USA > Maryland > Studies in the civil, social and ecclesiastical history of early Maryland; lectures delivered to the young men of the Agricultural College of Maryland > Part 4
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As to his change of religious views, we are sometimes told that he made it at a great sacrifice. But I do not suppose that any one would be more disposed to smile at such an assertion than Calvert himself. No one questions his sincerity, for it required great sincerity to avow a change of religion from that of the established to that of the Roman faith, which was then so severely . under the popular ban. Politics ran high, and religion was part of the national sentiment. Politics and religion were inseparably united, not only because religion was established, but because of the claims which on both the royal and Roman Catholic sides, the rulers put forth. The kings of England, for instance, claimed supremacy in religious matters, and in the king and parliament was the power of passing laws for the government of the church. The great dignitaries of the church also were appointed by the king, while in the House of Lords, at that time far more influential than now as a consti- tuent body of the realm, the Bishops had their place. It is well known how the royal and state authority in religion passed down all the way through all the ranks of the people.
On the other hand, we know what were the claims of the Pope,-to unmake kings, to absolve their people from their allegiance, to possess supreme jurisdiction everywhere. And these contrary claims caused in Eng-
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land the most violent contentions, so that the minority were placed severely under the ban, and every one professing the unpopular religion, was declared incapable of holding any office. The oaths of office were so searching that no Roman Catholic could, without de- liberate perjury, take them.
When, therefore, George Lord Baltimore avowed in 1624 his change of faith from that of the established church, he proved his sincerity. When he changed his creed he ran great risk of personal loss. How long before his avowal he had changed we do not know. We only know he chose a very opportune time for the avowal; for his popularity with the king had for some time been very much diminished, because the Duke of Buckingham had found Lord Baltimore standing in the way of his political schemes, chiefly the proposed French marriage for the Prince of Wales; and what the duke abhorred the king rejected. Now, however, both the duke and the king had turned a favoring look upon him, and at that moment, while the skies were propitious, the avowal was made, with the result that, unlike his prede- cessor in the same office, he was allowed to sell out his secretaryship for six thousand pounds sterling, he had the lordship conferred upon him, becoming Baron of Balti- more in Ireland, his fine estate in Ireland of twenty- three hundred acres was renewed to him, the oath of supremacy being waived, and he continued in possession of Avalon. His change of religion therefore cost him nothing, but was probably one of the most successful ventures he ever made; for beside the immediate emolu- ment it brought him, it set him free to pursue those plans of empire beyond the sea on which his mind had
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for years been set, and from which he hoped and his heirs derived, such large reward.
When, however, we turn to Cecilius Calvert we find one whose wisdom was shown to be great by his found- ing and administration of, the province of Maryland. The foundation of Maryland was made in troublous times, when both the religious and political currents were running wildly through all English life, and not only in England, but on the Continent as well. You will recollect that at this time the Thirty Years' War was going on, having begun in 1618, a war that involved all Europe, and in which not only religious antagonisms existed, but political ambition as well. For while the war began as a reaction from the Reformation of the century before, yet soon the questions of territory, the seizing upon the spoils of war, entered in, and in the course of it all Europe was devastated. The connec- tion between the kingdoms on the Continent and Eng- land was not as immediate and as sensitive then as now, yet not only for political and religious reasons was the feeling of the English people aroused, but also for family reasons, the daughter of James the First being the wife of Elector Palatine, the elected king of Bohemia, who was one of the chief victims and sufferers of the war.
The times were troubled also in England, for it was during this period that the people of England began to assert strongly the rights of English freemen as against the claims of royal prerogative and arbitrary government. The contest began back in Queen Elizabeth's day, the Commons from time to time indicating their will in suchi a way that the queen saw it was wisdom to acquiesce. But in the days of James, for whom as a Scotchman .
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and a foreigner the people had no hereditary love, and who had no shining qualities to constrain their admira- tion or forbearance, the voice of the people became more distinct and emphatic. And when Charles the First came to the throne in 1625 the position was as advanced as the voice was pronounced and clear. As I am not writing English history, however, I must not go into detaii. Only you will recollect that, after con- tentions in parliament and then a long cessation of par- liament, the king attempting to rule without it, and the attempt also by the king to provide for the public neces- sities by the seizure of private property without the sanction of law, and then the calling of the Long Parlia- ment which would not be dissolved,-you will recollect, I say, that after all this came the civil war, and the beheading of the king in the beginning of the year 1649. The times were troubled.
Along with the religious agitation of the time there was the religious as well, for religion and politics were strongly blended. Through generations there had been scarcely a distinction between them. The king had been at the head of the church in temporal things, and the ministers of the church, especially the Bishops, had filled many offices in the temporal administration of the kingdom. And this was the case, not only in England, but cverywhere. Beside this, religious malignity was shown, owing to certain claims to political and temporal power which were put forth in the name of religion; so that the agitation went on everywhere and involved the strongest emotions.
