Part 11 (1/2)
No occupation is so well calculated to rivet upon the heart a love of country as that of agriculture. No profession is more honorable--but few are as conducive to health and above all others it insures peace, tranquillity and happiness. A calling independent in its nature--it is calculated to produce an innate love of Liberty. The farmer stands upon a lofty eminence and looks upon the bustle of mechanism, the din of commerce and the multiform perplexities of the various literary professions, with feelings of personal freedom unknown to them. He acknowledges the skill and indispensable necessity of the first--the enterprise and usefulness of the second--the wide spread benefits of the last--then turns his mind to the pristine quiet of his agrarian domain and covets not the fame that cl.u.s.ters around them all. His opportunities for intellectual improvement are superior to the two first and in many respects not inferior to the last. Constantly surrounded by the varied beauties of nature and the never ceasing harmonious operation of her laws--his mind is led to contemplate the wisdom of the great Architect of worlds. The philosophy of the universe is constantly presenting new phases to his enraptured view. Aloof from the commoving arena of public life but made acquainted with what is pa.s.sing there through the medium of the magic PRESS--he is able to form deliberate opinions upon the various topics that concern the good and glory of his country. In his retired domicil he is less exposed to that corrupt and corrupting party spirit that is raised by the whirlwind of selfish ambition and often rides on the tornado of faction. Before he is roused to a partic.i.p.ation in violent commotions he hears much, reflects deeply, resolves n.o.bly.
When the oppression of rulers becomes so intolerable as to induce the yeomanry of a country to leave their ploughs and peaceful firesides and draw the avenging sword--let them beware and know the day of retribution is at hand.
Thus it was at the commencement of the American Revolution. When the implements of husbandry were exchanged for those of war and the farmers joined in the glorious cause of Liberty, the fate of England's power over the Colonies was hermetically sealed. The concentrated phalanx of commingling professions was irresistible as an avalanche in the full plenipotence of force.
Among the patriots of that eventful era who left their ploughs and rushed to the rescue was John Hart, born at Hopewell, Hunterdon County, N. J. about the year 1715. The precise time of his birth is not a matter of record--his acts in the cause of Liberty are. He was the son of Edward Hart, a brave and efficient officer who aided the mother country in the conquest of Canada and partic.i.p.ated in the epic laurels that were gained by Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. He raised a volunteer corps under the cognomen of Jersey Blues--an appellation still the pride of Jerseymen. He fought valiantly and was recompensed with praise--not the gold of the mother country. John Hart was an extensive farmer, a man of strong mind improved by reading and reflection, ever ambitious to excel in his profession. In Deborah Scudder he found an amiable and faithful wife. In the affections and good conduct of a liberal number of sons and daughters he found an enjoyment which bachelors may affect to disdain but for which they often sigh. Eden's fair bowers were dreary until Heaven's first best gift to man was there.
Known as a man of sound judgment, clear perception, liberal views and pure motives, John Hart was called to aid in public business long before the Revolution. For twenty years he had served in various stations and was often a member of the legislature. He took a deep interest in the local improvements necessary in a new country. He was a warm advocate for education, was liberal in donations to seminaries of learning. He was a friend to social order and did much to produce an equilibrium in the scales of justice. In organizing the munic.i.p.al government of his county he rendered essential service. He looked on public business as a duty to be performed when required--not as a political hobby-horse to ride upon. The public men of that day said but little. They despatched business promptly with an eye single to the general good. Sinecures were unknown--office hunters few and far between. Industry, frugality and economy in public and private matters were marked characteristics of the pilgrim fathers. Golden days! when will ye return in the majesty of your innocence and banish from our land the enervating follies, the poisonous weeds, the impugning evils that augur the destruction of our far famed Republic.
Mr. Hart was quick to discern the encroachments of the British ministry upon the chartered and const.i.tutional rights of the colonies and prompt to resist them. The pa.s.sage of the Stamp Act on the 22d of March 1765 was followed by a commotion that indicated a slender tenure of kingly power in America. This odious Act was repealed on the 18th of March 1776. But the ministerial alchemists were madly bent on new experiments.
The colonists had borne the yoke of artful and increasing restrictions upon their trade and industry for fifty years. It was presumed their necks were hardened so as to bear a heavier burden. Deluded alchemists--they little understood the kind of metal put in their crucible. Direct taxation without representation was no part of the English const.i.tution. This violation could not be tamely submitted to.
