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DANIEL WEBSTER COMMEMORATING THE
PILGRIM'S LANDING OF 1620
The Plymouth Oration - Page 2
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Daniel Webster's Plymouth Oration, delivered at
Plymouth, Massachusetts - December 22, 1820.
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Different, indeed,
most widely different, from all these instances
of emigration and plantation, were the
condition, the purposes, and the prospects of
our fathers, when they established their infant
colony upon this spot. They came hither to a
land from which they were never to return.
Hither they had brought, and here they were to
fix, their hopes, their attachments, and their
objects in life. Some natural tears they shed,
as they left the pleasant abodes of their
fathers, and some emotions they suppressed, when
the white cliffs of their native country, now
seen for the last time, grew dim to their sight.
They were acting, however, upon a resolution not
to be daunted. With whatever stifled regrets,
with whatever occasional hesitation, with
whatever appalling apprehensions, which might
sometimes arise with force to shake the firmest
purpose, they had yet committed themselves to
Heaven and the elements; and a thousand leagues
of water soon interposed to separate them for
ever from the region which gave them birth. A
new existence awaited them here; and when they
saw these shores, rough, cold, barbarous, and
barren, as then they were, they beheld their
country. That mixed and strong feeling, which we
call love of country, and which is, in general,
never extinguished in the heart of man, grasped
and embraced its proper object here. Whatever
constitutes country, except the earth and the
sun, all the moral causes of affection and
attachment which operate upon the heart, they
had brought with them to their new abode. Here
were now their families and friends, their
homes, and their property. Before they reached
the shore, they had established the elements of
a social system, and at a much earlier period
had settled their forms of religious worship. At
the moment of their landing, therefore, they
possessed institutions of government, and
institutions of religion: and friends and
families, and social and religious institutions,
framed by consent, founded on choice and
preference, how nearly do these fill up our
whole idea of country! The morning that beamed
on the first night of their repose saw the
Pilgrims already at home in their country. There
were political institutions, and civil liberty,
and religious worship. Poetry has fancied
nothing, in the wanderings of heroes, so
distinct and characteristic. Here was man,
indeed, unprotected, and unprovided for, on the
shore of a rude and fearful wilderness; but it
was politic, intelligent, and educated man.
Every thing was civilized but the physical
world. Institutions, containing in substance all
that ages had done for human government, were
organized in a forest. Cultivated mind was to
act on uncultivated nature; and, more than all,
a government and a country were to commence,
with the very first foundations laid under the
divine light of the Christian religion. Happy
auspices of a happy futurity! Who would wish
that his country's existence had otherwise
begun? Who would desire the power of going back
to the ages of fable? Who would wish for an
origin obscured in the darkness of antiquity?
Who would wish for other emblazoning of his
country's heraldry, or other ornaments of her
genealogy, than to be able to say, that her
first existence was with intelligence, her first
breath the inspiration of liberty, her first
principle the truth of divine religion?
Local attachments and sympathies would ere long
spring up in the breasts of our ancestors,
endearing to them the place of their refuge.
Whatever natural objects are associated with
interesting scenes and high efforts obtain a
hold on human feeling, and demand from the heart
a sort of recognition and regard. This Rock soon
became hallowed in the esteem of the Pilgrims,
and these hills grateful to their sight. Neither
they nor their children were again to till the
soil of England, nor again to traverse the seas
which surround her. But here was a new sea, now
open to their enterprise, and a new soil, which
had not failed to respond gratefully to their
laborious industry, and which was already
assuming a robe of verdure. Hardly had they
provided shelter for the living, ere they were
summoned to erect sepulchres for the dead. The
ground had become sacred, by enclosing the
remains of some of their companions and
connections. A parent, a child, a husband, or a
wife, had gone the way of all flesh, and mingled
with the dust of New England. We naturally look
with strong emotions to the spot, though it be a
wilderness, where the ashes of those we have
loved repose. Where the heart has laid down what
it loved most, there it is desirous of laying
itself down. No sculptured marble, no enduring
monument, no honorable inscription, no
ever-burning taper that would drive away the
darkness of the tomb, can soften our sense of
the reality of death, and hallow to our feelings
the ground which is to cover us, like the
consciousness that we shall sleep, dust to dust,
with the objects of our affections.
