of the disciples of the Bohemian martyr, John Huss, who, from the stake to which he had been doomed for his resistance to papal tyranny, conjured his followers not to put their trust in princes.
The mass of the early colonists having been sufferers at home, as well from social and political inequalities as from the heavy hand of power applied to themselves, having left behind them much that they dreaded and nothing that they approved in the management of public affairs, were exposed to no influences that could disincline them to the establishment of just and equal governments in the land of their adoption. Nothing could therefore be more natural than that they and their immediate descendants, made familiar with the wrongs and outrages practiced on their fathers by absolute tyrants, should have been jealous of their liberties, and disposed to be rigid in their restrictions upon the grant and exercise of delegated authority. From this disposition sprang the principles to which they always adhered in the administration of public affairs, and in the defense of which they appear to have been always ready to make any necessary sacrifice. These, on the part of by far the largest portions of the original colonists and their descendants, were an insurmountable opposition to hereditary political power in any shape and under any circumstances; a suspicious watchfulness of all official authority, proportioned to their knowledge of its liability to be abused; a consequent indisposition to concede more than was indispensable to good government; the establishment of a certain, and, as they called it, a swift responsibility for the exercise of that which was granted; an habitual distrust, exhibited on various occasions in their history, of every offer of special privileges by government, and an unwillingness to confer the power to grant them—the former springing from suspicion that they were designed to impair their independence, and the latter from conviction, fully justified by experience, that such a power will always end in favoritism; and an early and strong appreciation of the value of union among themselves and between the colonies, originating in the necessity for their protection against the savages, and kept alive by perpetual machinations from the mother country to weaken and restrict their freedom.
These and kindred feelings and principles were, as I have said, natural to men whose antecedents, as well as those of their ancestors, had been such as I have described; and they remained throughout the prevailing features of colonial politics. They were not only the views of men prominent in their respective communities, but the matured convictions of the masses in respect to the line of policy necessary to their welfare, and therefore the more likely to be perpetuated, for it has been well and truly said, that "it is the masses alone that live." These opinions might occasionally and for a season lie dormant, or be made to yield to power, but neither corruption nor force could eradicate them. With occasional but brief intermissions, they controlled the action of the colonial legislatures; were embraced by a majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; directed the course of the Revolutionary Congress as well as that of the Government of the Confederation subsequent to the recognition of our Independence, and were in truth always the real sentiments of a majority of the people.
It will be hereafter seen when they were for a season rendered powerless, and when and how their control over the action of the government was restored.
The materials for tracing the action of the public mind, and the proceedings of public bodies during the early periods of our history, are, in comparison with those applicable to modern times, quite imperfect. But aided by the facts which the historians of our day, with great industry and in most cases with equal fidelity, have drawn from oblivion, and still more by the recent very general publication of the papers of eminent deceased statesmen, the work has become less difficult.
The fidelity of the Puritans to their well-known principles in respect to hereditary power, was soon exposed to a severe trial. During the residence of Sir Henry Vane in the Colony of Massachusetts, several English peers, induced by a desire to remove to that colony and to make it their place of permanent residence, offered to do so if changes could be effected in its government, by which the General Court should be divided into two bodies, and their hereditary right to seats in the upper branch allowed to them. Strong as was the wish of the colonists for the acquisition of those distinguished men, they yet declined a compliance with their wishes. All that they could be induced to allow was a life-tenure, and they actually made some appointments of that character; but of this they soon repented, and attached to the offices held by that tenure a condition which made the concession nugatory by making it valueless. It is perhaps not assuming too much to suppose that the regret they experienced at this momentary forgetfulness of their principles—a regret exhibited in various ways—had no small influence in inducing them to limit the terms of offices in the New England States to very short periods, as is still the custom there.
Similar conduct and feeling were disclosed by the colonists on every occasion that presented itself for their display, but the necessity for their exhibition was in a great measure superseded by the Declaration of Independence and the war that succeeded, during the continuance of which sentiments favorable to hereditary power were regarded by the country as crimes to be punished.
Our Independence was scarcely established when a circumstance occurred which exhibited in a very striking manner the fixed aversion of the great body of the people to hereditary distinctions.
The officers of the army, desirous of perpetuating the memory of the relations of respect and friendship which had grown up among them during the trying and momentous scenes through which they had passed, established, in May, 1783, the "Society of the Cincinnati," and made the honor of membership hereditary. It has not appeared that General Washington was consulted upon the subject in the first instance, but conscious of the purity of his own motives, and confiding fully in those of his military associates, he allowed his name to be placed at the head of the list of members and consented to be its president.
The principle of hereditary distinctions could not well have been placed before the people in a less exceptionable form, and yet there were but few occurrences during the war by which the public mind was so deeply excited as that by which the officers intended to grace the closing scenes of their meritorious career. The measure was assailed in all the forms in which an offended public opinion usually finds vent. In addition to able and eloquent attacks from American pens, the movement was severely criticised in a pamphlet published in France and written by Mirabeau, entitled, "Thoughts on the Order of Cincinnatus."
General Washington informed himself of the extent to which the subject was agitating the public mind, and, justly alarmed at the consequences it might produce, determined to do all in his power to arrest its progress. He wrote to Mr. Jefferson in April, 1784, asking his opinion and the probable views of Congress (of which Mr. Jefferson was a member) upon the subject, and his advice in respect to the most eligible measures to be adopted by the society at their next meeting, which was to be held in the ensuing month of May. This letter does not appear in the published writings of Washington, but an extract from it is given by Mr. Sparks, from which and from Jefferson's reply its contents as stated are gathered. Mr. Jefferson's answer, containing an unreserved communication of his opinions in the matter, may be found in Vol. I. of his Correspondence. He stated at length the objections that were made to the society, the unfriendliness of Congress to it, and added, in conclusion, that if, rather than decide themselves upon the best course to be pursued, the members should, at their approaching meeting, refer the question to Congress, such a reference would "infallibly produce a recommendation of total discontinuance."
General Washington attended the meeting in May, and proposed several changes in the constitution, and among them, in his own words, taken by Mr. Sparks from memoranda in his own handwriting, "to discontinue the hereditary part in all its connections, absolutely, without any substitution which can be construed into concealment or a change of ground only, for this would, in my opinion, increase rather than allay suspicion." This amendment, and others having a similar bearing, were adopted.
In Mr. Jefferson's letter to myself, accompanying this volume,[2] to which, as it was prepared with great care, and avowedly designed "to throw light on history and
