Part 1 (1/2)
The Greater Republic.
by Charles Morris.
INTRODUCTION.
The late war with Spain marks a momentous epoch in the progress of our country, whose history, stretching through the centuries of discovery, exploration, settlement, the struggle for independence, foreign and domestic war, lofty achievement in all departments of knowledge and progress, is the most interesting in human annals. It is a record full of instruction and incitement to endeavor, which must fill every American with pride in his birthright, and with grat.i.tude to Him who holds the earth and the sea in the hollow of His hand.
The following pages contain a complete, accurate, and graphic history of our country from the first visit of the Northmen, a thousand years ago, to the opening of its new destiny, through the late struggle, resulting in the freeing of Cuba, the wresting of the Philippines, Porto Rico, and the Ladrones from the tyranny of the most cruel of modern nations, and the addition of Hawaii to our domain. The Greater United States, at one bound, a.s.sumes its place in the van of nations, and becomes the foremost agent in civilizing and christianizing the world.
The task, long committed to England, Germany, France, Russia, and later to j.a.pan, must henceforth be shared with us, whose glowing future gives promise of the crowning achievement of the ages. With a fervent trust in a guiding Providence, and an abiding confidence in our ability, we enter upon the new and grander career, as in obedience to the divine behest that the Latin race must decrease and the Anglo-Saxon increase, and that the latter, in a human sense, must be the regenerator of all who are groping in the night of ignorance and barbarism.
It is a wonderful story that is traced in the pages that follow. A comprehension of the present and of the promise of the future necessitates an understanding of the past. The history of the Greater United States, therefore, is complete, from the first glimpse, in the early morning of October 12, 1492, of San Salvador by Columbus, through the settlement of the colonies, their struggles for existence, the colonial wars, the supreme contest between England and France for mastery in the New World, the long gloom of the Revolution that brought independence, the founding of the Republic, in 1787, the growth and expansion of the nation, the mighty War for the Union that united the divided house and planted it upon a rock, and the later ”war for humanity,” when the peris.h.i.+ng islands, stretching their hands to us in helpless anguish, were gathered under the flag of freedom, there to remain through all time to come.
There have been many leaders in this great work. Not the story of the deeds alone, but of those who performed them is told. History, biography, and all that is interesting and profitable to know are here truthfully set forth, for their lesson is one whose value is beyond measurement.
In addition to the history of that which was simply the United States, a complete account is given of our new colonial possessions, Hawaii, Porto Rico, the Philippines, the Ladrones, and of Cuba, the child of our adoption. Their geography, their soil, climate, productions, inhabitants, and capabilities are set forth with fullness and accuracy.
In conclusion, the publishers confidently claim that ”The Greater Republic” is the fullest, most interesting, reliable, and instructive work of the kind ever offered the public.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”I AM READY FOR ANY SERVICE THAT I CAN GIVE MY COUNTRY”
In 1798 our Government was about to declare war against France. Congress appointed Was.h.i.+ngton Commander-in-chief of the American Army. The Secretary of War carried the commission in person to Mt. Vernon. The old hero, sitting on his horse in the harvest field, accepted in the above patriotic words.]
Author's introduction.
The annals of the world contain no more impressive example of the birth and growth of a nation than may be seen in the case of that which has been aptly termed the Greater Republic, whose story from its feeble childhood to its grand maturity it is the purpose of this work to set forth. Three hundred years is a brief interval in the long epoch of human history, yet within that short period the United States has developed from a handful of hardy men and women, thinly scattered along our Atlantic coast, into a vast and mighty country, peopled by not less than seventy-five millions of human beings, the freest, richest, most industrious, and most enterprising of any people upon the face of the earth. It began as a dwarf; it has grown into a giant. It was despised by the proud nations of Europe; it has become feared and respected by the proudest of these nations. For a long time they have claimed the right to settle among themselves the affairs of the world; they have now to deal with the United States in this self-imposed duty. And it is significant of the high moral att.i.tude occupied by this country, that one of the first enterprises in which it is asked to join these ancient nations has for its end to do away with the horrors of war, and subst.i.tute for the drawn sword in the settlement of national disputes a great Supreme Court of arbitration.
