, either in readi- nesy to incur, or in energy to make useful, personal or pecuniary sacrifi- ces. She provided for the education of her citizens out of the general fund, antecedently to the law of the Commonwealth making such provi- sion imperative. Nor can it be questioned that her example and influ- ence had a decisive effect in producing that law. An intelligent gener- osity has been conspicuous among her inhabitants on this subject, from the day when, in 1635, they "entreated our brother Philemon Pormont to
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become schoolmaster, for the teaching and nurturing children with us," to this hour, when what is equivalent to a capital of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is invested in school-houses, eighty schools are maintained, and seven thousand and five hundred children educated at an expense exceeding annually sixty-five thousand dollars.
Nocity in the world, in proportion to its means and population, ever gave more uniform and unequivocal evidences of its desire to diffuse in- tellectual power and moral culture through the whole mass of the com. munity. The result is every day witnessed, at home and abroad, in pri- vate intercourse and in the public assembly ; in a quiet and orderly de- meanor, in the self-respect and mutual harmony prevalent among its citizens ; in the general comfort which characterizes their condition; in their submission to the laws; and in that wonderful capacity for self government which postponed, for almost two centuries, a city organiza- tion ; - and this, even then, was adopted more with reference to antici- pated, than from experience of existing, evils. During the whole of that period, and even after its population exceeded fifty thousand, its financial, economical, and municipal interests were managed, either by general vote, or by men appointed by the whole multitude ; and with a regular- ity, wisdom, and success, which it will be happy if future administra- tions shall equal, and which certainly they will find it difficult to exceed.
The influence of the institutions of our fathers is also apparent in that munificence towards objects of public interest or charity, for which, in every period of its history, the citizens of Boston have been distinguished, and which, by universal consent, is recognized to be a prominent feature in their character. To no city has Boston ever been second in its spirit. of liberality. From the first settlement of the country to this day, it has been a point to which have tended applications for assistance or relief, on account of suffering or misfortune ; for the patronage of colleges, the en- dowment of schools, the erection of churches, and the spreading of learn- ing and religion, - from almost every section of the United States. Sel- dom have the hopes of any worthy applicant been disappointed. The benevolent and public spirit of its inhabitants is also evidenced by its hospitals, its asylums, public libraries, alms· houses, charitable associa tions, - in its patronage of the neighboring University, and in its sub- scriptions for general charities.
It is obviously impracticable to give any just idea of the amount of these charities. They flow from virtues which seek the shade and shun record. They are silent and secret out-wellings of grateful hearts, desir- ous unostentatiously to acknowledge the bounty of Heaven in their pros- perity and abundance. The result of inquiries, necessarily imperfect. however, authorize the statement, that, in the records of societies having for their objects either learning or some public charity, or in documents in the hands of individuals relative to contributions for the relief of suf-
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fering, or the patronage of distinguished merit or talent, there exists evi- dence of the liberality of the citizens of this metropolis, and that chiefly within the last thirty years, of an amount, by voluntary donation or be. quest, exceeding one million and eight hundred thousand dollars. Far short as this sum falls of the real amount obtained within that period from the liberality of our citizens, it is yet enough to make evident that the best spirit of the institutions of our ancestors survives in the hearts, and is exhibited in the lives, of the citizens of Boston ; inspiring love of country and duty ; stimulating to the active virtues of benevolence and charity ; exciting wealth and power to their best exercises ; counteracting what is selfish in our nature; and elevating the moral and social virtues to wise sacrifices and noble energies.
With respect to religious liberty, where does it exist in a more perfect state than in this metropolis ? Or where has it ever been enjoyed in a purer spirit, or with happier consequences ? In what city of equal popu- lation are all classes of society more distinguished for obedience to the institutions of religion, for regular attendance on its worship, for more happy intercourse with its ministers, or more uniformly honorable sup- port of them ? In all struggles connected with religious liberty, and these are inseparable from its possession, it may be said of the inhabi- tants of this city, as truly as of any similar association of men, that they have ever maintained the freedom of the Gospel in the spirit of Christian- ity. Divided into various sects, their mutual intercourse has, almost without exception, been harmonious and respectful. The labors of in- temperate zealots, with which, occasionally, every age has been troubled, have seldom, in this metropolis, been attended with their natural and usual consequences. Its sects have never been made to fear or hate one another. The genius of its inhabitants, through the influence of the in- tellectual power which pervades their mass, has ever been quick to detect " close ambition varnished o'er with zeal." The modes, the forms, the discipline, the opinions which our ancestors held to be essential, have, in many respects, been changed or obliterated with the progress of time, or been countervailed or superseded by rival forms and opinions.
But veneration for the sacred Scriptures and attachment to the right of free inquiry, which were the substantial motives of their emigration and of all their institutions, remain, and are maintained in a Christian spirit (judging by life and language), certainly not exceeded in the times of any of our ancestors. The right to read those Scriptures is universally recog- nized. The means to acquire the possession and to attain the knowledge of them are multiplied by the intelligence and liberality of the age, and extended to every class of society. All men are invited to search for thernselves concerning the grounds of their hopes of future happiness and acceptance. All are permitted to hear from the lips of our Saviour himself, that " the meek," " the merciful," " the pure in heart," "the
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persecuted for righteousness' sake," are those who shall receive the bless- ing, and be admitted to the presence, of the Eternal Father; and to be assured from those sacred records, that, "in every nation, he who feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him." Elevated by the power of these sublime assurances, as conformable to reason as to revela- tion, man's intellectual principle rises "above the smoke and stir of this dim spot," and, like an eagle soaring above the Andes, looks down on the cloudy cliff's, the narrow, separating points, and flaming craters, which divide and terrify men below.
It is scarcely necessary to speak of civil liberty, or tell of our constitu- tions of government ; of the freedom they maintain and are calculated to preserve ; of the equality they establish; the self-respect they encour- age ; the private and domestic virtues they cherish; the love of country they inspire ; the self-devotion and self-sacrifice they enjoin ; - all these are but the filling up of the great outline sketched by our fathers, the parts in which, through the darkness and perversity of their times, they were defective, being corrected; all are but endeavors, conformed to their great, original conception, to group together the strength of society and the religious and civil rights of the individual, in a living and breathing spirit of efficient power, by forms of civil government, adapted to our condition, and adjusted to social relations of unexampled greatness and extent, unparalleled in their results, and connected by principles elevated as the nature of man, and immortal as his destinies.
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