USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Historical fallacies regarding colonial New York : an address delivered before the Oneida Historical Society, Utica, N.Y., at its second annual meeting, January 14, 1879 > Part 2
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Thus the people were gathered from all nations, Dutch, French, English, German, Irish and Scotch, and yet they had one bond of union. They had all suffered for their re- ligion, and all had a keen sense, not only of their religious but of their civil rights.
The third peculiarity of New York, was the fact that it was settled purely for purposes of commerce. New England had its origin in a religious movement. Virginia grew up on tobacco culture. New York alone was planted solely for commercial reasons. The character thus impressed upon the colony at birth was never lost. The New Yorkers have always been emphatically a commercial people. Sometimes their New England neighbors sneered at them as a race engrossed in the pursuit of gain, and even to-day, among a certain so- called " cultured," uneducated class, the sneer has not alto- gether lost its force.
It is a fact that New York did not think of establishing a classical university until a century after Massachusetts had founded Harvard College. Of course no one to-day would belittle New England's services in the cause of education. She gave to America the common school system which the Puritans found in Holland. There her pride is fortressed impregnably. But her colleges, devoted mainly to making preachers of controversial theology, stand upon a different footing. Unless I am greatly mistaken, their influence upon the progress of American liberty has been greatly over- estimated. Looking back at the world's history, we find that few ideas regarding civil liberty have emanated from classical
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universities. They have sprung from a very different quarter.
The commerce of the Phoenicians gave birth to the alpha- bet, arithmetic and the system of weights and measures. Thus literature and science had their origin in commerce. During the middle ages the walled towns. the homes of commerce and manufacture, preserved the seeds of civil liberty. The great Dutch revolution of the 16th century was the work of the foremost merchants of the world. In regard to England, Macauley sums up the whole truth in saying : " The foundations of our constitution were laid by men who knew nothing of the Greeks but that they denied the orthodox procession and cheated the crusaders, and nothing of Rome but that the Pope lived there." During the contests with the Stuarts, while the universities were the strongholds of the Crown, Cromwell recruited his army from the manufacturing and commercial classes. Oxford has always been tory and conservative ; London has been liberal and progressive. To this rule America is no exception. The merchants of colonial New York knew little of the classics, but they led their countrymen in the contest for civil liberty.
There was still another feature of New York's position which served in later days to make her a leader among the colonies ; this was her governmental relation to the mother country. For over forty years she was the private property of the Dutch West India Company, a vast trading and privateering corporation, then for the next twenty years the private property of the Duke of York, and, finally, & possession of the Crown of England. Most of the other colonies, through grants and charters, gained privileges and concessions ; New York never obtained the simplest right save as the spoils of victory. At first these conditions seemed unfavorable to progress. While New England and Virginia were under liberal charters rejoicing in substantial independ- ence, New York was struggling for the incipient rights of freemen. But the absence of a charter proved in the end
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only a blessing in disguise. From each contest, crowned as it was with victory, the people rose nerved to demand some new, withheld advantage.
But there was another result even more marked than this. In the chartered colonies the people had a contract with the crown. There disputed questions arose over the construction of a legal document. Here, when a right was claimed, no musty parchment could be produced in its support or dero- gation. Hence, from an early day this people, for their argu- ment, fell back upon the law of nature, or their inherent rights as British subjects, a claim which in the nature of things could only culminate in revolution and independence. Trained in such a school it is not strange that the statesmen of New York played so important a part in the revolutionary struggle, and that within her borders arose the two great political parties which since that time have divided the people of the United States.
For the first forty years of her existence, New York was the property of the Dutch West India Company. Upon this period I do not design to dwell, but I may say in passing that he who will attentively read the pages of O'Callaghan and Brodbead will find his trouble well repaid. It has been the fashion to sneer at those early Dutchmen as stupid and phlegmatic, heavy with beer and narcotized by tobacco, and I regret to say that a native New Yorker first set the example by employing all his genius to throw ridicule over ancestors whom he should have venerated. On the pages of veritable history we see a race of sturdy, liberty-loving men, who, in defence of free speech and self-government, bore fines, prison fare and banishment, until at length they mastered a despotic Governor and the soulless corporation which ruled their fortunes.
