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'Y^LH-WMWIEI^SflTrY"

Gift of
Professor George Park Fisher
1907

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WILLIAM GAMMELL, LL.D.

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS

EDITED BT
JAMES O. MURRAY, d.D., LL.D.
DEAN AND PROFESSOR OP ENGLISH LITERATURE IN PRINCETON COLLEGE

CAMBRIDGE
^rintcti at ti)c iSilJcrieiilie ^re$f^
1890

Copyright, 1890,
By j. O. MURRAY.

"If love lives through all life; and survives through all sorrow; and re
mains steadfast with us through all changes ; and in all darkness of spirit
burns brightly ; and, if we die, deplores us forever, and loves still equally ;
and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom whence it
passes with the pure soul, beyond death; surely it shall be immortal! Though
we who remain are separated from it, is it not ours in Heaven ? If we love
those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love ? " — Thackeray.

CONTENTS

PAGE
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH  1
HISTORICAL PAPERS
Samuel Ward, Governor of Rhode Island ... 99
The Monroe Doctrine . .  178
The Period of the Confederation . . . 199
The Huguenots and the Edict of Nantes .... 221
The Epochs of American Civilization . . . 243
The Formation and Adoption of the Constitution of the
United States, as explained in Mb. Bancroft's Vol
umes  267
Asylum and Extradition among Nations .... 290
Italy Revisited  315
PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
Address delivered before the Rhode Island Historical
Society  3.39
Address at a Public Meeting op the Citizens op Provi
dence, called to consider the Assault upon the Hon
orable Charles Sumner, in the Senate-Chamber at
Washington .... .... 364
Address at the Opening of the Rhode Island Hospital 372

WILLIAM GAMMELL.

The aim of this memorial volume is to preserve
for the pupils and friends of its subject some per
manent record of an accomplished Christian scholar.
The scholarship which characterized and controlled
his career was not that of a recluse, apart from the
world, breathing only the " still air of dehghtful
studies." It recognized the claims of society on the
student, mingled freely with men, and, whUe draw
ing its life largely from books, brought that life to
bear on the welfare of the community at many dif
ferent points and for more than fifty years. It was
eminently an academic life, yet it kept a steady and
observant eye on the course of human affairs, and,
after completing a long and distinguished service
in high academic positions, entered on a closing
period of general but no less efficient usefulness.
Though no striking incidents are to be narrated in
the biographical sketch, yet the absence of these is
more than compensated by the presence of noble
endeavors that . . . " Wrought
All kind of service with a noble ease
That graced the lowliest act in doing it."
The world is now grown too wise not to recognize

2 MEMORIAL.
the sphere and the worth of such Hves. Men of
high endowments and contemplative habits, who use
their scholarly attainments for good ends, either of
education or of practical beneficence, are sure not
only of a kindly but a long remembrance. The
work of the teacher has assumed the greater impor
tance as our civilization has grown more advanced
and complex. Higher education is in the forefront
of the best thought and work to-day, and the teacher
who has given his life to its promotion may be sure
that a circle far wider than that of kindred and
friends stands ready to accord a just and also a
grateful estimate of the ended toils, of the aspha-
tions which have passed into achievement, of the
influence which survives when memory has become
dim or fragmentary.
William Gammell was the son of the Rev.
William and Mary (Slocomb) Gammell, and was
born in Medfield, Mass., February 10, 1812. His
grandparents, John and Margaret (Uran) Gammell,
were of English descent, natives of Boston, JNIass.,
and members of the Federal Street Congregational
Church. John Gammell was an ardent patriot, early
devoted to the cause of American independence, and
as one of the " Boston Tea Party " aided in the de
struction of tea in Boston Harbor, 1773. His son,
who seems early in life to have embraced Baptist
tenets, was educated for the ministry. His theo
logical training was pursued under the Rev. Wil
liam Williams, of Wrentham, Mass., a somewhat
noted teacher of theology in days when there were

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 3
no theological seminaries; when the "schools of
the prophets " gathered in the study of a clergyman
learned in the sacred tongues and in divinity. After
spending some time under the care of Mr. WilHams,
William Gammell, the father of Professor Gammell,
was ordained to the Christian ministry in 1809, and
for a time preached to the Baptist congregation in
BelUngham, Mass. In 1810 he became the settled
pastor of the Baptist Church in Medfield, preaching
on alternate Sundays in Medfield and West Dedham,
Mass., having the pastoral care of both churches.
Here (Medfield) Professor Gammell was born, and
here his early boyhood was passed. In this double
pastorate his father labored till 1823, when he re
moved to Newport, R. I., and became pastor of the
Second Baptist Church. AU accounts agree in
representing him as a man of decided mark. He
had rare gifts as a preacher, a commanding pres
ence, a voice of unusual flexibiHty and power, an
eloquent manner. His discourses were always well
wrought and impressive, so that he soon rose to
eminence in his denomination. In 1817 he was
given the honorary degree of A. M. by the Corpo
ration of Brown University, and was subsequently,
in 1820, chosen a member of that body, as a trus
tee. Independent in forming his judgments, he was
fearless in avowing them. He had an aristocratic
bearing, long remembered in the scenes of his early
ministry, which, however, did not prevent his gaining
a strong hold upon the hearts of his parishioners.
Besides his parish labors he interested himself in

4 MEMORIAL.
matters of education, was engaged in the movement
to estabhsh the first public school in Newport, and
was also a frequent contributor on topics of public
interest to both secular and religious journals of the
day. For four years he remained the pastor of the
Second Baptist Church in Newport, and died sud
denly of an apoplexy, May 30, 1827. From the
Newport " Mercury " of June 2 we leam that " the
funeral services were attended on the afternoon of
June 1, at the Second Baptist Church, when an im
pressive and discriminating discourse was dehvered by
the Rev. President Wayland, of Brown University."
It is evident that Professor Gammell inherited
many of his qualities and tastes from his father,
¦whom he resembled in person and in bearing. The
interest in aU pubhc affairs, which in later life
characterized him so strongly, had been stimulated
and educated by the habit of conversation with his
father on public questions. The independence -with
which he formed his opinions and the courage with
which he maintained them were inherited sifts.
From a very early period all his tastes were scholarly.
His love of books, his fondness for study, rendered
him indifferent to sports in which boyhood gener
ally delights. It was a foregone conclusion that he
should be liberally educated. He was prepared for
college at the classical school in Newport, then
under the care of the Hon. Joseph Joslin and Mr.
John Frazer, and was entered at Brown University,
a member of the Freshman class, in September,

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 5
1827. It is said that, while attending the funeral
of his father, President Wayland noticed him, a
young lad sitting in the pew beside his widowed
mother. After the service was over, and as he
passed down the aisle, Dr. Wayland put his hand
on his head, saying, " My son, you shall never want
a friend while I live." The years that followed
Professor Gammell's entrance at college furnish
abundant proof that the promise was never for
gotten, and its fulfillment was indeed repaid by life
long gratitude and devotion on the part of Professor
Gammell. His record as a student in the four years' course
of study is that of an uncommonly faithful and
earnest scholar, maldng the most of his opportuni
ties, and winning the respect of his instructors as
well as of his fellow-students. One of his class
mates, the Hon. Francis W. Bird, between whom and
Professor Gammell, though differing very widely in
their pursuits and mental habits, the relations of a
college friendship were cordially maintained to the
last, says of him that " he was a close student,
quiet, unassuming, ' walking his round of duty '
serenely day by day." Among his college friends,
none stood nearer to him than Mr. John M. Mackie,
now of Great Barrington, Mass., and the late Pro
fessor Chace. The friendship between Professors
Chace and GammeU was an ideal one, interrupted
only by the death of the former, after fifty-eight
years of unbroken, almost daily communion. The
letter of Mr. Mackie, of the class of 1832, sub-

6 MEMORIAL.
joined, gives an interesting view of the student-life
and accomplishments of Professor Gammell : —
Great Barrington, Mass., February 12, 1890.
In reply to your request for my recollections of William
Gammell in college, I can say in a word that I remember
him as a model student. He appeared to have come to
college for the sole purpose of getting an education, and
he made the most of his privileges. As scholar he was so
totus, teres atque rotundus that it is difficult to lay hold
of any specially salient points of description, — aU being
evenly and well developed. Like an athlete oiled, he was
hard to be tripped up or taken at fault. He was scrupu
lously faithful in the performance of all coUegiate tasks
and duties ; always punctual, always ready, always did
his best. Ambitious of success and rank in scholarship,
he rarely tripped, and never failed.
I remember that, having resolved to perfect himself in
extemporaneous declamation, he made it a rule never to
allow any opportunity of speaking in the debating society,
of which he was a member, to pass unimproved. His
speeches, never too lengthy, and apparently not unduly
labored, were uniformly interesting and effective. They
held closely to the point in debate, were weighted with
good sense, and were adorned with a chaste flow of rhet
oric which never degenerated into youthful rant nor bom
bast. Indeed, his early style of speaking and of writing
was characterized by the same clearness of insight and
purity of ornament, the same seK-restraining fervor, the
same choice selection of words and classical allusions,
which afterwards threw so graceful a charm of fitness
and propriety over all the compositions of his pen.
Gammell in college was emphatically a worker. He
was a steady, well-regulated worker, — not putting off the
stated labor of one hour to the next, not trusting to the

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 7
chances of sudden inspiration, not putting his powers to
au unnatural strain at the home-stretch of the heat. It
was by a steady pace that he reached first the goal. Curb
ing the sallies of youthful imagination and sentiment, he
kept all the faculties of his mind well in hand, and made
them cooperate harmoniously in the tasks to be accom
plished. He kept regular hours ; for relaxation took daily
walks in the country lying between the two fair rivers
that now embrace the city of Providence; was not de
voted particularly to games of any kind, but preferred the
pleasures of conversation with cheerful and intelligent
companions. He was himself always cheerful and freely
communicative, — a genial comrade, a sensible counselor
in time of need, a friend so fast and faithful that most of
the intimacies contracted by him before graduation were
subsequently kept up by correspondence, and lasted to
life's end.
It is a pleasure to keep in memory a college associate of
a character so built up throughout of seasoned timber, not
a false-hearted stick in it, and which completely fulfilled
the requirement of Cicero, that a young man should have
in him something of mature manhood, as old age also
should retain something of youth.
John Milton Mackie.
Professor Gammell was graduated from the col
lege, September, 1831, with the first honors of the
class, and was assigned the valedictory oration. The
theme on which he spoke at Commencement was
" The Cause of a Diseased Imagination."
Immediately after his graduation, he sought and
obtained employment as a teacher. No calling in
Hfe seems to have been specially before him dur
ing his college career. It is evident, however, that