The second edition of the revenue plan revised and stereotyped in 1767 by Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, imposing a duty on gla.s.s, paper, pasteboard, tea and painters' colors--kindled a flame in the Colonies that no earthly power could quench. Public meetings against the measure--resolutions of the deepest censure, remonstrances of the strongest character, arguments of the most conclusive logic were hurled back upon the ministry. Boston harbor was converted into a teapot and all the tea afloat used at one drawing. Non-importation agreements, committees of safety, preparations for defence, non-intercourse, bloodshed, war and Independence followed. In all these movements Mr.
Hart concurred and firmly opposed the encroachments of the crown.
In 1774 he was elected to Congress and entered upon the high duties of his station with a deep sense of the responsibilities that rested upon that body at that particular time. Mild, deliberate, cautious, discreet and firm in his purposes--he became an important member in carrying out the measures then contemplated--reconciliation and a restoration of amity. On the 10th of May 1775 he again took his place in Congress. The cry of blood, shed on the 19th of the preceding April at Lexington, had infused a spirit among the members widely different from that which pervaded their minds at the previous meeting. It was then that the cool deliberation of such men as Mr. Hart was indispensable. The ardor and impetuosity of youth had pa.s.sed away--propositions and arguments were placed in the balance of reason. Causes, effects, objects, ends, plans, means, consequences--all were put in the scales of justice and honestly weighed. In this manner every act was performed with clean hands, the cause of Liberty honored, prospered and crowned with triumphant success.
At this time Mr. Hart was a member and Vice President of the a.s.sembly of New Jersey and shortly after had the proud satisfaction of aiding in the funeral obsequies of the old government and joined in the festivities of forming a new one upon the broad platform of republicanism.
On the 14th of February 1776 he was again elected to the Continental Congress and when the Chart of Liberty was presented he carefully examined its bold physiognomy--p.r.o.nounced its points, features, landmarks, delineations and entire combinations worthy of freemen gave it his vote, his signature and his benediction. At the close of the session he retired from public life and declined a re-election. As he antic.i.p.ated, the British drove away his family, destroyed his property and after he returned hunted him from place to place and several times had him so nearly cornered that his escape seemed impossible. His exposure in eluding the pursuit of the relentless foe brought on illness that terminated his life in 1780. He was a worthy member of the Baptist church--a devoted Christian--an HONEST MAN.
PATRICK HENRY.
Genius is one of the indefinable attributes of man. We may think, see, talk and write upon this n.o.ble quality, rehea.r.s.e its triumphant achievements, its magic wonders, its untiring efforts--but what _is_ genius? that's the question--one that none but pedants will attempt to answer. The thing, the moving cause, the _modus operandi_ can no more be comprehended and reduced to materiality than the spirit that animates our bodies. The man who can do this can a.n.a.lyze the tornado, put the thunder cloud in his breeches pocket and quaff lightning for a beverage.
Metaphysicians, physiologists and craniologists may put on their robes of mystery, arm each eye with a microscope, each finger with the acutest phrenological sensibility, whet up all their mental powers to the finest keenness, strain their imagination to its utmost tension, tax speculation one hundred per cent, and then call to their aid the brightest specimens of this occult power--the combined force could not weave a web and label it GENIUS that would not be an insult to common sense. Genius is the essential oil of mental power. No frost can freeze it, no fog can mildew it, no heat can paralyze it, no potentate can crush it. In all countries and climes it springs up spontaneously but flourishes most luxuriantly and attains a more perfect symmetry and greater strength when nurtured by intelligence and freedom. So versatile is this concentrated essence of mental power that we can form no rule to pre-determine its personal locality, its time of development, its measure of strength or the extent of its...o...b..t. Like a blazing meteor--it bursts suddenly upon us as in the darkness of night, illuminating the world and like the lightning thunder bolt--s.h.i.+vers every obstacle that stands in its way.
Thus it was with Patrick Henry born at Studley, Hanover County, Virginia, on the 29th of May 1736. His father was a highly reputable man of Scotch descent--his mother was the sister of Judge Winston who was justly celebrated as an eloquent speaker. During his childhood and youth Patrick was remarkable for indolence and a love of recreation. He arrived at manhood with a limited education and ignorant of all occupations. His mind was not cultivated, his native talents were not developed, his genius was not awakened until after he was a husband and a father. His friends vainly endeavored to put him on a course of application to business by setting him up in the mercantile line.
Preferring his fis.h.i.+ng rod and gun to measuring tape he soon failed.
Finding himself bankrupt he concluded that the increasing troubles of his pilgrimage were too numerous to bear alone. He married the daughter of a respectable planter and became a tiller of the ground. Unacquainted with this new vocation he soon swamped in the quagmire of adversity. He then gibed, put his helm hard up and tacked to the mercantile business.