Now it was in the midst of such commotions as these that Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore, began and
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prosecuted his enterprise. His father had died in 1632, having before his death secured the promise of the grant of Maryland. The report is the king only hesitated to grant it from a desire to retain Lord Baltimore near himself, having need of the services of a tried and expe- rienced statesman and diplomatist. To prosecute the enterprise required all the wisdom of which a man might seem capable. He was of the unpopular side in religion, around every member of which there existed the sus- picion that he was a traitor and capable of betraying the state. His father had been a convert, and probably he also, for we do not know enough concerning the inner life of the family to know when or why they changed their faith. There is contemporary evidence to show that there was a good deal of apparent vacillation in the father before his convictions became established. As early as 1620 he was suspected to be "popishly affected," and by others it was supposed he had always been inclined that way. One contemporary writer states that he had three different times avowed his change of faith. Probably, however, it was only his association with the proposed Spanish match, which he earnestly championed, that caused such imputations. But converts, we know, excite more suspicion and enmity than those born to the faith. The father and consequently the whole family, were associated with the court, and so had become iden- tified in the minds of the people with the extreme, arbitrary views of the king and court, identification jus- tified by the whole course of the father while he was in office.
And yet though these were his circumstances, and he but twenty-six years old when the inheritance fell to him,
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we find Cecilius conducting his affairs with a good judgment and wise policy that brought him through every trouble and enabled him to hold his own, or if for a while deprived of it by the temporary success of his enemies, to recover it again and hand it on to his successor, a strong, vigorous, growing, wealthy colony. Such skill and such success demonstrate the man. When also we remember that it was not only troubles without, but troubles within, that he had a mixed multi- tude to govern as well as to conciliate, a multitude com- posed of all classes and conditions of life, in part the high-toned and spirited, jealous of individual rights and dignity, and in part the very refuse of England, with those of every intervening condition; when we remember also that he had the members of his own church to restrain, lest they should succeed in their claims, which would have crushed down his own rights, as well as excited tumult among the colonists; when we remember the bigotry of the same class of refugees who had set Eng- land on fire, and who now settled in Maryland, having been expelled from Virginia, and who had to inflame them the sense that they were martyrs for their faith, that they held the truth and no one else did, and that the Lord had blessed their cause in England by the over- throw of all their enemies,-when we remember all this, and yet see how successfully he conducted his whole administration through forty-three years, we cannot but be struck with the wisdom of the man.
All the glory belongs to him and not to his father. He was a man of eminent policy if not of wisdom. Though never a friend to the people of England, but only a useful member of the court, he pursued his way
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so cleverly that when the evil day came and the favor of the court was so far withdrawn that he had no reason to foster further hopes, he was able to retire well laden with both the honors and the substantial rewards of ser- vice, a very wealthy man. To Cecilius belongs all the honor of the successful administration of Maryland. What may have been his motives is one thing, and we may not judge of other men's motives, but of his actions we may judge. His administration may have been one of policy and a shrewd recognition of the necessities of his position, or it may have been the genius of the high-toned statesman. Either thing could have deter- mined his course in the way he took. The probabilities, however, are in his favor, for mere skill of policy is never consistent, and in time is almost certain to overreach itself to the ruin of all its schemes. As we have seen from first to last, Cecilius Lord Baltimore met with no such fate, but under king, under parliament, under com- monwealth, and under restored kingdom, maintained or soon recovered his own.
The next thing that ought to occupy our attention, to proceed logically, is the charter under which the colony was sent to Maryland. As we have seen, George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, had been for many years con- nected with efforts at colonization, and as a practical man he had seen the difficulties and the failures that had attended them. He was, therefore, prepared, when he sought the charter for Avalon, to avoid those causes which had produced failure; and the charter for Maryland, which he secured nine years after, only proves how convinced he was that he had discovered the right means of success; for the charter for Maryland is almost identically the
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same as that for Avalon, the differences being in minor features.
The great distinctive feature of both charters was that the whole gift was to one, and the whole administration placed in the hands of one. The earlier gifts by the crown had proven failures, because the intention of the grantees had not been to establish a colony, an empire, for the sake of the empire, in which the good of the people was to be looked to, and in which all laws and regulations should be such as would promote the permanent welfare of the people; but their intention had been to secure to them- selves certain commercial advantages through trade with the natives; and when this was not achieved, or the ex- pense was found too great, the charter was allowed to fall. Besides, instead of having one man at the head of affairs, and so a consistent administration, there was a council in England, and a council in the colony, each composed of many members, which must of necessity produce, either apathy from divided counsels, or else antagonism and jealousy.