In a short time other causes sprung up to bind
the Pilgrims with new cords to their chosen
land. Children were born, and the hopes of
future generations arose, in the spot of their
new habitation. The second generation found this
the land of their nativity, and saw that they
were bound to its fortunes. They beheld their
fathers' graves around them, and while they read
the memorials of their toils and labors, they
rejoiced in the inheritance which they found
bequeathed to them.
Under the influence of these causes, it was to
be expected that an interest and a feeling
should arise here, entirely different from the
interest and feeling of mere Englishmen; and all
the subsequent history of the Colonies proves
this to have actually and gradually taken place.
With a general acknowledgment of the supremacy
of the British crown, there was, from the first,
a repugnance to an entire submission to the
control of British legislation. The Colonies
stood upon their charters, which, as they
contended, exempted them from the ordinary power
of the British Parliament, and authorized them
to conduct their own concerns by their own
counsels. They utterly resisted the notion that
they were to be ruled by the mere authority of
the government at home, and would not endure
even that their own charter governments should
be established on the other side of the
Atlantic. It was not a controlling or protecting
board in England, but a government of their own,
and existing immediately within their limits,
which could satisfy their wishes. It was easy to
foresee, what we know also to have happened,
that the first great cause of collision and
jealousy would be, under the notion of political
economy then and still prevalent in Europe, an
attempt on the part of the mother country to
monopolize the trade of the Colonies. Whoever
has looked deeply into the causes which produced
our Revolution has found, if I mistake not, the
original principle far back in this claim, on
the part of England, to monopolize our trade,
and a continued effort on the part of the
Colonies to resist or evade that monopoly; if,
indeed, it be not still more just and
philosophical to go farther back, and to
consider it decided, that an independent
government must arise here, the moment it was
ascertained that an English colony, such as
landed in this place, could sustain itself
against the dangers which surrounded it, and,
with other similar establishments, overspread
the land with an English population. Accidental
causes retarded at times, and at times
accelerated, the progress of the controversy.
The Colonies wanted strength, and time gave it
to them. They required measures of strong and
palpable injustice, on the part of the mother
country, to justify resistance; the early part
of the late king's reign furnished them. They
needed spirits of high order, of great daring,
of long foresight, and of commanding power, to
seize the favoring occasion to strike a blow,
which should sever, for all time, the tie of
colonial dependence; and these spirits were
found, in all the extent which that or any
crisis could demand, in Otis, Adams, Hancock,
and the other immediate authors of our
independence.
Still, it is true that, for a century, causes
had been in operation tending to prepare things
for this great result. In the year 1660 the
English Act of Navigation was passed; the first
and grand object of which seems to have been, to
secure to England the whole trade with her
plantations. It was provided by that act, that
none but English ships should transport American
produce over the ocean, and that the principal
articles of that produce should be allowed to be
sold only in the markets of the mother country.
Three years afterwards another law was passed,
which enacted, that such commodities as the
Colonies might wish to purchase should be bought
only in the markets of the mother country.
Severe rules were prescribed to enforce the
provisions of these laws, and heavy penalties
imposed on all who should violate them. In the
subsequent years of the same reign, other
statutes were enacted to re-enforce these
statutes, and other rules prescribed to secure a
compliance with these rules. In this manner was
the trade to and from the Colonies restricted,
almost to the exclusive advantage of the parent
country. But laws, which rendered the interest
of a whole people subordinate to that of another
people, were not likely to execute themselves,
nor was it easy to find many on the spot, who
could be depended upon for carrying them into
execution. In fact, these laws were more or less
evaded or resisted, in all the Colonies. To
enforce them was the constant endeavor of the
government at home; to prevent or elude their
operation, the perpetual object here. "The laws
of navigation," says a living British writer,
"were nowhere so openly disobeyed and contemned
as in New England." "The people of Massachusetts
Bay," he adds, "were from the first disposed to
act as if independent of the mother country, and
having a governor and magistrates of their own
choice, it was difficult to enforce any
regulation which came from the English
Parliament, adverse to their interests." To
provide more effectually for the execution of
these laws, we know that courts of admiralty
were afterwards established by the crown, with
power to try revenue causes, as questions of
admiralty, upon the construction given by the
crown lawyers to an act of Parliament; a great
departure from the ordinary principles of
English jurisprudence, but which has been
maintained, nevertheless, by the force of habit
and precedent, and is adopted in our own
existing systems of government.
