McKean sent an express to Rodney, at Dover, which procured his attendance, and secured the vote of Delaware in the affirmative; while the same result was reached for Pennsylvania by d.i.c.kenson and Morris absenting themselves, and allowing Franklin, Wilson, and Morton to give the vote against Willing and Humphries. The South Carolina delegates concluded to vote for the measure. Thus twelve colonies united in adopting the following resolution:
""That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.""
(Frothingham"s Rise of the Republic of the United States, Chap. xi., pp.
537, 538.)
On the adoption of this resolution, continues the same historian, "Congress went immediately into Committee of the Whole to consider the draft of a Declaration of Independence, or the form of announcing the fact to the world. During the remainder of that day, and during the sessions of the 3rd and 4th, the phraseology, allegations, and principles of this paper were subjected to severe scrutiny. Its author relates: "The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those pa.s.sages which conveyed censure on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause, too, reprobating the enslaving of the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others." (Memoirs of Jefferson, i. 15.) The striking out of the pa.s.sage declaring the slave trade "piratical warfare against human nature itself," was deeply regretted by many of that generation. Other alterations were for the better, making the paper more dispa.s.sionate and terse, and--what was no small improvement--more brief and exact. On the evening of the 4th the Committee rose, when Harrison reported the Declaration as having been agreed upon. It was then adopted by twelve States, unanimously." [That is, by the majority of the delegates of twelve provinces, and, of course, _reported_ as "unanimous," according to previous agreement.]--_Ib._, p. 539.]
CHAPTER XXVI.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE DISCUSSED.
The foregoing chapters bear ample testimony how heartily I have sympathized with our elder brother colonists of America, in their conception and manly advocacy and defence of their const.i.tutional rights as British subjects; how faithfully I have narrated their wrongs and advocated their rights, and how utterly I have abhorred the despotic conduct of George the Third, and of his corrupt Ministers and mercenary and corrupted Parliament, in their unscrupulous efforts to wrest from the American colonists the attributes and privileges of British freemen, and to convert their lands, with their harbours and commerce, into mere plantations and instruments to enrich the manufacturers and merchants of England, and provide places of honour and emolument for the scions and protegees of the British aristocracy and Parliament. But I cannot sympathize with, much less defend, the leaders of the old American colonists in the repudiating what they had professed from their forefathers; in avowing what they had for many years denied; in making their confiding and distinguished defenders in the British Parliament--the Chathams, Camdens, Sherburnes, the Foxes, Burkes, and Cavendishes--liars in presence of all Europe; in deliberately practising upon their fellow-colonists what they had so loudly complained of against the King and Parliament of Great Britain; in seeking the alliance of a Power which had sought to destroy them for a hundred years, against the land of their forefathers which had protected them during that hundred years, and whose Administration had wronged and sought to oppress them for only twelve years.
After many years of anxious study and reflection, I have a strong conviction that the Declaration of American Independence, in 1776, was a great mistake in itself, a great calamity to America as well as to England, a great injustice to many thousands on both sides of the Atlantic, a great loss of human life, a great blow to the real liberties of mankind, and a great impediment to the highest Christian and Anglo-Saxon civilization among the nations of the world.
In this summary statement of opinion--so contrary to the sentiments of American historians and to popular feeling in the United States--I mean no reflection on the motives, character, patriotism, and abilities of those great men who advocated and secured the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in the General Congress of 1776. I believe America has never produced a race of statesmen equal in purity of character, in comprehensiveness of views, in n.o.ble patriotism and moral courage, to "the Fathers of the American Revolution." Their discussions of public questions, during the eleven years which preceded the Declaration of Independence, evince a clearness of discernment, an accuracy of statement, a niceness of distinction, a thorough knowledge of the principles of government, and the mutual relation of colonies and the parent State, elegance of diction, and force of argument, not surpa.s.sed in discussions of the kind in any age or country; their diplomatic correspondence displays great superiority in every respect over the English statesmen of the day, who sought to oppress them; the correspondence of Washington with General Gage commanded alike the admiration of Europe and the grat.i.tude of America; the memorials and other public papers transmitted to England by the American Congress, and written by Jay and other members, drew forth from the Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords, January 20th, 1775, the following eulogy: "When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America--when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must avow that in all my reading--and I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master States of the world--for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under a complication of difficult circ.u.mstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing equal to it, and all attempts to impose servitude upon such a mighty continental nation must be vain."