As I pass over the days of the Dutch West India Company, so I must hasten by those of the Duke of York, who for more than twenty years held the province as his private prop- erty. In his time the colony gained the concession of a rep- resentative Assembly, but true to her destiny, this was not
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granted as a voluntary gift. The people refused to be taxed without their own consent; the New York merchants arrested and tried for high treason the Mayor of the city for levying duties without an act of Parliament, and finally, James, see- ing that otherwise the colony would be a heavy charge upon his private purse, consented that the people should have their own Assembly.
When this Assembly came together in 1683, a majority of its members were found to be men of Dutch descent. The fact is noteworthy, for their first act was one which should endear their memory to every native of the State.
Five years before the famous Bill of Rights in England, and eight years before the memorable act of Massachusetts, these Dutchmen passed a Bill of Rights, which history has ignored, although the statesmen of Massachusetts imitated its provisions. In bold, unmistakable language, it asserted that the "supreme legislative power should forever be and reside in the Governor, council and people, met in gen- eral assembly," and then went on to enumerate the other rights to which they were entitled; among these were trial by jury, freedom from taxation except by their own consent, ex- emption from martial law, and the quartering of soldiers upon citizens, and perfect toleratien to all persons professing faith in Christ. Of this noble document, issued in 1683, it may be said that it is surpassed by nothing in American his< tory; no, not by the declaration of Independence itself, for the boldness and force of language with which it declares the people of New York entitled to all the rights of freemen.
This act was transmitted to England; over it the Duke of York deliberated long, but finally gave it his approval. However, before it left his hands he mounted the throne as successor to his brother Charles, and New York became part of the possessions of the Crown. Following out in America the system which he attempted in England, James abolished the colonial Assembly, and attempted to rule by the royal prerogative. How he succeeded at home the world knows by
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heart. The English revolution of 1638 drove the Stuarts into perpetual exile, and placed a native Dutchman on the throne of England.
We come now to the chapter of American history of which I have already spoken as yet unwritten. As I have said, the English revolution left the colonies in their relation to the Crown without substantial benefit. In England the King's authority was much curtailed, here the prerogative was undiminished. The great Lord Holt said of the colo- nies, " Their law is what the King pleases." Granville, the President of the Privy Council, said, " The Governor's in- structions are the law of the land, for the King is the legis- lator for the colonies." William the Third allowed New York a representative Assembly, for government without it would have been impossible, but the instructions which he issued to his royal governors were copied almost word for word from those prepared by the bigoted, intolerant James the Second.
For several years after the English revolution, New York was convulsed by conflicts of race, and during that period but little permanent advance was made. However, the strug- gle for the mastery between the Dutch, the Huguenot and the English clements among the population, developed a love of self-government which found rapid growth when the people became united. Time, the great physician, healed the dis- sensions, and what he left undone was accomplished by the vices of the men who were sent out as royal governors.
The first great struggle arose under the rule of the disre- putable Cornbury, the cousin of Queen Anne. The ques- tions involved in this were two-fold-one religious, the other civil.
From early Dutch days the colony had practised full re- ligious toleration. When Stuyvesant attempted to barry the Quakers, the West India company, in a justly famous letter, rebuked his zeal and ordered him to follow the example of his native land. The policy then adopted here had never
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been abandoned, although Maryland, which had started upon the same course, had fallen by the wayside. Now Cornbury opened the last attack upon the right of conscience.