8 MEMORIAL.
from the first the vocation of the teacher attracted
him. He always reverenced this calling. It held,
in his view, equal rank with what are called the
learned professions. He had been inspired by Pres
ident Wayland with such views, and turned to it
naturally therefore, when at graduation, he was
thrown upon his own resources. He accepted the
position of principal in the Academy at South
Kingston, R. I. The eye of President Wayland
was upon him, and he was called, in 1832, to a
tutorship in Brown University. The catalogue of
1834 styles him " Tutor and Lecturer in the Latin
Language and Literature." It seems evident from
this that he sought to make his classical teaching
something more than a mere grammatical drill. No
report of what his lectures were survives ; but it is
quite safe to infer, from what he was in other de
partments, that he sought to unfold the Hterary
power of Latin authors read in his classes. Pro
fessor Gammell had a stronger bent than that for
classical study in the direction of the EngUsh lan
guage and its literature. That he was successful in
his tutorship is evident from the fact that it led to
his subsequent advancement upon Unes more conge
nial to his tastes. In 1835 he was promoted to
the Assistant Professorship of BeUes-Lettres. This
chair of oratory and beUes-lettres had been fiUed
by very distinguished men. The Hon. Tristam
Burges, LL. D., whose eloquence in Congress made
even John Randolph of Roanoke sometimes quail,
had held the chair from 1815 to 1828. Then

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 9
Professor William G. Goddard, formerly Professor
of Philosophy and Metaphysics, became its incum
bent in 1834,— holding it tiU 1842. His high
Uterary abilities, his finished style, his large know
ledge of literature, his unerring Uterary tastes, were
the admiration of Professor Gammell. More than
any other man. Professor Goddard may be said to
have moulded Professor GammeU's literary culture.
Through life he was wont to refer to Professor God
dard as the model of what a Uterary man should be.
With him he was associated as Assistant Professor
of BeUes-Lettres in 1835. In 1837 he was made
Professor of Rhetoric, and on him thenceforward,
owing to Professor Goddard' s feeble health, devolved
the chief labor of this department.
Five years had now elapsed since he had entered
on his work as tutor in the University. Academic
life was for him the ideal Ufe. It drew out his
best powers. These were years of hard labor and
of gratifying successes. Along with his associates,
Professors CasweU and Chace, he was giving his
best efforts not only to make his own department of
instruction successful, but to build up the coUege on
the lines of development marked out by Dr. Way-
land. The following letter to Professor Chace, then
absent on scientific explorations for the coUege,
gives us a gUmpse into his life, and discloses also the
friendship which had been cemented between them.
Both, it may be premised, were then occupying
rooms in University Hall.

10 MEMORIAL.
Providence, July 13, 1836.
My dear Professor, — We have at length reached
the middle of the last week of the term. It has gone
like a dream. I expected a long and lingering summer
term, but never since I have lived here have the hours of
study flown on so rapid wings as this season.
T'ou have been away among new scenes and unaccus
tomed companions, and I doubt not days have sometimes
rolled heavily ; but with us all, who have been at home,
I believe the summer has been uncommonly short. We
were conscious of its besinning:, and now know that it is
closing, and this seems to us to be nearly its entire history.
I have become accustomed to the loneliness which for a
few days after you left us seemed so strange and oppres
sive, and have learned rather to exult in the undivided
empire of this old hall, for after nine in the evening I am
"monarch of all I survey," with no rival prince to set
limits to my authority ; and though I have often had my
royal authority less respected than it deserved to be, yet
I owe it to myself to say that I have swayed the sceptre
with great mercy and forbearance. . . . We are to have
the Junior exhibition next Saturday, and I am now in the
midst of rehearsals and all the various preparations for
the occasion. The speakers are selected from the first
half of the Junior class, — eleven in number. What will
be the character of the performance I hardly dare venture
to predict. You know it is the first appearance of my
Rhetoric ; and were I to exhibit it myself, I verily believe
I should care less than I do now in prospect of the ap
proaching Saturday. The arrangements for Commence
ment are all made, the honors assigned, and the class
dismissed and gone. It is thought we are to have an
uncommonly good Commencement. The conscientiousness
that so distrusted us last year has, I believe, wholly died
away, and the class seemed to feel somewhat as classes

WILLIAM GAMMELL. H
were wont to feel in olden time, before the modern im
provements in the moral sense had become so common.
Eight of the Seniors have been elected and initiated into
the Phi Beta Kappa, and five of the Junior class ; among
them is your fellow- townsman, Harris. We are going for
the future to have an undergraduate organization. The
society have been again unable to procure an orator from
abroad, and Professor Goddard has kindly consented, as
he says, " to stand in the gap." But seven of the Seniors,
I ought to have said, have been initiated ; the eighth is
with you.
. . . Your room has been the greater part of the time
the dwelling-place of silence, — sometimes, though seldom,
sharing her domain for a few hours in the day with Pro
fessor Goddard. The moonlight and the sunlight, though
often flying to the closed blinds, have rarely been per
mitted to enter. Silence has made it her chosen home,
and has reigned almost unmolested throughout all your
apartments. The only occasion which is at all prominent in the future
before our Commencement is the approaching celebration
of the two hundredth anniversary of this city's settlement.
It will occur on the 5th of August, and be filled with the
best ceremonies and the most impressive pageantry our
ancient city can furnish. Judge Pitman is to be the ora
tor. We may expect the whole story of Rhode Island
history. Though the oration will hardly be eloquent, it
doubtless will be interesting and patriotic, and I hope
calculated to wake the almost sleeping attachments and
pride that ought to swell and be ever active in the bosom
of every citizen of a State whose origin and history have
been so illustrious. . . .
. Farewell, my dear Professor. I hope you will have
gathered before you get home not only stones enough for
all the purposes of your science, but the materials for a

12 MEMORIAL.
good long epic poem, which may be rehearsed through the
long evenings of next winter. Faculty are all well.
Yours truly, W. G.
Mr. George I. Chace,
Niagara Falls.
Professor GammeU's success as a teacher in the
college was gained early. In three years after assum
ing the duties of his Professorship of BeUes-Lettres,
he had made his reputation as a finished and weU-
read EngUsh scholar, and also as an efficient and
esteemed professor. He was also a favorite in the
social circle which then gathered round the coUege.
Life was opening brightly before him.
In October, 1838, he was married to Elizabeth
Amory, daughter of the Hon. John Whipple. The
union was but for one short year. Her death,
November 25, 1839, foUowed quickly by that of
theh Uttle child, plunged him into a grief which for
a time seriously threatened his health. He was
sinking into what seemed a settled gloom under the
pressure of his bereavement, when his friends insisted
upon change of scene with relaxation from inces
sant work, and readUy secured for him sis months'
leave of absence from coUege duties. He was of
fered the post of private secretary to Commodore
Morris, a friend of the famUy, who at that time was
expecting to be sent to the Mediterranean. The
letter informing him of the appointment bears date
of June 1, 1841, and he was directed, in case of
acceptance, to report at once at Washington. He
accepted the appointment in the expectation of the

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 13
voyage to the Mediterranean. For some reason,
however, the original plan was not carried out. In
the autumn Commodore Morris was ordered to Bra-
zU. Professor Gammell, not caring to take the lat
ter voyage, resigned his appointment, and returned
to his college duties. For several months, probably
from June to October, he was on the vessel with
Commodore Morris, and served him as private sec
retary. They were, indeed, months fuU of interest
to him. He was fond of dwelling on the new expe
riences of Ufe they gave him. He saw much of
Washington society, and though deeply regretting
the change of destination for the ship of Commo
dore Morris which frustrated his plans of travel,
always remembered this episode in his Ufe with keen
enjoyment. He took up at once his round of coUege work,
and continued his teaching in the chair of rhetoric.
In the catalogue of 1843, the course of study in the
Junior year mentions also instruction in modern his
tory, during the third term, by him. At what time
these new duties were added is not precisely known.
Probably they had not been assigned him at any
earlier date. President Wayland was always ready
to welcome expansion of the curriculum along lines
of modern thought. Whoever proposed the new
department, we may be sure it had Dr. Wayland's
earnest sanction, and was an inviting field of labor to
Professor GammeU. His early tastes were strongly
historical. They had been carefully nurtured by
his father. They had been indulged and cultivated

14 MEMORIAL.
by himself along with his collegiate and professional
work. Admirable as were his rhetorical teachings,
it is a question whether from the beginning his apti
tudes were not for historical studies as much as for
belles-lettres. His fondness for them grew stronger
and stronger to the end. Of what he accomplished
in this department, while it was stiU incidental to
his main work. President AngeU, of Michigan Uni
versity, and Dr, Fisher, of Yale University, speak
in their letters pubUshed in this Memorial. The
chair of rhetoric, for fifteen years, from 1835 to
1850, absorbed most of his time and strength. His
duties were manifold and exacting. They demanded
from him instruction in the principles of rhetoric
and logic, CampbeU and Whately being used as text
books. They began with the Sophomore class, and
did not end tUl the Commencement oration was writ
ten and fuUy rehearsed. Added thus to the work
of the class-room, was the supervision of aU the writ
ing of the college. This began in the Sophomore
and extended through the Senior year. Essays were
required from the three upper classes at frequent
intervals. Beside these, orations from Juniors and
Seniors were submitted to his inspection and de
livered before him. In the class-room, his prompt,
incisive manner kept the class closely attentive. He
was always dignified, but courteous, and his somewhat
formal manner had no trace of pedantry about it.
He brought to the chair of beUes-lettres a large
acquaintance with the best EngUsh writers. Mere
" curiosities of literature," writers of the second

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 15
rank, had little interest for him. He had been
brought up in the school of Addisonian English.
He taught his classes in the spirit of that school.
That it may have tended somewhat too strongly in the
direction of the coldly elegant, and have developed
too Uttle flexibUity and naturalness of expression,
may be true. But it is safe to say that a school of
rhetorical training which inculcates reverence for
pure, racy English idioms, for high and just liter
ary taste, which abhors coarseness and vulgarity in
style, which discriminates between roughness mis
taken for strength and the real strength of simplicity
and purity, has not much to lament by way of defi
ciency, and has much to praise by way of attainment.
As a critic of college writing, he was altogether ad
mirable. He was ever ready to praise good work.
None knew better than himself that the true critic
is first appreciative, and then corrective. He was
quick to detect faidts of idiom. He coidd not en
dure flashy nor meretricious ornament. Above all,
he disUked obscurity, fustian, and affectation of every
sort. Minor as well as major blemishes were care
fully noted. Nothing seemed to escape that vigi
lant, penetrating eye. He was kindly in his crit
icisms. Only when a student was restive and dis
posed to defend his blunders was he at aU severe.
The sting of these criticisms lay in their accuracy
and justice. He could be sharp on occasion. His
favorite students felt the knife, as it pruned away
some of the darlings of their hearts in a mixed
figure or overstrained expression. But it is his

16 MEMORIAL.
high praise that he moulded the writing of the col
lege after high ideals. He impressed himself on
his students to a degree reached by few professors
of rhetoric.
In his day the modern professor of elocution was
unknown in most of our coUeges. What training
the students of Brown University got in this line
from 1835 to 1850, they obtained from Professor
GammeU. He never pretended to play the orator
himself. He believed in certain cardinal principles
of good speaking, clear enunciation, sparing but ap
propriate gesticulation, and an earnestness strictly
proportionate to the style of thought presented. His
training, therefore, was mainly the correction of glar
ing faults of manner or intonation. His patience
here seemed untiring. It was the training of com
mon sense, aiming at no niceties of oratorical effect.
His labors in preparing the students for Junior and
Senior exhibitions and for the Commencement ex
ercises were unremitting. Nothing sUpshod ever
passed his scrutiny. If the speech was not weU
planned, if it was lacking in careful finish, if the
subject needed different treatment, it must be re
written, and sometimes he insisted on this to a thhd
revision. But his pupUs generaUy had the good
sense to remember that if this involved labor on
their part, so it did on his. They bowed to his de
cision, and went back to their work mth the con
viction that not a captious but a discerning criticism
was working in their interests. There is the less
need to dwell longer on this part of Professor Gam-

