USA > Virginia > Virginia, a history of the people > Part 27
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litical equal of his richer neighbor. As to the charac- ter of this class there is no doubt at all. They were men of great independence, with that personal pride which lies at the foundation of true manhood ; and the existence of any sentiment of subserviency to the plant- ers is a fancy for which there is no warrant in the an- nals of the time. Even later, when agitators urged the French doctrine that the poor were the natural ene- mies of the rich, the doctrine found very few to listen to it. The two classes remained friends, and with few exceptions have remained such to the present time.
The Virginia planter has often been described, his prejudices, his foibles, his self-importance and imposing surroundings. He has been made the target of satire and is, perhaps, the best abused American type. Many of these criticisms are just, but other people in America at the time very much resembled him. He was not the only victim of contracted views and personal pride, and his manner of living was imitated in other quarters of the country. Patroon-life on the Hudson was similar to planter- life on the James. Bishop Kip of New York, recalling his memories of former days, describes the splendor of the old patroons, their swarming "re- demptioners " who were indented servants, their " negro- slaves, of whom every family of standing possessed some," and the "feudal feeling of the owners of the great landed estates." The "coming down from Al- bany " of the patroon, was like a royal progress ; and the writer, who had been " much at the South," had never seen there "such elegance of living as was formerly ex- hibited by the old families of New York." New Eng- land was not behind in this display of aristocratic ele- gance. The descendants of the old families there, too, 24
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exhibited in their dress, manners, and mode of living, a spirit anything but democratic. Everywhere there was social inequality ; it is certain that there always will be ; and class-distinction was accepted as a part of the order of things. In Virginia the system seemed in its practical operation to have resulted in the welfare of all alike. Berkeley said, in 1670, that the colony was " the most flourishing country the sun ever shone over," and the social forces seemed to work in harmony. The fatal antagonism of the present time between labor and capi- tal was nowhere seen; and that terrible " competition," which M. Blanc calls a " system of extermination," was undreamed of. Land was cheap and food abundant, and little labor supplied that daily bread, which it is a fearful problem, to-day, to half the human race how they are to obtain. The social machine seemed a cumbrous affair, but it moved on smoothly without wear and tear, or the ominous grating that we everywhere hear in the modern world.
What is certain is that life was easy and happy in these " good old times " when men managed to live with- out telegraphs, railways, and electric lights. Virginians of the old school look back to them as to the old moons of Villon, and insist that the past moons were brighter than the moons of to-day. They are laughed at for their pains, but after all it was a happy era. Care seemed to keep away from it and stand out of its sun- shine. The planter in his manor-house, surrounded by his family and retainers, was a feudal patriarch mildly ruling everybody; drank wholesome wine, sherry or canary, of his own importation ; entertained everyone ; held great festivities at Christmas, with huge log-fires in the great fire-places, around which the family clan
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gathered ; and everybody, high and low, seemed to be happy. It was the life of the family, not of the great world, and produced that intense attachment for the soil which has become proverbial ; which made a Virginian once say, " If I had to leave Virginia I would not know where to go." What passed in Europe was not known for months, but the fact did not appear to detract from the general content. Journeys were made on horse- back or in coaches, and men were deliberate in their work or pleasures. But if not so rapid life was more satisfactory. The portraits of the time show us faces without those lines which care furrows in the faces of the men of to-day. There was no solicitude for the morrow. The plantation produced everything and was a little community sufficient for itself. There was food in profusion ; wool was woven into clothing, shoes made, and blacksmithing performed by the retainers on the es- tate. Such luxuries as were desired, books, wines, silk and laces, were brought from London to the planter's wharf in exchange for his tobacco ; and he was content to pay well for all, if he could thereby escape living in towns. Almost nothing was manufactured in Virginia outside of the shops on the estates. Iron was smelted at Spotswood's furnaces on the Rappahannock, - six hundred tons in 1760, - but it went away for the most part to England to be fashioned into articles of use and resold to the producer. The Virginia planter was con- tent to have it so: to be left to live as he liked; to im- prove his breeds of horses, of which he was extremely fond; to attend races; to hunt the fox; to welcome everybody at his hospitable manor-house; to take his ease as a provincial seigneur on his patrimonial acres, and to leave his eldest son to represent the family in the
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family home. If this state of things nurtured pride and the sentiment of self-importance, many virtues were also the result : the sentiment of honor, cordiality of man- ners, and an abounding hospitality. The planter was ridiculed as a " nabob" by his enemies, but he was also a kind neighbor and a warm friend. He was brave, honest, and spoke the truth, which are meritorious traits; and under his foibles and prejudices lay a broad manli- ness of nature which gave him his influence as an indi- vidual and a citizen.
