§ 191] GAINS IN FREEDOM 153 In 1727, Burnet, Governor of Massachusetts, laid before the Assembly his instructions to secure from that body a fixed grant of £1000 a year. Refusal, he said, would be taken by the King as "a manifest mark of undutiful behavior." On the other hand, a Boston town meeting bluntly called upon the Assembly "to oppose any bill . . . that may in the least bear upon our natural rights and charter privileges, which, we apprehend, the giving in to the King's instructions would certainly do." Burnet was popular, as well as able; and the Assembly voted him not £1000, but £ 1700, for one year. The governor indignantly refused to be "bribed" into proving false to his instructions. The Assembly raised their offer, still in vain. For three years the struggle continued. Then a new governor, in want of money, petitioned the crown to allow him to receive the annual grant temporarily. The English government assented, and Massachusetts had won. 1 190. To the credit of the monarchs, no attempt was made, in this long contest, to suppress any colonial Assembly. Indeed, while the English government did in some respects extend its powers in the colonies, still the Assemblies also made substantial gains. Everywhere the elected Houses claimed the powers and privileges of the English House of Commons. Especially did they get more control over finances. After long struggles, they shut out the appointed Councils from any authority over money bills, and, in each colony, they created a Treasurer, not appointed by the governor, but elected by the Assembly. 191. Private rights, too, were more clearly defined. the approval of the crown lawyers, the doctrine was established that the Common Law of England, with all its emphasis on personal liberty, was also the common law of the colonies even without express enactment. And at least one advance was made in the colonies over English custom in the matter of personal liberty- namely, a greater safety for a free press. With In 1735 a tyrannical governor of New York removed the 1Just as in England, the appointed and hereditary House of Lords was no longer permitted to amend or reject bills of supply. chief justice of the colony from office for personal reasons. John Zenger in his Weekly Journal published vigorous criticism of this action, declaring that, if unchecked, it threatened slavery to the people. Zenger was prosecuted for criminal libel. In England at that day such a prosecution, backed by the government, was sure of success. In New York, the new chief justice, too, showed a determination to secure a conviction. He tried to limit the jury to deciding only whether Zenger was responsible for the publication (a matter not denied), reserving to himself the decision whether the words were punishable. This was the custom of English courts in such cases to a much later period. But Zenger's lawyer in a great speech argued that public criticism is a necessary safeguard for free government, and that, to prevent the crushing out of a legitimate and needed criticism, the jury in such a trial must decide whether the words used were libelous or true. This cause, said he, is "not the Cause of a poor Printer alone, nor of New York alone," but of "every free Man on the Main of America." He called upon the jury to guard the liberty "to which Nature and the Laws of our Country have given us the Right, the Liberty of exposing and opposing arbitrary Power (in these parts of the World at least) by speaking and writing the Truth." "A free people," he exclaimed bluntly, "are not obliged by any Law to support a Governor who goes about to destroy a Province." The jury insisted upon this right, and declared Zenger "Not guilty." Gouverneur Morris afterward styled this acquittal "the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America." 2 FOR FURTHER READING. The best treatments (outside of special monographs) are Greene's Provincial America, 1-80, Channing's second volume, 217-281, and Becker's Beginnings, 125-200. An excellent treatment of Virginia is given in Fiske's Old Virginia, II, 174–269. 1 Cf. Modern Progress, p. 249, or Modern World, § 746. The fullest account 2 This trial was one of several at about the same time. in a general history is in Channing, II, 475–489. Zenger's own account, resembling a modern "report," is reproduced in the Source Book, No. 113. RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH 155 Classify the "navigation acts" under three heads 2. What are the two main subdivisions of the colonial period? Into what two subperiods is the second of those divisions again subdivided, and by what? Write a brief paragraph upon the matter of these divisions and subdivisions, stating dates for each, and the characteristic marks. LEXINGTON GREEN, showing part of a typical New England village and the scene of the first bloodshed of the Revolution. When the British regulars reached Lexington on their way to Concord (p. 213), they found there a few "Minute Men" in front of the Meeting House - from the site of which this view is taken. Said Captain Parker to his little band,"Stand your ground. Do not fire unless fired upon. But if they want a war, let it begin here." And so, in spite of the British officer's command, "Disperse, you scoundrels," the Americans stood their groundand received a deadly volley. One of those who fell was the patriot Harrington, who, fatally wounded, dragged himself to his home (the house best shown in the picture) to die on its steps while his wife was trying to help him in. CHAPTER XVIII COLONIAL LIFE 192. Much colonial legislation goes under the name of Blue Laws. The term signifies either undue severity in punishing ordinary crime, or unreasonable interference with personal liberty. In the first sense (that of bloody laws), the colonists could not be blamed by Europeans of their day. Everywhere, life was still harsh and cruel; but American legislation was more humane and rational than that of England or France. True, many barbarities did survive. The pillory and whipping post (with clipping of ears) were in universal use. As late as 1748, a Virginian law (Source Book, No. 115) required every parish to have these instruments ready, and suggested also a ducking stool for "brabbling women." Prison life was unspeakably foul and horrible. Death was the penalty for many deeds not now considered capital crimes in any civilized land; and many punishments seem to us ingeniously repulsive, such as branding for robbery. T In the second meaning of Blue Laws, that of inquisitorial legislation, — New England comes in for just criticism. Not that she was much worse than the rest of the world even in that. To-day, as a rule, legislation aims to correct a man's 1 When the colonies were growing up, there were over fifty offenses punishable with death in England. This number increased to about two hundred before the "sanguinary chaos" was reformed in the nineteenth century (ef. Modern World, § 746); but not more than eighteen offenses were ever "capital" in New England. Virginia ran the number up to twenty-seven; but in large part this was due to her cruel slave laws, which were rarely enforced. § 194] BLUE LAWS 157 conduct only where it directly affects other people; but in that day, all over Christendom, the state tried to regulate conduct purely personal. This was because state and church were so closely connected. In Virginia, the colonial law required. attendance at church, and forbade traveling on Sunday.1 In the Puritan colonies such legislation was more minutely vexing, and more rigorously enforced. 193. At the same time, the most common specific charges against New England are wholly false. It is still widely believed that in Connecticut the law forbade a woman to kiss her child on Sunday; that it prohibited playing on "any instrument of music except the drum, trumpet, and jewsharp"; and that it required" all males" to have their hair "cut round according to a cap." These "laws" are merely the ingenious vengeance of a fugitive Tory clergyman (S. A. Peters), who during the Revolution published in England a History of Connecticut. This quaint book contains a list of forty-five alleged "Blue Laws." Some are essentially correct, and most have some basis in fact; but a few are mere malicious inventions, and it is by these almost alone that the "code" is generally known. The veracity of the Reverend Mr. Peters may be judged from other items in his History. He pictures the inhabitants of a Connecticut village fleeing from their beds, mistaking the croaking of an "army of thirsty frogs" (on their way from one pond to another) for the yells of an attacking party of French and Indians; and he describes the rapids of the Connecticut River thus, "Here water is consolidated without frost, by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching, sturdy rocks, to such a degree of induration that an iron crow [bar] floats smoothly down its current "! 194. Soon after 1650 there began a slow decay in Puritanism. The English historian, Freeman, complains that students of history go wrong because they think that "all the Ancients lived at the same time." It is essential for us to see the colonist of 1730 or 1700 as a different creature from his great grandfather of 1660 or 1630. Even in the first century in Massachu 1 Cf. § 37 and Source Book, No. 35. |