The Governor's instructions, which, according to the En- glish jurists, had all the force of law. provided that no minis- ter should preach in the province without his license. In 1707 the Rev. Francis Makemie, a Presbyterian clergy man, traveling through New York, was bold enough to preach without permission. Dragged before the Governor, he was asked how he dared to violate the royal instructions. Hc answered in ever-memorable words : " Your instructions are no law to me." Being indicted and tried for his offence, he was defended by the three foremost lawyers of the colony. It is a creditable fact that these men were all Episcopalians. They had assisted in every legitimate effort to build up the Church of England ; but when liberty was attacked, even in the person of the dissenter, they volunteered in her support. Upon the trial the lawyers took the position first pointed out by their client., They insisted that it was no offence to vio- late the royal instructions, for they had no force as laws. The learned Chief Justice Mompesson, in charging the jury, told them that the question was a doubtful one, and the victory was gained, for the prisoner was acquitted.
This trial of Makemie is justly famous. It has been spoken and written of times without number. Every one knows of it as establishing freedom of religious worship in New York, but no historian seems to have recognized its still greater importance as dealing the first blow at the royal prerogative . in the colonies.
The lesson set to America by Makemie's trial was quickly learned. Cornbury went to New Jersey to meet the Legisla- ture, who were refractory, and, as he thought, insolent. To excuse some of his demands, be read to them extracts from his instructions. Through their mouth-piece, Lewis Morris, one of New York's great men, they responded, " You need not read your instructions to us, they are no law." In New
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York itself the work went boldly on. Cornbury had stolen the public money, and the people obtained from the Crown. permission to appoint a treasurer of their own to take charge of appropriations for extraordinary purposes. They had also made another bold demand. Imitating the example of the English House of Commons, they had denied the right of the council, as an upper house, to amend any money bill.
But it was after the trial of Makemie that they first took the bold position which they maintained until the revolution. The Assembly which met in 1708 passed a set of resolutions, which form the key-note of all the subsequent resistance of the colonies. Two of these resolutions, which Bancroft dis- misses with a single line, should be inscribed in letters of gold on the title-page of every history of American liberty.
Resolved, That it is, and always has been, the unquestion- able right of every freeman in this colony, that he hath a perfect and entire property in his goods and. estate.
Resolved, That the imposing and levying of any moneys upon her Majesty's subjects of this colony, under any pretence or color whatsoever, without consent in General Assembly, is- & grievance and a violation of the people's property ..
This was no utterance of a private individual, but the solemn declaration of the General Assembly of New York ; and in estimating New York's position in the great contest for liberty, we must remember that these resolutions were pub- lished more than fifty years before James Otis made his fa- mous speech in Boston, or Patrick Henry delivered his in- spired philippic in Richmond denying the right of Parliament to tax America.
But the New York Assembly were not content with empty resolutions. Up to this time they had been accustomed to pass revenue bills, as they were called, which gave to the gov- ernment for a term of years, ranging from two to six, a fixed sum for its support. The money thus appropriated was ex- pended by the Governor and Council, substantially as they waw fit. But now all this was coming to an end. A few
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months after the passage of the famous resloutions of 1708 the odious Cornbury was removed. The next year the rev- enue expired by limitation. To the consternation of Corn- bury's successor, the Assembly announced that they would pass no more such bills. They stated that they would only grant an annual supply, as was done in England ; that the money appropriated should be collected by their own treasurer, and not by the collector of the Crown, and should be dis- bursed under their own direction.
Now, the contest was fairly opened, which was to close only with the revolution, and it must be remembered that in this contest New York, for many years, stood comparatively alone. Against the position of the Assembly the Governor, in turns, stormed and entreated, threatened and cajoled, but all in wain ; he showed his instructions and talked of his honor pledged to their enforcement. The Assembly only answered by the re-assertion of their rights. Then the Governor ap- pealed to England with a result little noticed in history. In 1711, fifty-four years before the passage of the Stamp Act, the English Administration, fearful lest the contagion of this colony's example should extend to the other plantations, by order of the Queen, introduced into Parliament a bill for the taxation of New York.