This old society led a happy existence from the first years of the century to the Revolution. There was a great deal to enjoy. Social intercourse was on the most friendly and unceremonious footing. The plantation house was the scene of a round of enjoyments. Dur- ing the winter large numbers of the planters went to live in Williamsburg, the vice-regal capital ; and liere were held grand assemblies at the Raleigh Tavern, or the old capitol, where the beaux and belles of the time in the finest silks and laces danced and feasted. Or the theatre drew them; for the "Virginia Company of Comedians " had come over in the ship Charming Sally, and acted Shakespeare and Congreve for the amusement of the careless old society. The youths passed on their fine horses going to prosecute their love affairs ; and the poetical portion wrote love verses to their inamoratas, and published them in the " Vir- ginia Gazette." These poems, addressed to Chloe or Myrtilla, may be still read in the yellow slieet ; and the notices of "society " doings, and the grand balls at the Raleigh Tavern. Jefferson's early letters also give us a glimpse of the gay scene; of the scrapes of the college students, the crowded streets, and the dancing at the
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Apollo, in which he figured with his dear " Belinda," and was happy.
In all parts of the colony this spirit of mirth inspired people. There is horse-racing and cock-fighting ; " Ba- con's Thunderbolts " are the names of spangles who have triumphed in many battles (1747). In the " Old Field near Captain Bickerton's, in Hanover, there are to be grand diversions. There is first to be a horse- race ; then a liat is to be cudgeled for ; next, twenty fiddlers are to contend for a new fiddle " and all to play together and each a different tune." Twelve boys are to run one hundred and twelve yards for a hat worth twelve shillings; a quire of ballads is to be sung for ; a pair of silver buckles are to be wrestled for ; the pretti- est girl on the ground is to have a pair of handsome silk stockings of one pistole's value ; and all " this mirth is designed to be purely innocent." The date is 1737. Nearly forty years afterwards (1774), the Virginians are still amusing themselves : " Yesterday," we read, " was celebrated in this place (Norfolk), the anniversary of St. Tammany, the tutelar Saint of the American Colonies." There is a royal salute of twenty-one guns, and a grand entertainment by the Sons of the Saint. The ball is opened by "one of our Burgesses accoutred in the ancient habit of this country," - full Indian dress. The " ladies' fair bosoms were animated with a generous love of their country," we are informed ; and ยท at four in the morning the Sons "encircled their King and practiced the ancient mysterious war-dance."
This is the state of things on Tidewater. A merry society is enjoying itself in the midst of security and luxury ; but up toward the mountains and beyond them new settlers are passing the time in a different manner.
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They have little leisure for amusement, and no taste whatever for dancing parties and fine living. It is for- tunate that they have not ; the time and place are not favorable to such divertisements, and the races are dif- ferent. German Lutherans and Scotch-Irish Presby- terians are steadily settling in the fertile Valley from the Potomac to James River, hewing down the woods, erecting churches and laying the foundations of republi- can society. The Indians are not far off, but these hardy people disregard them. The German and Irish population engage in their festivities ; but the grave Calvinists take no part in these, and live the sober and self-contained lives of their ancestors, the Covenanters. It is a very great race, and will make its mark here as elsewhere. Soon the old intolerance of the Establish- ment will disappear in the storm of the Revolution ; there will be no more talk of the denial of religious liberty to any citizen ; and Virginia will become a har- monious society, where men of every class will work together for a common object.
