USA > New Jersey > Middlesex County > New Brunswick > The colonization and subsequent history of New-Jersey : a discourse pronounced before the Young Men's Association of New-Brunswick on the 1st of December, 1842 > Part 3
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*The Right Reverend John Croes, D. D. Rector of Christ Church, New-Brunswick, was consecrated Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New-Jersey, on 19th Nov. 1815, and was, on his death, in 1832, succeeded by the Right Rev'd George W. Doane, D. D. L. L. D, the present Dioccsan.
fRobert Hunter Morris, a son of Governor Morris, was Chief Justice of New-Jersey, subsequently Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, and his other son Lewis, was Speaker of the Assembly of New-York .- Lewis Morris, one of Governor Morris's grandsons was a signer of the Declaration of Independence-another, Richard, was Chief Justice of New- York-while their brother Gouverneur, to whom special allusion is made in the text, was a member of the Continental Congress from New- York, of the Convention that formed the Constitution of the United States from Pennsylvania, a Minister Plenipotentiary abroad and a Sena- tor of the United States from New- York. Sce Spark's Life of Gou- verneur Morris.
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distinguished by the difference between his political course and that of his illustrious father.
In looking through the colonial annals, we find that New-Jersey, even as a province, was not deaf to what she deemed patriotic ap- peals. She voted in 1745 £2000 to the Louisburg expedition, an enterprise which, perhaps as much as any other event, taught the Americans, and particularly the people of New-England, to rely on that skill and courage, which, thirty years afterivards, were to be atten ded with such prodigious results. As early as 1746, 600 men were sent by the colony to Canada under Col. Schuyler and that this expedition eventuated in nothing, was owing to the neglect of the mother country to perform her part of the undertaking. Nor was New-Jersey inactive, during the war of 1756. In 175S-9 and 60, she voluntarily kept up one thousand men. Nor is it only with respect to her contributions to the military service of what was then deeined the common country, that information is to be gleaned from ber colonial history. The political student will find no little dis- cussion in her annals on matiers cognate to the debates of the present day. Arguments in abundance are to be met with on the relative advantages of paper money and an exclusive specie circu- lation, as induced by the several acts passed for the issuing of bills of ere.lit, and which were generally vetoed by the Government at home to the no small disappointment of the Province.
. The boundaries, also, are a prolific subject, some of the ques- tions relating to which; outliving all the changes in the forms of government, came down to our own tiene. Fortunately, however, the treaty of limits between New- York and New-Jersey, concluded in 1834, based, like that recently entered into on a similar subject between England and the United States, on principles of mutual concession and reciprocal advantage, has already buried in oblivion the many cases of conflicting jurisdiction, which had agitated the public mind, and led to acts of hostile legislation.
When the Stamp act was received in this country, the spirit which prevailed elsewhere, existed in no less force in New-Jersey. The first proceedings of the Assembly, in answer to the overtures of Massachusetts, were indeed equivocal, but at an extra session, convened for the purpose, delegates were appointed to the Congress at New-York of 1766, and the Assembly subsequently adopted the warmest measures advocated in that body. This was followed up by sanctioning the Virginia resolutions of '69 and all the other measures, preliminary to the great event of '76. The provincial
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Congress, that chose the members of the continental Congress of 1774, met at New-Brunswick, and among those selected, though he liad been, only for a year or two, a resident of New-Jersey, we find the name of William Livingston, a member of a family not ouly distinguished in the civil history of New-York, of this State, and of the Union, but associated in the recollection of all, who hear me, with the venerable aspect and dignified form of one equally illustrious as the Patriarch of the religious community, to which he was attached.t Of the five delegates first named to the continental congress, it is said by the biographer of Gov. Livingston that only two remained throughout the contest faithful and steady to the cause. And when we learn that even these doubted the ex- pediency of the final separation from the mother country, we may
*Without enumerating others of an earlier datc, Philip Livingston, the brother of Gov. Livingston was a signer of the Declaration of In- dependence from New-York, and Broekholst Livingston, who succeeded Judge Patterson as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was a son of the Governor. Of another branch of the family, Robert R. Livingston was distinguished in revolutionary history as a member of Congress, and Seeretary for foreign affairs, and Chancellor of New- York; while Edward Livingston, the youngest brother of the Chancel- lor, is known as an eminent jurist, a member of both houses of Congress and a diplomatist of later days.