Lord Baltimore avoided all this in both his charters. They were each given at a time when the heart of the king was warm to him; and to the king's mind such a territory even as Maryland was to be lightly esteemed,- a wilderness inhabited only by savages, if inhabited at all. The king also, either James or Charles, would have had no objection to granting such a charter, conveying such powers, for it was exactly the form of government that they thought was the best, and the form they would have secured for themselves at home had it been possible. For, first of all, there was the inherent and essential right of the absolute lord, which was the title granted by the
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charter, and the title which the Lords Baltimore claimed and used all the way down. Their right was absolute, something which the people had not given and which they could not take away. Now-a-days for the king to attempt to confer such high-sounding phrases would be deemed absurd, but not so then; for, as we have seen, the king claimed the right, and it was allowed, of absolute control over all foreign territories gotten by discovery, or, as they said, by right of conquest. The king ruled by right divine, and not by act of Parliament. The kingdom belonged to him, and while it came to be that he could not exercise absolute power, though Henry the Seventh and his immediate successors did, over their home coun- try, the rights of the people to the foreign dominions had not yet been perceived. To-day they are so well per- ceived, that if Queen Victoria were to attempt to bestow a hundred-acre farm in Africa or Australia by patent in virtue of any absolute right in British possessions there, the world would look on in amused astonishment.
But if he was made absolute lord, powers were given to make that title real. All the gifts under the charter were to run from father to son forever, not only title to the soil, but the powers of government. It was intended to be an hereditary monarchy, as much so as England itself, and, as will be remembered, it continued to be so till the family became extinct. There were intervals when they were deprived of the administration, but in each case restoration took place after a while.
Another feature in keeping with the royal mind of that day, was the privilege granted by the fourteenth section, of conferring favors, rewards, honors, and to adorn with titles and dignities. Lord Baltimore had gotten his two
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titles of Knight and Baron from King James. It was a royal privilege. And so, when Charles would bestow his gift, he granted to the absolute lord he made the same privilege, only limiting that the titles and dignities con- ferred should not be the same with those of England. This same privilege was granted in other charters, and though there were some absurd titles proposed in North Carolina, yet it is astonishing that through the colonial period, with the fond infatuation that many have for that kind of honor, so very few, if any, such titles were con- ferred. Your Excellency, as associated with office; your Honor, as associated with the bench, with colonels, gen- erals, doctors, scattered with no parsimonious hand, are about all the American mind has ever cared for.
The creating of manors also, with manorial rights, was provided for, the right cognate with the royal one of creating a province; with the right of the holder of the , manor to set up court leet and court baron to regulate justice within his territory, to raise the hue and cry, that is, to summon the whole body of the people for the appre- hension of an accused person. This was a feudal right, and to a small extent it was exercised. It was not, however, harmonious with the spirit of the colony and soon fell into disuse.
Another royal right conferred was that of proposing laws, the sixth clause of the charter running in this way: We grant to the same Baron, etc .: to ordain, make and enact laws, of what kind soever, of and with the advice, assent, and approbation of the free men of the same pro- vince, or of the greater part of them. Here the intention evidently was that the laws should proceed from the proprietary, who had the power to ordain, make and enact.
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while the function and privilege granted to the free men were to assent to them. The people could originate nothing. They could refuse to accept, that was all. We can at once see what a vast attribute of tyranny was here claimed. The thousand things that in a body politic would have to be provided for, must be neglected until the lord proprietary should suggest a law covering them, and then the law would have to be such as suited him, and not such as the people might think best fitted for the need. In other words, he was the law-making power, and the people only had the veto, as if to-day the President of the United States, or the Governor of this State, should have the exclusive power to propose the laws, which the people must accept or else go without; an entire reversal of all our notions of the relative duties of ruler and people.
Lord Baltimore tried to carry out the terms of this clause when the people came together to legislate for the welfare of the colony, but he soon found that his scheme would not work; for the people refused to recognize his laws as proposed, and then proceeded to consider them as if originating with themselves. In this they estab- lished a precedent which Lord Baltimore saw it best to accept in his future administration. The power to pro- pose laws became the equal power of both. The disast- rous consequences of the attempted method would have been the greater because Cecilius Lord Baltimore was . never in the colony, and his laws were sent over from Eng- land. One condition, however, was associated with the law-making power bestowed, "that the laws should be consonant to reason, and not repugnant or contrary, but so far as conveniently may be, agreeable to the laws, statutes, customs and rights of our kingdom of England."
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The police power of providing for emergencies was also granted by the charter, even to the liberty of proclaiming martial law in the time of insurrection or rebellion.
