Part 6 (1/2)
FROM THE
UNITED AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF NORTH AMERICA,
TO THEIR
HIGH MIGHTINESS THE STATES GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES OF HOLLAND.
AN
ESSAY
ON
CANON AND FEUDAL LAW.
”Ignorance and inconsideration, are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.”--This is an observation of Dr. _Tillotson_, with relation to the interest of his fellow-men, in a future and immortal state: But it is of equal truth and importance, if applied to the happiness of men in society, on this side the grave.--In the earliest ages of the world, _absolute Monarchy_ seems to have been the universal form of government.--Kings, and a few of their great counsellors and captains, exercised a cruel tyranny over the people who held a rank in the scale of intelligence, in those days, but little higher than the camels and elephants, that carried them and their engines to war.
By what causes it was brought to pa.s.s, that the people in the middle ages, became more _intelligent_ in general, would not perhaps be possible in these days to discover: But the fact is certain, and wherever a general knowledge and sensibility have prevailed among the people, arbitrary government and every kind of oppression have lessened and disappeared in proportion.--Man has certainly an exalted soul! and the same principle in human nature; that aspiring n.o.ble principle, founded in benevolence and cherished by knowledge; I mean the love of power, which has been so often the cause of _slavery_, has, whenever freedom has existed, been the cause of freedom. If it is this principle, that has always prompted the princes and n.o.bles of the earth, by every species of fraud and violence, to shake off all the limitations of their power; it is the same that has always stimulated the common people to aspire at independency, and to endeavour at confining the power of the great, within the limits of equity and reason.
The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great--They have seldom found either leisure or opportunity to form an union and exert their strength--ignorant as they were of arts and letters, they have seldom been able to frame and support a regular opposition. This, however, has been known, by the great, to be the temper of mankind, and they have accordingly laboured, in all ages, to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to a.s.sert the former or redress the latter. I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government--_Rights_, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws--_Rights_, derived from the great Legislator of the universe.
Since the promulgation of christianity, the two greatest systems of tyranny, that have sprung from this original, are the _cannon_ and the _feudal_ law--The desire of dominion, that great principle by which we have attempted to account for so much good, and so much evil, is, when properly restrained, a very useful and n.o.ble movement in the human mind: but when such restraints are taken off, it becomes an encroaching, grasping, restless and ungovernable power. Numberless have been the systems of iniquity, contrived by the great, for the gratification of this pa.s.sion in themselves: but in none of them were they ever more successful, than in the invention and establishment of the _canon_ and the _feudal_ law.
By the former of these, the most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonis.h.i.+ng const.i.tution of policy, that ever was conceived by the mind of man, was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of their own order. All the epithets I have here given to the Romish policy are just; and will be allowed to be so, when it is considered, that they even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that G.o.d ALMIGHTY had intrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure--with a power of dispensation over all the rules and obligations of morality--with authority to license all sorts of sins and crimes--with a power of deposing princes, and absolving subjects from allegiance--with a power of procuring or withholding the rain of heaven, and the beams of the sun--with the management of earthquakes, pestilence and famine.----Nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine, the flesh and blood of G.o.d himself.--All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people, by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity; and by infusing into them a _religious_ horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages, in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude, to him and his subordinate tyrants; who, it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called G.o.d, and that was wors.h.i.+pped.----
In the latter we find another system similar in many respects to the former; which, although it was originally formed perhaps for the necessary defence of a barbarous people, against the inroads and invasions of her neighbouring nations; yet, for the same purposes of tyranny, cruelty and l.u.s.t, which had dictated the _canon_ law, it was soon adopted by almost all the Princes of Europe, and wrought into the const.i.tutions of their government.--It was originally a code of laws, for a vast army in a perpetual encampment.--The general was invested with the sovereign propriety of all the lands within the territory.--Of him, his servants and va.s.sals, the first rank of his great officers held the lands; and in the same manner, the other subordinate officers held of them; and all ranks and degrees, held their lands, by a variety of duties and services, all tending to bind the chains the faster, on every order of mankind. In this manner, the common people were holden together, in herds and clans, in a state of servile dependance on their Lords; bound, even by the tenure of their lands to follow them, whenever they commanded, to their wars; and in a state of total ignorance of every thing divine and human, excepting the use of arms, and the culture of their lands.
