to the members of this volume’s advisory board. I also thank James McClellan for important suggestions during the early development of this volume and Donald Livingston, Clyde Wilson, and Robert Waters for helpful suggestions. Any mistakes in judgment, selection, or performance are mine alone. Finally, I owe a special debt of gratitude to my wife, Antonia, for her patience and support.
The editor has sought to make only a bare minimum of changes to the texts included in this volume, so as to convey the flavor as well as content of the writings. Changes are limited to the following: The use of asterisks to mark deleted text has been replaced with the use of ellipses. Asterisks inserted without clear meaning or intent have been deleted, as have marginalia, extraneous quotation marks, and page numbers from previous editions that had been inserted in various texts. The letters “f” and “s” have been properly distinguished. Some of the longer titles have been shortened in accordance with modern usage. Headings in which the original text used anachronistic fonts or, for example, all capital letters, have been modernized and standardized.
The work of preceding editors in modernizing punctuation and spelling has not been tampered with. The editors of these previous volumes all expressed a desire to maintain strict fidelity to the original text and thereby incorporated only such minor modernizations in spelling, grammar, and punctuation as were absolutely necessary to promote readability and consistency. Those readers seeking specifics on such issues may find them in the relevant source volumes in the bibliography.
The principal issue of concern to the lay reader will be the inclusion of material in brackets. Such brackets denote material filled in by the editor, material questionable as to its true authorship, or in some instances text missing from the original.
Only those footnotes deemed necessary for understanding of the text have been reproduced here. However, in some instances (e.g., selections from Dickinson, Boucher, Noah Webster, and Story) footnotes are integral to the text, and in others explanatory notes are necessary. Footnotes of earlier editors are marked “Ed.” and those few footnotes added by the current editor are marked “B. F.”
In reproducing the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate it was necessary to standardize fonts and to eliminate headings and subheadings inserted by the previous editors.
The American Republic
PART ONE Colonial Settlements and Societies
No people has a true “beginning.” Just as individuals come from families and neighborhoods, which instill them with certain beliefs and habits from an early age, so peoples come from other places and communities; they do not simply assemble and form themselves out of thin air. But the study of a people’s inheritance must end somewhere. There must come a point at which we say, “Here are the basic, fundamental events and actions that set members of one community on their way to forming another.” With Americans that point is the beginning of formal settlement in the New World.
Settlers brought to America a wealth of traditions, beliefs, habits, and motivations. They did not come to the New World as clean slates, nor did they write upon clean slates in forming new communities. Whether fleeing persecution, seeking wealth, or striving to establish a more godly community, they had to operate within the restrictions established by their charters or grants from the British king. Most obviously, these charters set down what authority would rule over settlers in each colony, whether it was a single proprietor, a governor answerable to the king, or a corporation set up under the king’s auspices that also had to answer to the royal power. But troubles in Great Britain and the difficulties of long-distance travel in an era of wind-powered ships gave the settlers vast leeway in establishing local political, economic, and religious communities. This is not to say that events in Great Britain were irrelevant to those in the New World. The time of settlement was one of great unrest; it included the era of constitutional conflict between King James I and Parliament, followed by the English Civil War (1642–49), which resulted in the beheading of Charles I and was itself followed by more than a decade of dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan army. But settlers in America exercised great freedom in establishing rules by which to govern themselves.
GOVERNING DOCUMENTS
For many centuries, the English people have had a particular faith in the power of the written word, and especially in the power of written documents to establish the means by which they were to be governed. Thus, despite the varying reasons for which English settlers came to America, written documents played a crucial role in the founding of the English colonies. And, despite many differences, these documents share important characteristics: an emphasis on the community’s duties to God and on God’s role as protector and judge of the community; a call on members of the community to serve the public good; and a reliance on written laws to enforce virtue and good order. In addition, by 1638, with the restoration of power to the Virginia House of Burgesses, legislative deliberation and consent were established as central governing principles in the American colonies. Documents in this section include frames of government that spell out how authority and lawmaking power shall be determined and list laws detailing rights, duties, and penalties for law-breaking. They also include more generalized covenants binding communities together in pursuit of a virtuous, religious life as well as more specific acts aimed at establishing workable township governance and securing the loyalty of the governors and the governed.
Virginia Articles, Laws, and Orders
Virginia, the first English colony in America, was set up with a view toward economic profit. In the early years there were no profits. Life was harsh, and many people died from disease, hunger, and skirmishes with the Indians. The governing council, appointed in England, could not keep order, and the governor declared martial law. The following articles, issued by decree, were intended to restore order. Religion was accorded a crucial role in teaching the habits of good conduct during this era, and there was a common reliance in England and the other nations of Europe as well as in Virginia on the death penalty for a large number of offenses.
Articles, Laws, and Orders, Divine, Politic, and Martial for the Colony in Virginia
Articles, Lawes, and Orders, Divine, Politique, and Martiall for the Colony in Virginea: first established by Sir Thomas Gates Knight, Lieutenant Generall, the 24th of May 1610, exemplified and approved by the Right Honourable Sir Thomas West Knight, Lord Lawair, Lord Governor and Captaine Generall the 12th day of June 1610. Againe exemplified and enlarged by Sir Thomas Dale Knight, Marshall, and Deputie Governour, the 22nd of June, 1611.
Whereas his Majestie like himselfe a most zealous Prince hath in his owne Realmes a principall care of true Reli-gion, and reverence to God, and hath alwaies strictly commaunded his Generals and Governours, with all his forces wheresoever, to let their waies be like his ends for the glorie of God.
And forasmuch as no good service can be performed, or warre well managed, where militarie discipline is not observed, and militarie discipline cannot be kept, where the rules or chiefe parts thereof, be not certainely set downe, and generally knowne, I have (with the advise and counsell of Sir Thomas Gates Knight, Lieutenant Generall) adhered unto the lawes divine, and orders politique, and martiall of his Lordship (the same exemplified) an addition of such others, as I have found either the necessitie of the present State of the Colonie to require, or the infancie, and weaknesses of the body thereof, as yet able to digest, and doe now publish them to all persons in the Colonie, that they may as well take knowledge of the Lawes themselves, as of the penaltie