III. THE COMMONWEALTH.
I.
THE HOUR AND THE MEN.
As the Revolution approaches a new atmosphere seems to envelop events, and the figures of the act- ors in public affairs grow larger and more imposing. The serene Colonial period is coming to an end, and a feverish excitement precedes the birth of the Common- wealth. Old ideas are losing their force, and the fet- ters of prescription are cracking. Past theories of government and society begin to be subjected to analy- sis, and every day this analysis grows more unfriendly. There is no thought yet of a radical change - of separ- ating from England and establishing a republic. Public opinion has not advanced so far, and will not for ten years to come. As late as July, 1775, the idea of separ- ation, according to Jefferson, had "never yet entered into any person's mind." In 1765, therefore, when the political agitations begin, there are no friends of such a measure. All that the Americans ask as yet is that their rights as British subjects shall not be denied them; that Parliament shall not tax them without their consent ; that their old immunities under their charters shall be respected.
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But along with the feverish unrest comes the inevita- ble expansion of thought and the vague dream of a new
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order of things which marks periods of moral convul- sion. The soil is fitted to receive the new ideas, to nourish them and bring them to maturity. The Amer- ican point of view is not the European. The air does not suit the old political philosophy of the jus divinum ; from Englishmen the people have come to be Ameri- cans. The long struggle in the old world between the absolutist principle and popular right has much more convulsed the new ; and popular right has been the stronger. The free land has produced free thought, and free thought makes free men. When the collision comes at last, it will be a resolute and unshrinking struggle. The protest will be sudden and bitter, and the weak Colonies will match themselves without much liesitation against the British Empire.
Cavalier and Puritan will go hand in hand when the time arrives; but they enter upon the Revolution un- der very different circumstances of race and conviction. The New Englanders are already nearly republicans. They come of the race of Ironsides who overturned Charles I. in England, and it will require little to per- suade them to attempt to overturn George III. in Amer- ica. Attachment to royalty does not flourish in the bleak northern air ; it is a pale and drooping plant there. The whole country east of the Hudson is leagued in feeling against King and Parliament. In the New England churches where the decorous Calvinists assem- ble with grave faces, there are no prayers for his Maj- esty and his royal family. The Calvinistic theology is re- publican, not monarchic; royalty and nobility begin to be laughed at as superstitions. Social distinctions are re- garded with jealousy and increasing disfavor. The Eng- lish Church has few friends. When the time comes to
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put an end to Church and King in America, the hardy descendants of the men of Plymouth will proceed to act in the business before them with a grand unanimity, and all classes will work together to effect the result.
In the southern colonies, and especially in Virginia, matters are different. The men who settled on James River were Royalists and Church of England people. They called their colony Jamestown in honor of the King, and as soon as they landed, nailed a bar of wood between two trees to serve as a reading-desk for the English minister to lay his Book of Common Prayer upon. Those who followed them were persons of the same opinions, and at the middle of the century came the great wave of Cavalier refugees, passionate adher- ents of Church and King. Their devotion to both was strong. When Charles I. was beheaded, the Virginians denounced the regicides as murderers ; and when dissent raised its head in the colony, they promptly crushed it. Their sentiment was not servile. They deposed the King's Governor, and made war on the King himself ; but they had no desire whatever to abolish the royal authority in Virginia. And they were Churchmen as they were King's-men. They denounced the clergy, but they clung to Episcopacy, and their attitude toward the Revolution was thus peculiar. Add the apparent social obstacle to a frank adhesion to the great move- ment. That movement was essentially democratic, and the Virginia planters were advocates of class. Their predominance was a part of the order of things. Time out of mind they had made laws in the Burgesses ; ad- ministered affairs in the King's Council ; and presided as magistrates in the county courts or the halls of their manor-houses, where their worships tried offenders, as
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Sir Thomas Lucy tried Shakespeare at Charlecote, and dealt out punishment. All the powers of government and society were in the hands of their class ; to have looked for anything but the aristocratic sentiment from such people would have seemed absurd. To sum up the planter view : a good citizen ought to be a loyal sub- ject and Churchman; landed right was the key-stone of society ; Dissenters must be put down; and all who opposed these views were agitators and disturbers of the peace.