But, another event still more calamitous to human liberty, was a wicked confederacy, between the two systems of tyranny above described.--It seems to have been even stipulated between them, that the temporal grandees should contribute every thing in their power to maintain the ascendency of the priesthood; and that the spiritual grandees, in, their turn, should employ that ascendency over the consciences of the people, in impressing on their minds, a blind, implicit obedience to civil magistracy.--
Thus, as long as this confederacy lasted, and the people were held in ignorance; Liberty, and with her, knowledge, and virtue too, seem to have deserted the earth; and one age of darkness succeeded another, till G.o.d, in his benign Providence, raised up the champions, who began and conducted the Reformation.--From the time of the Reformation, to the first settlement of America, knowledge gradually spread in Europe, but especially in England; and in proportion as that increased and spread among the people, ecclesiastical and civil tyranny, which I use as synonymous expressions, for the _canon_ and _feudal_ laws, seem to have lost their strength and weight. The people grew more and more sensible of the wrong that was done them, by these systems; more and more impatient under it; and determined at all hazards to rid themselves of it; till, at last, under the execrable race of the Stuarts, the struggle between the people and the confederacy aforesaid of temporal and spiritual tyranny, became formidable, violent and b.l.o.o.d.y.----
It was this great struggle that peopled America.--It was not religion alone, as is commonly supposed; but it was a love of _universal_ liberty, and an hatred, a dread, an horror of the infernal confederacy before described, that projected, conducted, and accomplished the settlement of America.----
It was a resolution formed by a sensible people, I mean the _Puritans_ almost in despair. They had become intelligent in general, and many of them learned.--For this fact I have the testimony of Archbishop _King_ himself, who observed of that people, that they were more intelligent, and better read than even the members of the church whom he censures warmly for that reason.--This people had been so vexed, and tortured by the powers of those days, for no other crime than their knowledge, and their freedom of enquiry and examination; and they had so much reason to despair of deliverance from those miseries on that side the ocean, that they at last resolved to fly to the _wilderness_ for refuge, from the temporal and spiritual princ.i.p.alities and powers, and plagues, and scourges of their native country.
After their arrival here, they began their settlement, and formed their plan both of ecclesiastical and civil government, in direst opposition to the _canon_ and the _feudal_ systems.----The leading men among them, both of the clergy and the laity were men of sense and learning: To many of them, the historians, orators, poets and philosophers of Greece and Rome were quite familiar: and some of them have left libraries that are still in being, consisting chiefly of volumes, in which the wisdom of the most enlightened ages and nations is deposited, written however in languages, which their great grandsons, _though educated in European Universities_, can scarcely read.
Thus accomplished were many of the first planters of these colonies.--It may be thought polite and fas.h.i.+onable, by many modern fine gentlemen, perhaps, to deride the characters of these persons as enthusiastical, superst.i.tious and republican: But such ridicule is founded in nothing but foppery and affectation, and is grosly injurious and false.----Religious to some degree of enthusiasm, it may be admitted they were; but this can be no peculiar derogation from their character, because it was at that time almost the universal character, not only of England but of Christendom. Had this however been otherwise, their enthusiasm, considering the principles in which it was founded, and the ends to which it was directed, far from being a reproach to them, was greatly to their honour: for I believe it will be found universally true, that no great enterprize, for the honour or happiness of mankind, was ever atchieved without a large mixture of that n.o.ble infirmity. Whatever imperfections may be justly ascribed to them, which however are as few as any mortals have discovered, their judgment in framing their policy was founded in wise, humane and benevolent principles. It was founded in revelation and in reason too: It was consistent with the principles of the best, and greatest, and wisest legeslators of antiquity.----Tyranny in every form, shape and appearance, was their disdain and abhorrence; no fear of punishment, nor even of death itself, in exquisite tortures, had been sufficient to conquer that steady, manly, pertinacious spirit, with which they had opposed the tyrants of those days, in church and state. They were very far from being enemies to monarchy; and they knew as well as any men, the just regard and honour that is due to the character of a dispenser of the mysteries of the gospel of grace: But they saw clearly, that popular powers must be placed as a guard, a controul, a balance, to the powers of the monarch and the priest in every government; or else it would soon become the man of sin, the wh.o.r.e of Babylon, the mystery of iniquity, a great and detestable system of fraud, violence and usurpation. Their greatest concern seems to have been to establish a government of the church more consistent with the Scriptures, and a government of the state more agreeable to the dignity of human nature, than any they had seen in Europe: and to transmit such a government down to their posterity, with the means of securing and preserving it for ever. To render the popular power in their new government as great and wise as their principles of theory, i. e. as human nature and the christian religion require it should be, they endeavoured to remove from it as many of the feudal inequalities and dependencies as could be spared, consistently with the preservation of a mild limited monarchy.