"We shall be forced ultimately to retract; let us retract while we can, not when we must. These violent Acts must be repealed; you will repeal them; I pledge myself for it, I stake my reputation on it, that you will in the end repeal them."
(Those violent Acts were repealed three years afterwards.)
When the Earl of Shelburne read the reply, written by Jefferson, of the Virginia Legislature, to Lord North"s proposition, his Lordship said: "In my life, I was never more pleased with a State paper than with the a.s.sembly of Virginia"s discussion of Lord North"s proposition. It is masterly. But what I fear is that the evil is irretrievable."
Among the statesmanlike productions of that period, the correspondence of Franklin, the masterly letters of d.i.c.kenson, the letters and State papers of Samuel and John Adams, Jay and Livingstone, and of many others, exhibit a scholarly race of statesmen and writers of whom any nation or age might be proud.
But it must not be forgotten that the education of every one of these great men, and their training in public affairs, was under English const.i.tutional government, for which every one of them (except Samuel Adams) expressed their unqualified admiration, and to which they avowed their unswerving attachment to within twelve months of the declaration of independence. Though the United States can boast of many distinguished scholars and politicians and jurists, I believe American democracy has never produced a generation of scholarly, able, and stainless statesmen, such as those who had received the whole of their mental, moral, and political training when America formed a part of the British empire.
It is not surprising, indeed, that the major part (for they were not unanimous) of so n.o.ble and patriotic a cla.s.s of statesmen should, by the wicked policy and cruel measures against them by the worst administration of government that ever ruled England, be betrayed into an act which they had so many years disavowed. Placing, as they rightly did, in the foreground the civil and religious liberties of Englishmen as the first ingredient of the elements of political greatness and social progress, they became exasperated into the conviction that the last and only effective means of maintaining those liberties was to sever their connection with England altogether, and declare their own absolute independence. We honour the sentiments and courage which prompted them to maintain and defend their liberties; we question not the purity and patriotism of their motives in declaring independence as the means of securing those liberties; but we must believe that, had they maintained the integrity of their professions and positions for even a twelvemonth longer, they would have achieved all for which they had contended, would have become a free and happy country, as Canada now is, beside the mother country and not in antagonism to her, maintaining inviolate their national life and traditions, instead of forming an alliance for b.l.o.o.d.y warfare with their own former and their mother country"s hereditary enemies.
It was unnatural and disgraceful for the British Ministry to employ German mercenaries and savage Indians to subdue the American colonists to unconditional obedience; but was it less unnatural for the colonists themselves to seek and obtain the alliance of the King of France, whose government was a despotism, and who had for a hundred years sought to destroy the colonists, had murdered them without mercy, and employed by high premiums the Indians to butcher and scalp men, women, and children of the colonists--indeed, to "drive them into the sea," and to exterminate them from the soil of America? Yet with such enemies of civil and religious liberty, with such enemies of their own liberties, and even their existence as Anglo-Saxons, the colonists sought and obtained an alliance against the mother country, which had effectually, and at an immense expenditure, defended them against the efforts of both France and Spain to destroy them. Had the American colonists maintained the position and professions after 1776, as they had maintained them before 1776, presenting the contrast of their own integrity and unity and patriotism to the perfidious counsels, mercenary and un-English policy of the British Ministry and Parliament, they would have escaped the disastrous defeats and bloodshed of 1777-8, and would have repeated the victories which they had gained over the English soldiers in 1775 and the early part of 1776. Unprepared and sadly deficient in arms and ammunition, they repulsed the regular English soldiers sent against them at Concord, at Lexington, at Bunker"s Hill; they had shut up as prisoners the largest English army ever sent to New England, and, though commanded by such generals as Howe and Clinton, compelled their evacuation of the city of Boston. In the Southern States they had routed the English forces, and had compelled the Governors of Virginia and South and North Carolina to take refuge on board of English men-of-war.