A sharp steel was necessary to pierce this hard crust of social and religious intolerance; and the steel was ready. The weapon with which England struck was the claim to tax the Americans without allowing them representation. Would the Virginians submit to that ? It seemed that they would be degenerate sons of their sires if they did so; but many people shook their heads. Could King-lovers and Churchmen be counted on to espouse a great popular movement, and put all that they cherished on the hazard of the result? The answer came without delay.
II. HENRY, "THE PROPHET OF REVOLUTION."
THE pulse of the time was felt in a fierce struggle on an obscure arena which indicated the fever in the public blood.
This was the trial of the " Parsons' Cause" in Han- over County in 1763, the first intimation of the ap- proaching conflict., Up to this time the antagonism to English abuses had taken the shape of petitions and protests. The history of the times is buried under
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documents - memorials to King and Commons, as- sertions of ancient immunities, and discussions of the rights of the Americans under their charters. This phase of the subject is interesting only to students. What is most worth attention is the immense move- ment beneath, the upheaval of the popular mind which swept all before it; and the first indication of this is the incident now to be described. It is further in- teresting as the first public appearance of a man who was styled by his cotemporaries the " Prophet of Rev- olution " and the " Man of the People " - Patrick Henry.
Henry was born in 1736, at his father's house of "Studley," in Hanover, and was at this time a man of twenty-seven. The prevalent impression that he was of low origin is an entire mistake. His father was Col- onel John Henry, a man of culture, belonging to an old Scottish family, a magistrate and "loyal subject, who took pleasure in drinking the King's health at the head of his regiment." He and his wife were members of the Establishment, his brother was a minister, and all were persons of education and respectability. A similar error is the ignorance attributed to Patrick Henry. He was, in fact, so well educated by his father, that at fifteen he read Livy and Horace ; and throughout his life " But- ler's Analogy " was his "standard volume." He never attended college, which probably resulted from the pov- erty of his family ; but his education at home was more than respectable for the time. The statements in rela- tion to his early idleness and incapacity for business seem to rest on much better support. It was the old story of a great genius who was unfitted by nature for a life of rontine. He was long finding out what he was
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fit for. He became a country storekeeper, and duly a bankrupt. Then he attempted farming, and the same result followed. Then he went back to his store and the second venture " turned out more unfortunate than the first." Mr. Wirt paints him at this period as an in- corrigible idler, passing his time in hunting and fishing, or telling humorous stories when he should have been attending to his business. To crown everything he had married, and finding himself at the end of his re- sources, went to live and assist his father-in-law at the inn at Hanover Court-house, whence the statement made by Jefferson that he had been a " har-keeper."
Henry was meanwhile unconsciously educating him- self for the great career of oratory. He studied human nature assiduously in his rustic neighborhood; and a fortunate chance placed before liim two remarkable models. These were James Waddel, the Blind Preacher, at whose sermons "whole congregations were bathed in tears ; " and Samuel Davies, the Presbyterian Apostle, of whom Henry said that he was " the greatest orator that he had ever heard." The unknown young man heard them both and came away with his heart burning within him. The blood of the born orator must have tlirobbed in his veins as he looked at the trembling and weeping crowds. Here, at last, was his own career be- fore him: to sway hearts, not to sell goods. Was the fire in him ? He began by studying law to fit himself for the bar, -if six weeks' reading may be called study. Procuring a license, with great difficulty, he then opened an office at the Court-House ; but, according to his biog- rapher, he was so ignorant that he was unable to draft an ordinary deed. He is described by the same writer as shabby in dress and loutish in manners ; as saying,
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" naitral parts are better than all the larnin on airth ;" but these stories are extremely doubtful. It is incredi- ble that a Latin scholar and reader of " Butler's Anal- ogy," one of the abstrusest of books, should have em- ployed such expressions. He no doubt used Virgin- ianisms ; if he used vulgarisms it was, probably, in a spirit of humor. The fact remains, however, that he was of rustic address, and " ungainly " in person ; and that no one acquainted with him had the least suspicion that under this unpromising exterior lay the immense genius for oratory which was to shape the history of the North American continent.