However, Parliament was not yet prepared for such a policy, and the bill, though pressed for two years, was never passed. If its introduction was intended as a menace, it failed in its effects. For four years more the dead-lock cox- tinued ; the public debts were not discharged ; even the official salaries remained unpaid ; but at length the contest was terminated by the surrender, not of the refractory As- sembly, but of the royal Governor himself. In 1715, a reve- nue bill for five years was passed, which provided that the money appropriated should be collected and disbursed by the Colonial Treasurer, Abraham DePeyster, and the Governor gave his word of honor, as a gentleman, that it should be ex- pended as the Assembly should direct. The Assembly con-
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sented to a five years' revenue in exchange for the Governor's assent to an act which was much desired by them, but opposed by the Crown, for naturalizing all foreigners in the colony.
For the next seventeen years little of public interest oc- curred, for the people remained undisturbed in the rights which they had gained. There were in this period only a few ripples on the surface, but these show the force and direction of the current. One Governor attempted to interfere with the right of the Assembly to judge of the qualifications of their own members, but quickly receded before a storm of public indignation. Later on the Council questioned some members about a vote which they had given, but the Assem- bly answered by a resolution, " That for any act, matter or thing done in General Assembly the members thereof are accountable and answerable to the House only, and to no other person or persons whatsoever." During this time also the people manifested so much opposition to the Court of Chan- cery, which they claimed was illegal, because created with- out consent of the Assembly, that its fees were so reduced, in the language of Smith, the historian, as to cause their wheels thereafter to rust upon their axis.
In 1732, Colonel William Cosby arrived in the colony as Governor of the Royal Provinces. In speaking of him it is only fair to the memory of Cornbury to say, that history is undecided which of the two the more disgraced the commission which he bore. As Cornbury's name is associated with the trial of Makemie, so is Cosby's with the still better known prosecution of Zenger.
Upon this great event I need not dwell. The story has been so often told that the whole scene rises before us at the mere mention of the name of this obscure German printer. We see him committed to prison for libelling the obnoxious Gov- ernor, and yet passing new manuscript through the gratings of his cell. We see his counsel, the ablest lawyers in the Province, disbarred by an arbitrary order of the Judges for
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questioning their commissions, which were afterwards pro- nounced illegal by the authorities in England.
The day of trial comes ; we see business suspended in the little city; we see the court-house crowded to suffocation with a breathless audience, while the multitude surges around the doors and windows. At the last moment, when hope seems lost, for the prisoner is almost undefended, the crowd opens, a lane is formed, and Andrew Hamilton, of Philadel- phia, the leader of the American bar, stands by the printer who to-day represents the freedom of the press. We trem- ble as we hear the brave old man sweep away all technical defence, by admitting the publication, but our fear is changed to admiration-almost to awe -- as his argument proceeds. We see audience and jury moved by his words as a field of grain by the breeze. We see them convulsed by his sarcasm, trembling at his pathos. We almost sympathize with the judges as we see them quailing before his denunciations. At last the old man eloquent sits down, and we hear the cowed chief justice mumbling his flimsy charge. The jury retire, and in a moment return. Amid silence as of the grave we hear the verdict, "Not Guilty." Then the court-house . is awakened by a shout like that which resounded through Westminster Hall at the acquittal of the " Seven Bishops."
This trial founded the freedom of the American press. Twelve years before Benjamin Franklin had been driven from Boston for a libel on its hierarchy. His brother was impris- · oned for a month, and forbidden to publish his paper except under official supervision. But all this was now ended-the colonial press was free.
Glancing now rapidly at events after the trial of Zenger, we notice a new stimulus given to the cause of colonial lib- erty. We have seen how, as early as 1709, the Assembly raised the question of an annual supply bill, but that it was then abandoned for concessions considered more important. Now, however, the people saw that a fixed revenue once granted, if only for five years, rendered their Governors in a measure in-
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dependent, arbitrary and unmanageable. In 1738, the five years revenue granted to Cosby before the Zenger trial ex- pired, and again the Assembly returned to the scheme of an annual appropriation, which they were never thereafter to abandon. Governors raged, the Board of Trade and Cabi- net protested and threatened, but the people were unmoved ; and after a contest of nearly twenty years' duration Great Britain yielded from pure exhaustion.
