USA > Maryland > First discourse before the Maryland Historical Society : delivered on 20 June, 1844 > Part 2
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From this spot it was that on the 25th of March, in the year sixteen hundred and thirty-three, were descried in their vessels, The Ark and the Dove, ascending the River St. Mary's as on the tide of an uncertain fate, these voyagers of Freedom. They were under the conduct of Leonard Calvert, brother of Cecilius Baron of Baltimore, to whom had issued the Charter of Charles II. making him, with almost a monarch's authority, proprietor of the Territory of Maryland. They came among a lenient race- and with peaceful, Christian, purpose. There does not seem to have been a moment of distrust in the Indians toward the party of Calvert ; but the frank manifestation of their kindly views, the air of justice which dignified their movements, at once con- ciliated the wariness of the aboriginal tribe. It is true the In- dians of that region appear to have been especially amiable; and, unlike their savage compeers in other quarters, to have had against the stranger no ferocious prepossession. A compact for acquisi- tion of lands from them was made; and at no period was there agitated any plan or device of dispossessing the Indians of any portion of their territory. By our Proprietary their roving title was regarded as considerately as our Pennsylvanian colonists respected the possessions of the aborigines with whom they were in contact. Our colonists sharpened neither their wits nor their swords on metaphysical points to cleave their way to territory and dominion upon the theory, as their text of warfare, that cultiva- tion was the only legitimate act of appropriation, and that Nature never destined her broad domains for strolling hunters and Savage pleasure grounds. In such asserted doctrine the Indian was to be convinced and not the man of England; and a wound to the In- dian's sense of justice, and a forfeit of his confidence, were un- toward, if not disastrous, consequences. It was wisdom, as well as intrinsically just, so to have proceeded as did these devoted emigrants.
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The number of our colonists was about Two Hundred. They were, many of them at least, men of polished education, enured to life's refinements; and to their remote and perilous adventure they were actuated by no visionary nor sordid illusions. They were not, therefore, impelled to treat as secondary creatures, if not as subordinate and abjectly barbarous the Indians around them who might have rights of domain in some measure jarring with the theories of civilized appropriation. No predatory rab- ble, no valiant profligates of sanctimonious mien or pretext to mask their enormities, were in the train of these gentlemen of England. Hence in their mission was a significant grace and dignity; and the Indian bowed to the majesty of their manifest virtue. Any other collection of adventurers might have made the wilderness echo with blasphemous tumult and have written their wishes in the blood of the victim Indians, and sated their cupid- ity with the property their violence might have preyed upon. And thus, as others have done, they might have vindicated, upon the eminence of a christian's privilege, his paramount territorial right under the Gospel; and on the lofty and infallible ground that to subdue under the flag of the Cross is to prevail in the cause of the Cross. Can we believe that an enterprise thus achieved or resting on such a turbulent and ignominous sanction could have established a tranquil empire, have attained the moral ascendency, or the arts and comforts, of a prosperous and potent community? Can we believe that from such riotous premises any thing could flow but licentiousness, and despotism-factious usur- pations in alternate authority -- fearful uncertainty of life and es- tate. Upon such un-blessed foundations no colonies have ever flourished to a maturity even of safety much less of grandeur- however their cities may be adorned with architectural beauty, and sanctuaries of ostensible Religion may in huge magnificence overshadow the scenes of poverty and agony, of persecution, imposition, and disquiet, which groan and murmur around. The Pilgrims of Maryland were honest lovers of Peace, and vota- ries of a heart-enthroned Religion which glowed with benefi- cence and delighted in the general happiness. Hence in pro- claiming and promoting the cause of Religion they verified its best impulses in their own gentleness and comprehensive cha- rity ;- they enriched their precepts with its fruits in their own practice-they proved their general principles by their magna- nimous self-denial.