One thing, however, was strongly insisted on all the time, that all the citizens of the colony were always to be regarded as being liege subjects of the king of England. The allegiance of the lord of the province might be indi- cated by a very simple and easy service, the presentation of two arrow-heads once a year, but with it went the duties as well as the rights and privileges of all the people as English subjects. What a battle was fought out on that line in the after-days of the colony! It was a most excellent principle on which to hang a claim; and that is what the people did, and contended for it till they had secured a victory. We shall see this further on.
Abundant provision was made for the emoluments of the proprietary. He claims to have spent forty thousand pounds sterling in establishing his province, and there is no reason to doubt that he did. How it could have been spent in or on the colony it would defy any attempt now to explain. For the whole outfit was insignificant, and the colony was composed of men who were capable of paying their own charges, for themselves and their servants, whose remuneration was received not in money, but in land. Probably far the greater part of this sum went into the pockets of courtiers who would use their influence in Lord Baltimore's behalf; for everything was bought and sold in that day, and courtiers were always needy; though possibly a very large sum may have gone into the coffers of the king himself, who was the most needy of them all. We know that when Charles the Second bestowed the charter of Pennsylvania upon William Penn, it was in
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liquidation of certain claims against the state which Penn had inherited from his father. Charles the First, who held back from no means by which he could obtain money, would not have failed to avail himself of such an opportunity as the alienation of an extensive province. In all transfers there is very apt to be a consideration, even if it is not avowed. In this way we can see how the forty thousand pounds might have been spent in the founding of Maryland.
But Lord Baltimore's emoluments were abundant, and in time proved an excellent interest on his money. For by the charter the revenues of the province were to be his. Whatever export or import duties were levied were to be his; also all fines and forfeitures; also the pro- ceeds of the quit-rents, or the yearly charges upon the land; for the lands bestowed by him upon immigrants were always subject to a yearly charge, made known in the conditions of plantation. These last amounted in the year 1770 to seven thousand five hundred pounds sterling, net, and with the revenue from other sources gave him a total sum of about twelve thousand pounds. In the earlier years of the colony, of course, the amount received was insignificant alongside of this, but then the people sometimes supplemented the small revenues by free gifts.
By the twentieth section the king went even farther than this. He pledged and bound himself and his heirs and successors, that at no time would they "impose or cause to be imposed, any impositions, customs, or other taxations, quotas or contributions what- soever upon the residents or inhabitants of the pro- vince aforesaid, for their goods, lands, tenements, within the said province." All revenues from taxes, which were
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to be imposed by the proprietary and people, were to be for the use of the proprietary and the good government of the colony. This, some of you will recollect, gave Maryland a fair ground, above all the other colonies, for protesting against any kind of imposition of taxes by the English government; for the exemption by the charter even went so far as to cover "goods and merchandise to be laden or unladen in any of the ports or harbors of the province." It is true, Parliament did not recognize or allow this right of the king to exempt any colony, but it belonged to the charter rights of Maryland, which had been acquiesced in by Parliament for over a hundred years. Maryland's position, therefore, when she refused the stamped paper, or when she destroyed the cargo of tea in Annapolis harbor, was a stronger one that that of any of the other colonies. In the colony of Georgia, , when her charter was given, in 1732, the right of Parlia- ment to levy taxes upon the people was distinctly asserted.
The charter was wonderfully drawn up. It created an empire within the empire. It gave most extensive func- tions to the head of the government. It made Maryland practically free of Great Britain from the beginning. It did not attempt to enjoy its full freedom, for often the people found it very convenient to limit the extensive prerogatives of the proprietary by claiming the rights and privileges of liege subjects of England. Still, the free- dom was there, to be pleaded against England to restrain her presumptions when injustice or tyranny was attempted; and the spirit was fostered by it to restrain her own gov- ernors and officers, when under the charter their claims or exactions were in danger of becoming extravagant.
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FOURTH LECTURE.
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS.
" Maryland has always enjoyed the unrivaled honor of being the first colony which was erected into a province of the English empire and governed regularly by laws enacted in a provincial assembly." These are the words of Chalmers, whose work on the American Colonies stands at the head, both as to time and value, of the standard authorities in the matter of the English settle- ments on the Atlantic coast. "The unrivaled honor of being the first colony erected into a province"; for a colony differs from a province, in that " colony " is a less ' exact term, indicating nothing more definite than a settle- ment, while a province implies a definite government, a fixed order. It is a section of the empire, and a part of it, while it possesses, subordinate to the empire, a certain independence of jurisdiction. We recollect the provinces of the Roman empire, over which there were placed consuls or other great officers of state, who, while the emperor could appoint them or remove them, could at the same time exercise the highest functions of government, mili- tary and civil, subject in certain cases to appeal. The province was part of the empire. The Greek colonies, however, were often merely the overflow of the parent state, sailing away, whether to Asia or to Italy, and becoming themselves a new state.
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