Civil List and Constitutional History of the Colony and State of New York, Part 5

Author:
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Albany
Number of Pages: 1380

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At this time the Netherlands were greatly agitated on account of the English civil war. Charles I was beheaded July 30, 1649, and

BURGHER GOVERNMENT INSTITUTED.

his family were at the Hagne. The Stadtholder, William II of Orange, who had married Mary, the eldest daughter of the English king, arrested six of the most eminent deputies of the States General, and surrounded that Assembly with troops ; and had attempted to seize the city of Amsterdam for opposing his will. Ilis despotic career was suddenly cut short by death ; and his posthumous son, William III, afterward King of England, was excluded from the Stadtholdership, under the influence of Oliver Cromwell.

The Nine Men now prepared new charges against Stuyvesant. The Vice-Director and Schout-fiscal, on the 28th of February, 1651, drew up a long protest against the Director, who thereupon issued a peremptory order expelling the former from the Council, which he refused to recognize, whereupon he was arrested by soldiers and lodged in a guard house. The conflict with the Patroon con- tinned, and the Director asserted his sovereignty by establishing a separate village goverment for Beaverwyck, on the 10th of April, 1652. Meantime, the States General revived the Provisional Order, the enforcement of which was favored by all the Chambers, except Amsterdam. The Amsterdam Directors were therefore compelled to yield in a measure to the popular demand ; and on the 4th of April, on the application of Van Der Donck, they granted an order directing the establishment of a burgher government in New Amsterdam, and making other concessions. In December the Amsterdam Chamber censured the Patroon, for endeavoring to maintain his manor as a principality independent of the Director. Burgher government was instituted in New Amsterdam, February 2, 1653. The burgomasters and schepens constituted a Court of Ses- sions and a Common Council. Among their first acts in the latter capacity was the taking of measures for the defense of the city, and the raising of money therefor.

On the 20th of May, Captain John Underhill hoisted the colors of Parliament on Long island, and issued an address assailing the Director and his administration, charging him, among other things, with having "unlawfully imposed taxes contrary to the privileges of freemen, violated liberty of conscience," imprisoned both English and Dutch without trial, enacted general laws without the approba- tion of his government, and " imposed magistrates on freemen with- out election and voting." "This great autocracy and tyranny," read the address, "is too grievous for any brave Englishman and good Christian to endure." Patriotism, however, was then superior to every other consideration, with the colonists. They would not rally

MUNICIPAL LIBERTIES SECURED.

·to the standard of a foreign foe, even when it was raised in defense of their most ancient rights, and the liberties for which they had been stubbornly contending. Underhill was ordered to quit the province, and he went.

The war resulted in high prices, and in September, pursuant to call of the Director, delegates from the several colonies and courts assembled at New Amsterdam, as a provincial dict, to legislate for their reduction.

In July, funds were still lacking to complete the fort, and on the 2Sth the authorities of New Amsterdam were called upon for fur- ther supplies. The magistrates and burghers thereupon demanded the surrender of the wine and beer excise to the city treasury, in which case they pledged themselves that " means would then be pro- vided to meet whatever expenses might occur." The Director refused, and the contest continued until the 25th of November, when he consented to give up the excise on beer and wine " consumed within the city," on condition that the magistrates should keep the public works in repair, maintain the civil and ecclesiastical servants, and lease the excise to the highest bidder, "after the manner of Fatherland." At the same time he imposed an additional duty on wines and distilled liquors " which," he said, "are used in this conn- try in the greatest profusion." Thus, as the outcome of this con- flict, Stuyvesant was forced to surrender his assumed prerogative of imposing and applying excise duties, and the municipality was re- stricted to its own legitimate revenues, and undertook to defray its own legitimate expenditures. It was an advance toward local con- trol of local affairs, and a restriction thereto. There can be no doubt that the magistrates had before them the Dutch model of municipal supremacy, but the ambition of the Director was an insur- mountable obstacle to the realization of any such purpose.

