HISTORY

OF THE

COLONIAL CONFEDERATIONS.

INTRODUCTION.

Ir is my purpose in the following sketch to show how the American system of government came into operation, and briefly to trace the course of events which led to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. I think it will be made to appear that the whole structure of our political institutions is the natural production of the principles laid down by the founders of the several States. As originally planted, each colony or settlement was a distinct community, with a jurisdiction over its own internal affairs, entirely independent of its neighbors. Several of these colonies, as Plymouth, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, established their governments by voluntary association, without any charter or authority but the consent of the governed. The other colonies, although acting under royal charters, exercised the right of local legislation by assemblies, chosen by themselves, and the distance which separated the colonies from the mother country, and the disturbed and revolutionary condition of the British government during much of our colonial existence, greatly favored the development and facilitated the exercise of the principles of self-government. Favored by these circumstances, the infant States early attained a strong and vigorous individuality. Each colony re

garded itself as practically a sovereign community, although they all recognized a sort of vague allegiance to the British crown. This idea, after the Declaration of Independence, ripened into the great doctrine of State Rights.

The colonies, in the earlier periods of their history, were small and feeble, and surrounded by tribes of jealous aborigines and by rival and often hostile European settlements. As a security against the dangers which threatened them from these sources, and left to their own resources for the means of defence, the expedient of temporary alliances soon gave place to permanent confederacies. These were succeeded by annual Congresses, by the Confederation which conducted the country through the struggle of the Revolution, and, finally, by the establishment of the federal government.

In the compilation of the following historical sketch, I have followed, mainly, the authority, and quoted with considerable freedom, the language, of the "History of the United States," by the Hon. George Bancroft, to whom I wish to make proper acknowledgments. I have also consulted many other works, as indicated

in the text.

HISTORY.

GENERAL WASHINGTON commences his first inaugural address to the first Congress of the United States assembled under the Constitution, in the following language:

"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished, in the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations, and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without the return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seems to presage."

Among these "steps" so appropriately alluded to by the Father of his country, none are more significant than those which attended the discovery of this continent. History teaches that each of the great divisions of the earth has developed a peculiar and distinctive phase of human civilization. Africa, whose unwritten annals are brought down to us by the pyramids and other enduring monuments of physical power, appears to have produced what may be regarded as physical civilization of a high order. Asia, whose existing fossilized and petrified forms of civil and social institutions have remained nearly stationary from the earliest periods of authentic history, appears to have been the theatre of the second great “step” in the development of human nature.

Europe had been reserved for the development of the next stage of human progress. This was ushered in by the birth of the arts and sciences, of language, literature, poetry, and eloquence of Greece and Rome; and consummated by the establishment of modern Christian civilization.

The Old World was now overspread with institutions differing in their character in the various countries which had given them birth, but all attached to the soil, and as permanently affixed to it as the mountains and valleys over which their influence extended.

Countries and nations have like characteristics with individual man. They have their periods of growth and decay; of youth, manhood, and age. And it is remarkable that no new people or nation has seemed to flourish upon the soil of a preceding one. If a nation has become decrepid and died out, the soil appears to have been exhausted, no phoenix springs from its ashes. The empire of the Ptolemies and the Pharaohs, Persia, Babylon, Syria, Palestine, and even Greece and Rome, are illustrations of this great law. In neither of those countries has a new or powerful people resuscitated the greatness and glory of the departed. It seems to be a law of our nature, that every successive step of progress which marks a distinctive era in the upward development of the human race, must be taken upon a virgin soil.

American civilization is a new civilization. American nationality is not a continuation or an extension of any or all of the European policies, but a new and distinct system of national developAfrica has produced and developed the African; Asia has produced and developed the Asiatic; Europe has fulfilled the same function for the European. America has been reserved to become the theatre of American civilization.

ment.

The existence of the western continent was made known to the world through the genius and enterprise of Christopher Columbus, towards the close of the fifteenth century of the Christian era. During the succeeding century, several permanent settlements were made upon the West India Islands and the adjacent main lands. About the same time, the coasts of the United States were discovered by English navigators. It is generally conceded that