USA > Maryland > First discourse before the Maryland Historical Society : delivered on 20 June, 1844 > Part 3
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They recognized the Proprietary as the owner of the soil of Maryland. But their political privileges and Civil Liberties were their own impregnable interests, to which the soil was but an humble base, a casual field of action. They owed the Pro- prietary no gratitude for his auspices or his forbearance, and for the fair equivalent in protection formed out of their own social strength. Implicit concession was foreign to their public spirit. There was not in their hearts one faltering pulsation of servility .-
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A tribute of man worship never, as even a shadowy suggestion, passed over their minds, much less issued as incense to the Execu- tive coronet. Would that this tenacious, yet temperate, Democracy were now the cultivated model of our political dignity-would that the spirits of our Republicans were as free as our theories-that the fever of official preferment were never mistaken for the glow of principle and the jealousy of Patriotism-that men's souls were not purchased from their country, and decoyed from the august concernments of the National honour, by the enticements of authority or the pecuniary endowments within Executive dispen- sation ! May we not with some solicitude exclaim that it is well to remember how easily and with what insidious persuasion the authority of a popular Executive glides into the adjacent sphere of Elective Monarchy! how sycophants who seek from Power reflected radiance, or radiant gold, are prompt to fortify its as- sumptions, and, in the clamour of corrupt eulogy, to drown the voice of warning and repel the awakened genius of the Consti- tution itself! Let us avert the disastrous day when, more than it now is, Government shall be regarded, only as a receptacle for official incumbents, or as an engine for creating and filling offices. Such is the fatal enchantment of personal supremacy-the profane extravagance of the worship of political men, rather than of the principles set in illustrious eminence and sure guidance above our political path. Such is the hazard into which the confiding spirits of men impel them ; and these are the arts by which are woven the toils cast by demagogues over the ingenuous demo- cracy of the People.
In these traits we have but described in our colonists the trans- mitted spirit of English Liberty-that sense of popular right whose light has never sunk in all the clouds and conflicts of England's career-the independence that, even in rude and dreary antiquity, far as the dark recess, in record or in legend, can be penetrated, ever kept watch against encroachment or inno- vation, and gave tasks to valour and themes for vengeance. It is true that this fierce fastidiousness of Democracy-as the courtiers of a more refined ritual of Freedom may denominate it-may, more or less, be the incident of every primitive age. This only proves that in the artless simplicity of our lot our freedom is the mind's native air-that the devout and thrilling sense of it is lost only under the lulling arts of refined civiliza-
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tion, and the persuasion of captivating expediency-that its peril is in the blandishments that in their dalliance suspend our nature's active sensibilities, and beguile us into apathy by luxurious re- pose. But in this Saxon Liberty there is a jealousy so watchful- a firmness so towering-as almost to make it a distinct and pecu- liar affection-the indigenous flower of the Saxon soil, and most vividly so of the British Isles. This however is a specula- tion on the nature and intensity of the principle that would draw us into an excursion of hours-rather too far beyond the borders of Maryland for travel even by a summer's moon. In celebrat- ing this pure and terse Democracy, so unceremonious and inflexi- ble, of the original Marylanders, it is well, and may be instruc- tive, to mark how circumstances favoured the sustenance, and the vigour, of that spirit. The predominant interest was agricul- tural-cultivators of the soil were the mass of the population. I purpose no invidious distinctions between the comparative infu- sions of patriotism in the various vocations. I speak of the infancy of a colony, and of pursuits best adapted to give a public cast to the attachments of the people. Certain it is that any principle or passion will be strongest where it is most intently and frequently awakened, whether by association of circumstances or place, or by thought concentrated on kindred topics. At all periods the interests and pride of the frechold have proved most sensitive to the perils of States, and have rallied for them a prompter and more resolute safeguard than other more artificial pursuits. Those whose tastes and hopes and fortunes pledge them to the soil feel it to be the platform of their rights; and every step they take on it sends up an echo of Liberty. The very Government of Law seems to over-arch it-it is the floor of the political sanctuary-the fields seem the genial range of the free. The scenery of their business is thus suggestive and ennobling for the planter's aspirations; and his domain has all the analogies of the Republic, active within and around it .- Is it in human nature mysterious then that Liberty in her signals should be earliest and loudest from the fields and the forests,-from the dominant mountain height and the secure and thrifty valley ? Thus we may in some degree understand the peculiarly strenuous simplicity, and invariable assertion of right, of the Provincial men of Maryland. It was long before the Province attained a commercial character; and it was well that the foundations of