This is but one of the lessons to be drawn from the history of the great republic of the West. It has long been claimed that this history lacks interest, that it is devoid of the romance which we find in that of the Eastern world, has nothing in it of the striking and dramatic, and is too young and new to be worth men's attention when compared with that of the ancient nations, which has come down from the mists of prehistoric time. Yet we think that those who read the following pages will not be ready to admit this claim. They will find in the history of the United States an abundance of the elements of romance. It has, besides, the merit of being a complete and fully rounded history. We can trace it from its birth, and put upon record the entire story of the evolution of a nation, a fact which it would be difficult to affirm of any of the older nations of the world.
If we go back to the origin of our country, it is to find it made up of a singular mixture of the best people of Europe. The word best is used here in a special sense. The settlers in this country were not the rich and t.i.tled. They came not from that proud n.o.bility which claims to possess bluer blood than the common herd, but from the plain people of Europe, from the workers, not the idlers, and this rare distinction they have kept up until the present day. But of this cla.s.s of the world's workers, they were the best and n.o.blest. They were men who thought for themselves, and refused to be bound in the trammels of a State religion; men who were ready to dare the perils of the sea and the hards.h.i.+ps of a barren sh.o.r.e for the blessings of liberty and free-thought; men of st.u.r.dy thrift, unflinching energy, daring enterprise, the true stuff out of which alone a nation like ours could be built.
Such was the character of the Pilgrims and the Puritans, the hardy empire-builders of New England, of the Quakers of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the Catholics of Maryland, the Huguenots of the South, the Moravians and other German Protestants, the st.u.r.dy Scotch-Irish, and the others who sought this country as a haven of refuge for free-thought. We cannot say the same for the Hollanders of New Amsterdam, the Swedes of Delaware, and the English of Virginia, so far as their purpose is concerned, yet they too proved hardy and industrious settlers, and the Cavaliers whom the troubles in England drove to Virginia showed their good blood by the prominent part which their descendants played in the winning of our independence and the making of our government. While the various peoples named took part in the settlement of the colonies, the bulk of the settlers were of English birth, and Anglo-Saxon thrift and energy became the foundation stones upon which our nation has been built. Of the others, nearly the whole of them were of Teutonic origin, while the Huguenots, whom oppression drove from France, were of the very bone and sinew of that despot-ridden land. It may fairly be said, then, that the founders of our nation came from the cream of the populations of Europe, born of st.u.r.dy Teutonic stock, and comprising thrift, energy, endurance, love of liberty, and freedom of thought to a degree never equaled in the makers of any other nation upon the earth. They were of solid oak in mind and frame, and the edifice they built had for its foundation the natural rights of man, and for its super-structure that spirit of liberty which has ever since throbbed warmly in the American heart.
It was well for the colonies that this underlying unity of aim existed, for aside from this they were strikingly distinct in character and aspirations. Spa.r.s.ely settled, strung at intervals along the far-extended Atlantic coast, silhouetted against a stern background of wilderness and mountain range, their sole bond of brotherhood was their common aspiration for liberty, while in all other respects they were unlike in aims and purposes. The spirit of political liberty was strongest in the New England colonies, and these held their own against every effort to rob them of their rights with an unflinching boldness which is worthy of the highest praise, and which set a n.o.ble example for the remaining colonists. Next to them in bold opposition to tyranny were the people of the Carolinas, who st.u.r.dily resisted an effort to make them the enslaved subjects of a land-holding n.o.bility. In Pennsylvania and Maryland political rights were granted by high-minded proprietors, and in these colonies no struggle for self-government was necessary.
Only in Virginia and New York was autocratic rule established, and in both of these it gradually yielded to the steady demand for self-government.