Before the declaration of independence, the colonists fought with the enthusiasm of Englishmen for Englishmen"s rights, and the British soldiers fought without heart against their fellow-subjects contending for what many of both the soldiers and officers knew to be rights dear to all true Englishmen; but when the Congress of the American colonies declared themselves to be no longer Englishmen, no longer supporters of the const.i.tutional rights of Englishmen, but separationists from England, and seeking alliance with the enemies of England, then the English army felt that they were fighting against enemies and not fellow-subjects, and fought with an energy and courage which carried disaster, in almost every instance, to the heretofore united but now divided colonists, until France and Spain came to their a.s.sistance.
With these preliminary and general remarks, we proceed to state more specifically the grounds on which we regard, as a calamity to the interests of true liberty and of civilization, the change of position, policy, and principles avowed by the General Congress in the Declaration of Independence, 1776.
I. The Declaration of Independence was a renunciation of all the principles on which the General Congress, Provincial Legislatures, and Conventions professed to act from the beginning of the contest. The foregoing pages present abundant testimony and ill.u.s.tration how earnestly, how constantly, how unanimously the American colonists expressed their attachment to the mother country and to the principles of the British Const.i.tution--how indignantly they repelled, as an insult and a slander, every suspicion and statement that they meditated or desired _independence_, or that they would ever consent to sever the ties of their connection with the mother country and the glorious principles of her const.i.tution of government.
In the same Congress of 1775, by which Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief, the higher departments of the army were organized.
Bills of credit to the amount of three millions were emitted to defray the expenses of the war, and after the battles of Lexington and Bunker"s Hill, while the English army were shut in Boston by the Provincial volunteers, a declaration was signed by Congress, justifying their proceedings, but disdaining any idea of separation from England. They say, "We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconst.i.tutional submission to the tyranny of irritated Ministers, or resistance by force. The latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honour, justice, and humanity forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us....
"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before G.o.d and the world, _declare_ that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to a.s.sume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.
"Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow-subjects in any part of the empire, _we a.s.sure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored_. Necessity has not yet driven us to that desperate measure, or induced us to excite any other nation to war against them. _We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and of establishing independent States._ We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offence. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet proffer no milder conditions than servitude or death.
"In our native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed until the late violation of it, for the protection of our property acquired solely by the honest industry of our forefathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before."[393]
"Amidst these hostile operations, the voice of peace was yet heard--allegiance to the King was still acknowledged, and a lingering hope remained that an accommodation was not impossible. Congress voted a pet.i.tion to his Majesty, replete with professions of duty and attachment; and addressed a letter to the people of England, conjuring them, by the endearing appellations of "friends, countrymen, and brethren," to prevent the dissolution of "that connection which the remembrance of former friendships, pride in the glorious achievements of common ancestors, and affection for the heirs of their virtues had heretofore maintained." _They uniformly disclaimed any idea of independence, and professed themselves to consider union with England, on const.i.tutional principles_, as the greatest blessing which could be bestowed on them."[394]
It is needless to multiply authorities and ill.u.s.trations; the whole tenor of the history of the colonies, as presented in the preceding chapters of this volume, evinces their universal appreciation of the principles of the British Const.i.tution and their universal attachment to union with the mother country.[395]
Even in the spring of 1776, after months of agitation by advocates of separation in various colonies, a majority of the delegates in Congress were for weeks opposed to separation; and it required long preparation to familiarize the minds of its advocates to separation, and to reconcile any considerable number of colonists to hostile severance from the land of their forefathers. It may easily be conceived what must have been the shock to a large part, if not a majority, of the colonists, to have burst upon them, after weeks" secret session of Congress, a declaration which, under the term Independence, renounced all the principles and a.s.sociations in which they had been educated, which they had often avowed and held dear from their ancestors, which proclaimed their mother country their enemy, and denounced connection with her a crime. Such a renunciation of the past, and wrenching from it, could not otherwise than weaken the foundations of society and the obligation of oaths, as may be seen by a comparison in these respects of the sacredness of laws and oaths, and their administration in America before and since the revolution.