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the state were laid in agricultural interest rather than in the in- ducements of traffic. The soil became the country ; and the love of it the love of country in the patriot sense. The fluctuating and passing interests and incentives of trade yield no inspiration and fix no patriot's vantage ground, and are not the best staple of the National power, in the first periods of a colony-a stage of being when all things are but elementary and incoherent and the materials of social strength and wealth have yet to combine and their affinities to be determined. No more auspicious condition of the general labour could have existed than was in primitive Maryland for the best nerve and the heathful fluid of Liberty- for a keen and scrutinizing Republicanism. As an inherent per- suasion, and in the only due tenor of Government, self-government (under modification by the Proprietary's rights) was the neces- sary form of Political organization, and the only political disci- pline welcome to those Saxon spirits. That was an institute of their very natures-a doctrine of their very vitality-and to in- terpolate any other rule or dominion would have been equivalent to a foreign invasion,-a treasonable spoliation. Hence the Leg- islative power was exercised by representatives of the People, and at first, before the inconvenient increase of the population, by the people directly, concurrently with the Governor and an aris- tocratic branch. These Legislative Assemblies were the theatre where the councils of Republicanism held sway and challenged inquiries and reports of duty and administration, and where the points of popular right were urged and enforced. The records of the Legislature abound in these Democratic expostulations- to be valued as the protests and memorials of the implanted Li- berty of our Land. As this was in Maryland, so it was with all the republics of this country in their colonial day. When you thus see them-these laboratories of Liberty-marshalled in jeal- ous and aspiring array along the coasts of this exuberant western world-muscular in all the manly stamina of a State and in all that gives heroic command to nature-is it to be marvelled that England's sceptre was not long nor strong enough to reach and enforce over these elastic and nervous sovereignties the subduing spell of its power! In this sisterhood of Liberty, and in this fellowship of defiance and victory, the History of Maryland transfers itself to the world's annals of human right and its struggles, and of the world's best hopes and interests. In this
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bright magnitude does not our State attain a rank of some au- gustness, and may she not claim a niche for her fame, and a record for her career?
Thus intent on the fruitful arts of Peace, and the culture of the social virtues, with intervals of misrule from successful sedi- tion, and of disquiet at times from turbulence subdued, the Pro- vince gradually grew and strengthened. Her days began under good auspices, and the gracious and enriching polity which nursed her invoked Heaven's propitious smile. The scope of such an exercise as this admits of no Historical narrative, much less of Biographical detail: Nor can I rehearse here the magnificent posture of our State in the epic age of America, the period of the Revolution; and their providential aptitude for the lofty exi- gencies of the crisis, of Maryland's expositors of her faith and her courage. Whether in the civil or military heroism, which have illuminated to all futurity that superb era, Maryland in her excellence knew no superior among the confederated combatants. Her wisdom and intrepid eloquence in the Councils of the Revo- lution, and her valour pre-eminent in many a contest, have set upon Maryland the starry signet of a fame dearer to History, and brighter to Humanity, than any the huge grandeur of England can reflect frem itself in all the pomp of armament that here dealt out its vengeance. In the repose, and in the invitation to industry and enterprize, the cultivation of the public mind, and the development of her resources, which, after the fatigue and exhaustion of the Revolution, requited and recruited Maryland, her tributes have been distinguished to Literature, to the science of Government and of Law, to the useful Arts, and to all that may advance the dignity of the Commonwealth and the welfare and enduring freedom of the People. But I may not now recount the proofs of these high excellencies of her name.
To illustrate Maryland in all her merits, by gathering and cherishing materials for her frank and ample chronicles, is the office of the Society that has honoured me as its representative before the public of Maryland. We all must feel solicitous to award to her her appropriate rank in the civilized world, and especially among the States who have by arduous toil and patient energy achieved their eminence. The honours of our State- her just merits -- are to be shown in the virtues of her course- the fortitude and wisdom which have borne her through her
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trials-and in her best care and culture of her Republic. Her history is the conservatory of all these memorials and titles of her celebrity-and the illustrations of her infirmities and her perils. To deny to her such a repository, and take from her these trophies to her fame, is ignobly to entomb her. The So- ciety proposes to invite, as to their genial and improving home, all the details and remembrances of the past days of Maryland that, from her infancy to indefinite futurity, she may live in the eyes and to the generous pride and the rich instruction of her sons.