+The Rev'd John Il. Livingston, D. D. received his theological in- struction in the University of Utrecht, and after being invested by the Classis of Amsterdam in 1770, with the ministerial office, and having obtained the degree of Doetor of Divinity from his University, he re- turned, declining a call from one of the churches at Amsterdam, through England, to his native country. He immediately, on his arrival, entered on the duties to which he had been invited during his absence, as one of the Ministers of the Reformed Duteh Church of New-York. He soon rose to the highest eminence in the Church, being in 1771 the President of a convention of the Ministers and Elders of the two Provinces of New- York and New-Jersey and he was offered the Presidency of Queen's College, New-Brunswick, then just incorporated, an office, which was subsequently conferred on the Rev'd Jacob R. Hardenberglı, D. D. who filled it from 1786 to 1790. He was also recommended by the Theological faculty of Utrecht in 1774 as Professor of Theology in the new College. This arrangement was defeated by the war, but in 1785. he aeeepted the office of Professor of Theology, to which he was appointed by the general Synod. He removed to New-Brunswiek in October 1810, the academical department of Queen's College having been resuscitated in 1807, as President of the College as well as Professor of Theology ; and in this City he continued to reside, employed in the duties of the Divinity school, until his death on the 20th of January 1825, in the 79th year of his age.
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without, in the slightest degree, abating from the warmth of our gratitude and admiration for those fearless champions of liberty, who from the beginning perseveringly asserted our natural riglits, show some indulgence to those Americans, whose private virtues were an honor to the land of their nativity, but who, educated in the principles of a monarchical government, abandoned all that men hold most dear to what they deemed the paramount obligation of loyalty. These remarks, however, do not apply to such indi- viduals as Tucker, who, after having been President of the Provin- cial congress and done every thing in his power to commit his coun- trymen to a contest, in which no middle course could be sought, had the baseness to abjure the institutions of his own creation and to seek a protection from the British military commanders. With Livingston, the question of independence was only one of tiine, and though his private opinion on that subject might not have coin- cided with that of Jay, with whom he was connected by the inti- mate ties of family alliance, and of his other bolder associates, he yielded to the judgement of his peers. The name of William Livingston is not signed to the declaration of independence, as he had, before its adoption, left congress for the more active duties of the military command, with which he had been invested, as one of the Generals under the Provincial congress, and on the organization of the constitutional legislature, he was chosen Governor of the State, an office which, declining foreign embassies and all other public situations, except a seat in the convention that adopted the Federal Constitution, he filled during the whole revolutionary war and indeed till his death in 1790. The administration of Living- ston is, in every sense, the most important that can ever cccur in the annals of New-Jersey. L'or several succes-ive years, the State was the battle ground of the revolution. The ordinary meetings of the legislature, official forms had to yield to necessity, and, on more than one occasion, the Governor and council were invested with dictatorial powers. Upon Livingston did Washington fre- quently rely to furnish the aids essential to the maintenance of the Continental army, but, even during these momentous periods, the governor did not confine his efforts, in behalf of the revolution, to the performance of his official acts. 'The columns of the New- Jersey Gazette, which, established in 1777, was throughout the war to the Whigs .what Rivington's New-York Gazette was to the Tories, abounded in his well written Essays, addressed to his coun- trymen and intended to arouse their patriotism.
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The last legislature under the Royal Government was prorogued in December 1775. The necessity of a political organization did not afford time for the discussion of abstract propositions, and the provincial congress of 1776, which met at Trenton, and in which all executive, judicial and legislative powers seemed to be united, likewise undertook the new modelling of the organic law of the State, and though only two days were allowed in which to frame it and six to adopt it, and though evidences of haste may be found in it, yet it has answered for sixty six years all the purposes of a Con- stitution. Of the peculiar provisions of this instrument, it would pot, of course, become me, even if my limits permitted, to speak ; and I only allude to its establishment, as one of the most important incidents in the history of the State.
The active military operations in New-Jersey commenced, on the capture of New York in 1776, and with the exception of two short periods, the American grand anny was always throughout the war within the State or on its borders. There are no few places, within the immediate vicinity of the spot, on which we are now assembled, that are marked out either by the encampments of the British or American forces, or by the battles or skirmishes of which they were the scenes. The retreat of the Americans, through the Jer- seys, exhibited the strongest evidence of military skill, and it was at Trenton and at Princeton, under the Commander-in chief him- self, that the cloud which the events at New-York and the surren- der of Fort Washington had thrown around the affairs of America was dispelled, while the battle of Monmouth, productive of less im- portant results to the general cause, is, on other accounts, among the important events of the revolution. Nor was New-Jersey un- represented, even in the highest rank of the continental army .- William Alexander, the brother-in-law of Governor Livingston, who, though his title of Earl of Sterling was never finally estab- lished, is known by that distinction in our history, was at the onset of the revolution, expelled from his seat in the council of New-Jer- sey, under the royal government, for his active participation in the proceedings of the rebels. He was taken prisoner on Long Island before the fall of New-York-was afterwards engaged in the re- treat through the Jerseys-was at the battles of Trenton and Princeton-fought at the Brandywine and at Germantown and at Monmouth, and having every where distinguished himself and en- joyed, to an unprecedented extent, the personal confidence and friendship of Washington, died at the close of the war, in the command of the Northern department of the United States.