This was revealed for the first time in the " Parsons' Cause " in December, 1763 ; a suit brought by a minis- ter of the Church of England for arrearages of salary. In a year of failure in the tobacco crop the Virginia Burgesses had enacted that all debts payable in that commodity, then a species of currency, might be paid in money at the rate of twopence for the pound of to- bacco. The blow was heavy to the clergy, whose legal salary of 16,000 pounds of tobacco was worth at the time about sixpence a pound; and the legality of the Act was referred to the King, who decided against it. The clergy were therefore entitled to their tobacco, or its value, and nothing was left but the question of the amounts to be paid them as damages. Mr. Maury, a minister of Hanover, brought suit to recover his own. There was no question of law to be settled by the Court. The King had decided the law, and the counsel for the defendants, the Hanover collectors, retired from the case. There was a very prevalent desire, however, that something should be said on the question, and Henry was employed to oppose " the parsons."
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A remarkable scene followed. Henry rose to address the jury in presence of a great crowd. He had never before spoken in public, and at first his voice faltered. He hung his head and seemed to be overwhelmed, but soon a strange transformation took place in his appear- ance. His head rose haughtily erect and as he proceeded his delivery grew passionate. He bitterly denounced the clergy, a number of whom retired in indignation from the Court-house; and stigmatized the King, who had supported their demand, as a tyrant who had for- feited all claim to obedience. At this the counsel for the plaintiff cried, " The gentleman has spoken trea- son !" but Henry's language only grew more violent. The crowd around him swayed to and fro, in evident sympathy with the speaker, who, with passionate vehe- mence, insisted that the Burgesses of Virginia were " the only authority which could give force to the laws for the government of this colony." The words were trea- son, since they defied the royal authority ; and when the jury retired, the crowd was in the wildest commotion. Five minutes afterwards the jury returned with a verdict fixing the plaintiff's damages at " one penny," and a loud shout of applause followed. The jury, like the young orator, had defied the will of the King ; and when Court adjourned, Patrick Henry was caught up and borne on the shoulders of the excited crowd, around the Court green, in triumph.
Such was the famous " Parsons' Cause." An obscure lawsuit had assumed the proportions of an historic event. A great assemblage in one of the most important coun- ties of Virginia had wildly cheered Henry's denuncia- tions of the Crown, and his demand that the authority of the Burgesses of Virginia should take precedence of the authority of the King of England.
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III.
THE STAMPS.
THIS affair of the outposts immediately preceded the pitched battle. England and the Colonies were now to come to open quarrel on a vital issue. The war with France had inflicted on Great Britain a great incubus of debt. A part of this debt had been incurred in the defense of the Americans ; now Parliament asserted the plausible right to raise revenue, by imposing taxes on the Colonies, for the payment of their proportion of it.
When it became known in 1764 that this right was claimed, there was an outburst of indignation. In Vir- ginia the universal public sentiment was that the claim was illegal and oppressive. From the earliest times the House of Burgesses had regulated the affairs of Vir- ginia ; and their right to do so had been formally recog- nized by Charles II., who had declared, under the privy seal in 1676, that " taxes ought not to be laid on the inhabitants and proprietors of the colony but by the com- mon consent of the General Assembly." Thus the right to tax the Colonies without their consent, if ever assert- ed, had been authoritatively disclaimed. All, in fact, was against it : the old " Constitution of Government " of the time of James I .; the recognition of the Assembly as a law-making power by Charles I .; and the formal abandonment of any such claim by Charles II. When, therefore, the advisers of George III. proclaimed the new doctrine, they did so in violation of the express en- gagements of his predecessors, and substituted his will for the chartered rights of the Virginia people.
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