The innate intimation of an immortality stirs within us in the wish to embalm in memory and to picture in enduring colours the events and genius of a Nation's career, and to prolong hence, and from ages past, the living merits of its course.
History is to Nations what memory is to individuals-and that faculty, while it argues the ever reigning and existent mind, ex- pands that mind's being into an immortal lot. History, too, then, vindicates her excellence and her uses by that analogy which gives us the glory of a conscious spirituality. Nations, as the individuals who compose them, are in probation: and they enjoy the uses of the probationary state in monitory knowledge to them- selves and others, as erring men must appreciate that condition. But how can all this economy of the Divinity be vindicated if History, the registry of probation, the chart of a Nation's path, be suppressed and denounced as a record of questionable doings or pedantic minutia. The interest of Nations is but the interest of individuals; and what applies as part of the general economy to one as much concerns the other. If History be not thus im- portant, Time itself is without purpose and creation is but a sportive caprice. Such, however, is the result of that sickly variety of the so called "Philosophy of History" which can apprehend no improvement of the race, and, confounding im- provement with human perfection, believes that the merits of an age vanish with it, and that transitions of improvement to the suc- ceeding age, though bordering on it, are impracticable. The tree may expand, but it yields no greater fruit for another season, and but exhausts the soil by the greater wants of its richer bulk !
And thus the world is by this doom of Humanity's Law, stag- nant in its massy experience and under the weight of ages .- All our cheerful pride in the crested perfection of the Arts, and the magical exploits of science, but an illusory exhilaration-a cheat
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of ideality! All probation is at an end, and has fallen from its estate in the Divine Economy! History is a vain and beguiling transcript of facts of no value, or enveloped in exaggerations of the imagination! Such is this Philosophic novelty !- But such is not the creed of our friends of the Maryland Historical Society.
They are the wardens of Maryland's Historic lore, and the Ministers of her fame. As such they may claim to be cherished by the people of Maryland. Let them be cheered and aided in unfolding her and keeping her unveiled in all her importance and capacities, that, knowing her well and better, we may value and cultivate her resources and keep unsullied her name-that through all her vicissitudes we may exult to be identified with her, treasuring her honour as part of our personal dignity and self- respect-and that in knowledge and in unchanging ardour we may love her as our meritorious country.
NOTES.
NOTE TO PAGE 13.
THE policy toward the Indians was invariably kind. The utmost protectior. was extended to them, and the Government aided them even in several wars when they were assailed by their Indian enemies, the Susquehannocks. The peace with the Indians in our limits was continual, with exception of a few occasions when they became rebellious from encroachments of colonists in possessing them- selves of lands upon empty pretexts or colourable bargains. This evil was pre- vented, however, by the Legislature prohibiting such contracting without sanc- tion of the Government. The Indians do not appear to have been to any great extent won to the arts and culture of civilized life: although, following the exam- ple of Father White, who, attending the first colonists, first bore to these Indians the standard of the Cross, it cannot be doubted that Missionaries from the bosom of that Ecclesiastical Chivalry, the Jesuits,-to which he belonged,-with their heroism of Charity which courted no fame and feared no hardship, devoted them- selves to the moral improvement and the welfare of that race. Under no better auspices, as the history of Missions proves, could such an effort have been made. Whatever might have been the sin of their ambition,-imputed to the Order from the errors of their leaders,-no one can doubt the zeal and judgment of their Missionary benevolence; and that could only have been inspired and emboldened by piety, profound, without worldly tincture or any sinister reservation. They allied themselves by practical sympathy with the rude subjects of their care-in- curring with them all the privations of their state-and opening their minds by moral and intellectual instruction for the light of the Christian Faith, and not contenting themselves with unseasonably obtruding on them what so might have fallen on their minds as mere cold and barren dogmas. The Indians in our limits, not assimilating to our habits, but continuing foreign and feeble, gradually disap- peared by death or by the charin of the receding wilderness. The Government, even after the Revolution, sustained the wasting remnant by liberal annuities. None of these primitive men now exist as remembrancers of the Colonial Era. The last tribe are said to have lived on the Potomac: and but few Indians re- mained on the Eastern Shore at the time of the Revolution. The last apparitions of that Indian community were in the persons of " King Abraham," and "Queen Sarah," who (Mr. Ridgely tells us in his interesting Annals of Annapolis) some- times visited Annapolis before the Revolution.
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NOTE TO PAGE 15.