II. The Declaration of Independence was a violation of good faith to those statesmen and numerous other parties in England who had, in and out of Parliament, supported the rights and character of the colonies during the whole contest. They had all done so upon the ground that the colonists were contending for the const.i.tutional rights of Englishmen; that they intended and desired nothing more. On the ground that the colonists, like the barons of Runnymede, were contending for the sacred rights of Englishmen, and relying on the faith of their declaration that Englishmen they would ever remain, their cause was patriotically espoused and n.o.bly vindicated in England by Lords Chatham, Camden, Shelburne, the Duke of Richmond, and others in the House of Lords; by Messrs. Burke and Fox, Lord John Cavendish, Mr. Dunning (afterwards Lord Ashburton), and others in the House of Commons; and by corporations of cities and towns, and mult.i.tudes out of Parliament. Lord Mahon, in the sixth volume of his History of England (pp. 35-37), relates that before the Earl of Chatham introduced his famous "Provincial Bill for Settling Troubles in America," and supported it by his masterly speeches in the Lords, he sent for Dr. Franklin, the princ.i.p.al representative of the colonists, to consult him and ascertain from him distinctly whether there was any tendency or danger of the American colonies separating from England, and was a.s.sured by Dr. Franklin that there was not the least feeling in that direction; that the American colonies were universally loyal to connection with the mother country, and desired and contended for nothing more than the const.i.tutional rights of Englishmen.[396]
It was not till after this a.s.surance, and it was under this conviction and with this object, that the Earl of Chatham delivered those appeals in behalf of America which electrified the British public, and gave tone to the subsequent debates in both Houses of Parliament. These eloquent and unanswerable defences of British rights, invaded and denied in regard to the persons of the American colonists, were delivered in 1775 and the early part of 1776; but scarcely had their echoes died away on the waves of the Atlantic, when news came from America that the Congress, so warmly eulogized in the British Parliament for its fidelity to English connection, as well as to the rights of England, had, after a secret session of two months, renounced all connection with England, and all acknowledgment of its authority and principles of government, thus fulfilling the statements and predictions of the parliamentary enemies of American rights, and presenting their advocates, Chatham, Camden, Burke, etc., as liars and deceivers before the British nation and in the face of all Europe. The Ministerial party triumphed; the advocates of colonial rights were confounded, and their influence in and out of Parliament was paralyzed. The power of the corrupt Ministers who had been oppressing the colonies for ten years, was tottering to their fall; they had played their last card; they had exhausted their credit; they had staked their existence on the truth of the statements they had made, and the accomplishment of the measures they had adopted; their measures had failed; they saw that half-armed colonists had everywhere repulsed the picked English generals and soldiers; their statements as to the intentions and principles of the colonists would have also been falsified had the Congress in 1776 adhered to the declaration of principles and avowal of purposes which it had made in 1775; the friends of American rights would have been triumphant, in and out of Parliament, in England, and 1777 would doubtless have witnessed the overthrow of the corrupt British Ministry, the const.i.tutional freedom of the American colonies in connection with the unity of the empire, instead of seven years" b.l.o.o.d.y warfare, the destruction of the national life and of the oneness of the Anglo-Saxon race.
III. But the Declaration of Independence on the part of its authors was not only a violation of good faith to the statesmen and others in England who had advocated the const.i.tutional rights of the colonists, it was also a violation both of good faith and justice to their colonial fellow-countrymen who continued to adhere to connection with the mother country upon the principles professed in all times past by the separationists themselves.[397]
The adherents of connection with England had, with the exception of certain office-holders and their relations, been as earnest advocates of colonial rights as had the leaders of the separation. The opponents of the const.i.tutional rights of the colonies, in the colonies, were few and far between--not numerous enough to form a party, or even to be called a party. The Congress of 1775 declared the colonies to be "a unit" in their determination to defend their rights, but disdained the idea of separation from the mother country; and Mr. John Adams stated at the same time: "All America is united in sentiment. When a masterly statesman, to whom America has erected a statue in her heart for his integrity, fort.i.tude, and perseverance in her cause, invented a Committee of Correspondence in Boston, did not every colony, nay, every county, city, hundred, and town upon the whole continent adopt the measure as if it had been a revelation from above? Look over the resolves of the colonies for the past year; you will see that one understanding governs, one heart animates the whole."[398]
Such were the sentiments and feelings of America in resisting the innovations upon their rights of a British Ministry, while they denied the idea of separation from the mother country as a calumny; and such were the grounds on which millions in England and Scotland, in and out of Parliament, supported them.[399]
"Though that measure (independence), a few months before, was not only foreign from their wishes, but the object of their abhorrence, the current suddenly became so strong in its favour that it bore down all opposition. The mult.i.tude was hurried down the stream; but some worthy men could not easily reconcile themselves to the idea of an eternal separation from a country to which they had long been bound by the most endearing ties." (Ramsay"s History of the United States, Vol. II., pp.
