in the condition of the island, involve imminent peril to the existence of our government."

Such were his conclusions as formally expressed. Not long afterward, however, in the freedom of private correspondence, he gave full vent to the feelings by which those conclusions were inspired. In a confidential letter addressed to L. B. Shepard, a friend in New York, he said:

I have not time to say much, though I have much to say, on the subject to which your letter of yesterday refers.

I am entirely opposed to getting up a war for the purpose of seizing Cuba; but if the conduct of Spain should be such as to justify a war, I should not hesitate to meet that state of things. The authorities of Cuba act unwisely, but not so much so as is represented. They are more alarmed than they need to be in regard to the dangers from this country, though it cannot be said that the filibuster spirit and movements do not furnish just grounds of apprehension. They have a clear right to take measures for defense, but what those measures may be it is not easy to define. In exercising their own rights they are bound to respect the rights of other nations. This they have not done in all cases. That they have deliberately intended to commit wrongs against the United States I do not believe; but that they have done so I do not deny. The conduct of Spain and the Cuban authorities has been exaggerated and even misrepresented in some of our leading journals, . particularly in the Union. I cannot speak of the views of the conductors of the latter paper, for I have little or no intercourse with them. From what I have seen of it, I am not much surprised at the opinion that it is for war, right or wrong; but I venture to assure you that such is not the policy of the Administration. It does not want war, would avoid it, but would not shrink from it, if it becomes necessary in the defence of our just rights.

The robber doctrine I abhor. If carried out it would degrade us in our own estimation and disgrace us in the eyes of the civilized world. Should the Administration commit the fatal folly of acting upon it, it could not hope to be sustained by the country, and would leave a tarnished name to all future times.

Cuba would be a very desirable possession, if it came to us in the right way, but we cannot afford to get it by robbery or theft.

On leaving the Department of State in March, 1857, Marcy contemplated a voyage to Europe in company with the late

Hamilton Fish, afterward secretary of state, who was then on the point of making a two years' sojourn on the continent. Marcy and Fish had always been political antagonists, their correspondence having begun with Marcy's refusal, as governor, to appoint Fish a commissioner of deeds for the city of New York; but they became warm personal friends. At the beginning of July, 1857, Marcy, who had been at Saratoga Springs, started towards New York. On the 4th, he stopped at Ballston Spa. For some time he had occasionally felt in the region of the heart a troublesome disturbance, which the exhausting effects of the warm weather seemed to aggravate. Feeling weary, he lay down on the bed in his room at the hotel, with a volume of Bacon's Essays in his hand, and as he read it he suddenly entered upon his last sleep. A servant, on entering the room some hours later, found him lying with the volume still in his hand, open at the place at which he had been reading. Himself a man of singular strength and wisdom, he spent his last moments on earth in communion with one whose words are the common treasure of mankind.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

JOHN BASSETT Moore.

SECTIONAL ASPECTS OF NEW YORK

PROVINCIAL POLITICS

T is the purpose of this paper to notice certain phenomena

IT

in the political development of New York between 1691

and 1760. Antagonisms resulting from conflict of interests and attendant jealousies between different regions of the province were important features of that development. These phenomena constitute one aspect of the sectionalism which is now recognized as having contributed to the character of the complex movement of the American Revolution. In New York this sectionalism was not so sharply accentuated as in some of the other provinces. Nothing like the situation which gave rise to the Regulator troubles in the Carolinas, or to the outbreak of the Paxton Boys in Pennsylvania, was true of New York. Nevertheless, the divergent views as to provincial policy held by the commercial seaboard on the one hand, and by the agricultural and frontier interior on the other, were by no means without effect upon the political life of the province. Other antagonisms between regions of differing economic significance and between different social classes combined to form the material of the active, and usually intensely local, schemes of provincial politicians.

The spirit of localism, probably always characteristic of young and rapidly-growing communities, was a leading trait in the life of the colonies. By contemporary imperialists, both English and American, it was regarded as the besetting vice of the American portions of the British Empire in the eighteenth century. Complete and systematic treatment of the subject of sectionalism in all its aspects in provincial New York is as yet hardly possible. Its various features were numerous and often closely interwoven. Patient and minute analysis of the material at present accessible may be expected to yield much. It is devoutly to be wished that sources in the nature of private papers and correspondence may yet come to light which may admit us to a more intimate acquaintance with the motives which lay

beneath the surface of many an important movement. In the survey which is here presented attention will be particularly directed to three features of New York provincial politics in which sectional antagonism is reflected. There was, in the first place, a struggle between New York city as the commercial metropolis and the rest of the province as a producing region, in which the city was definitely worsted. This was in the last decade of the seventeenth century. Secondly, throughout the whole provincial period the distribution of the weight of taxation was a matter of conflict between the commercial and landed interests, in which the latter on the whole had their way. And, finally, the matter of apportionment of representatives and of direct taxes among the counties furnished a perpetual scene of struggle between localities. The period especially observed is that between 1691, when a representative legislature was given a permanent place in New York institutions, and the close of the fourth intercolonial war. It was during this time that the struggle between royal governors and a popular assembly developed the actual structure of New York's provincial constitution. Certain general conditions characteristic of New York should be noticed, as the background for the development of the practices which were the "politics" of the province. The topography was peculiar. The shape of the territory bore a rough resemblance to the letter L. Long Island corresponded to the horizontal portion, while the vertical line was represented by the two strips of land on the the banks of the Hudson between New York city and Albany. As regions of settlement, these strips extended twenty miles on each side of the river for the whole of its course between the two cities. From Albany, at a right angle to these two strips, ran the course of the Mohawk river. At the beginning of the period, occupation of this region had reached no farther than Schenectady, and relations with the French and Indians made the progress of occupation for the fifty years after 1690 rather slow. The region on the banks of the Hudson was the scene of greatest activity in "peopling the province. Manifestly, for this part of the province New York city was the natural point of concentration for commerce with the rest of the world. It is equally obvious that the city

was far from serving Long Island with like adequacy, and this fact, as will be seen, figured in the politics of the period.

So far as effect on political life was concerned, conditions as to racial distribution and social structure were also peculiar. The fact that New York was acquired from the Dutch by conquest gave rise to comparatively few problems for politics on a purely provincial scale. Nicolls, Lovelace and Andros had quite as much trouble in settling affairs with the Long-Islanders, predominantly of New England stock, as in adjusting matters with the Dutch of the Hudson valley and Albany. The cosmopolitan character of the population of New York city was noted by Dongan; but the situation of his master, the Duke of York, made the policy of toleration in religious matters, necessary under the circumstances in New York, comparatively an easy matter. Though Albany itself was inhabited almost wholly by Hollanders, the region of Esopus (Kingston) contained French, German and Swiss admixtures with the prevailing Dutch population. The racial and confessional characteristics of the different regions seemed to the people themselves less important than those which affected economic life. As they viewed the province, Long Island could depend on "husbandry and whaling; Sopus was the fat of the land by tillage; Albany had the Indian trade and husbandry; while New York city had no other advantage but trade." The Dutch had estimated the importance of the city and its trade so highly that the "planters" had been forbidden to trade overseas, and had been required to pay one-tenth of their produce to the government. Only the people of Albany were permitted to engage in the trade with the Indians. The Leisler affair was far more the result of a collision between conservative and radical temperaments and prejudices than of any conflict of races. The growth of population in the eighteenth century was characterized by no such volume of immigration from Europe as happened in Pennsylvania. Some Germans, some Scotch, many from Long Island and from New England helped to "seat" the river counties, but the newcomers did not settle

'Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1, 149-50. *Osgood, iii, 457.