On the day when this reasonable adjustment was reached, an im- portant convention was held at the Stadt Huys. Long island was infested with gangs of lawless men, and a convention of four towns had been held in October to consider their depredations. The result of that convention was, a call for the convention held November 25th, to consider what was best to be done " for the welfare of the country and its inhabitants, and to determine on some wise and salu- tary measures to arrest these robberies." The result of this informal convention was, the issuing of writs by the Director, on the Sth of December, for the assembling of a convention of delegates from all the towns, to be held on the 10th.

DEMANDS OF THE TOWNS.

The delegates from the English towns, present at the November Convention, would not permit the Director-General nor one of his Council to preside over the body, as he " could not protect them " from depredations. " If the Director-General," they said, "acting for the Privileged West India Company, will not protect us, then we are compelled to provide against our own ruin and destruction, and therefore we will not pay any more taxes." The Director said that these declarations " smelt of rebellion," and answered that he was ready to protect his subjects with all the means "which God and his liege lords had vouchsafed him," but the answer did not satisfy them. Protection in return for taxation is one of the simplest of propositions. The English towns were undoubtedly emboldened to demand it at this time, as the marauders were emboldened to com- mit their robberies, by the existence of war between England and the Netherlands.

The towns went still further. They made propositions for a " firmer union" with the magistrates of the city, who replied that they must first consult with the Director and Council. Stuyvesant responded that he had no objection to their uniting with the English towns, and stated that " as they could not out-vote the latter now, it was his intention to grant, at the next election, courts of justice to the villages of Amersfoort (Flatlands), Breukelen and Midwont (Flush- ing) so as to possess, with Fort Orange, on all future occasions, an equal number of votes." The December Convention was afterward held to be illegal by the Director, on the ground that these villages did not have courts, which could alone legally appoint delegates. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the Director, in stating this to be his purpose, particularly as he did subsequently grant courts of justice to the villages named; and we must therefore ascribe to other causes the failure to hold a provincial diet until the close of the administration of Stuyvesant. The concession of local governments, however, was extorted from the Director by the Con- ventions of 1653.

The December Convention adopted a remonstrance to the Director and Council and the Amsterdam Chamber, drawn by an Englishman, named George Baxter, formerly English secretary of the Director, who is prominent in the history of the times. The opening sentence is significant. "We acknowledge," it reads, " a paternal government which God and Nature have established in the world * * * to which we consider ourselves bound by His word, and, therefore submit." This paternal government was recognized as

LEGISLATIVE RIGHTS OF FREEMEN.

having Divine sanction and existing in accordance with natural law. The remonstrants then enumerated the sacrifices they had made, and stated that they were " composed of various nations from different parts of the world." These cosmopolitans, however, did not need to go outside of the Netherlands to find the most ample support for the rights they claimed. After expressing their " apprehension of the establishment of an arbitrary government," they proceeded : " It is contrary to the first intentions and genuine principles of every well- regulated government, that one or more men should arrogate to them- selves the exclusive power to dispose, at will, of the life and property of any individual ; and this by virtue, or under pretense, of a law or order which he might fabricate, without the consent, knowledge or approbation of the whole body, their agents or representatives. Hence the enactment, in manner aforesaid, of new laws, affecting the commonalty, their lives and property, which is contrary to the granted privileges of the Netherlands government, and odions to every free-born man ; and principally so to those whom God has placed under a free state, in newly settled lands, who are entitled to claim laws not transcending but resembling, as near as possible, those of Netherland. We humbly submit that it is one of our privileges, that our consent, or that of our representatives, is necessarily required in the enactment of such laws and orders." It was also complained that officers and magistrates were appointed in many places contrary to the laws of the Netherlands, and several without the consent or nomination of the people; and that obscure laws, enacted "without the approbation of the country, by the authority alone of the Director and Council, remain obligatory."

Stuyvesant's answer was in substance a confession that, if the charges were true, they constituted a serious impeachment before the superior tribunal. The laws of the Netherlands were the laws of the province ; and if he assumed legislative or executive power not expressly conferred upon him, he was an usurper. He was a Judge of the law, not its maker ; and he could in no wise transcend it. Hence he felt compelled to assert that in all affairs in which the country at large was interested the general ordinances had always been sanctioned by the qualified members of the whole province. With regard to local officials he said that " the English not only enjoy the nomination of their magistrates but some of them absolutely usurp their election, and actually appoint whatever magistrates they please, paying no regard to the religions they profess." Some, especially in Gravesend, are Libertines and Anabaptists [a thrust at

THE POLITICAL LAWS OF NATURE.

