Election of President Buchanan. Governor Banks. - Prosperity of the State. - The "Personal Liberty" Act. — Election of Governor Inauguration of President Lincoln. — Fall of Fort Sumter. - Call for Volunteers. - The Response of Massachusetts. - The Three Months' Regiments. Their Record. — Another call for Volunteers. An extra Session of the Legislature. - Departure of the Three Years' Regiments. -The Battle of Ball's Bluff. — Proceedings of the Maryland Legisla- ture. Re-election of Governor Andrew. The Spring of 1862. Position of the Massachusetts Troops. The third Call for Troops. - New Regiments recruited. - The Battle of Antietam. - The Emancipa- tion Proclamation issued. The colored Troops.-The Nine Months' Regiments. Riot in Boston. - Party Conventions. - Re-election of Governor Andrew. - More Troops wanted. - Speech of Governor Andrew. Progress of the War. - Re-election of President Lincoln. - Re-election of Governor Andrew. - Death of Edward Everett. Surrender of General Lee. - Death of President Lincoln. · Close of The Legislature of 1866. The Militia Act. - The Hoosac Tunnel. — Debate on the Liquor Question. -Grant to the Troy and Greenfield Railroad. Debt of the State. -Revival of the Liquor Question. - The Troy and Greenfield Railroad. - The Hoosac Tunnel. - Election of Governor Claflin. - Proceedings of the Legislature. - The "Peace Jubilee." Party Conventions. Continued Discussion of the Liquor Question. The Prohibitory Law amended.—The Hartford and Erie Railroad. The Legislature of 1871.-The Autumn Campaign. — Elec- tion of Governor Washburn. - The Legislature of 1872.- Political Conventions. -Election of President Grant. The "World's Peace Jubilee." The Boston Conflagration. — Proceedings of the Legisla- ture. Election of Ex-Governor Boutwell to the United States Senate. - The Liquor Question. — Legislature of 1873.- Boston enlarged. — Politics.-Death of Senator Sumner. -Election of Senator Washburn. -The Mill River Disaster. - Politics. - Legislature of 1875. - Election of Senator Dawes. - Lexington and Concord Centennial. - Bunker Hill Centennial. Cambridge Centennial. - Politics. - Election of Governor CHAPTER XXVI. THE ERA OF REFORM. -- The Session of 1876.-The Political Canvass.-State and National son - - - 567-584 THE HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. CHAPTER I. THE PLYMOUTH COLONY. Ar the close of the sixteenth century, four religious parties existed in England. The Catholics, or adherents of the church of Rome, were still powerful in certain localities. The Protestant element was divided into three sects - the Anglicans, or members of the English church; the Puritans, or non-conformists, who differed from the former only in a disregard of special rites and observances; and the Independents, or Separatists, who refused to sanction the founding of a national church, on the ground that it was purely contrary to the Word of God. In the minds of all classes a sort of mutual hatred had arisen, and heated controversies soon resulted in the most bitter persecutions. Had not these evils become unbearable to the weaker sects, hundreds would not so willingly have forsaken the land of their nativity and taken refuge across the sea. After the death of Elizabeth, in 1603, James I. ascended the throne. His want of personal dignity, his coarse buffoonery, his drunkenness, his contemptible cowardice, were only partially offset by his natural ability, his ripe scholarship, his fund of shrewdness, his mother-wit, and his ready repartee. Always a pedant, he had also a pedant's temper, and a pedant's inability to reconcile theories with actual facts. He believed, for instance, in the divine right of kings, and that a monarch was free from all control by law, or from responsibility to anything but his own royal will. This notion, founded on a blunder, was quite new to his people; but, nevertheless, it became the basis of a system of government, a doctrine which bishops preached from the pulpits, and which the Established Church was not slow to adopt. Before his accession to the throne, King James had always professed a sincere regard for the teachings of Knox, and his open declarations naturally aroused the hopes of the Puritan sect. Ere long, however, he showed himself a dissembler. Behind his intellectual convictions lay a host of prejudices, and it was plain to discern that his favorite. religion was that which most favored his ideas of "absolute monarchy." The Puritans dared to dispute his boasted infallibility, and to denounce ceremonies, which, it was alleged, "had authority in the writings of the Fathers." For this reason the king turned himself against them, swearing either to "make them conform" or to “ "harry them out of the kingdom." "No bishop, no king," was his motto; and he declared he would have only "one doctrine and one discipline, one religion in substance and in ceremony." While men were dwelling ominously on the claims of absolutism in church and state, which were constantly on 1 Sanderson, James I., 303. |