"There lie," says another English writer, whose
connection with the Board of Trade has enabled
him to ascertain many facts connected with
Colonial history, "There lie among the documents
in the board of trade and state-paper office,
the most satisfactory proofs, from the epoch of
the English Revolution in 1688, throughout every
reign, and during every administration, of the
settled purpose of the Colonies to acquire
direct independence and positive sovereignty."
Perhaps this may be stated somewhat too
strongly; but it cannot be denied, that, from
the very nature of the establishments here, and
from the general character of the measures
respecting their concerns early adopted and
steadily pursued by the English government, a
division of the empire was the natural and
necessary result to which every thing tended.
I have dwelt on this topic, because it seems to
me, that the peculiar original character of the
New England Colonies, and certain causes coeval
with their existence, have had a strong and
decided influence on all their subsequent
history, and especially on the great event of
the Revolution. Whoever would write our history,
and would understand and explain early
transactions, should comprehend the nature and
force of the feeling which I have endeavored to
describe. As a son, leaving the house of his
father for his own, finds, by the order of
nature, and the very law of his being, nearer
and dearer objects around which his affections
circle, while his attachment to the parental
roof becomes moderated, by degrees, to a
composed regard and an affectionate remembrance;
so our ancestors, leaving their native land, not
without some violence to the feelings of nature
and affection, yet, in time, found here a new
circle of engagements, interests, and
affections; a feeling, which more and more
encroached upon the old, till an undivided
sentiment, that this was their country, occupied
the heart; and patriotism, shutting out from its
embraces the parent realm, became local to
America.
Some retrospect of the century which has now
elapsed is among the duties of the occasion. It
must, however, necessarily be imperfect, to be
compressed within the limits of a single
discourse. I shall content myself, therefore,
with taking notice of a few of the leading and
most important occurrences which have
distinguished the period.
When the first century closed, the progress of
the country appeared to have been considerable;
notwithstanding that, in comparison with its
subsequent advancement, it now seems otherwise.
A broad and lasting foundation had been laid;
excellent institutions had been established;
many of the prejudices of former times had been
removed; a more liberal and catholic spirit on
subjects of religious concern had begun to
extend itself, and many things conspired to give
promise of increasing future prosperity. Great
men had arisen in public life, and the liberal
professions. The Mathers, father and son, were
then sinking low in the western horizon;
Leverett, the learned, the accomplished, the
excellent Leverett, was about to withdraw his
brilliant and useful light. In Pemberton great
hopes had been suddenly extinguished, but Prince
and Colman were in our sky; and along the east
had begun to flash the crepuscular light of a
great luminary which was about to appear, and
which was to stamp the age with his own name, as
the age of Franklin.
The bloody Indian wars, which harassed the
people for a part of the first century; the
restrictions on the trade of the Colonies, added
to the discouragements inherently belonging to
all forms of colonial government; the distance
from Europe, and the small hope of immediate
profit to adventurers, are among the causes
which had contributed to retard the progress of
population. Perhaps it may be added, also, that
during the period of the civil wars in England,
and the reign of Cromwell, many persons, whose
religious opinions and religious temper might,
under other circumstances, have induced them to
join the New England colonists, found reasons to
remain in England; either on account of active
occupation in the scenes which were passing, or
of an anticipation of the enjoyment, in their
own country, of a form of government, civil and
religious, accommodated to their views and
principles. The violent measures, too, pursued
against the Colonies in the reign of Charles the
Second, the mockery of a trial, and the
forfeiture of the charters, were serious evils.