Baxter] which is unquestionably in contradiction to the general laws of the Netherlands. He would not permit that " the election of magistrates be left to the rabble," and claimed for the Directors the same rights possessed by Patroons, with regard to appointments to office. " Your prayer is extravagant," he said, " you might as well claim to send delegates to the Assembly of their High Mightinesses themselves. Directors will never make themselves responsible to subjects ; and the old laws will remain in force." Thus Stuyvesant repudiated Roman checks upon executive power, and the popular rights recognized among the ancient Germans ; and asserted a per- verted and arbitrary feudalism as the sole law of the province.

The Convention responded (December 13), defending the legality of its existence by an appeal to the " law of Nature," which au- thorizes all men to associate and convene together for the protection of their liberty and property. Thus popular rights and paternal authority, the power of the people and the power of the govern- ment, were claimed by this Convention to be alike imbedded in Nature. This assertion was a reconciliation of German popularism with Roman paternalism ; and, with the claims with regard to the magistracy, laid broad and deep the foundations of the civil polity of New York. These foundations are, a Judiciary constituting the bulwark of ancient liberties and vested rights, with an efficient Exeentive power held completely under the control of the People and their representatives. These natural laws were clearly appre- hended and forcibly set forth by the Convention. While phrased by the facile pen of an English secretary, they doubtless but crystallized the thoughts of the descendants of German and Kelt, as they gathered around their firesides and considered the troubles of Europe and the colonies, and discussed the fundamental principles of government. That which exists in the oak exists also in the acorn. In these, the closing days of the year 1653, there dropped from the wide-spreading branches of the ancient Aryan oak a wonderfully symmetrical acorn ; and from this acorn there sprang the beautiful American oak under which we are gathered.

Stuyvesant was a legalist, not an idealist, and he saw none of the beanties of this germinal principle of organic liberty. He denied that the law of Nature authorized publie meetings for the protection of public liberty. Magistrates alone, and " not all men," he held, are anthorized so to assemble. " We derive our authority from God and the Company, not from a few ignorant subjects, and we alone ran call the inhabitants together." Tried by Roman law, the

DEMANDS OF THE CONVENTION. 41

Director was right ; tried by German custom, he was wrong. " Blood is thicker than water;" and the heart of the true Aryan beats tumultnously when an exterior authority is invoked against rights enjoyed by his ancestors from the days when history fades into tra- dition, and tradition into myth, and myth into fable. Experience has shown that the people cannot always trust parental anthority ; and that while enlightened power beneficently exercised is of great value, yet it must always be held to a strict accountability to the people or their immediate representatives, freely and freshly chosen and meeting with frequent regularity, or it will destroy liberty.

This caused the Director no concern. " Such manners and forms of meetings," he said; " such insults, unprovoked affronts and con- tempt of the supreme authority, the Director and Comeil were bound to resist, yea, to punish ;" and he ordered them to disperse forthwith, " on pain of an arbitrary correction." Letters were also sent to the villages of Breukelen, Amersfoort and Midwout, com- manding them not to permit their delegates to appear again at any meeting at New Amsterdam, at this conjuncture, as it can canse nothing but mischief. An appeal was thereupon taken to the Amster- dam Chamber. The magistrates of Gravesend forwarded a separate petition, containing assurances of loyalty, which were soon dis- proved by the people.

The following is the substance of the remonstrance and petition sent to the Amsterdam Chamber by the Convention : "The States General of the United Provinces are our liege lords; we submit to the laws of the United Provinces ; and our rights and privi- leges ought to be in harmony with those of the Fatherland, for we are a member of the State, and not a subjugated people. We, who have come together from various parts of the world, and are a blended community of various lineage; we who have, at our own expense, exchanged our native lands for the protection of the United Provinces; we, who have transformed the wilderness into fruitful farms-demand that no new laws shall be enacted but with consent of the people, that none shall be appointed to office but with the approbation of the people, that obsenre and obsolete laws shall never be revived." The originals were drafted by George Baxter, an Englishman, but the spirit is the same as that which animated all colonists, in seeking to be placed upon an equality with their breth- reu at home. The colonists sent an agent, Le Bleeuw, as bearer of an appeal to the West India Company, who was received with great coldness, and forbidden to return to New Netherland.