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The Charter which conferred on Lord Baltimore the domain of Maryland although it apparently accorded absolutely regal power yet would not have warranted an arbitrary denial to any Protest- ant sect (certainly not that of the Episcopal Church) of any Re- ligious privileges, nor the infliction of any deprivations or dis- criminations in political capabilities on account of Religion. But if intolerance had been in the hearts of these excellent men it would readily and assiduously have embodied itself in enactments and institutions; and restrictions in that spirit would have had their iron rule in evasions of the Chartered interdict, express or constructive. Long before, too, the sufferings of the oppressed could have reached the ears of English Royalty, the odious dis- criminations might have spread their affliction and tortured the obnoxious to quiescence. Intolerance, if it had had a lodgment in the soul, or in the contemplated policy, of the ruler would have shown its hideous front at least in some invidious attempt; but the whole tenor of the early Proprietary Administration breathed but the element and fostering spirit of Universal Christianity -- of unstinted toleration within the bounds of the Christian Faith. The terms of the Governor's oath enjoined as early as 1636 this scrupulous charity in requiring that "he would not by himself or another directly or indirectly trouble, molest, or discountenance, any one believing, or professing to believe in Jesus Christ for or in respect of Religion, that he would make no difference of per- sons in conferring offices, favours, or rewards, for or in respect of Religion, but merely as they should be found faithful and well deserving and endued with moral virtues and abilities; that his aim should be public unity, and that if any person or officer should molest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, on account of his religion, he would protect the person molested and punish the offender."
And, that on the very entablatures of the State might be writ- ten the monitory proclamation and the great Sovereign tenet, in the year 1649 was passed the Law of Religious Liberty, declar- ing: "whereas the enforcing of the Conscience in matters of Re- ligion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practiced, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this Province and the better to preserve mutual Love and Unity among the Inhabi- tants-No person or persons whatsoever within this Province or
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the Island, Ports, Harbours, Creeks, or Havens, thereunto belong- ing, professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall from henceforth be any ways troubled, molested, or discountenanced, for or in respect of his or her Religion, nor in the free exercise thereof, within this Province or the Islands thereunto belonging, nor any way compelled to the belief or exercise of any other Religion against his or her consent, so as they be not unfaithful to the Lord Proprietary or molest or conspire against the Civil Government established, or to be established, in this Province under him or his Heirs."
It then proceeds to declare the punishment of any person who shall "disturb, molest, wrong or trouble another in person or estate professing to believe in Jesus Christ, in respect of his Religion, and the free exercise thereof within the Province." The punish- ment prescribed is treble damages to the wronged party-and a fine of 20s. sterling-and whipping or imprisonment, at the Pro- prietary's pleasure, if the fine be not paid.
Let the 'explanation and the praise of this illustrious conception belong to the peculiar men then in power-to their special excel- lence. Of the history of this Act we are not informed-and we cannot determine why it was at that period passed or why (six- teen years having then elapsed from the landing of the pilgrims) it had not sooner passed. But let us in awarding the commenda- tion of this Act of Christianity remark that the merit is per- sonal-for toleration is the property and the virtue of no Sect- of no dominant, authoritative, Sect. Wherever authority is asso- ciated with the offices, or, to use a phrase applicable to a poli- tical concern for ecclesiastical affairs, with the Department, of Religion, human infirmity, which, unrestrained, ever deviates into extravagance and oppression, gives the cast and tone to the love of Religious Regulation ; and Intolerance is triumphant. The History of what is called Religion illustrates this position. It is a position that springs from the view of man in his imperfec- tion,-of man assiduous and controling in the government of that which needs none but, purely conceived, is itself an all-sufficient government, -- of that which belongs not to man to sway but to God to direct.
I will not designate denominations of Religion: but, whether we look to the most ornate rituals that invest with the charms of imagination the orisons of piety -- or whether we regard the
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austere systems that are frigid in tone, stern in their exac- tions, and, that, rigorously argumentative and didactic, are shorn, even, of a margin of decorative form,-you will find the same excesses of authority when in union with Religion, the same cruelty in the guise of saintliness and for the honour and enforce- ment of a faith. Few men can brook opposition in fundamental convictions in any concern of humanity, whether it be of specu- lative views, or of interest, or of feeling: and how little can it be expected to be met temperately in Religious creeds or theo- ries? And when that opposition offers itself to a Religion com- manding in the pomp and imperiousness of dictation can less than hostility and penal pursuit be anticipated to encounter the dis- putant?