And during the open violences of the short reign
of James the Second, and the tyranny of Andros,
as the venerable historian of Connecticut
observes, "All the motives to great actions, to
industry, economy, enterprise, wealth, and
population, were in a manner annihilated. A
general inactivity and languishment pervaded the
public body. Liberty, property, and every thing
which ought to be dear to men, every day grew
more and more insecure."
With the Revolution in England, a better
prospect had opened on this country, as well as
on that. The joy had been as great at that
event, and far more universal, in New than in
Old England. A new charter had been granted to
Massachusetts, which, although it did not
confirm to her inhabitants all their former
privileges, yet relieved them from great evils
and embarrassments, and promised future
security. More than all, perhaps, the Revolution
in England had done good to the general cause of
liberty and justice. A blow had been struck in
favor of the rights and liberties, not of
England alone, but of descendants and kinsmen of
England all over the world. Great political
truths had been established. The champions of
liberty had been successful in a fearful and
perilous conflict. Somers, and Cavendish, and
Jekyl, and Howard, had triumphed in one of the
most noble causes ever undertaken by men. A
revolution had been made upon principle. A
monarch had been dethroned for violating the
original compact between king and people. The
rights of the people to partake in the
government, and to limit the monarch by
fundamental rules of government, had been
maintained; and however unjust the government of
England might afterwards be towards other
governments or towards her colonies, she had
ceased to be governed herself by the arbitrary
maxims of the Stuarts.
New England had submitted to the violence of
James the Second not longer than Old England.
Not only was it reserved to Massachusetts, that
on her soil should be acted the first scene of
that great revolutionary drama, which was to
take place near a century afterwards, but the
English Revolution itself, as far as the
Colonies were concerned, commenced in Boston.
The seizure and imprisonment of Andros, in
April, 1689, were acts of direct and forcible
resistance to the authority of James the Second.
The pulse of liberty beat as high in the
extremities as at the heart. The vigorous
feeling of the Colony burst out before it was
known how the parent country would finally
conduct herself. The king's representative, Sir
Edmund Andros, was a prisoner in the castle at
Boston, before it was or could be known that the
king himself had ceased to exercise his full
dominion on the English throne.
Before it was known here whether the invasion of
the Prince of Orange would or could prove
successful, as soon as it was known that it had
been undertaken, the people of Massachusetts, at
the imminent hazard of their lives and fortunes,
had accomplished the Revolution as far as
respected themselves. It is probable that,
reasoning on general principles and the known
attachment of the English people to their
constitution and liberties, and their deep and
fixed dislike of the king's religion and
politics, the people of New England expected a
catastrophe fatal to the power of the reigning
prince. Yet it was neither certain enough, nor
near enough, to come to their aid against the
authority of the crown, in that crisis which had
arrived, and in which they trusted to put
themselves, relying on God and their own
courage. There were spirits in Massachusetts
congenial with the spirits of the distinguished
friends of the Revolution in England. There were
those who were fit to associate with the boldest
asserters of civil liberty; and Mather himself,
then in England, was not unworthy to be ranked
with those sons of the Church, whose firmness
and spirit in resisting kingly encroachments in
matters of religion, entitled them to the
gratitude of their own and succeeding ages.
The second century opened upon New England under
circumstances which evinced that much had
already been accomplished, and that still better
prospects and brighter hopes were before her.
She had laid, deep and strong, the foundations
of her society. Her religious principles were
firm, and her moral habits exemplary. Her public
schools had begun to diffuse widely the elements
of knowledge; and the College, under the
excellent and acceptable administration of
Leverett, had been raised to a high degree of
credit and usefulness.
The commercial character of the country,
notwithstanding all discouragements, had begun
to display itself, and five hundred vessels,
then belonging to Massachusetts, placed her, in
relation to commerce, thus early at the head of
the Colonies. An author who wrote very near the
close of the first century says:—"New England is
almost deserving that noble name, so mightily
hath it increased; and from a small settlement
at first, is now become a very populous and
flourishing government. The capital city,
Boston, is a place of great wealth and trade;
and by much the largest of any in the English
empire of America; and not exceeded but by few
cities, perhaps two or three, in all the
American world."