DECISION OF THE AMSTERDAM CHAMBER.

The magistrates of New Amsterdam, on the 24th of December, appealed to the Amsterdam Directors for power to administer tho affairs of their municipality " according to the forms of government of the beloved city of Amsterdam, as far as the sune is practicable, and to choose a Schout, or to at least nominate two persons for that office, from whom the Director and Council might choose one. They also asked for the whole of the excise ; for power to levy new imposts and taxes, and to take full charge of their own finances, and for the right to lease the ferry between New Amsterdam and Breukelen. It is fortunate for the true growth of the province that Stuyvesant was Director. A less imperious person would have per- mitted the exact reproduction of the Netherlands system here. Rens- selaerswyck would then have been an independent principality, and New Amsterdam an independent city, in which case the permanent results might have been altogether different. It was in the conflict between the paternal and popular forces that the golden mean was to be reached.

The beginning of the year 1654 was marked by vigorous prepara- tions in Massachusetts to send a hostile expedition against New Netherland ; and Baxter undertook the organization of a rebellion on Long island. This led the magistrates of New Amsterdam and neighboring Dutch towns to take measures to repel the fleet and forces which they expected to be sent against them. Intelligence of peace, and of the disposition of the appeals by the Amsterdam Chamber, arrived in the same vessel. Invasion was prevented; disorder was checked, and the form of goverment was settled. The Chamber, in strict harmony with its arbitrary dealings in the past, declared it to be "the height of presumption in the people to protest against the government," ordered that "the seditious " of Gravesend be punished in the most exemplary manner, and con- sured Stuyvesant for having been too lenient with the ringleaders. It seems clear that the Chamber regarded the movement from the beginning as a seditions one in the interest of England by English- men ; and proceeded accordingly. New Amsterdam was accorded some concessions, and the question of local magistracies was settled; the Director thereafter, from time to time, incorporating new towns and conferring on them the privileges granted Breukelen and other settlements.

Oliver Cromwell was now made Lord Protector, Maryland was illumined with the lurid fires of a religious war, and Massachusetts enjoyed its liberties in peace.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

The civil supremacy of the Director had become well established in 1656, when a difficulty arose with the Lutherans with regard to the building of a church, which resulted in perseention on the part of Stuyvesant. The Baptists of Flushing also became the objects of his religions zeal, and the Quakers attracted his holy wrath. For this, however, he was rebuked by the Amsterdam Directors. " Let every one," said they, " remain free as long as he is modest, moder- ate, his political conduct irreproachable, and as long as he does not offend others or oppose the government." Liberalism is not the exclusive property of any class, church or race ; illiberalism has been exhibited everywhere. It was Henri IV, of France, who, on the 13th of April, 1598, issued the tolerant ediet of Nantes ; it was Louis XIV who, after a series of infamous dragonades, revoked it on the 18th October, 1685, against the wishes of Pope Innocent XII, and undertook the extermination of the Reformed faith. The Netherlands learned liberality in the erneible of hate ; and it now secured to others that religious liberty which it claimed for all at home. Liberalism is not indifferentism. It does not indicate uncertainty as to what truth is, or weakness in holding it. It is simply the holding of truth in love. Liberalism is the leaven of society ; not the lump. If anywhere there is an unleavened hump, the leaven of liberalism is excluded; and liberalism is never more liberal than when it sustains the organized forces of society in afford- ing protection against the unleavened Inmps which assail it, and in pulverizing them, if need. New Netherland was not unleavened, and Stuyvesant was prevented from rendering it so.