The subsequent steps toward independence of the Crown were marked and rapid. In 1748, Governor Shirley, of Mas- sachusetts, who visited New York, writes of the Assembly : " They seem to have left scarcely any part of His Majesty's prerogative untouched, and they have gone great lengths toward getting the Government, military as well as civil, into their hands." In 1750, Governor Clinton writes : "It is not in the power of any Governor on the present footing of affairs to support his authority in this province."
Meantime a new administration had come into power in England. The Duke of Newcastle, who had acted as Secre- tary of State for the Colonies for twenty-four years, and who, it was said, addressed letters to the Island of New England, and thought Jamaica was somewhere in the Mediterranean, had retired from office. However, his successors knew but little more about the affairs of America, or the spirit of the people ; after hearing the complaints of the Governors of New York, and after a long deliberation, they sagely concluded that only a little firmness was needed to recover all the ground won by her stubborn Legislature. They therefore decided to send out a new Governor with more stringent instructions. The tragic sequel showed the impotence of this conclusion. Sir Danvers Osborne, brother-in-law to the Earl of Halifax, was selected for the office.
On the 7th of October, 1753, Osborne arrived in New York ; on the 10th he took the oath of office, and on the same day received an address from the City Council declaring that they would not " brook any infringement of their ines-
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timable liberties, civil and religious." On the next day he summoned his Council and laid before them his instructions, which required the Assembly " to recede from all encroach- ments on the prerogative," to establish a permanent revenue, and provided that all money should be applied by the Gov- ernor with the consent of his Council ; the Assembly having no right even to examine the accounts. Already he doubted his powers to carry out his mission. Sadly he asked the Council if these instructions would be obeyed. All agreed that the people never would submit. He sighed, turned about, reclined against the window frame, and exclaimed, " then why am I come here ?"
Morbidly sensitive, conscientious and jealous of his word, there seemed to his mind, already shaken by domestic sorrow, but one resource. The next morning found him lifeless, strangled by his own hand. On his table was found a paper with these words : " Quem deus vult perdere prius dementat." Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. Did he speak of himself or of England's relation to the colonies ?
With the suicide of Sir Danvers Osborne, ended the at- tempt to rule America by the royal prerogative. The contest which overthrew it, began, was waged and terminated in New York. Bancroft, while he slights the events which led up to the result, admits that New York was then the central point of political interest, and that in no province was the near approach of independence so clearly discerned and so openly predicted, at a time when the hope of it as a near event, in New England had not dawned.
We now come to the last chapter in the history, that of resistance to the British Parliament. Of this period we can- not complain that it has been overlooked, but I believe it is crowded with more misrepresentations than you can find in the history of any other country for an equal number of years.
First, take the French and Indian war. The French ag- serted title to the whole valley of the Ohio by virtue of prior
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occupation. What was England's claim upon the question ? Not prior discovery, as is usually asserted. Chief Justice Marshall has shown the absurdity of claiming to the Pacific Ocean because Cabot sailed along the Atlantic coast in 1697. No, England asserted title to the whole Western country, because the Six Nations who lived along this valley held it by conquest, and they were subjects or allies of Great Britain. This was her only claim, and it was set forth in official docu- ments and maps circulated among the Courts of Europe. In our history this fact becomes of the first importance. Eng- land maintained the title to the Great West. After our re- volution the question of its ownership arose, and the con- flicting righis of the adverse claimants barred the way to & federal union. Then New York, which, as successor to the Six Nations, was the only State having a valid title, ex- hibited a generosity unparalleled in history. While the other States were haggling over terms, she stepped forward, and as a free gift, donated the whole territory unconditionally to the United States. That act made the Union possible, yet how much of the truth do you find in your common histories ?
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