161, 162.)
When, therefore, the Congress at Philadelphia voted, by a majority of one or two, but declaring that their vote should be published as unanimous, to renounce all the professions of the past of connection with the mother country, to declare her their enemy, and to avow eternal separation from her, it may be easily conceived how a large portion of the colonists would feel that their confidence had been betrayed; that the representations they had made to English statesmen would bear the stamp of untruth; that their hopes had been blasted, and that they were now to be treated as rebels and traitors for adhering to the faith of their forefathers; for, as Mr. Allan remarks, the Declaration of Independence "left no neutrals. He who was not for independence, unconditional independence, was an enemy."[400] Thus the many tens of thousands of colonists who adhered to the faith of their forefathers, and the traditions and professions of their own personal history, were, by a single act of Congress, declared "enemies" of their country, "rebels," and even "traitors," because they would not renounce their oath of allegiance, and swear allegiance to a self and newly-created authority, to relinquish the defence of the rights of Englishmen for the theory of republican independence, adherence to which had been advocated by the Chathams and Burkes in the British Parliament, in preference to the new doctrines propounded by the leaders in the Philadelphia Congress, for maintaining the unity and life of a great nation rather than dismember and destroy it. Was it doing as one would be done by? Was it not a violation of good faith, and hard treatment, for men to be declared by a new tribunal criminals in July, for maintaining what all had held to be loyal and patriotic in January? All the arguments and appeals of the Northern States against the separation of the Southern States from the Republic, as destructive of the life of the nation, in the recent civil war of 1864-1869, were equally strong, on the same ground, against the separation of the American colonies from the mother country in the civil war of 1776-1783. The United Empire Loyalists of that day were, as the conservators of the life of the nation, against the dismemberment of the empire, as are the Americans of the Northern States of the present day the conservators of the life of their nation in opposing the dismemberment of the Republic.
IV. But this is not all. This Declaration of the 4th of July, 1776, was the commencement of persecutions, proscriptions, and confiscations of property against those who refused to renounce the oaths which they had taken, as well as the principles and traditions which had, until then, been professed by their persecutors and oppressors as well as by themselves. The declaration of independence had been made in the name and for the professed purposes of liberty; but the very first acts under it were to deprive a large portion of the colonists not only of liberty of action, but liberty of thought and opinion--to extract from them oaths and declarations which could not have been sincere, and which could have been little better than perjuries, for the sole purpose of saving life, liberty, or property. They were a numerous and intelligent portion of the community; were equally interested in the welfare of the country as their a.s.sailants, instead of being designated by every epithet of opprobrium, and denied the freedom of opinion and privileges of citizenship.[401] Mr. Elliott remarks:--
"The Tories comprised a large number, among whom were many rich, cultivated, and kindly people; these last, above all, needed watching, and were most dangerous. In looking over the harsh treatment of the Tories by the rebels, it should be remembered that a covert enemy is more dangerous than an open one, and that the Tories comprised both of these. Many men of property and character in Ma.s.sachusetts were in favour of England, partly from conviction and partly from fear. That large and often cultivated cla.s.s called "Conservatives," who hold by the past rather than hope for the future, and are const.i.tutionally timid, feared change; they were naturally Tories. Most of the Episcopalians in New England (though not in Virginia) opposed the revolutionary movements. They had felt the oppression and contempt of the New England Congregationalists, and looked to the English Government and the English Church for help. But in Virginia, where they were strong, this was not so; and there the Episcopalians were among the warmest a.s.serters of the rights of man."
"In New York there was at first a very large proportion of Tories; in 1776, not less than twelve hundred and ninety-three persons, in the County of Queen"s alone, professed themselves subjects to the King. In Suffolk County, eight hundred enrolled themselves as King"s militia."
"In New Jersey, Governor Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, led the King"s friends, and was active against the Americans until it became necessary to put him in confinement. The war carried on between Tories and Whigs was more merciless than any other, and more cruel and wanton than that of the Indians."
"Laws were made in Rhode Island against all who supplied the enemy with provisions, or gave them information.
"In Connecticut the Tories were not allowed to speak or write against Congress or the a.s.sembly.