Mark the specious plea of Religious intolerance-urged for the malicious love of it-and for the plan of subduing all men to one implicit creed. It is the compendious syllogism of subtle despotism. Religion is recognized, by universal assent, as all im- portant : without it no work and no society can prosper: social order regards it as its essential element: social security knows no more effectual sanction. These are the very ends of good gov- ernment. Religion thus embosoming all these aims and fruitions ought to be, and, if so, must be, the chief care and, being that, the primary enforcement for the powers of Government: and thus most logically is welded the union between Religion and Government-the profane union between Church and State. By the same reasoning-operative almost latently yet blooming in practice in all its beautiful clemency-there are some intolerant individuals who fancy themselves the commissioners of Heaven, its immediate vice-gerents, to vindicate the injunctions of Piety robed in certain forms-and to achieve the honours of Eternity on every reluctant head that seems impenetrable to the particular orthodoxy. Your observation will have verified to you these obliquities of errant enthusiasm-I may say of practical sacrilege. Let us not assign to any Religion the reproach of intolerance, nor extol any other for the toleration its followers practice. All christianity, in all its multiform professions, recognizes as its characteristic virtue,-which, in its boundless heart, includes among its merits the most tender toleration,-a charity which is the grace of Eternity and gives to Immortality its balm. It is the embit- tered compound of Political authority intermingling with Reli-
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gious ordinance that, like a pestilent miasma, evolves the blight- ing, virulent, evil of Intolerance. It is the spirit of man in pro- fane interference with the prerogative of Divinity-and refracting through his perverse passions the radiance of revelation and the messages of Heaven-it is man playing, in idle cruelty and usur- pation, a suppletory part to the economy of God. By the test of these expositions we may explain why the Puritans, flying to the dreary rocks of their refuge on the howling coast of New England, from Religious persecution, became themselves, when on a secure summit of authority, the cold-blooded foes of other sects, darkening by penalties and disabilities the lives of the worshippers, inflicting, with ignoblest tyranny, the severest tor- tures that could pierce the manly spirit, and make it recoil in helplessness and degradation .- And need we pass out of the bor- ders of our own History for the parallel of what we might almost deem the inherent tyranny, the innate fiend, of our Na- ture, Intolerance in Religion? The generous Governor under the Proprietary authority gave asylum to a body of Puritans when the religious gall of the Virginia Government would not concede to them in that Province a resting place. Maryland received them; and Providence, now Annapolis, became their contented home. And yet, succoured though they thus were by the Roman Catholics, these people in after times not only espoused the Protector's cause from religious sympathy with the theological cant of his Party, but became envenomed against the Catholic Faith, and sought to increase the disabilities and aggra- vate the grievances that already weighed down that denomina- tion. At no distant day after the settlement the Roman Catho- lics ceased to be the predominant population in numbers; and in the intervals of Royal and Protectoral Government their faith was laid under every intolerant embarrassment and their worship most grudgingly conceded to them. But the oppression, accord- ing to the state of power at periods of the Protestant Episcopal Church, enlarged its circle and found subjects in Protestant Dis- senters from that established Church of England. In 1702 the Dissenters were allowed their largest liberty after a long restraint under the Acts of Parliament ; but they were compelled to pay their tribute, in the stated tax, to the then established Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland.
The inoffensive and passive Quakers seemed, in their placid
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habits and smiling endurance, to have been provokingly obnoxious to the Polity ecclesiastic of the Protestant rule of the day; and penalties thickened on penalties to chastise their obstinacy and rectify their froward consciences. In 1702 however, a period of gracious emancipation it would seem, their fetters were struck off; and, even with all the encumbrance of their impracticable consciences and the annoyance of their unruffled countenances, they were admitted within the pale of Maryland Humanity. It dishonours our nature that such things should be; but they are the necessary issues of that nature mingling Religious and Poli- tical control-the evil of implicating civil with Religious polity and instituting a police for keeping peace between God and Man, instead of leaving Religion in her holy temple and in her sacred thoughtful tranquility-instead of consecrating her shrine to a quiet recess, unapproachable by stratagems of state or the pas- sions of man, whether to inflate or impel the pomp and temper of a hierarchy, or to frown down the aspirations and liberty of the soul.
Is it not true that all sects, under the same circumstances of profane authority, are alike imperious and prone to persecute and subdue? Is it more than the difference between the coldness of marble, sculptured though it be, and the coldness of iron? In the resentments of Intolerance bold in power, and raging according to Law, is not Intolerance with all alike inexorable ? Happily we are no longer in jeopardy of such tyrannies-Pre-eminent among the blessings of our lot is the equal liberty of all Reli- gions as a cardinal principle of our Republican sovereignty- the spiritual charm of our Independence-the sheltered unction in the ark of our Popular Power.