But if our ancestors at the close of the first
century could look back with joy and even
admiration, at the progress of the country, what
emotions must we not feel, when, from the point
on which we stand, we also look back and run
along the events of the century which has now
closed! The country which then, as we have seen,
was thought deserving of a "noble name,"—which
then had "mightily increased," and become "very
populous,"—what was it, in comparison with what
our eyes behold it? At that period, a very great
proportion of its inhabitants lived in the
eastern section of Massachusetts proper, and in
Plymouth Colony. In Connecticut, there were
towns along the coast, some of them respectable,
but in the interior all was a wilderness beyond
Hartford. On Connecticut River, settlements had
proceeded as far up as Deerfield, and Fort
Dummer had been built near where is now the
south line of New Hampshire. In New Hampshire no
settlement was then begun thirty miles from the
mouth of Piscataqua River, and in what is now
Maine the inhabitants were confined to the
coast. The aggregate of the whole population of
New England did not exceed one hundred and sixty
thousand. Its present amount (1820) is probably
one million seven hundred thousand. Instead of
being confined to its former limits, her
population has rolled backward, and filled up
the spaces included within her actual local
boundaries. Not this only, but it has overflowed
those boundaries, and the waves of emigration
have pressed farther and farther toward the
West. The Alleghany has not checked it; the
banks of the Ohio have been covered with it. New
England farms, houses, villages, and churches
spread over and adorn the immense extent from
the Ohio to Lake Erie, and stretch along from
the Alleghany onwards, beyond the Miamis, and
toward the Falls of St. Anthony. Two thousand
miles westward from the rock where their fathers
landed, may now be found the sons of the
Pilgrims, cultivating smiling fields, rearing
towns and villages, and cherishing, we trust,
the patrimonial blessings of wise institutions,
of liberty, and religion. The world has seen
nothing like this. Regions large enough to be
empires, and which, half a century ago, were
known only as remote and unexplored
wildernesses, are now teeming with population,
and prosperous in all the great concerns of
life; in good governments, the means of
subsistence, and social happiness. It may be
safely asserted, that there are now more than a
million of people, descendants of New England
ancestry, living, free and happy, in regions
which scarce sixty years ago were tracts of
unpenetrated forest. Nor do rivers, or
mountains, or seas resist the progress of
industry and enterprise. Erelong, the sons of
the Pilgrims will be on the shores of the
Pacific. The imagination hardly keeps pace with
the progress of population, improvement, and
civilization.
It is now five-and-forty years since the growth
and rising glory of America were portrayed in
the English Parliament, with inimitable beauty,
by the most consummate orator of modern times.
Going back somewhat more than half a century,
and describing our progress as foreseen from
that point by his amiable friend Lord Bathurst,
then living, he spoke of the wonderful progress
which America had made during the period of a
single human life. There is no American heart, I
imagine, that does not glow, both with
conscious, patriotic pride, and admiration for
one of the happiest efforts of eloquence, so
often as the vision of "that little speck,
scarce visible in the mass of national interest,
a small seminal principle, rather than a formed
body," and the progress of its astonishing
development and growth, are recalled to the
recollection. But a stronger feeling might be
produced, if we were able to take up this
prophetic description where he left it, and,
placing ourselves at the point of time in which
he was speaking, to set forth with equal
felicity the subsequent progress of the country.
