THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA. 189 XIV. beginning, had been modified in many counties by the CHAP custom of gavelkind.1 Virginia could not imitate those great legislative reforms of the Long Parliament, because her happier soil was free from the burdens of forest laws and military tenures, courts of wards, and starchambers. The tendency towards a multiplication of religious sects began already to be perceptible, under the freedom of a popular government. In its care for a regular succession of representative assemblies, Virginia exceeded the jealous friends of republican liberty in England; there triennial parliaments had been established by law; the Virginians, imitating the terms of the bill, claimed the privilege of a biennial election of their legislators. In addition to the strength derived from the natural character of the emigrants, from the absence of feudal institutions, from the entire absence of the excessive refinements of legal erudition, and from the constitution, legislation, and elective franchises of the colonists, a new and undefined increase was gained by the universal prevalence of the spirit of personal independence. An instinctive aversion to too much government was always a trait of southern character, expressed in the solitary manner of settling the country, in the absence of municipal governments, in the indisposition of the scattered inhabitants to engage in commerce, to collect in towns, or to associate in townships under corporate powers. As a consequence, there was little commercial industry; and, on the soil of Virginia, there were no vast accumulations of commercial wealth. The exchanges were made almost entirely 1 Jones's State of Virginia, p. 61. 2 Hening, i. 517. The bill is modelled after the "act for preventing inconveniences happening by the " long intermission of parliament, CHAP. and it continued so for more than a century—by facXIV. tors of foreign merchants. Thus the influence of wealth, under the modern form of stocks and accumulations of money, was always inconsiderable; and men were so widely scattered—like hermits among the heathen-that far the smallest number were within reach of the direct influence of the established church or of government. In Virginia, except in matters that related to foreign commerce, a man's own will went far towards being his law. Yet the germs of an aristocracy existed; and there was already a tendency towards obtaining for it the sanction of colonial legislation. Unlike Massachu-setts, Virginia was a continuation of English society. The first colonists were not fugitives from persecution; they came, rather, under the auspices of the nobility, the church, and the mercantile interests of England; they brought with them an attachment to monarchy; a deep reverence for the Anglican church; a love for England and English institutions. Their minds had never been disciplined into an antipathy to feudalism their creed had never been shaken by the progress of skepticism; no new ideas of natural rights had as yet inclined them to "faction." The Anglican church was, therefore, without repugnance, sanctioned as the religion of the state; and a religion established by law always favors aristocracy; for it seeks support, not in conviction only, but in vested rights. The rise of the plebeian sects, which swarmed in England, was, for the present at least, prevented, and unity of worship, with few exceptions, continued for about a century from the settlement of Jamestown. The aristocracy of Virginia was, from its origin, exclusively a landed aristocracy; its germ lay in the manner in which rights to the soil had ARISTOCRACY IN VIRGINIA. 191 XIV Deen obtained. For every person whom a planter CHAF. should, at his own charge, transport into Virginia, he could claim fifty acres of land; and thus a body of large proprietors had existed from the infancy of the settlement.1 These vast possessions, often an inheritance for the eldest born, awakened the feelings of family pride. The power of the rising aristocracy was still further increased by the deplorable want of the means of education in Virginia. The great mass of the rising generation could receive little literary culture; the higher degrees of cultivated intelligence in the colony were confined to a small number of favored emigrants Many of the royalists who came over after the death of Charles I., brought to the colony the culture and education that belonged to the English gentry of that day; and the direction of affairs necessarily fell into their hands. The instinct of liberty may create popular institutions; they cannot be preserved in their integrity except by the conscious intelligence of the people. But the distinctions in society were rendered more marked by the character of the plebeian population of Virginia. Many of them had reached the shores of Virginia as servants; doomed, according to the severe laws of that age, to a temporary bondage. Some of them, even, were convicts; but it must be remembered, the crimes of which they were convicted were chiefly political. The number transported to Virginia for social crimes was never considerable; scarcely enough to sustain the sentiment of pride in its scorn of the laboring population; certainly not enough to affect its character. Yet the division of society into two classes was strongly marked, in a degree une 1 Virginia's Cure, by R. G. 1662, p. 8 XIV. CHAP. qualled in any northern colony, and unmitigated by public care for education. The system of common schools was unknown. "Every man," said Sir William Berkeley in 1671, "instructs his children according to his ability;" a method which left the children of the ignorant to hopeless ignorance. The instinct of aristocracy dreaded the general diffusion of intelligence, and even the enfranchising influence of the preaching of the ministers. "The ministers," continued Sir William, in the spirit of the aristocracy of the Tudors, "should pray oftener and preach less. But, I thank God, there are no free schools, nor printing; and I hope we shall not have, these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both." Thus, in addition to the difficulties which the degraded caste of servants encountered in their endeavors to lift themselves into distinction, the power of the government was exerted to depress whole classes of society. We rightly abhor the envy which delights in debasing excellence; it is a still greater crime against humanity, to combine against the masses in their struggle for intellectual and social advancement. Still servants were emancipated, when their years of servitude were ended; and the law was designed to secure and to hasten their enfranchisement. The insurrection, which was plotted by a number of servants in 1663, had its origin in impatience of 1 "Their almost general want of schooles, for the education of their children, is of most sad consideration, most of all bewailed of the parents there, and therefore the arguments drawn from thence. most likely to prevail with thein chearfully to embrace the Remedy." Virginia's Cure, p. 5. SERVANTS AND SLAVES IN VIRGINIA 193 XIV. servitude and oppression. A few bondmen, soldiers CHAP. of Cromwell, and probably Roundheads, were excited by their own sufferings, and by the nature of life in the wilderness, to indulge once more in vague desires for a purer church and a happier condition. From the character of the times, their passions were sustained by political fanaticism; but no definite plan of revolution was devised; nor did the conspiracy extend beyond a scheme of indented servants to anticipate the period of their freedom. The effort was the work of ignorant men, and was easily suppressed.1 The facility of escape compelled humane treatment of white servants. Towards the negro the laws were less tolerant. The statute which declares who are slaves, followed the old idea, long prevalent through Christendom, "All servants, not being Christians, imported into this 1670 country by shipping, shall be slaves." Yet it was added, "conversion to the Christian faith doth not 1682 make free." The early Anglo-Saxon rule, interpreting every doubtful question in favor of liberty, declared the children of freemen to be free. Virginia was humane towards men of the white race; was severe towards the negro. Doubts arose, if the offspring of an Englishman by a negro woman should be bond or free; and the rule of the Roman law prevailed over 1662 the Anglo-Saxon. The offspring followed the condition of its mother. Enfranchisement of the colored population was not encouraged; the female slave was not subject to taxation; the emancipated negress was 16€8 "a tithable." "The death of a slave from extremity of correction, was not accounted felony; since it 1 Hening, ii. 510. Beverley. MS. of the General Court of Vir Letter from N. P. Hɔward, clerk ginia. |