It is strange how, as surly sentinels of the dignity of formal christianity, Governments of the early era we are treating re- pelled the communicants not of the authoritative creed. Thus, George Calvert the first Lord Baltimore, who conceived and pro- jected the adventure to this Territory, sought a domicil in Vir- ginia; but, as the condition to this hospitality, he was required to subscribe oaths and tests which his conscience rejected; and he was intolerantly, by a domineering Protestant power, repulsed and thrust from a Virginia home-now a term of such kindly import for all that generous hospitality may yield. As Religious ardour was the readiest incentive, and the zeal of the ascendant ortho-
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doxy was the most inflammable specific, for tumult and high assaults, we find Religion at that period the guise of many ex- citements of sinister purpose. Under the specious designation of the "Protestant Association" we see at one time a band of insur- gents stimulated by an apostate ecclesiastic of the Presbyterian Faith fomenting rebellion, and long infesting the legitimate au- thorities of the State. And the same dramatic shield is at another time adopted for the movements on the Proprietary Government and in advancement, at one period, of the Royal Authority and, at another, of the Protectoral.
There was no external peril or pressure for our Province, and utter quietude could not therefore exist within her borders; so true is it that perfect peace is not the necessary state of social nature, and that a few seditious inmates of the body politic may stir frequent and protracted discord through the whole society. If there be peace, it may be a calm of remissness or decay- while on the other hand the ferment of some principle, too often the religious, swells a tumult for the day-or some restless en- ergy, which may not pause for ethical discrimination, seeks the privileges of tyranny and provokes and braves disastrous colli- sions. But the general character of the Provincial periods was peaceful. To appreciate the generous policy which upon those days shed so halcyon a tranquility, we must know the ex- cellence of the first virtual Proprietary, the patron dignitary of the enterprise. He it was whose character, impressive in his authority, gave tone to the projected government, reflecting there the virtuous lustre of his nature, and opening in the wilderness an Arcadian scene of kindly feeling, the reign of the just and active social sympathies. This Father of the Province put to his edicts the seal of his noble heart as well as the sanction of his titles ; and with this charter gave to Maryland the injunctions of his po- licy which has crowned her with the purest distinctions of History. I speak of what George Calvert effectively did, though he did not live to accomplish personally all that he thus liberally devised.
Not only in Office, but in all the high desert of a Roman soul, he was eminent. For his moral worth and wise states- manship he was approved of his King. He was erudite and ac- complished ; and he shone in the Royal service-and in it he was finally called to the conspicuous trust of Secretary of State. He seems to have won an influence abiding and almost endearing.
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His reflections persuaded him of the verity and cogent authority of the Roman Catholic Faith, and in his pious frankness, a stran- ger to fear where his conscience claimed utterance, he did not conceal his mind's allegiance to a new creed and his trust in the consolation of tenets abhorrent to the monarchy and the people of England-fatal as he must have thought them to his ascent to poli- tical heights, and disqualifying him even for his actual position. This profession of his obnoxious creed did not however separate him from the Government, nor abate the Royal confidence. A pension was soon granted him, unsolicited and even refused; and after, too, his proclaimed conversion. Every honour was assured to him consistently with the penal and exclusive code, the iron yoke of Parliamentary fabric, then fitted to the repudiated Roman Catholic. But George Calvert felt a high function imposed on him-a task of fate-which in his fancy's perspective consigned him to the hazards of the deep and urged him to a remote and quiet shore-a region where he should become the centre of a new world and the blessing of a benevolent Sovereignty. Under this commanding impulse he visited Virginia, after planting at New Foundland his colony of Avalon, for which he had a Royal Grant of Territory. I have already intimated how, by the requirement of offensive oaths and tests he was repulsed from Virginia, now, in happy contrast with this spirit, the fertile soil of as generous and alert a Republicanism as can elate an enlightened multitude. He then surveyed the unappropriated regions of the Chesapeake Bay- and there his views reposed-and there the site of his wilderness empire was, in the solemnity of his cordial vows, established. He returned to England; and promptly gained from the King the assent to the Grant of Maryland-which eventually issued to the name of his son Cecilius Lord Baltimore. That Charter is the produc- tion of George Calvert. It is a comprehensive concession; and yet, in all the ampleness of the authority and property it confers, the protection and the rights of the colonists are not forgotten, but pointedly and respectfully reserved. This Document has deserv- edly been commended for its masterly plan, its precise language, and provident clauses. George Calvert did not live to receive into his hands this Royal credential. His son Cecilius, anointed with his father's spirit, and implicitly subordinate to his wishes, succeeded to the Charter: and to him it emanated on 20 June 1632, this day 212 years ago. On this day this fair land, in the
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depths of centuries gone, was inscribed for a social and political destiny and enrolled in the records of civilization-its wild luxu- riance subdued to the Royal mandate, and, better still, arrested to abide a pious and a bounteous culture. On this day of the open- ing of the scals of this region, rich in long eventful interest as it has been in social abundance and Historic glory, when the sceptre of civilized authority first was waived over its untamed expanse, it is right that Marylanders should rally to the recur- rence, and, upon the revolving epoch, testify with ardent hearts to the proud dedication.