On the other hand, New England, while politically the freest, was religiously the most autocratic. The Puritans, who had crossed the ocean in search of freedom of thought, refused to grant a similar freedom to those who came later, and sought to found a system as intolerant as that from which they had fled. A natural revulsion from their oppressive measures gave rise in Rhode Island to the first government on the face of the earth in which absolute religious liberty was established. Among the more southern colonies, a similar freedom, so far as liberty of Christian wors.h.i.+p is concerned, was granted by William Penn and Lord Baltimore. But this freedom was maintained only in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, religious intolerance being the rule, to a greater or less degree, in all the other colonies; the Puritanism of New England being replaced elsewhere by a Church of England autocracy.
The diversity in political condition, religion, and character of the settlers tended to keep the colonies separate, while a like diversity of commercial interests created jealousies which built up new barriers between them. The unity that might have been looked for between these feeble and remote communities, spread like links of a broken chain far along an ocean coast, had these and other diverse conditions to contend with, and they promised to develop into a series of weak and separate nations rather than into a strong and single commonwealth.
The influences that overcame this tendency to disunion were many and important. We can only glance at them here. They may be divided into two cla.s.ses, warlike hostility and industrial oppression. The first step towards union was taken in 1643, when four of the New England colonies formed a confederation for defense against the Dutch and Indians. ”The United Colonies of New England” const.i.tuted in its way a federal republic, the prototype of that of the United States. The second step of importance in this connection was taken in 1754, when a convention was held at Albany to devise measures of defense against the French.
Benjamin Franklin proposed a plan of colonial union, which was accepted by the convention. But the jealousy of the colonies prevented its adoption. They had grown into communities of some strength and with a degree of pride in their separate freedom, and were not ready to yield to a central authority. The British Government also opposed it, not wis.h.i.+ng to see the colonies gain the strength which would have come to them from political union. As a result, the plan fell to the ground.
The next important influence tending towards union was the oppressive policy of Great Britain. The industries and commerce of the colonies had long been seriously restricted by the measures of the mother-country, and after the war with France an attempt was made to tax the colonists, though they were sternly refused representation in Parliament, the tax-laying body. Community in oppression produced unity in feeling; the colonies joined hands, and in 1765 a congress of their representatives was held in New York, which appealed to the King for their just political rights. Nine years afterwards, in 1774, a second congress was held, brought together by much more imminent common dangers. In the following year a third congress was convened. This continued in session for years, its two most important acts being the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain and the Confederation of the States, the first form of union which the colonies adopted. This Confederation was in no true sense a Union. The jealousies and fears of the colonies made themselves apparent, and the central government was given so little power that it threatened to fall to pieces of its own weight. It could pa.s.s laws, but could not make the people obey them. It could incur debts, but could not raise money by taxation to pay them. The States kept nearly all the power to themselves, and each acted almost as if it were an independent nation, while the Congress of the Confederation was left without money and almost without authority.
This state of affairs soon grew intolerable. ”We are,” said Was.h.i.+ngton, ”one nation to-day, and thirteen to-morrow.” Such a union it was impossible to maintain. It was evident that the compact must give way; that there must be one strong government or thirteen weak ones. This last alternative frightened the States. None of them was strong enough to hold its own against foreign governments. They must form a strong union or leave themselves at the mercy of ambitious foes. It was this state of affairs that led to the Const.i.tutional Convention of 1787, by whose wisdom the National Union which has proved so solid a bond was organized. The Const.i.tution made by this body gave rise to the Republic of the United States. A subsequent act, which in 1898 added a number of distant island possessions to our Union, and vastly widened its interests and its importance in the world's councils, made of it a ”Greater Republic,” a mighty dominion whose possessions extended half round the globe.
While the changes here briefly outlined were taking place, the country was growing with phenomenal rapidity. From all parts of northern and western Europe, and above all from Great Britain, new settlers were crowding to our sh.o.r.es, while the descendants of the original settlers were increasing in numbers. How many people there were here is in doubt, but it is thought that in 1700 there were more than 200,000, in 1750 about 1,100,000, and in 1776 about 2,500,000. The first census, taken in 1790, just after the Federal Union was formed, gave a population of nearly 4,000,000.