The Act guarding Religious Liberty was passed after Maryland had been agi- tated by an insurrection of Cleyborne and Ingle; and immediately on that tumult being pacified. We are not informed what connexion, if any, this illustrious measure had with those recent disturbances, or with any policy for the future quiet. It is said that at that period (in 1649) the Protestants were far superior in numbers to the Catholics. The Governor (Stone) and his Councillors in that year were Protestant; and they with the Burgesses (the delegates of the People) composed the Legislative Assembly. In the year 1650 the Burgesses were by a large majority Protestant; and it is supposed by Bozman (2 vol. 354) that the Protestant Burgesses were in the majority in the Assembly of 1649 which passed the Act referred to. The Protestant population appears to have been largely pre- dominant, and it is therefore to be inferred that such was the prevailing Religious cast of the Delegates, the Burgesses, when the Legislature passed the Act .- This consideration, in some degree, may affect the Sectarian honours of the ques- tion, although we have no recorded division of sentiment upon the Law between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant portion of the Legislature ; and one spirit appears to have pervaded all. It is to be borne in mind, however, that the Act required and readily received the sanction of the Roman Catholic Lord Baltimore; thus adorning him with the merit of individual liberality and truly pious states- manship.
Let us not explore for politic motives to such a sanction of Lord Baltimore. It would be, particularly ungracious towards him, who, we may infer, was the author of the Act, when we remember that by him was enjoined the Oath of Office of which I have spoken, which breathes the same benignity and the same genius of Christianity which are the virtue and beauty of this Act of Christian Liberty.
Of the proceedings of the Assembly of 1649, there is no record-and Chalmers in his "Political Annals" cannot have any positive data for his general asser- tion that a majority of that Assembly were Roman Catholics. He probably assumed that to be the fact from the Roman Catholic origin of the colony. He is correct, however, in the contrast he presents between the liberality of Mary- land in that legislation, and the dire intolerance, at the same period, of Virginia and Massachusetts ;- Virginia then persecuting the Puritans and goading them to seek new homes beyond her borders-and the Massachusetts Independents dealing out their tyranny against all other sects. Certainly Maryland has a glory in this signal, open-hearted, policy, whatever may be the special religious desert to be assigned for it. While in the dominant colonies of this new world, all in this high and tender sphere of Religious freedom was fretful and lurid, Maryland held out her banner of welcome to the tortured spirit, and over her land spread the cloudless sky of the Christian star. We should note one feature in the honour of this measure. It is, that Religious Liberty was proclaimed as a cardinal tenet of State, and engraved in the social code as a popular right. There was not, there- fore the negative advantage, the unguarded immunity, of mere Toleration-and a Religious freedom existing by a mere passive sanction. To what must we refer this installation, as a political institute, of this Religious Liberty, if it be not to the noble soul and the benificent statesmanship of the Founders of Maryland? Is not this as a just exposition enforced, when we recur to the exclusive and tyrannical enactments that bore sway when at intervals this ancient benevolent sovereignty was displaced ?- Fortunately, Cecilius Lord Baltimore, for forty-four years (till his death in 1676) held his dominion, although with occasional interruptions of his
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authority from the Puritans and the Protectoral Government. We are told by Chalmers, (in his Political Annals) that though urged to assent to a repeal of this Act, the Lord Proprietary would not yield, but the more emphatically avowed his adhesion to it.
NOTE TO PAGE 23.
The popular portion of the Legislative Assembly was, as stated, formed at first of the people at large. Afterwards delegates were elected by districts; and repre- sentatives, besides, by special writ of the Governor, were designated and called into the Legislature. In the year 1650, the delegates determined on a separation, into branches, of the several classes of the Assembly-and the Delegates, or Burgesses, were constituted the Lower House, and the Councillors and Governor, and those called by the Special Writ, made the Upper House. There was a strenuous and commanding public sentiment in those days; and the popular will under careful deliberation was sure to become popular power. The Delegates did not hesitate to reject many proposed Laws and measures of the Lord Proprietary and his Deputies : And at the earliest period of their separate authority they ordained, as an inflexible principle, that taxation and supplies of money to Governors or Government must depend on the discretion of the people's delegates as the origi- nating power. The Lord Proprietary was always lenient and unassuming, al- though sufficiently mindful of the dignity of his position and his rights; and the kindness of his administration, as well as the inviolableness of his interests and authority, was repeatedly recognized by the popular branch of the Assembly.
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