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But it was not only by military services and contributions to the charges of the war that New-Jersey did her part in promoting the common weal. 'The names of Stockton, the competitor, at his first election, of Livingston for the gubernatorial chair, of Wither- spoon,* who, regarding the exigency as one setting at nought all ordinary rules, did not deem it derogatory to his sacred character and the high duties of his literary charge, to contribute his mature judgement and varied acquirements to the cause of his adopted country, will ever hold a prominent rank among American wor- thies, while in the person of Boudinot,t New-Jersey, under the old confederation, gave a President to Congress.
Nor was her part an inactive one in those measures, which put the seal, through the Constitution of 1787, to the liberties of the Union. In that Convention, not to refer in this connection to his distinguished colleagues, William Patterson, who first appears in the political history of New Jersey, as the Secretary of the Provin- cial Congress of 1775, and who after having administered the gov- ernment of his State and been a Federal Senator, terminated his career in 1806, as one of the members of that more than Amphic- tyonic Council, the Supreme Court of the United States, occupied a distinguished position ; and to his efforts, as we learn from Mr. Mad- ison,¿ the smaller states are indebted for the equal representation in the Senate. !.
The events, subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution, are too much connected with matters which, even at this day, are ca- pable of engendering partisan feelings to admit of their introduction into a discourse from which it is intended to discard all discussions,
*John Witherspoon, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was a Scotchman by birth and a minister of the es- tablished Church of his native country. He was chosen, at the sugges- tion of his revolutionary compeer, Stockton, who was then in London, in 1766, President of the College of New-Jersey at Princeton ; and, while at the head of that institution, was in 1776 elected a member of the Provincial Congress of New-Jersey, and the same ycar a member of the Continental Congress, where he served, with the exception of a short interval, till 1782. He died in 1794 at the age of 72.
¡Elias Boudinot was President of Congress in 1782 and in that capa- city signed the ratifications of the treaty of Peace with Great Britain. He died in 1821 in the 82d year of his age, having devoted the last years of his life to objects of benevolence and religion. He was the first President of the American Bible Society and its most munificent patron.
į Madison's Papers Vol. 2, p. 1048.
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that can call forth any contrariety of sentiment among Americans, nor do I feel that I can, without the risk of touching on debateable ground, more particularly refer to those worthies, who, since the adoption of the constitution, have sustained the reputation of their native State in the Cabinet of the nation, in the Senate of the Union, and on the bench of your own Courts.
With respect, however, to your Southard, distinguished in the several stations to which I have alluded, and who having attained to a place second only to the highest to which an American can as- pire, had the good fortune to possess as an eulogist the venerable chief of whose administration he had constituted a component part, death has rendered his fame the common heritage of your State; while the transfer of one, long his colleague in the most august assembly of the Union, from the strifes of political contention to the tranquil. ity of an academic life permits a reference to Frelinghuysen who, as well as his honored father, illustrated in the public councils a name previously consecrated in your ecclesiastical annals .* An al. lusion to the judiciary cannot fail to recall to nie a venerable and distinguished jurist of the last generation,f most intimately associ- ated with all my reminiscences of New-Brunswick, now worthily represented in the President of this association ; nor is it a source of small gratification for me to recognise, among the members of your present supreme tribunal, an individual,# who reminds me of one of those juvenile friendships, to which I have referred in the opening of this discourse.
Nor is New-Jersey, withont a special claim to participate in the fame, that attaches to some of the most distinguished Statesmen, who more peculiarly belong to other sections of the Union. Of
*The Rev'd Theodore James Frelinghuysen came to New-Jersey from Holland in 1720 as a minister of the Dutch Church on the Raritan. He was an able and successful preacher and a prominent member of the Assembly of 1737. which formed the plan of a cætus, subordinate to the Classis of Amsterdam. ! lis five sons all adopted the profession of their father. Frederic Frelinghuysen, the grandson of the first emi- grant, advantageously known both in the civil and military history of the revolution and as a Senator of the U. S. under the present constitution, was the father of the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen, L. L. D., now Chancellor of the University of the City of New-York and from 1829 to 1835 a Senator in Congress from New-Jersey.