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 17
mell's work as two of his distinguished pupUs have
testified to its value as well as to his general worth.
The Rev. George P. Fisher, D. D., Professor of
Church History in Yale University, a graduate of
the class of 1847, thus characterizes Professor Gam
meU's career : — New Haven, March 8, 1890.
During the period when I was a student in Brown
University the Faculty was composed of excellent and
faithful men, to each of whom belonged a marked indi
viduality. Professor Chace and Professor Gammell were
socially intimate, and their names were habitually coupled
together in the talk of students. Yet they were quite un
like in their intellectual traits and their types of charac
ter. Both were dissimilar, each in his own way, from the
beloved Caswell, as all differed widely in personal char
acteristics from President Wayland, whose dominant per
sonality caused him to be held in universal respect. That
admirable scholar, the now venerable Professor Lincoln,
entered the Faculty as professor a year after our class was
admitted to college. Professor Boise, who has not for
many years past been connected with Brown, then had
charge of the instruction in Greek. The late Professor
Frieze, of the University of Michigan, was our tutor in
Latin during the Freshman year. In thiS body of teach
ers, all of whom were deserving of honor and esteem, Pro
fessor Gammell had a distinctive place, and manifested
qualities altogether peculiar to himself. He struck the
students at once as a man of refined manners and ele
gant culture. It was obvious that he set a high value
on good manners, and was impatient of all sorts of coarse
ness and vulgarity. He expected his pupils to be gentle
men in their deportment and language, and — although

18 MEMORIAL.
he said nothing about it — they tacitly felt that he did
not like to see them slovenly in dress. There were tra
ditional sayings to the effect that his estimate of a student
was modified by the degree of his carefulness in this par
ticular. A keen and caustic critic, he was not solicitous
to conceal his disapproval of any violations of decorum or
offenses against good taste, whether they consisted in a
neglect of the canons of polite intercourse or of the rules
of literary expression. He was the Professor of Rhetoric,
and everybody felt that he meant to discharge his function
resolutely, whether men would bear or forbear. His criti
cisms were fair and just, but the arrow generally hit the
mark, and his reputation as a censor of rhetorical faults
and follies caused his utterances to be awaited by some
of the young authors with a degree of apprehension. No
sort of affectation, or bombast, or cant in the choice of
phraseology flourished in his presence. It was evident
to all that Professor GammeU's standards were high. He
demanded an easy naturalness in style, free on the one
hand from everything tumid, and on the other from every
thing careless or coarse. He labored perseveringly to
train his pupils in the art of writing, sf)aring no pains in
the correction of their juvenile essays, and in giving to
them personal suggestions and advice. In the depart
ment of rhetoric and English literature, his influence
was great upon the generations of students who were
trained by him. On the select number who were d^a^^^l
into close personal relations with him the effect of his in
struction and guidance was of course especiaUy marked.
The acknowledged literary exceUence which distinguished
the students at Brown as a class is the best possible
proof of the capacity and fidelity of their instructor. It
should be added that in the daily routine of college work
Professor Gammell was strictly conscientious. He re
quired his pupils to do their work faithfuUy, and never

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 19
failed to exact of them, in recitations and examinations,
suitable proofs that they had rightly spent their time. In
my day, it was customary for the instructors to make
domiciliary visits to the students' rooms, — if visits can be
called domiciliary which began and ended with a bow at
the door. The design was to find out if we were at home
in the prescribed study-hours. In my Freshman year, I
was in Professor GammeU's division. He made his calls
with much regularity, — no officer, I believe, except Pro
fessor Chace, being more exact in his adherence to this
ancient law.
Professor Gammell, in addition to his duties as Pro
fessor of Rhetoric, took up the work of an instructor in
history. The amount of time given at first to the study
was not very large. We attended mainly to English his
tory, and gave special attention to the period of the Re
bellion and the Commonwealth. In this department, the
influence of Professor GammeU was very quickening and
serviceable. He led us into paths of investigation and
reflection of the highest interest and importance. I have
special occasion to express an indebtedness to his kind,
thoughtful assistance in initiating me into historical
studies. One day he invited me to his room, and showed
to me several volumes of manuscript correspondence of
Roger Williams, which had just been added to the coUec
tions of the Rhode Island Historical Society. He gave
to me this correspondence as a theme for a composition,
and let me come to his room, from time to time, to ex
amine it, and prej)are for my task. This incident will
illustrate the disposition to aid his pupils whenever he
found them receptive.
I shall not venture to speak at length of Professor
GammeU's personal qualities, beyond what has been al
ready implied. His conversation was entertaining, and
seasoned in some degree with a certain caustic wit, not

20 MEMORIAL.
inconsistent with genuine good-will and kindness. He
never forgot his pupUs. He followed them after they
left coUege, and took an almost parental satisfaction in
whatever successes they achieved. Those who have been
entertained under his roof will never cease to remember
his hospitality, and to recaU the proofs of his interest in
them and of his continued solicitude for the welfare of his
former pupils generally. For myself, I cannot think of
Professor Gammell without sincere respect and tender
recollections of his kindness, and gratitude for what I owe
to him. Yours faithfuUy, George P. Fisher.
The following estimate of Professor GammeU from
President James B. AngeU, LL. D., of Michigan
University, and who was graduated at Brown Uni
versity in the class of 1849, bears testimony similar
to that of Professor Fisher. Both these gentlemen
were favorite pupUs of Professor GammeU. He had
the deepest pride in theh highly successful careers,
and none of his students stood in closer relations to
him. I pursued studies under Professor GammeU from the
beginning of my Sophomore year to the end of my coUege
course. Two years later I traveled in company with him
through Italy. I was afterwards associated with him in
the Faculty of Brown University. Since I left Provi
dence I have maintained an intimate acquaintance with
him through annual visits to Rhode Island, and through
a somewhat regular correspondence with him extending
down to the date of his last illness. My appreciation of
the value of his friendship is measured only by the depth
of my sorrow at his death.

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 21
In my coUege days he taught rhetoric, logic, and his
tory, and trained the students in writing and speaking.
He was an efficient instructor in aU these branches, though,
in accordance with the usage then prevalent in Brown
University, he held us more closely to the recitation ver
batim of the text-book or the lecture than we should now
deem wise. His drill in writing was excellent. He in
sisted that the essay of his pupil should have a distinct
plan, a beginning, a middle, and an end, a simple and
natural introduction, and — old students will recall his
expression — "a free, easy, and appropriate conclusion."
If we sometimes thought that he emphasized the impor
tance of the style rather than of the thought, in our com
positions, possibly we see now that what we then most
needed to learn was the art of accurate, chaste, and grace
ful expression. He was a nice verbal critic. If necessary,
he could embody his criticism in a pointed, perhaps caus
tic expression, which was likely to be remembered. The
style which he desired us to cultivate was like that of most
writers half a century ago, — less incisive and direct, more
stately and artificial, than that which is commended at the
present time. But it was graceful and dignified.
He inspired his classes with high aspirations for excel
lence in writing, and with zeal for the study of the classic
English authors. His students took sides as lovers of this
author or that, and discussed with ardor literary questions.
Most of them learned under him to appreciate and to
cultivate style in writing, and to become familiar with the
great masters of English thought. I have heard many of
his pupils, even those who had felt most keenly the wounds
inflicted on their complacent souls by his sharp criticisms,
express in after-life their gratitude and sense of obliga
tion to him for the service he had rendered them by his
unsparing fidelity. They were ready to exclaim, " Faith
ful are the wounds of a friend."

22 MEMORIAL.
There was in his manner in the class-room and else
where a certain air of dignity and high-breeding, which
sometimes seemed to students, with their unconventional
ways, to bolder on primness and formaUty, and perhaps
was occasionally in danger of falling into that extreme.
But it was not without its beneficial effect.-;. There was
something in his bearing, in his neatness of dress, in his
elegance of language, that rebuked coarseness, vulgarity,
and untidiness in a manner not un^alutary to young men
living by themselves in dormitories and in commons haU,
when, secluded from general society, they so easUy feU into
habits of carelessness conceming their dress, and became
neglectful of the ordinary courtesies of life. The fact
that he impressed them with his ideals of demeanor ex
pressed itseU in the current saying that no one who ap
peared in his recitation room with boots unblacked could
expect a high mark for his recitation. Of course there
was no truth in this. But the unconscious influence of
the teacher, who was always and everywhere so instinc
tively regardful of the proprieties and courtesies of refined
society, in making students mindful of them, is not to be
lightly valued.
In my time in coUege, Professor GammeU's instruction
in history was mainly confined to the constitutional his
tory of England, though he gave a few lectures on the
history of the United States. His work was afterwards
broadened in its scope. But in aU his historical teaching
he was intent on making his students observe and appre
hend the development of constitutional liberty and of civ
ilization. It was not dates and facts by themselves that
he sought to fix in their memory, but the progress of the
great principles whose triumphs have secured human pro
gress. In his later years he became much interested in
some of the problems of international law. His special
historical reading had been ampler in the fields of English

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 23
and American history than in the history of continental
Europe, though he had studied with care the development
and the decline of feudalism in France and Germany.
The excellence of the articles on historical and political
subjects which he contributed to the " Providence Jour
nal " and to the " New York Examiner," and of the papers
which he read before the Rhode Island Historical Society,
makes one regret that he did not devote the years fol
lowing the resignation of his professional chair to writing
some historical work.
But after laying down the duties of his professorship
he did not lose his interest either in college questions or in
historical and political problems. He watched the careers
of his pupils with the deepest interest, and felt the great
est pride in their successes. He was ever ready to help
them by his counsels. He had constantly at heart the
welfare of Brown University. Of the many letters I
have received from him, I doubt if there is one in which
he does not speak of that college with earnest interest and
touch on some phase of current discussion of college
problems. His conversation always led speedily to the
same themes. He was conservative in his views of coUege
policy, as in all things. His last will and testament gave
touching proof of his devotion to the college and to Amer
ican history.
He cherished a strong pride in the career of Rhode
Island. Himself a biographer of the founder of the
State and of one of its early governors, he was familiar,
as few men are, with her history. While not blind to her
mistakes, he loved to dwell upon the bright passages in
her record, and to discourse with hearty appreciation on
the strong men she has reared.
In instruction to classes, in writing for the press, and
in conversation, he was ever urging that educated men,
and especiaUy rich men, should cultivate a deep interest