Still he was unfortunate. Poverty claimed him as a favorite son and bestowed upon him special attention. An increasing family needed increased means of support. Creditors had the a.s.surance to shower duns upon him and cruelly reduced him to misery and want. He then conceived the idea of studying law. For the first time he felt most keenly the waste of time in his childhood and youth. He saw many of his age who had ascended high on the ladder of fame whose native powers of mind he knew to be inferior to his. He bent his whole energies to study and in six weeks after he commenced was admitted to the Bar, more as a compliment to his respectable connexions and his dest.i.tute situation than from the knowledge he had obtained of the abstruse science of law during the brief period he had been engaged in its investigation. Folded in the coils of extreme want for the three ensuing years he made but slight advances in his profession. He obtained the necessaries of life by aiding his father-in-law at a _tavern_ bar instead of being at the Bar of the court. He was still ardently attached to his gun. He often look his knapsack of provisions and remained in the woods several days and nights. On his return he would enter the court in his coa.r.s.e and blood stained hunting dress--take up his causes--carry them through with astonis.h.i.+ng adroitness and finally gained a popular reputation as an advocate.
In 1764 he was employed in a case of contested election tried at Richmond, which introduced him among the fas.h.i.+onable and gay whose dress and manners formed a great contrast with his. He made no preparation to meet his learned and polished adversaries. As he moved awkwardly among them, some, who were squinting at him and his coa.r.s.e apparel, supposed him _non compos mentis_. When the case was tried the audience and court were electrified by his torrent of native eloquence and lucid logic.
Judges Tyler and Winston who were upon the bench declared they had never before witnessed so happy and powerful an effort in point of sublime rhetoric and conclusive argument. The towering genius of Patrick Henry then burst from embryo into blooming life. From that time his fame spread its expansive wings and soared far above those of gayer plumage but of less strength. A lucrative practice banished want, suns.h.i.+ne friends returned and flashed around him, he leaped upon the flood tide of prosperity. From his childhood he had been a close observer of human nature--the only germ of genius visible in his juvenile character. He had studiously cultivated this important attribute which was of great advantage to him through life. So familiar had he become with the propensities and operations of the mind that he comprehended all its intricacies, impulses and variations. This gave him a great advantage over many of his professional brethren who had studied Greek and Latin more but human nature less than this self-made man. He took a deep and comprehensive view of the causes that impel men to action and of the results produced by the multifarious influences that control them. He grasped the designs of creation, the duty of man to his fellow and his G.o.d, the laws of nature, reason and revelation and became a bold advocate for liberty of conscience, equal rights and universal freedom.
From the expansive view he had taken of the rights of man, the different forms of government, the oppression of kings, the policy pursued by the mother country towards the American colonies, he was fully convinced that to be great and happy a nation must be free and independent. With the eye of a statesman he had viewed the increasing oppression of the crown. They had reached his n.o.ble soul and roused that soul to action.
Patrick Henry first charged the revolutionary ball with patriotic fire in Virginia and gave it an impetus that gathered force as it rolled onward.
In 1765 he was elected to the a.s.sembly and at once took a bold decisive stand against British oppression. He introduced resolutions against the Stamp Act that were so pointed and bold as to alarm many of the older members although they admitted the truth and justice of the sentiments expressed. They had not his genius to design or his moral courage to execute. To impart a share of these to them and allay the palpitations of their trembling hearts was the province of this young champion of freedom. In this he succeeded--his resolutions were pa.s.sed. Each was drawn from the translucent fountain of eternal justice--based upon equity and law and within the orbit of Magna Charta that had been the polar star of the English government ever since the 19th of June 1215.
Read them and judge.
”Resolved--That the first adventurers and settlers of this his majesty's colony and dominion brought with them and transmitted to their posterity and all other his majesty's subjects since inhabiting in this his majesty's said colony--all the privileges, franchises and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed and possessed by the people of Great Britain.
”Resolved--That by two royal charters granted by King James I. the colonies aforesaid are declared ent.i.tled to all the privileges, liberties and immunities of denizens and natural born subjects to all intents and purposes as if they had been born and abiding within the realm of England.
”Resolved--That the taxation of the people by themselves or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear and the easiest mode of raising them and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, is the distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic of British freedom and without which the ancient const.i.tution cannot subsist.
”Resolved--That his majesty's liege people of this most ancient colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their own a.s.sembly in the article of their taxes and internal police and that the same hath never been forfeited or in any other way given up but hath been constantly recognized by the king's people of Great Britain.