"In Ma.s.sachusetts a man might be banished unless he would swear fealty to the cause of liberty.
"Severe laws were also pa.s.sed against the Tories in New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia, and in nearly all the colonies now seaboard States.
"John Jay thought the Confiscation Act of New York inexcusable and disgraceful."[402]
Mr. Hildreth remarks: "Very serious was the change in the legal position of the cla.s.s known as Tories--in many of the States a very large minority, and in all, respectable for wealth and social position. Of those thus stigmatized, some were inclined to favour the utmost claims of the mother country; but _the greater part, though determined to adhere to the British connection, yet deprecated the policy which had brought on so fatal a quarrel_. This loyal minority, especially its more conspicuous members, as the warmth of political feeling increased, had been exposed to the violence of mobs, and to all sorts of personal indignities, in which private malice or a wanton and violent spirit of mischief had been too often gratified under the guise of patriotism. By the recent political changes, Tories and suspected persons became exposed to dangers from the law as well as from mobs. Having boldly seized the reins of government, the new State authorities claimed the allegiance of all residents within their limits, and under the lead and recommendation of Congress, those who refused to acknowledge their authority, or who adhered to their enemies, were exposed to severe penalties, confiscation of property, imprisonment, banishment, and finally death."[403]
Thus was a large minority of the most wealthy and intelligent (their wealth and intelligence making them the greater criminals) inhabitants of the colonies, by the act of a new body not known to the Const.i.tutions of any of their provinces, reduced to the alternative of violating their convictions, consciences, and oaths, or being branded and treated as enemies of their country, deprived not only of the freedom of the press and of speech, but made criminals for even neutrality and silence, and their property confiscated to defray the expenses of a war upon themselves. Had Congress, in July, 1776, maintained the principles and objects it avowed even in the autumn of 1775, there would have been no occasion of thus violating good faith and common justice to the large minority of the colonies; there is every reason to believe that there would have been a universal rallying, as there had been the year before, in defence of the const.i.tutional rights of Englishmen and the unimpaired life of the empire; there would have been a far larger military force of enthusiastic and patriotic volunteers collected and organized to defend those rights than could ever afterwards be embodied to support independence; there would have been a union of the friends of const.i.tutional liberty on both sides of the Atlantic; good faith would have been kept on both sides, and the "millions in England and Scotland," sustained by the millions in America, instead of being abandoned by them in the very crisis of the contest in the mother country, would have achieved in less than a twelvemonth a victory for freedom, for civilization, and for humanity, far beyond what had been accomplished in the English Revolution of 1688.
V. The Declaration of Independence was the commencement of weakness in the army of its authors, and of defeats in their fields of battle. The Declaration has been announced as the birth of a nation, though it was actually the dismemberment of a nation. It was hailed with every demonstration of joy and triumph on the part of those who had been prepared for the event, and no efforts were spared on the part of those who had advocated independence in the army, in the Congress, and in the provinces, to accompany the circulation of the Declaration with every enthusiastic expression of delight and antic.i.p.ated free government, in which, of course, they themselves would occupy the chief places of profit and power. But this enthusiasm, notwithstanding the glowing descriptions of some American historians, was far from being general or ardent. Lord Mahon says: "As sent forth by Congress, the Declaration of Independence having reached the camp of Washington, was, by his orders (as commanded by Congress), read aloud at the head of every regiment.
There, as in most other places, it excited much less notice than might have been supposed." An American author of our own day (President Reed), most careful in his statements, and most zealous in the cause of independence, observes that "No one can read the private correspondence of the times without being struck with the slight impression made on either the army or the ma.s.s of the people by the Declaration."[404]
The Adjutant-General, in his familiar and almost daily letters to his wife, does not even allude to it. But though there was little enthusiasm, there were some excesses. At New York a party of soldiers, with tumultuary violence, tore down and beheaded a statue of the King which stood upon Broadway, having been erected only six years before.
Washington, greatly to his honour, did not shrink from the duty of rebuking them next day, in his General Orders, for their misdirected zeal.[405]
Within a few weeks after the Declaration of Independence, Washington"s army, composed of forces raised before that Declaration, consisted of 27,000 men--a larger army than he was ever after able to a.s.semble, and more than twice as large as he commanded within a few months afterwards.