Cecilius Calvert was his illustrious father's counterpart in all his benignant traits, and his faithful executor of the kindly plan of colonial Rule. He resolved to plant a colony in the domain that had devolved upon him. To the standard of his mission-with- out special regard as we believe to their particular religious faith-he attracted spirits of as gentle mould as his own and of mellow wisdom-and of resoluteness paramount to all the rigorous and baffling difficulties and privations of the wayfaring and the enterprise. Such, and thus nerved and inspired, were the heralds of civilization to the forests of Maryland-such the delegates and ministers of Humanity, to lay around the altars of Christ the foundation of the Political and Social Temple-in Love of Li- berty and Gratitude to God. Let us scek no other clue to solve the mystery of the cherished scheme of Toleration to which the early Proprietarics so earnestly held as if an ordinance of their faith or a league with their Maker. It was the personal merit of these pure and enlightened intelligences-it flowed from their own motives to migration-their fervent and chastened characters.
Cecilius Calvert was unable in person to attend the voyage of the colonists. He deputed to that supervision and to the Colonial Government his Brother, Leonard Calvert. Hc, benevolent as his constituent, sagacious and accomplished, caught the spirit of his beneficent Trust as fashioned by Cecilius in the views of their noble father ;- and he liberally and intelligently practised the high ideal of his duty. He and his successors in the Pro- prietary Governorship were a series of men of special worth. They loved power only for the welfare it guarded and aug- mented. With them Prerogative was not fostered as a treasure of Sovereignty, precious as the source and means of arbitrary rule, or as a personal endowment whose power, in inertness, might
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waste itself-and which, to be kept in vital force, must be rigidly ยท exercised. On the contrary, the men on whom we now dwell might have been trusted with a monarch's absolute sway and (as might be said in some aspects of the existing Prussian Mon- archy) might almost entice our judgments obediently to the fallacy that "the government that's best administered is best." But secure as might be the People in the virtues and mitigated au- thority of such functionaries, our sturdy Marylanders, in good Saxon mindfulness of their rights, sensitive to the danger of re- laxing them even for a single occasion, never failed to note and to stay every semblance of Prerogative encroachment. They jealously marked even the distant shadow of the Prerogative in its walk. In the distributive exercise of the powers of the State they were never lulled into an indolent reliance on Executive wisdom and self-limitation. They contemplated the evil and the growth of inordinate precedents; and the dangers in Government of implicit personal deference. They believed that the value and the life of their Liberty were assured only in the exercise of their rights =- and, essentially, in a vigilant restraint upon ex- ecutive tendencies to absolute discretion-and arrogant dictation. They knew that an Executive functionary, springing even from po- pular election, might soon, by the stealthy enlargement of his con- ceptions and his assumptions, and the obsequiousness and supine- ness of the people, pass into the Elective Monarch,-embodying in the faculty of uncontrolled discretion the will of the constituent people-and emphatically of the partizan section that shall have achieved his elevation. They knew the accessibleness and the subserviency of the Pretorian cohorts that, in any community, may be summoned to the allurements of interest or of Authority under the tenders from Executive Power. They were aware how peculiarly this extravagance of power was to be dreaded in a hereditary representation of the Executive Department.
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