24 MEMORIAL.
in public affairs and in public institutions. He never
tired of emphasizing the importance of the nurture and
growth of civic virtue. He iUustrated his doctrine by
his own active interest in the Rhode Island Hospital, the
Providence Athenaeum, the Rhode Island Historical So
ciety, and other institutions, and in pubHc affairs in gen
eral. Mr. GammeU was fond of society. He was a fluent,
vivacious, and agreeable talker. He was a welcome guest
at any dinner-table. His conversation was often racy
vdth sharp but not iU-natured criticism. He was not
wanting in wit, and he keenly appreciated it in others.
He had '• the courage of his convictions." and defended
his positions with spirit, but without loss of temper. He
was a charming companion and a most faithful friend.
His sympathies were quick and tender. He was a man
of simple, earnest Christian faith, a beUever of the broad
est and most cathoUc type. He was the last survivor of
that group of marked men who constituted the Faculty
of Brown University when he joined it None of them
served that coUege with more faithful devotion than he.
With aU her wealth she has no richer treasure, no more
precious endowment, than the memory of their Uves and
characters. Yours very truly, James B. An'GELL.
The years 1843— 1S50 were years of Uterary labor
outside the regidar and engrossing academic work.
Professor GammeU was asked to prepare two of the
Memoirs in the " Library of American Biography,"
conducted by Jared Sparks, then McLean Professor
of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard Col
lege. He entered at once and with zest mto the
undertaking, and his ^Memoir of Roger WiUiams

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 25
appeared in 1845, in Vol. IV. of the " American
Biography," Second Series. His monograph is more
condensed than that of a previous biographer, Mr.
Knowles. It is, however, no mere digest of Mr.
Knowles's labors. Professor Gammell made his own
investigations, and the result of his work is well
stated in an appropriate notice of the book in the
" North American Review : " ^ —
"Mr. GammeU, though he has consulted all the works of
our colonial history relating to his theme, has not found
occasion in any important point to vary from the opinions
expressed by his predecessor. The memoir which he has
prepared, as its position in a series of popular biographies
required, is more brief and more closely confined to the
life of the individual. The writer has shown more skill
in the selection and arrangement of his materials, equal
soundness of judgment in the views of individual character
and of colonial policy, and very commendable impartiality
in the narration of events, the history of which has been
too often distorted and colored by prejudice or malevo
lence. The style is remarkably weU suited to a work of
this kind. It is chaste, easy, and animated, showing the
taste and skill of an accomplished and accurate scholar."
The Life of Governor Samuel Ward was pub
Ushed in the following year, 1846, in Vol. IX., New
Series, of the " American Biography." The latter
volume cost him a somewhat extended research.
He examined the "letters and private papers of
Governor Ward, now in the possession of his de
scendants in the city of New York ; also, the legis-
1 Vol. Ixiv. pp. 1-20.

26 MEMORIAL.
lative records and the files of ancient documents in
the office of the Secretary of State of Rhode Isl
and, as well as the published memorials relating to
that period of her colonial history." Nothing which
he ever pubUshed seems to have been prepared with
greater care. The narrative is flowing and graphic, .
the saUent points in Governor Ward's career are
brought into proper relief, the style is clear and
concise, and whUe a hearty admiration for his sub
ject is manifest, his appreciative spirit does not sink
the historian in the eulogist. It is a critical esti
mate as weU as a biography. The preparation of
the volume had one marked effect on Professor Gam
mell : it deepened his interest in Rhode Island his
tory, and made him a more fervent admirer of Rhode
Island institutions. He records his opinion in the
Preface " that the services of the colony of Rhode
Island in the Revolution have never yet been duly
chronicled." The writing of these two volumes quaUfied him
for another and weightier task in historical author
ship. The Executive Committee of the American
Baptist Missionary Union requested him to write a
history of American Baptist missions. What the
work involved is best described in his own words :
" The subject relates to many different countries and
races of mankind, and comprises the personal ad
ventures and philanthropic labors of a large number
of individuals, who, in the spirit of their Master and
in obedience to His great command, have toUed for
the extension of Christian truth among their feUow-

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 27
men. From a range of topics so wide and varied
the author has aimed to select the incidents and
scenes which may fairly represent the growth of
each separate mission, and to form from them a
series of narratives fitted to interest the general
reader. In the execution of the design, the most
difificidt task has been to blend particular facts with
general views, and from the scattered letters of many
individuals to trace the gradual advancement of the
enterprises in which they are engaged." To carry
out his plan, it was necessary to examine carefully
the journals of the missionaries, the pubUshed re
ports of missionary operations in the " Missionary
Magazine," also records and papers in manuscript
at the Baptist Missionary Rooms. He consulted
the memoirs of missionaries and works on missions
in different countries, as also works discussing the
history and condition of countries in which the mis
sions had been planted. He wove " into the nar
rative brief notices of such public events as have
affected their progress and success." Aside from
the general quahfication for such a work which his
historical studies and writings had given him, he
had a special fitness springing from close studies
of the great missionary field. It had been his habit
to prepare for the Society of Missionary Inquiry in
the college a monthly resume of missionary intelU-
gence. This was given on the evening of the first
Sunday in the month, at the old chapel. Dr. Way-
land was always present. The students of that day
wiU recaU the dimly lighted room, and the impressive

28 MEMORIAL.
prayers and addresses of Dr. Wayland, which fol
lowed Professor GammeU's presentation of mission
ary intelUgence from all parts of the world. Nothing
ever kindled Dr. Wayland's enthusiasm more than
the story of missionary tod and sacrifices ; and after
Professor Gammell had read his selection of weU-
chosen facts gathered from the missionary periodi
cals, always skUlfuUy grouped and lighted up by
explanatory comments. Dr. Wayland closed the ser
vice by one of those off-hand moving addresses in
which he was so powerful. The same service was
subsequently repeated in the vestry of the Fhst
Baptist Meeting-House. From this wide survey of
missionary operations, and stiU more from the deep
sympathy with missionaries and their labors which
this survey engendered. Professor GammeU had
gained a special training for the office of a mission
ary historian.
His " History of American Baptist Missions " is
a model of its kind. More than half the book is
occupied in detaiUng the wonderful story of the
Burman missions. From these the author passes to
missions in Siam and China ; then treats of the mis
sion in Assam, briefly describes that to the Teloo-
goos, and, leaving the continent of Asia, details the
history of the mission in West Africa. Not the
least striking feature of the volume is its concluding
portion, in which the history of Baptist missions in
Europe is narrated. Each of those in Greece, in
France, in Germany, and in Denmark is happUy de
scribed. The book ends with an account of missions

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 29
among the Indians of North America. It is a volume
of only 348 octavo pages ; but so well proportioned
is the author's discussion of each mission according
to its importance, so weU selected are the salient
points of missionary interest, dry and prolix details
are so skiUfuUy avoided, striking incidents and sig
nificant crises are so carefuUy seized, the style is so
well suited to the subject, warmed at times into a
glow of Christian enthusiasm, that this History has
secured high rank in the Uterature of missions. The
" North American Review " heartily commended both
its style and execution : ^ "In point of style it is
chaste and elegant. It rejects aU rhetorical embel-
Ushments, and when the narrative is most exciting
its flow is stiU calm and dispassionate. . . . Pro
fessor GammeU deserves our high regard also for
the kindly spirit in which he has wrought out this
monument to the philanthropy of his denomination.
We look in vain for the language of bigotry, exclu-
siveness, or unkindness. The most generous notice
is uniformly taken of the missionaries of ofher sects,
and the ashes of buried controversy are in every
instance left undisturbed."
The reorganization of the University by President
Wayland, and the introduction of the " New Sys
tem," as it was caUed, opened the way for a change
of professorship to Professor GammeU. His inter
est in historical studies had been steadily growing.
They were to assume a new importance and a much
larger field in the future course of study. For
1 Vol. Ixx. pp. 57-78.

30 MEMORIAL.
fifteen years he had wrought laboriously and suc
cessfully in the rhetorical department. But there
was of necessity a drudgery in correcting essays and
supervising orations from which he naturaUy de
sired release. He had purchased the right to ex
emption from such tods. And when, in 1850,
history was constituted a distinct department, asso
ciated with that of poUtical economy, he had abun
dantly shown his fitness for the new position. Ac
cordingly, he was transferred from the chair of
rhetoric to that of history and poUtical economy.
He was married a second time, September 22,
1851, to Miss EUzabeth Amory, daughter of Mr.
Robert H. Ives, of Providence, and with his bride
saUed for Europe, where they passed a year visiting
England, France, Italy, and Switzerland ; returning
by England and Scotland in August of the year
following, in time for the opening of the coUege.
It was a year of rest greatly needed by him, and it
proved aU that his best friends hoped. He was in
Paris during the stirring times of the autumn of 1851.
The coMjJ d'etat took place the day after he left
the capital, the news reaching him at the city of
Lyons. His interest in this foreign tour was not
concentrated on any specialties. It was various, keen
always, and fastening on every aspect of foreign
life, or manners, or institutions, or scenery.^ His
^ In 1879 Professor Gammell revisited Italy with his family. On
his return, he prepared and read before the Friday Evening Club the
paper Italy Revisited, printed in this volume. That paper reveals
in an interesting manner his habits as a traveler.

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 31
social gifts, as well as his wide inteUigence and cul
ture, gave him ready access to men of note, whose
acquaintance he desired. Perhaps the most marked
instance of this was his visit to Guizot, who had
returned from his exUe in England, and was then
living: in Paris. For him as a historical scholar
Professor GammeU had great veneration. They dis
cussed, in an interview they had, the problems of the
day in their connection with mediaeval history. He
¦was wont to aUude to this conversation with Guizot
with profound interest, and his use of the " History
of Civilization " as a text-book was one fruit of the
discussion. He admired its method, sympathized
with its views, and grounded his classes well in the
generaUzations expounded by Guizot.
He resumed his duties in the college immedi
ately on his return, and for twelve years filled
the chair of history and political economy. Pro
fessor Gammell made no claim to knowledge of
speculative philosophy. He had no fondness and
perhaps no aptitude for metaphysical studies. It
would, however, be a great mistake, as weU as an
injustice, to conclude from this that he did not teach
the laws as well as the facts of history. His method
was certainly a philosophical one ; not fully devel
oped, perhaps, wanting in completeness, but stUl
proceeding on Unes of broad and weU-considered
generalization. The estimates of his work as a
historical teacher furnished already by Professor
Fisher and President AngeU are well supplemented
by the foUowing from Professor J. H. GUmore, of

32 MEMORIAL.
Rochester University,^ a graduate from Brown Uni
versity of the class of 1858, who was his pupU
when he was devoting his whole time to this de
partment : — University of Kochestek,
Rochester, N. Y., February 25, 1890.
Pray excuse my seeming neglect in delaying to answer
your letters. It is only seeming, as I have been absent
from the city nearly all the time since the first one was
received, and, when at home, have been so busy that it
has been impossible to attend to any work that was not
absolutely imperative.
Even now, I do not know that I can render you much
service, but I will give you, at least, my impressions of
Professor Gammell ; and that with the greater interest,
as I feel under especial obligations to him.
I do not think he was exceptionally popular with our
class (perhaps it was not altogether his fault) ; but while
my own relations with Professor Dunn and Professor An
geU were more cordial than those that subsisted between
Professor GammeU and myself, I Uked him exceedingly,
and thought, at the time, that I was getting more from
him than from any other professor in college. As I look
back upon my coUege course, I still feel under peculiar
obligations to my professor of history. More time was
then given to history at Brown than to any other study
excepting Latin, Greek, and mathematics ; and it seems
to me that the course of study in Professor GammeU's
department was better organized than those in most of
the other departments. Certainly, the instruction which I
received from him has stood me very fairly in stead dur
ing all these years. But I think I especially appreciated
(1 know that I appreciated more than most of mj' class
^ This University conferred on Professor Gammell, in 1859, the
honorary degree of LL. D.