There is yet among the living a most
distinguished and venerable name, a descendant
of the Pilgrims; one who has been attended
through life by a great and fortunate genius; a
man illustrious by his own great merits, and
favored of Heaven in the long continuation of
his years. The time when the English orator was
thus speaking of America preceded but by a few
days the actual opening of the revolutionary
drama at Lexington. He to whom I have alluded,
then at the age of forty, was among the most
zealous and able defenders of the violated
rights of his country. He seemed already to have
filled a full measure of public service, and
attained an honorable fame. The moment was full
of difficulty and danger, and big with events of
immeasurable importance. The country was on the
very brink of a civil war, of which no man could
foretell the duration or the result. Something
more than a courageous hope, or characteristic
ardor, would have been necessary to impress the
glorious prospect on his belief, if, at that
moment, before the sound of the first shock of
actual war had reached his ears, some attendant
spirit had opened to him the vision of the
future;—if it had said to him, "The blow is
struck, and America is severed from England for
ever!"—if it had informed him, that he himself,
during the next annual revolution of the sun,
should put his own hand to the great instrument
of independence, and write his name where all
nations should behold it and all time should not
efface it; that erelong he himself should
maintain the interests and represent the
sovereignty of his newborn country in the
proudest courts of Europe; that he should one
day exercise her supreme magistracy; that he
should yet live to behold ten millions of
fellow-citizens paying him the homage of their
deepest gratitude and kindest affections; that
he should see distinguished talent and high
public trust resting where his name rested; that
he should even see with his own unclouded eyes
the close of the second century of New England,
who had begun life almost with its commencement,
and lived through nearly half the whole history
of his country; and that on the morning of this
auspicious day he should be found in the
political councils of his native State,
revising, by the light of experience, that
system of government which forty years before he
had assisted to frame and establish; and, great
and happy as he should then behold his country,
there should be nothing in prospect to cloud the
scene, nothing to check the ardor of that
confident and patriotic hope which should glow
in his bosom to the end of his long protracted
and happy life.
It would far exceed the limits of this discourse
even to mention the principal events in the
civil and political history of New England
during the century; the more so, as for the last
half of the period that history has, most
happily, been closely interwoven with the
general history of the United States. New
England bore an honorable part in the wars which
took place between England and France. The
capture of Louisburg gave her a character for
military achievement; and in the war which
terminated with the peace of 1763, her exertions
on the frontiers wore of most essential service,
as well to the mother country as to all the
Colonies.
In New England the war of the Revolution
commenced. I address those who remember the
memorable 19th of April, 1775; who shortly after
saw the burning spires of Charlestown; who
beheld the deeds of Prescott, and heard the
voice of Putnam amidst the storm of war, and saw
the generous Warren fall, the first
distinguished victim in the cause of liberty. It
would be superfluous to say, that no portion of
the country did more than the States of New
England to bring the Revolutionary struggle to a
successful issue. It is scarcely less to her
credit, that she saw early the necessity of a
closer union of the States, and gave an
efficient and indispensable aid to the
establishment and organization of the Federal
government.
Perhaps we might safely say, that a new spirit
and a new excitement began to exist here about
the middle of the last century. To whatever
causes it may be imputed, there seems then to
have commenced a more rapid improvement. The
Colonies had attracted more of the attention of
the mother country, and some renown in arms had
been acquired. Lord Chatham was the first
English minister who attached high importance to
these possessions of the crown, and who foresaw
any thing of their future growth and extension.
His opinion was, that the great rival of England
was chiefly to be feared as a maritime and
commercial power, and to drive her out of North
America and deprive her of her West Indian
possessions was a leading object in his policy.
He dwelt often on the fisheries, as nurseries
for British seamen, and the colonial trade, as
furnishing them employment. The war, conducted
by him with so much vigor, terminated in a
peace, by which Canada was ceded to England. The
effect of this was immediately visible in the
New England Colonies; for, the fear of Indian
hostilities on the frontiers being now happily
removed, settlements went on with an activity
before that time altogether unprecedented, and
public affairs wore a new and encouraging
aspect. Shortly after this fortunate termination
of the French war, the interesting topics
connected with the taxation of America by the
British Parliament began to be discussed, and
the attention and all the faculties of the
people drawn towards them. There is perhaps no
portion of our history more full of interest
than the period from 1760 to the actual
commencement of the war. The progress of opinion
in this period, though less known, is not less
important than the progress of arms afterwards.
Nothing deserves more consideration than those
events and discussions which affected the public
sentiment and settled the Revolution in men's
minds, before hostilities openly broke out.
Internal improvement followed the establishment
and prosperous commencement of the present
government. More has been done for roads,
canals, and other public works, within the last
thirty years, than in all our former history. In
the first of these particulars, few countries
excel the New England States. The astonishing
increase of their navigation and trade is known
to every one, and now belongs to the history of
our national wealth.
We may flatter ourselves, too, that literature
and taste have not been stationary, and that
some advancement has been made in the elegant,
as well as in the useful arts.