And in this they discovered the depth of their wisdom, and the warmth of their friends.h.i.+p to human nature.--But the first place is due to religion.----They saw clearly, that of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever pa.s.sed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanct.i.ty, reverence and right, reverend eminence, and holiness around the idea of a priest, as no mortal could deserve and as always must, from the const.i.tution of human nature, be dangerous in society. For this reason, they demolished the whole system of Diocesan episcopacy, and deriding, as all reasonable and impartial men must do, the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers, they established sacerdotal ordination on the foundation of the Bible and common sense.----This conduct at once imposed an obligation on the whole body of the clergy, to industry, virtue, piety and learning; and rendered that whole body infinitely more independent on the civil powers, in all respects, than they could be where they were formed into a scale of subordination, from a Pope down to Priests and friars and confessors, necessarily and essentially, a sordid, stupid, and wretched herd; or than they could be in any other country, where an archbishop held the place of an universal bishop, and the vicars and curates that of the ignorant, dependent, miserable rabble aforesaid; and infinitely more sensible and learned than they could be in either.----This subject has been seen in the same light by many ill.u.s.trious patriots, who have lived in America, since the days of our forefathers, and who have adored their memory for the same reason.----And methinks there has not appeared in New England, a stronger veneration for their memory, a more penetrating insight into the grounds and principles and spirit of their policy, nor a more earnest desire of perpetuating the blessings of it to posterity, than that fine inst.i.tution of the late Chief Justice Dudley, of a lecture against popery, and on the validity of presbyterian ordination.
This was certainly intended by that wise and excellent man, as an eternal memento of the wisdom and goodness of the very principles that settled America. But I must again return to the feudal law.----The adventurers so often mentioned, had an utter contempt of all that dark ribaldry of hereditary indefeasible right,--the Lord's anointed,--and the divine miraculous original of government, with which the priesthood had inveloped the feudal monarch in clouds and mysteries, and from whence they had deduced the most mischievous of all doctrines, that of pa.s.sive obedience and non-resistance. They knew that government was a plain, simple, intelligible thing, founded in nature and reason, and quite comprehensible by common sense.----They detested all the base services, and servile dependencies of the feudal system.----They knew that no such unworthy dependencies took place in the ancient seats of liberty, the republic of Greece and Rome: and they thought all such slavish subordinations were equally inconsistent with the const.i.tution of human nature, and that religious liberty with which Jesus had made them free. This was certainly the opinion they had formed, and they were far from being singular or extravagant in thinking so.----Many celebrated modern writers in Europe have espoused the same sentiments.--Lord Kaims, a Scottish writer of great reputation, whose authority in this case ought to have the more weight, as his countrymen have not the most worthy ideas of liberty, speaking of the feudal law, says, ”A const.i.tution so contradictory to all the principles which govern mankind, can never be brought about, one should imagine, but by foreign conquest or native usurpations.” Brit. Ant. p. 2.--Rousseau speaking of the same system, calls it, ”That most iniquitous and absurd form of government, by which human nature was so shamefully degraded.”
Social compact, Page 164.----It would be easy to multiply authorities; but it must be needless, because as the original of this form of government was among savages, as the spirit of it is military and despotic, every writer, who would allow the people to have any right to life or property or freedom, more than the beasts of the field, and who was not hired or inlisted under arbitrary lawless power, has been always willing to admit the feudal system to be inconsistent with liberty and the rights of mankind.
To have holden their lands allodially, or for every man to have been the sovereign lord and proprietor of the ground he occupied, would have const.i.tuted a government, too nearly like a commonwealth.--They were contented, therefore, to hold their lands of their King, as their sovereign lord, and to him they were willing to render homage: but to no mesne and subordinate lords, nor were they willing to submit to any of the baser services.--In all this they were so strenuous, that they have even transmitted to their posterity, a very general contempt and detestation of holdings by quit rents: As they have also an hereditary ardour for liberty, and thirst for knowledge.--