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 33
did) Professor GammeU's obiter dicta, his incidental re
marks concerning men and things of our own day. He
was animated by a sturdy contempt for humbugs and
shams ; and, as I recall his teachings, his influence seems
to have been broadening and liberalizing beyond that of
most of my professors. Only yesterday, after penning
(or, rather, caligraphing) the sentence, " And, often, back
of the mysterious editorial we there is masquerading some
callow stripling, who lacks even the rudiments of a decent
English education," I thought to myself, That's one of
my old professor's sentences, — as, indeed, it might well
have been, for the thraldom of the press was one of his
favorite themes.
I do not think that Professor GammeU was particularly
intimate with any of his students, — perhaps he did not
care to be, perhaps they thought he did not care to be,
— but I am certain that he was profoundly interested
in their welfare. Once, when I had occasion to see
him about another matter, he talked with me quite at
length in regard to a very bright young man, a student
for the Christian ministry, who was not getting that prep
aration for his life-work which he needed, because he
was so eager for immediate work and immediate results.
" He has no right to neglect his opportunities as he does,"
said Professor GammeU, " but it will not do for me to tell
him so. He would only misunderstand me. Now, you
are intimate with him, and religiously in sympathy with
him, without neglecting your immediate duty. Could n't
you influence him for good ? " As I look back upon that
conversation, it seems in every respect creditable to Dr.
Gammell. I wish, my dear Dr. Murray, that I could really give
you something that would be of more value to you than
these fragmentary reminiscences ; but such as I have I
place at your disposal.
Very truly yours, J. H. GiLMORE.

34 MEMORIAL.
The following letter from Professor Fisher, of
Yale University, gracefuUy expresses his feeUngs of
indebtedness to his esteemed professor. Its occa
sion was the publication of Professor Fisher's " Out
lines of Universal History." New Haven, January 7, 1886.
Mt dear Professor Gammell, — When you first
led me to begin historical studies, you little knew that the
ambitious and audacious spirit of your pupil would one
day impel him to the bold task of writing a history of the
world. Yet such is the fact ; and for it I am afraid that
you will have to be held in a large measure responsible.
The least thing that I can do is to carry the fruit of the
seed which you sowed back to your door. Accordingly, I
have directed the publishers to send to you a copy of my
" Outlines of Universal History."
Very sincerely your friend and pupil,
George P. Fisher.
Professor Gammell.
In 1864 Professor GammeU resigned the chair of
history and poUtical economy, to which he had
been caUed in 1850. It was with the deepest sat
isfaction to him that his pupU the Rev. J. Lewis
Diman, of the class of 1851, was appointed by the
Corporation his successor, as in 1850 his pupil the
Rev. Robinson P. Dunn had succeeded him m the
chair of rhetoric. Seldom has it been the fortune
of a successful professor to leave his work in hands
so well fitted to carry it on. Professor Gammell
had now completed a long and honorable career
of academic Ufe. More than a generation of stu
dents had been graduated since he began his work

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 35
as tutor in the University. His influence as a
scholar and as a professor had steadily increased.
He retired from the chair of history in the zenith
of his powers. He was never more strongly inter
ested in the high position he had secured than when
he decided to lay aside his professional duties, and
to find for the remainder of his life a sphere of
usefulness outside the professor's chair. The fol
lowing estimate of Professor GammeU's services to
Brown University, from the pen of Professor John
L. Lincoln, long associated with him in its Faculty,
and who is so widely beloved and deeply honored, will
be welcomed by every friend of his departed col
league. No tribute could be more gracefully ren
dered, and none could be of higher value.
Providence, March 28, 1890.
You have requested me to give you, from my recollec
tions, some views of the relations of our late friend, Pro
fessor Gammell, to our University as a member of the
Faculty and a college officer. It is with pleasure that I
comply with this request, as such a view takes me back in
memory over the scenes and events of many years belong
ing alike to his and my own professional life ; and yet it is
a pleasure mingled with sadness, when I remember that he
with whom I was then associated in coUege service, and to
whom I was wont to look up as older in that service than
myself, and who had also been my instructor, is now gone
from among us ; and that in his death I lost the last one
of that company of good men and true who were my
elders in the Faculty, when I entered it as a tutor in 1839,
and as a professor in 1844.
Mr. Gammell came into the Faculty as tutor in Sep-

36 MEMORIAL.
tember, 1832, the beginning of the second year after his
graduation. That was the year in which my class en
tered college ; and I remember weU the kindly greeting
he gave me on meeting me, on my first coUege day, as
an applicant for admission to the Freshman class. He
instructed our class the first term in all three of our
studies ; in our Sophomore year he was our instructor
in rhetoric, being then Assistant Professor of BeUes-
Lettres, and in 1836, having been appointed Professor
of Rhetoric, he had the sole charge of that department,
and ours was the first class which he prepared for Com
mencement. The duties of that department, in class in
struction and lectures, and in the conduct of the pubUc
literary exercises of the college, he discharged, as we aU
know, with efficiency and skill until 1851, in which year
he assumed the professorship, then first established, of
History and Political Economy; and the work of that im
portant new department he organized and carried forward
with zeal and vigor, and with marked educating influence,
till the year 1864, when he resigned his professorship and
retired from his place in the Faculty. In these offices
and studies he had thus been occupied as a member of the
Faculty from 1832 to 1864, — a period of thirty-two years.
These were among the best years of his life, of his youth
and manhood, — from the age of twenty-one to fifty-two.
They were also years of important changes and great
progress in the history of the University, in the increase
of its resources, the widening of the range of its educa
tional work, and the adoption of larger views of what con
stitutes a liberal education. These years cover a large
part of Dr. AVayland's administration ; indeed, if we in
clude Professor GammeU's undergraduate life, he was a
member of college during the whole of Dr. Wayland's
administration, from 1827 to 1855. These j'ears include
also nine of the twelve years of Dr. Sears's administra-

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 37
tion. During this period, besides the professorship of
History and Political Economy, there were also established
the professorship of Chemistry, Physiology, and Geol
ogy, and that of Chemistry applied to the Arts. Then,
too, in 1850, came, after long-continued reflection on the
part of Dr. Wayland, and much agitated discussion in
the Faculty, the introduction of what has been called the
" New System ; " which, while it embodied some measures
that, being of a somewhat radical nature and of ambig
uous benefit, were afterwards changed, yet has justified
itself in the subsequent history of college education, as
right and most important in its fundamental ideas, and
progressive in its spirit and ends. During all this period
of change and progress. Professor GammeU rendered val
uable service as a college officer. In him Dr. Wayland,
whom he always loved to speak of as his chief, found
a faithful adviser and an untiring coadjutor. It was a
marked characteristic of Professor Gammell that he never
limited his thoughts and labors to his duties in the lecture-
room as an instructor. Outside and beyond this sphere of
professional work, he was wont to keep a vigilant outlook
over every domain of college jurisdiction, wherever might
be developed and cultivated elements and resources of the
welfare and the prosperity of the institution. He was a
truly academic man, and his academic life was identified
with the life of Brown, his Alma Mater, and the sphere
of his untiring filial devotion, in thought and effort. He
kept himself in touch with all that went on in its history,
rejoicing in everything that enhanced its fame and useful
ness, and pained to the quick by anything which threatened
to dim and diminish its good name and influence. In the
earlier years of his professorship, he prepared the Annual
Catalogues, either alone or in union with the President.
So, too, he early interested himself, in connection with
the late Hon. Theron Metcalf, in the preparation of the

38 MEMORIAL.
Triennial Catalogue ; and after Judge Metcalf had retired
from these labors, he was the sole editor of this Catalogue
till the year 1846. In this way he kept himself in com
munication with the graduates, and had probably a wider
and more accurate knowledge of their places of residence
and their occupations than any of his coUeagues. Profes
sor GammeU also rendered important and long-continued
services as a member of the Joint Library Committee of
the University. He came into the Faculty the year after
measures had been taken by Dr. Wayland for raising a
Library Fund, and two years after his accession this fund
had been raised, chiefly through the personal exertions of
Dr. Wayland and Dr. Caswell. The year 1835 was marked
by another signal event in the history of the library, the
erection and dedication of Manning HaU, and the appropri
ation of the first floor of that building, which was the gift
of the Hon. Nicholas Brown, to the uses of the library.
In 1839 the sum which had been raised for the fund had
increased at interest to $25,000, and the first dividend
from its income was paid in July of that year. Three
years after this new era in the history of the library, Pro
fessor Gammell was chosen from the Faculty a member of
the Library Committee ; and then began a course of faith
ful service in promoting the interests of the library, which
continued tiU 1859, — a period of seventeen 3^ears. Later,
in 1871, after he had been elected to the Board of Fel
lows, he was chosen to represent the Corporation in the
Joint Library Committee, and remained in the commit
tee till 1886, his whole period of service having been
thirty-three years. In 1843, the year after his first en
trance into the committee, he prepared a circular, ad
dressed to the graduates and friends of the college, invit
ing their cooperation in increasing the library, which was
printed and widely circulated, with immediate results of
important accessions of books and pamphlets. He also

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 39
wrote the annual report of the committee for that year,
a document of substantial value, by its historical notices
and its practical suggestions, in securing the after pros
perity of the library. For seven years — from 1852 to
1859 — he was secretary of the Library Committee, and
most of the annual reports during this period were the
productions of his pen. As was his wont in all places of
trust which he filled, he was uniformly regular and punc
tual in his attendance upon the meetings of the committee,
and in union with his coUeagues exercised a faithful super
vision in the conduct of its affairs, in the selection and
purchase of books, and in the planning and execution of
measures for augmenting its usefulness. He held opin
ions on the province and functions of a college library,
which, as the result of much reflection and experience,
came to be an abiding possession of his mind ; and though
these opinions did not always coincide with those of his
coUeagues in their nature and workings, yet his mainte
nance of them illustrated the loyalty and fidelity which
were marked qualities of his character. Besides these
services. Professor Gammell promoted the interests of the
coUege by his articles for the press, especially the " Provi
dence Journal," by which he aimed to keep the college in
touch with its alumni and friends and the public. If
these articles, valuable for their information and their lit
erary merits, could be gathered together, they would form
a most useful and interesting contribution to the history
of the University. In the inner work of the college, as
done by the Faculty and its committees, Professor Gam
meU always bore a prominent part, striving ever, by coun
sel and action, to maintain wholesome discipline in the
government and a high standard of scholarship and char
acter in the students, and to preserve kindly and helpful
relations between the instructors and their pupils. On all
subjects which belonged to the jurisdiction of the Faculty

40 MEMORIAL.
he reached opinions of his own by reflection and experi
ence, and these he maintained with firmness and con
stancy ; and if these seemed sometimes to be pronounced
in a somewhat positive and exclusive manner, yet they
were recognized by his colleagues as emanating from the
mind and will of a thoughtful educator and a loyal son of
the college. When Professor Gammell resigned his pro
fessorship, he carried with him, as was expressed in the
resolutions then passed, the warmest wishes of the Faculty
for his continued welfare and usefulness, together with
their hope, which was fully gratified, that his withdrawal
would not lessen his interest in the institution with which
he had been so long identified.
Upon Professor GammeU's resignation, with en
tire freedom from worldly cares, two courses of life
were open to him. He could have devoted himself
to some Une of historical research, and have left be
hind him some elaborate historical work. For this
he was fitted by bent of mind and by discipline.
Not a few there may be who share in the regret that
he had not done so, and thus have left his own best
Memorial in some weU-studied work on Rhode Isl
and history, — always to him a fascinating theme.
The other course was, to give liimseLf to causes of
benevolence, of learning, of pubUc usefulness. He
chose the latter. So had Dr. Wayland closed his
long and noble career. So had Professor Chace
decided to spend the honored close of his honored
Ufe. Professor Gammell found in the promotion of
wise and noble beneficences, in the devotion to the
University outside the professor's chah, the sphere
which was congenial to him and in which he did a
noble service.