+Hon. Andrew Kirkpatrick was chief Justice of New-Jersey from 1797 till his death in 1831. His son Littleton Kirkpatrick, Esq. is President of the association before whom this discourse was pronounced. #Hon. James S. Nevius.
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her two Colleges, one dates back as far as 1746 the other to 1770, and no few of those, who have stood conspicuous in the national Councils, including one who was not less illustrious in the highest station, to which an American can aspire than as an expositor of that Constitution to the establishment of which he essentially con- tributed,* hail as their Alma Mater one of your Seminaries of learning.
'To the present. prosperous condition of your own College I have alluded, and Witherspoon who, in his appropriate sphere, adorned another seat of learning, has been referred to in connection with the position which he occupied among the statesmen of the revolution ; but it becomes us not to forget that to the Seminary over which he presided, New-Jersey is under obligations of no ordinary character. Aaron Burr is a name, that would have been noted in the annals of your State for piety and eloquence, had not the well earned fame of the father been obscured by the more conspicuous course of an unworthy son, the American Cataline. Jonathan Edwards the suc- cessor of Burr established, by enduring proofs, his claims to be reck- oned among the first minds not of America alone but of the age in which he lived; while, not to refer to more recent incumbents of the chair, in Smith, the successor of Witherspoon, we have a contrib- utor to American letters, who extended the faine of the institution, of which he was for so many years, the president.t Nor can [ as a New-Yorker and one who as a member of an institution for historical research, of which Dr. Millert was a founder, have had some opportunity of appreciating his services in the elucidation of our annals, fail to regret that, though
: * James Madison graduate.l at Princeton College in 1771.
The following is a list of the Presidents of the College of New- Jersey which was removed, in 1757, from Newark to Princeton ; Rev'd Jonathan Dickerson elected in 1746, died in 1747; Rev'd Aaron Burr, elected 1748, died 1757; Rev'd Jonathan Edwards, elected 1757, died 1758 ; Rev'd Samuel Dwis, from 1759 to 1761 ; Rev'd Samuel Finley from '1761 to 1766; the Rev'd John Witherspoon, D. D. L. L. D. from 1766 to 1794; Rev'd Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D. L. L. D. from 1795 to 1812 ; Rev'd Ashbel Green, D. D. L. L. D. from 1812 to 1822 ; Rev'd James Carnahan, D. D, appointed in 1823. .
Rev'd Samuel Miller. D. D. was the Corresponding Secretary of the New- York Historical Society at its organization, and had previously to his appointment as Professor in the Theological Seminary at Prince- ton made collections preparatory to a history of New- York. His pa- pers, connected with this matter, are deposited in the archives of the Society.
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New-Jersey may enjoy the fame, and the church at large, with which he is connected, may reap the fruits of his labors, in train- ing youth for his sacred calling, any circumstances should have deprived his native State of the advantage, on which she counted, of possessing a historian worthy to record her own memorable events.
I trust that I have done enough to show you that New-Jersey possessed in the history of her colonization and subsequent annals, as well as in the biography of those great and good mien, whose names are inseparably connected with that of the State, incidents worthy of putting in requisition the talents of her mnost gifted sons. And perhaps it may be permitted to me to add that the materials of history are necessarily fleeting. For the documents connected with the colonization of the New-Netherlands and their ecclesiastical and civil history, you equally with New-York will be benefited by the researches now making abroad, at the suggestion of the Historical Society, under the auspices and at the expense of the Legislature of that State. From the peculiar organization of your first colonial government, much may have been preserved in the records of the Proprietaries ; nor, not to enumerate more general collections, are the compilations made by Leaming and Spicer, the history of New- Jersey by Smith, the Journals of the Legislature during the revo- lution and the unbroken series of the New-Jersey Gazette for the same period, without their value, ' Mr. Sedgewick has also evin- ced considerable research in collecting the documents to illustrate the life of his distinguished grand father .* But our system affords few facilities for perpetuating family archives, and much, that would hereafter be invaluable, is now undoubtedly scattered among thie papers of individuals and will ere long be irretrievably lost, if some mean's be not found to preserve it, in a place of public deposite .- Assuredly, if even the inherent interest of the subject was not of itself sufficient to induce exertions to wrest from oblivion the ma- terials, by which alone the history of your State may be illustrated, that debt of gratitude, which the people of New-Jersey owe to na- tional ancestors, whose origin is not like that of the founders of the ancient republics, enveloped in the mysteries of fable, but whose characters are ennobled by all the virtues, which render man esti- mable, would impose on those, who are now reaping the rewards of their toile, the transmission, unimpaired to future ages, of the me- morials, on which are based their claims to be remembered by the remotest posterity.
* A memoir of the life of William Livingston, by Theodore Sedge. wick, Jr.
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