Virginia, which had resisted Cromwell, capitulated to a force sent ont by him in 1657, and his commissioners stipulated with the House of Burgesses that the people " should have and enjoy such freedom and privileges as belong to a freeborn people of England; that trade should also be as free in Virginia as in England ; and that no tax, custom or imposition should be laid in Virginia, nor forts nor castles erected therein, without the consent of the General 1s- sembly." This was a concession by external power. We turn from this to the colony, and there we find that there were no elections for members of Assembly from 1660 to 1676. In 1658, the laws of New Plymonth were revised, and an address was issued (September 29), in which the principles of an ecclesiastical commonwealth were again affirmed. Thus Virginia was dominated by a Royal aristocracy and New England by a Church State.

In the beginning of the year 1657 an attempt was made to in-

MUNICIPAL RIGHTS SECURED.

trodnee one of those caste distinctions of the Netherlands, which gave to the Dutch Republic marked peculiarities, as contrasted with the English commonwealth. The " burgher right " was then tendered to New Amsterdam. This right conferred important legal, commercial and political privileges. Distinctions were intro- duced among the burghers of Amsterdam, in 1652, by dividing them into two classes, the Great and Small. The lesser citizenship only conveyed freedom of trade, and the privilege of being received into the respective guilds. The great burghers, who only could hold office, became such by official distinction, inheritance and pur- chase. This odions legalized system of an aristocratie official caste was formally introduced into New Amsterdam, February Ist, 1657. To the honor of the Dutch founders of this imperial commonwealth be it said, the attempt to sell the great burgher right failed. One year later (1st February, 1658), when the burghers were first permit- ted to make double nominations for magistrates, Stuyvesant was com- pelled to invest some of the more prominent citizens with the right in order to fill the offices. He, however, obtained thereby the power to exclude from the privilege of holding office whoever he saw fit, unless they paid for it. It was not until August 5th, 1660, that a separate Schont was obtained. Thus was finally seenred to New Amsterdam a large portion of the municipal rights intended to be conferred years before.

The time had now come to disintegrate the fendal shell in which the seeds of liberty in New Netherland were inclosed, in order that they might germinate and freedom have a chance to grow. Charles HI landed at Dover May 26th, 1660. Connecticut was consolidated in April, 1662, under a charter confirming its established system. The English towns on the western end of Long island, in 1663, en- tered into negotiations with the view of submission to its govern- ment, and a descent was made on Midwout (Flatbush), to compel its inhabitants to unite in a war against Manhattans. This led to a convention of delegates appointed by the magistrates of the loyal towns, which met at New Amsterdam July 6, 1663, and engaged to maintain an armed force for public protection. Another conven- tion assembled November 1st, pursuant to a call of Director Stuyve- sant, made at the request of the magistrates of New Amsterdam, which addressed a remonstrance to the Amsterdam Directors, setting forth the imperiled condition of the province, arising from wars with the Indians and the English. Stuyvesant, on the 15th, accepted the terms of Connecticut, by which Westchester was ceded to it, and the

CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLAND.

English towns were left to themselves. These towns now entered into a " Combination " to manage their own affairs, and elected John Scott as their President. On the 27th of February, the sheriff's and magistrates of the Dutch towns assembled at Midwout and adopted a remonstrance to the Amsterdam Directors, setting forth the outrages committed by Scott. At the request of the magistrates of New Amsterdam a General Assembly of delegates for all the towns and colonies was now called. This provincial diet was con- vened on the plan established by the Provisional Order of 1650, and it met on the 10th of April, 1664. The Director stated that the West India Company had expended 1,200,000 guilders in the government of the province, over and above the revenues it had received therefrom, and asked that supplies be voted for the general defense. This was refused, and then the Diet ad- journed for one week to consider the propriety of again ap- pealing to the home government. Meantime, a military force arrived, with instructions to check the English, reduce the revolted villages and replace the removed magistrates; but it was utterly inadequate for the purpose. When the Diet re-assembled, therefore, it advised that peace be made with the Indians, and decided that it would be useless to enforce the orders of the Amsterdam Directors against. the English towns. Connecticut thereupon extended its authority over them, and in September Stuyvesant surrendered to Richard Nicolls, deputy of the Duke of York, who encouraged the people to believe that their liberties now were to be at least as great as those enjoyed in New England.

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Civil List and Constitutional History of the Colony and State of New York, Part 5

Author: Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Albany Number of Pages: 1380

Author:
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Albany
Number of Pages: 1380