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 41
The Rhode Island Historical Society was estab
lished in 1822. Only three institutions of the kind,
organized in the United States, are older. It has
always maintained a high rank in the prosecution
of the noble purposes for which such institutions
exist. Professor GammeU's interest in it dates from
an early period in his career. He was chosen a
member July 19, 1844. When the society opened
its new cabinet on Waterman Street, November 21,
1844, he was chosen to give the dedicatory ad
dress. He surveyed the province of such societies
in their general relation to the work of the historian,
and then dwelt on their more specific relation to the
history of the several States they immediately repre
sent. He used the occasion to urge the claims of
Rhode Island on her historical students. " The his
tory of no State in the Union, we may safely say,
presents claims upon the attention and study of her
citizens so strong as does that of Rhode Island." ^
He testified his interest in the work of the society
by active participation in its efforts, contributing a
remarkably interesting series of papers to its ses
sions. The list here given exhibits his varied in
terest in historical studies. A few of these papers
are printed in this volume.
' When, some years since, it became necessary to open the grave
of William Blaokstone, Professor Gammell was present, carefully
watched the removal of the few remains, and wrote with great feeling
a notice of the occurrence. Such an event as the opening of an an
cient historic grave drew out his liveliest interest. It was to him a
pious care and a sincere joy that through the generosity of Black-
stone's lineal descendants a suitable monument to Blackstone was
reared on the spot.

42 MEMORIAL.
Addresses and Papers read before the Rhode
Island Historical Society, by the Late Pro
fessor William Gammell, LL. D.
1. " Address at the Opening of the New Cabinet," No
vember 21, 1844.
2. " The Loyalists of the American Revolution," March
5, 1857.
3. " Progress of Rhode Island History since the For
mation of this Society," February 21, 1860.
4. " Contributions History has received from Certain
Physical Sciences," October 16, 1877.
5. "Asylum and Extradition among Nations," March
9, 1880.
6. " The Monroe Doctrine, its Original History," Janu
ary 26, 1881.
7. " Memorial Minute recorded in Honor of the Late
Zachariah AUen,LL. D.," March 21, 1882.
8. " The Confederation Period of the Repubhc," Oc
tober 31, 1882.
9. " The Huguenots and the Edict of Nantes," Novem
ber 17, 1885.
10. " The Life and Services of the Late John R. Bart-
lett," November 2, 1886.
11. " Rhode Island refusing to adopt the Constitution,"
April 17, 1888.
.12. " The Life of Rowland Gibson Hazard, LL. D.,"
July 30, 1888.
Also seven Annual Addresses : the first, January, 1883,
the last January, 1889.
When, in 1882, the presidency of the society be
came vacant by the death of the Hon. Zachariah
Allen, Professor Gammell was chosen to succeed
him. An honor also highly appreciated by him was

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 43
his election, in 1873, as corresponding member of the
Massachusetts Historical Society. As President of
the Rhode Island Historical Society, he was called
on to give an Annual Address. On these addresses
he seems to have bestowed great care. They con
tained, according to weU - established precedents,
some survey of the society's work during the pre
vious year. But his addresses took a wider range.
He brought to the notice of the society important
lines of historical investigation, as yet not fully oc
cupied. He pointed out matters of local history,
sustaining important relations to the history of the
country as weU as possessing an intrinsic interest.
Thus in his first address, that of 1883, he calls
attention to the important place held by the his
tory of the towns of Rhode Island, referring es
peciaUy to the town of Newport, his early and his
later summer home. "I cannot forbear," he said,
"to express the earnest hope that some citizen of
Newport, with suitable qualifications, will soon be
induced to make use of the materials that may ere
long be wasted or lost, and chronicle in a worthy
manner the instructive and fascinating history of
a town whose large agency in the early formation
of the State and in the subsequent development of
its institutions and interests has never been fuUy
appreciated nor understood." Specially he urged
that, among the chapters in such a work, " more
than one shaU be devoted to those mUitary for
tresses which long ago were constructed at the
mouth of Narragansett Bay, alike on the islands

44 MEMORIAL.
and on the mainland." He also called attention to
the need existing for a " new history of Providence."
The address for 1886 contains a spirited and elo
quent plea for some adequate history of Rhode Isl
and commerce in its earlier era. It is introduced
by a graphic picture of the barrier which Narra
gansett Bay interposed to any easy communica
tion between the scattered settlements of the col
ony. " Its shores, especially on the western side, were covered
with dense forests, in which, here and there, openings had
been made for Indian viUages. It could be traversed only
in pleasant weather in any season, and in winter it was
effectuaUy closed for at least two months by ice. When
we recall facts like these, it becomes evident that the con
ditions of intercourse among the towns of the colony, nay,
the conditions of their very existence, were somewhat
harshly prescribed and enforced by the stern mistress
whom they had not yet learned either to concUiate or to
control. " But I must not be thought to disparage our noble
bay, which has done so much in the making of the State.
I am only saying that it was a somewhat formidable ex
panse of water for our early settlers to traverse in noth
ing but row-boats and canoes. I know full well that it
was all the time training them to hardships, to self-re
liance in dangers, to all the heroic qualities which were
needed to prepare them for a subsequent stage in their
social progress. The settlements, once united, became
prosperous and strong. The sea was still around them
on every side, but they had now learned to adapt them
selves to its varying moods, and to make use of its forces
for purposes of their own. Industry had greatly increased

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 45
their resources. The little boats which necessity had
taught them to buUd were soon supplanted by sloops,
shallops, and snows, by brigantines and by ships ; and
these they built in great numbers, not only for them
selves, but also for neighboring colonies. An active
trade sprang up, not only with Boston, New London,
New Haven, and Manhattan, but also with Barbadoes
and the Spanish West India Islands. The struggle for
existence was over, and the bay was no longer the dicta
tor of their movements, but the wiUing servant of their
interests. The forests on its shores were fast disappear
ing, its depths and shallows had been ascertained, and its
harbors were inviting the commerce of Europe. I hope
that before it is too late some worthy history of the era
of Rhode Island commerce will be written. Should it
be written aright, more than any other chapter in the an
nals of the State it will show how important was the
agency of the bay, in all its length and breadth, in pro
ducing some of the noblest qualities in the character of
the people. It enabled them to become a colony, in a
large degree, of sailors and seafarers, of ship-builders and
merchants. So great was the commerce of the colony be
fore the troubles with England began that Newport was
the rival of Boston as a port for foreign trade. This
trade had also become large in Providence and at length
in Bristol, while ships were built at Warren, at Wickford,
and at East Greenwich, and the whole surface of our
Rhode Island waters glistened with coasters from every
part of New England. In the wars between England
and France our sailors had been largely engaged in naval
service and in privateering, and had become accustomed
to those deeds of daring, which long lingered in the tra
ditions of the colony. It was the spirit thus created and
kept alive that in later days prompted the burning of the
Gaspee, that produced Abraham Whipple for the conti-

46 MEMORIAL.
nental navy and prepared the way for Commodore Perry
and his Rhode Island companions at Lake Erie."
Professor GammeU's services, first as member and
then as President of the Historical Society, are fit
tingly described in the appended paper from Gen
eral Horatio Rogers, his successor in the office of
President : —
" Professor GammeU's connection with this Society ex
tended over a term of forty-five years, and at his death
but two persons remained who had been members of it
longer than he. In April, 1880, he was elected one of its
Vice-Presidents, and twenty-seven months later he suc
ceeded the Hon. Zachariah AUen as President, a position
he continued to hold during the remainder of his Ufe.
" For nearly threescore years and ten Professor GammeU
lived in Rhode Island, and, though not a native of the
State, few within its limits have surpassed him in famil
iarity with its history or in earnestness of zeal in its de
fense ; and it is to be noted that during the sixty-eight
years of the Society's existence he was the only one to
attain to the presidency who was not a native-born Rhode
Islander. Among his early services to the Society was
delivering the address at the opening of its cabinet in
1844, and a few of the eloquent sentences uttered by him
on that occasion wiU afford fitting illustration of his ap
preciation of the spirit of Rhode Island history.
" In referring to the exclusion of Rhode Island from the
New England Confederacy, after inquiring into the mo
tives that prompted such action, he said : ' Whichever of
these may have been the motive, the act itself bespeaks a
dark and malignant bigotry, which cannot be veiled, and
for which it is vain to apologize, — a bigotry which, indeed,
need not be dwelt upon, amid the general blaze of Puritan

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 47
virtues, but which we may weU be proud to think has left
no trace of its existence in the history of the character of
Rhode Island. How different from aU this is the spirit
which characterized her legislation, even at the same
gloomy periods of New England history ! In turning to
consider it, we seem to have advanced a whole age in the
progress of civil and intellectual freedom.' Again, in
speaking of the literature of New England and the mis
representations of the early annalists of Massachusetts
and Plymouth, he used these words : ' Many of these mis
representations have been corrected by subsequent writers,
in the same States from which they emanated, and the
fame of Rhode Island has been brightened by their lar
bors. But she still appeals to her own sons for a fuller
vindication ; she claims it for the lessons she has taught
them, for the inheritance of freedom she has transmitted
to them. From these eminences in her social progress, to
which she has attained, she points us back to the scattered
graves of her original Planters, and demands of us that
we build monuments to their memory, — that we guard
their fame, and transmit their principles, undisguised and
unperverted, in the imperishable records of history.'
" Professor GammeU sturdily defended his adopted State
against attacks from without, but he was extremely pro
nounced as to any of her history that did not command
his own approbation. He was scathing in his denuncia
tion of those that caused Rhode Island to delay her adop
tion of the Federal Constitution ; and though it would
seem that the lapse of a century should, to the impartial
historian, have lightened some of the shadows of that
event by enabling him to look calmly through the parti
sanship of one of the most bitter periods in the annals of
Rhode Island, to the real moving causes beyond, yet Pro
fessor Gammell never beheld that light, and could award
no judgment to the country party of a hundred years ago