The nature and constitution of society and
government in this country are interesting
topics, to which I would devote what remains of
the time allowed to this occasion. Of our system
of government the first thing to be said is,
that it is really and practically a free system.
It originates entirely with the people, and
rests on no other foundation than their assent.
To judge of its actual operation, it is not
enough to look merely at the form of its
construction. The practical character of
government depends often on a variety of
considerations, besides the abstract frame of
its constitutional organization. Among these are
the condition and tenure of property; the laws
regulating its alienation and descent; the
presence or absence of a military power; an
armed or unarmed yeomanry; the spirit of the
age, and the degree of general intelligence. In
these respects it cannot be denied that the
circumstances of this country are most favorable
to the hope of maintaining the government of a
great nation on principles entirely popular. In
the absence of military power, the nature of
government must essentially depend on the manner
in which property is holden and distributed.
There is a natural influence belonging to
property, whether it exists in many hands or
few; and it is on the rights of property that
both despotism and unrestrained popular violence
ordinarily commence their attacks. Our ancestors
began their system of government here under a
condition of comparative equality in regard to
wealth, and their early laws were of a nature to
favor and continue this equality.
A republican form of government rests not more
on political constitutions, than on those laws
which regulate the descent and transmission of
property. Governments like ours could not have
been maintained, where property was holden
according to the principles of the feudal
system; nor, on the other hand, could the feudal
constitution possibly exist with us. Our New
England ancestors brought hither no great
capitals from Europe; and if they had, there was
nothing productive in which they could have been
invested. They left behind them the whole feudal
policy of the other continent. They broke away
at once from the system of military service
established in the Dark Ages, and which
continues, down even to the present time, more
or less to affect the condition of property all
over Europe. They came to a new country. There
were, as yet, no lands yielding rent, and no
tenants rendering service. The whole soil was
unreclaimed from barbarism. They were
themselves, either from their original
condition, or from the necessity of their common
interest, nearly on a general level in respect
to property. Their situation demanded a
parceling out and division of the lands, and it
may be fairly said, that this necessary act
fixed the future frame and form of their
government. The character of their political
institutions was determined by the fundamental
laws respecting property. The laws rendered
estates divisible among sons and daughters. The
right of primogeniture, at first limited and
curtailed, was afterwards abolished. The
property was all freehold. The entailment of
estates, long trusts, and the other processes
for fettering and tying up inheritances, were
not applicable to the condition of society, and
seldom made use of. On the contrary, alienation
of the land was every way facilitated, even to
the subjecting of it to every species of debt.
The establishment of public registries, and the
simplicity of our forms of conveyance, have
greatly facilitated the change of real estate
from one proprietor to another. The consequence
of all these causes has been a great subdivision
of the soil, and a great equality of condition;
the true basis, most certainly, of a popular
government. "If the people," says Harrington,
"hold three parts in four of the territory, it
is plain there can neither be any single person
nor nobility able to dispute the government with
them; in this case, therefore, except force be
interposed, they govern themselves."
The history of other nations may teach us how
favorable to public liberty are the division of
the soil into small freeholds, and a system of
laws, of which the tendency is, without violence
or injustice, to produce and to preserve a
degree of equality of property. It has been
estimated, if I mistake not, that about the time
of Henry the Seventh four fifths of the land in
England was holden by the great barons and
ecclesiastics. The effects of a growing commerce
soon afterwards began to break in on this state
of things, and before the Revolution, in 1688, a
vast change had been wrought. It may be thought
probable, that, for the last half-century, the
process of subdivision in England has been
retarded, if not reversed; that the great weight
of taxation has compelled many of the lesser
freeholders to dispose of their estates, and to
seek employment in the army and navy, in the
professions of civil life, in commerce, or in
the colonies. The effect of this on the British
constitution cannot but be most unfavorable. A
few large estates grow larger; but the number of
those who have no estates also increases; and
there may be danger, lest the inequality of
property become so great, that those who possess
it may be dispossessed by force; in other words,
that the government may be overturned.
This is page 2 of 3 of Webster's
Plymouth Oration.
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