48 MEMORIAL.
but a condemnation that admitted neither extenuation nor
qualification. " Two of his published works — the ' Life of Roger
Williams ' and the ' Biography of Governor Samuel
Ward' — were essentiaUy Rhode Island books, and the
numerous papers he read before the Society, and many
of his printed articles, especiaUy in the ' Providence Jour
nal,' were upon subjects germane to Rhode Island history.
His polished periods were highly attractive, and his ele
gant English invested every subject he treated with a
charm not easily resisted. The announcement that he was
to read a paper never failed to draw a numerous audience,
and none ever regretted going to hear him. The scope of
his knowledge and his ready adaptation of it to practical
use were amply illustrated bj' the remarks with which he
invariably favored the Society after the reading of papers
before it ; and, as the subjects of those papers were ex
ceedingly diverse, his intellectual stores must have been
ample to permit such drafts at sight upon them.
" Formerly it was the practice of the librarian and cabi
net keeper of the northern department to present a report
at the annual meetings of the Society ; but in 1880 Presi
dent Allen deviated from former usage, and delivered an
address in substitution of such report, a course he pursued
the succeeding year. President GammeU in this respect
followed the precedents of his immediate predecessor, and
his annual addresses were always looked forward to with
interest by the whole Society. Especially in the prepara
tion of memorial minutes Professor GammeU had no
superior, as the proceedings of the Society abundantly
prove, and those upon his predecessors in office, the Hon.
Samuel Greene Arnold and the Hon. Zachariah AUen, as
well as upon the Hon. Elisha R. Potter and others, are
models in this department of literature.
" Professor Gammell discharged all the duties of Presi-

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 49
dent of the Society with scrupulous fidelity. Regular and
prompt in his attendance at the meetings, diligent in look
ing after the advisory and supervisory functions of the
office, he spared no pains to advance the well-being of the
Society under his charge, and he had the satisfaction of
seeing his efforts thoroughly appreciated and bearing good
fruit in the wide interest excited and in the general ex
pansion of the usefulness of the institution. He presided
at the meetings with great dignity. NaturaUy a lover of
order and decorum, he conducted affairs with the gravest
propriety, and he regarded with disfavor the introduction
of business that had not first been submitted to him and
received his approval.
" The Rev. Edwin M. Stone, a former librarian of the
Society, informed us, in 1872, in surveying the half cen
tury of the Society's life, that the Rhode Island Historical
Society ' was the first historical society to erect and own
a suitable building for the reception and preservation of
its collections.' Professor Gammell, as President, took
great interest in having the Society adequately accommo
dated, and during the latter part of his life he was very
active in procuring the means for enlarging the building,
which had become too contracted for the growing needs
of the institution. Through his own personal efforts a
sum exceeding ten thousand doUars was added to the
building fund, one thousand of which he contributed from
his own purse. Though he did not live to see the addi
tion commenced, yet the enlarged and completed structure
will constitute a monument to his zeal and interest in the
Society. "The Rhode Island Historical Society has been fortu
nate in its past Presidents. Their fame has exalted the
official position into one of honor, and their contributions
to the history of Rhode Island have elevated the character
of the State."

50 MEMORIAL.

MINUTE
ADOPTED BY THE RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY AT A SPECIAL
MEETING HELD APRIL 9, 1889.
The Society performs a painful duty in placing upon
record the decease of its President, AVilliam Gammell,
LL. D., which occurred on the 3d instant. He has been
a member of the Society since July 19, 1844, and its
President for the last seven years. Besides the official
addresses with which he has closed each of these years,
he has read thirteen papers at different meetings, proba
bly a larger contribution than any single member has ever
made. For such work he was weU qualified. Though not a
native of Rhode Island, he had lived here from his boy
hood, had thoroughly acquainted himself with the history
of the State, and appreciated, while he criticised, its foun
ders, its principles, and its institutions.
The study of historj% the teaching of history, had oc
cupied the ripest and most vigorous period of his academic
life. He was more than a mere professor of history. He
had the historic temper, the historic imagination, the con
structive power, which enabled him to enter into and re
produce the events and the periods which interested him.
He had facility in digesting materials, which in history
are often rather indigestible, and working them into clear
and continuous narrative. He rose readily from facts to
principles, and generalized within the safe Umits of induc
tion without wandering into regions of speculation and
vagary. His style was lucid, polished, elevated, correct
without coldness and elegant without ostentation. The
" Life of Roger Williams '" and the " Life of Samuel
Ward " in Mr. Sparks's " Library of American Biogra
phy," and the " History of American Baptist Missions "'

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 51
are the more considerable works of his pen. The minor
writings which came from his busy hand would probably
make other volumes of equal or larger amount.
The Society has occasion to remember not only his lit
erary contributions and his historical work, but also the
dignity and courtesy with which he presided over its meet
ings, the interest he has taken in whatever concerned its
usefulness and its progress, but especiaUy the successful
attempt he made to secure a large subscription for the en
largement of its building, which was almost the last labor
of his life.
Beyond all this, it takes pleasure and a certain pride in
remembering the course of his long and honorable life ; all
he was as a citizen, a scholar, a teacher, a man, a Chris
tian ; his fidelity in all trusts, his devotion to the highest
interests, the good name he has left behind.
At the annual Commencement in 1870, Professor
Gammell was chosen a member of the Corporation
of Brown University, and took his seat in the Board
of Fellows. No man understood better than he the
work and the wants of the institution. He had
watched its growth from the time he entered as a
student, in the first year of Dr. Wayland's presi
dency. He had labored successfully in two promi
nent departments of instruction. He had put his
best strength into its development. It had become
a part and a large part of his Ufe. It was bound
to him by ties of close association with his honored
chief. Dr. Wayland ; with his endeared friends, Pro
fessors CasweU and Chace, now among the departed,
and Professor Lincoln, among the living. He had
walked under the shadow of its elms for forty years.

52 MEMORIAL.
He had seen all its buUdings reared save the vener
able University HaU and Hope CoUege. He brought
to the new post of duty the most active and sacred
interest in the welfare of the coUege. Nothing but
absence from the country ever prevented his at
tendance at the meetings of the Corporation. In
deed, his last earthly service was rendered at the
meeting, March 20, 1889, when President Robinson
laid down his office. On that occasion he made
the foUowmg fitting address, an abstract of which
is here given, as reported by Dr. Lincoln Way-
land : —
" I can but recaU at this time the honorable and suc
cessful manner in which President Robinson has dis
charged the duties of his office for the seventeen years of
his incumbency. Any one who enters the coUege yard
will notice the great changes and the marked improve
ments which have been made within that time. The
grounds, which were plain and unadorned, have become
a beauty and a delight. The number of new buUdings
and the important changes are without precedent in the
history of the college. The John Carter Brown Library
Building has been erected ; also the Slater Dormitory, a
building suitable for the residence of students ; and Sayles
Memorial Hall, the most beautiful and most costly build
ing on the grounds. Also this ancient building. Univer
sity Hall, has been renovated and made as good as any
building connected with the coUege. The ]\Ietcalf estate,
of very great value, and a lot on George Street, of great
prospective importance, have been added to the coUege
property. " The funds of the University, which in 1872 were
$552,430, were in 1888 1960,411, not including the gift

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 53
of Mr. Duncan, |20,000, and a more recent gift of 120,000,
and other gifts, which would make the total about f 1,018,-
000. The endowment has been very nearly doubled [not
counting the Lyman bequest, from which 160,000 or
$70,000 will be reaUzed]. These gifts have come very
largely from the community in which the college is
located. " For this prosperity we are greatly indebted to the
judgment, the fidelity, the ability, and the diligence of
President Robinson. During these seventeen years, he
has never been absent from a coUege duty, from a recita
tion, or from a chapel exercise, except when called away
by public duties. This fact indicates at once his vigor
of constitution and his fidelity to his duties. How few
professional men have a similar record !
" Of his instruction, I may speak with confidence, hav
ing had two sons under his teaching, and it having been
my duty in various ways to know the internal condition
of the college. The instruction has been of a very high
order. He has done much to raise its standard ; he
has restored largely the spirit of the training of my old
teacher. President Wayland, which had waned somewhat
during the intervening period. I consider this a fair
statement of the results of Dr. Robinson's labors. He is
entitled to high praise for these services.
" He has now left the position at a more advanced age
than any of his predecessors had attained while in office.
1 cannot say that this step is unwise ; it is surely better
to lay down the office while one is in fuU inteUectual
vigor than to wait till a failure makes the step necessary.
We do not to-day part with President Robinson; and
until we do so, we may defer such expressions as will be
at that time appropriate."
How great was the value of the counsels which he

54 MEMORIAL.
brought to the maintenance of the high standards
of the past, is better told by those who sat with him
in the Corporation. He always had the courage of
his opinions, never feared to be in a minority, and
as a venerable member of the Board said recently,
always " went for high things." When he died, it
was found that he had remembered the University
by a gift of ten thousand doUars, to be used in pro
moting the interests of historical study by devoting
its annual income to " the purchase of books relat
ing to the history of the United States." But the
foUowing estimate of his services, by the Rev. E. G.
Robinson, D. D., LL. D., ex-President, sets forth
the nature and extent of those services in impres
sive form : —
" Professor GammeU had resigned his professorship,
and was already a member of the Board of Fellows, when
I entered on my duties at Brown University, in the au
tumn of 1872. I had known him as professor of rhetoric,
during my undergraduate days, and had learned to hold
at a high estimate the value of his instruction. In after
years, our relations, though not intimate, were always cor
dial, and my editorial duties had given me frequent occa
sion to notice his skiU as a writer, his wisdom as a critic,
and his sound judgment and high character as a man.
On my coming to the University, he was frank enough to
teU me that he had preferred for the place to which 1
had been called his friend and long-time coUeague, the
late Professor George Ide Chace, LL. D., a preference
which I fully appreciated as natural, as just and eminently
fitting ; but he assured me, that for all the good offices
and hearty support of which he was capable I might con
fidently rely on him. And most faithfuUy were his words

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 55
fulfilled. During the seventeen years through which we
worked together, no member of the Corporation was more
punctual in the performance of his duties, or more ready
for any reasonable and useful service, however laborious
it might be.
" Professor Gammell, from his long connection with the
University, first as a student, then as a tutor, and after
wards as a professor in different departments, had come
to know more of the last sixty years of its history, of its
needs and its difficulties and its possibilities, than any
other member of the Corporation. His care for the best
interests of the University, founded on long experience
and broad knowledge, was always preeminently intelli
gent, and it was also conspicuously unselfish. Differ as
he might from others in his judgment of given measures,
no one ever failed to recognize his disinterestedness.
Thoroughly appreciating what the University had done
for himself and others as students, and for the community
in which it was placed, he was only intent on such meas
ures as would strengthen and widen its efficiency for good.
And so often was the wisdom of his judgment vindicated
in the issue that his influence in the Corporation was never
so great as in the last years of his life.
" During my connection with the University a variety
of changes in its internal arrangements seemed to be im
peratively necessary, — changes which the charter of the
University required should first be sanctioned by the Fel
lows, and afterwards approved by the whole Corporation.
To no one of the Fellows could I look as to Professor
GammeU, with assurance that the necessity of the changes
would be so fully understood, and when understood, be
approved. One of the pleasantest of the recollections of
my official connection with the University is that of the
readiness, the interest, and the broad intelligence with
which he entered into a discussion of whatever promised

56 MEMORIAL.
an improvement in college work. And very few men, I
think, were ever better judges than he of what constitutes
good work in a college. The disciplinary effect of various
departments of study, alike in the development of intel
lect and in the cultivation of taste, had been carefully ob
served by him through a long series of years, so that his
theory of education rested not merely on a priori princi
ples, but also on a basis of carefully coUated facts.
" The tastes and acquisitions of Professor GammeU
were in the lines of English literature and history rather
than of science ; yet he never underestimated the value of
science as a factor in a liberal education, and came to re
gard instruction in the natural sciences as an essential
part of the training of a man who is to be fuUy fitted for
the duties of our time. His hearty cooperation in the
creation of new professorships of natural science in the
University was by no means the least of his many valua
ble services.
" To the questions whether advanced instruction should
be given in Brown University to graduates, and the de
grees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy, after
given courses of study and rigid and satisfactory exami
nations, should be conferred, he gave careful attention,
taking the liveliest interest in discussing them. He held
that no institution of learning caUing itself a university
could, without recreancy to its trusts, withhold such in
struction and degrees from those who might ask and
prove themselves worthy to receive them. It was largely
through his influence and advocacy in the Board of Fel
lows that a beginning of such instruction was made, and
the degrees, to which candidates by examinations had
proved themselves entitled, were conferred.
" One of the last of the many services of Professor
Gammell was the preparation of an elaborate report on
the question whether the doors of Brown University

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 57
should be open to the admission of young women as can
didates for degrees. The question had for two or three
years been before the Corporation, and a numerical ma
jority of its members were in favor of their admission.
A strong and determined minority were opposed. Pro
fessor GammeU, as chairman of a committee to consider
the subject, was requested to present a report on it. His
report, prepared with great care, was submitted to the
Corporation at its annual meeting, in September, 1888,
and was so satisfactory to the advocates of both sides of
the controversy that they unanimously asked for its pub
lication ; and it was voted that it should accompany the
published report of the President at the end of the aca
demic year then ensuing. On subsequent reflection he
expressed to me an unwiUingness to have the report pub
lished, and especially so without some revision and possi
ble additions. I reminded him that before it would be
necessary to print there would be the meeting of the Cor
poration in June, at which he could either decline their
request or the desired changes could be considered.
Alas ! before June came he had passed from this world,
and in compliance with his wishes his report was not pub
lished. " Of the personal characteristics of Professor Gam
meU's service in the Corporation, the most marked, and
that which gave it special value and influence, was his
perfect frankness and transparency of motive. He seemed
absolutely incapable of indirections. In his advocacy of
a measure he never put forward plausible reasons while
concealing the real ones. Politic men would have thought
him deficient in tact. He evidently thought honesty not
only the best policy, but the only principle of action by
which an honorable and honest man, and specially a
Christian man, should always and everywhere be actuated.
In all my relations with Professor Gammell, I was never

58 MEMORIAL.
for one moment, in doubt, in any action of his as to what
he really thought, or what he believed, or what were his
motives. All were as clear as the sunlight. In his death
Brown University lost one of the stanchest, most disin
terested, most painstaking, and most inteUigent of its
guardians and friends."
In the founding of the Butler Hospital for the
Insane Professor GammeU manifested the deepest
interest. He was appointed one of its trustees, and
it is touching to find in one of his letters to Pro
fessor Chace, written from Rome, Italy, in March,
1879, the following allusion to Butler Hospital,
showing how strongly he felt his responsibiUties :
" I greatly fear that Mr. Hazard's absence and my
own will occasion embarrassment to the . Butler Hos
pital board. I wish now that I had resigned my
place then, for I always fear that in such an institu
tion the supervision may be aUowed to become less
and less careful. If the old standard is once low
ered, it will not be easy to raise it again. It was
fixed at the beginning by heroic devotion to the
hospital, and I shall be grieved to have it changed."
On Professor GammeU's devotion to tins institu
tion and its kindred institution, the Rhode Island
Hospital, Mr. William Goddard has written with so
much discrimination and beauty that his words, with
the resolutions adopted on the occasion of Professor
GammeU's death, obviate all necessity for further
enlargement on this theme : —

'fci"^

" On the 27th of January, 1875, Mr. Gammell was elected
a trustee of the Butler Hospital for the Insane.

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 59
" His interest in this great charity had been fostered by
an intimate acquaintance with its beneficent purposes, and
by personal observation of its measureless blessings to
those who were afflicted with the various' forms of mental
disease. His acute mind clearly discerned the impor
tance to the safety of society of this place of seclusion
and of restraint for those whose delusions were danger
ous both to themselves and to their fellow-men. Before
Mr. GammeU's election to this responsible office he had
rendered important aid to the hospital by literary work,
undertaken at the request of Mr. Ives, its first secretary.
He was therefore, by familiarity with the work of the
hospital, as weU as by his mental endowments and by his
sympathy with all forms of human suffering, exception-
aUy equipped for the high trust of its guardianship.
" I can bear testimony to the fidelity with which he dis
charged the varied and often trying duties of this office.
" He laid claim to no knowledge of mechanics, and he
was always ready to refer to those trained in such mat
ters aU questions relating to the purely mechanical con
cerns of the hospital. In this respect he displayed a wis
dom which gave the greater value to his opinions upon
the subjects within the extensive range of his thought
and study.
" The successful administration of a great hospital de
mands of its guardians something more than knowledge
of construction and maintenance, of problems of ventila
tion and of sewage disposal, however vital these questions
may be. It requires of them familiarity with statutes
affecting the restraint of the personal liberty of patients,
and with those universal laws that govern aU human ef
forts for the cure of mental disease as well as the aUevia-
tion of the wretchedness which results from it. But more
than all else is the constant appeal to the deepest sympa
thy with a form of misery to which ' all sorts and condi-

60 MEMORIAL.
tions of men ' are alike liable, from which neither youth
nor age is exempt, and which in many of its aspects is far
worse than any other disease with which the human being
can be afflicted. ' Omni memhrorum damno major dementia.'
" In exhaustless sympathy with sickness and sorrow, in
that broad philanthropy, which counts no sacrifice too
great for the good of the afflicted, and in the compre
hensive conception of aU the obligations of charity and
the resources of science, Mr. GammeU was preeminent
among the large-hearted and gifted men whose liberality
and devotion have given to the Butler Hospital for the
Insane its distinction among contemporary charities. He
never neglected any duty devolving upon him, and often
made his weekly visitations when almost disabled by iUness.
Of the annual reports, by which the work of the hospital
is made knovra and its pressing wants are explained, no
less than six proceeded from his graceful and earnest pen.
Most of the occasional appeals of the trustees to the pub
lic and to the benefactors of the hospital during his long
term of office emanated from him. His manners to the
patients were singularly attractive and cheering, and he
overlooked nothing that would diminish their sense of
confinement or add to their slender store of happiness.
His services will be long and gratefully remembered by
his associates, and in the lucid intervals which sometimes
come even to the clouded intellect of the insane his name
is mentioned with respect.
" In the work which preceded the organization of the
Rhode Island Hospital INIr. GammeU took a conspicu
ous part. His appeals in behalf of this noble charity
awakened throughout the State that sentiment of per
sonal obligation toward the sick and the helpless, which
resulted in the foundation of a hospital that adds fresh

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 61
honor to the name it bears. At its opening in 1868, he
was chosen to deUver the address, which should com
memorate the Uberality of its founders and foreshadow
its career of usefulness and phUanthropy. The occasion
was a memorable one, and the orator was worthy of it.
The long toU was ended, and they whose hearts had
yearned for the sight stood within a completed building,
symmetrical in its proportions, equipped with the latest
development of science, and to be dedicated to the solace
of suffering and the cure of disease. He looked upon
the faces of men and women whose Christian liberality
had finished this great work, and he must have felt the
invisible presence of those whose hearts had ceased to beat
save in the renewed pulses of charity and human sympa
thy. The impulse that upon that day he gave to the
Rhode Island Hospital has never spent its force.
" For more than twenty-five years Mr. Gammell was a
Director in the Providence National Bank. His relation
to this venerable institution was characteristic of the man.
His studies had not fitted him to judge of credits, and
only the experience of his later life had taught him the
maxims and methods with which practiced merchants and
bankers are necessarily familiar. But he brought to the
discharge of his official duties that knowledge of broad
and general principles which is one of the best fruits of
academic training, and he regarded his office as a trust to
whose every obligation he was always faithful. It is too
much the fashion of the age for men to accept office, and
to neglect its obvious or implied obligations. Directors
and trustees are attentive to their duties more from mo
tives of self-interest than from a sense of duty and a high
conception of the meaning of a trust.
" Mr. GammeU yielded to no such heresy. He believed
in the performance of every duty to the best of his ability,
and the records of the Board of Directors show with what

62 MEMORIAL.
astonishing regularity he participated in its deUberations,
and how fully he shared its labors and responsibUities.
While never unmindful that the biisiness of life demands
hard work and unremitting energy, that the sluggard
and the doctrinaire are certain to fail in the struggle
for its prizes, he always impressed upon his companions
that they were made for something else than to be ' hewers
of wood and drawers of water,' and that educated men
discharged but a small part of their duties to society by
the mere getting of shekels of gold and silver. He knew
that the triumphs of civilization are possible only in com
munities successful in the acquisition of wealth, but he
also felt and inculcated the obligations imposed upon its
possessors. " Nothing could be more delightful than the relations of
the scholar to this congregation of merchants and bankers,
to most of whom he had taught the phUosophy of life, the
charm of letters, the full power of education, and the
operation of those laws which are ordained for the moral
government of the universe." MINUTE
ADOPTED BY THE TRUSTEES OF BUTLER HOSPITAL.
By the death of Professor WUUam GammeU, April 3,
1889, the Butler Hospital for the Insane lost a trusted
counselor and an earnest friend.
For more than fourteen years he was a member of the
Board of Trustees, and his quick sympathy, his clear,
trained intellect, and his large experience were always
freely devoted to the best interests of the institution.
Scrupulously faithful in the performance of every duty,
his example was a stimulus to his fellow-trustees and to
the officers of the hospital. His bright and cheerful
words made him a welcome visitor to all the patients.
Liberal without ostentation ; learned without pedantry ; an

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 63
accurate thinker, yet tolerant of the mistakes of others ;
an earnest Christian without any of the bitterness of the
sectarian ; courteous and of polished manners, but uncom
promising in his hostility to all shams, he won the respect
and love of all who knew him, and his death is felt by
each of his associates on this board as a personal loss.
The Providence Athenaeum had been opened to
the citizens of Providence as a public library in 1838,
with an address by Dr. Wayland. In this institu
tion Professor GammeU had the warmest interest,
not only from his love of books, but from his con
viction that such institutions are essential to the best
interests of our municipal Ufe. Long before he
held any official connection with it, he had given his
cordial support to its labors. But he rendered it a
Ions: and active official service. He was chosen one
of its directors September 26, 1853, and held the
office four years; was rechosen in 1864, serving it
four years longer as director, and then made its
Vice-President from 1868 to 1870. He was chosen
President in 1870, and fiUed this office tiU 1882, —
having thus, in varied capacities, devoted himself
to its objects for twenty-two years. The minute
from its records here given shows in what esteem his
services were held by his associates : —
" The communication from Professor William Gammell,
declining another election to the office of President, being
called up for further action, the following minute in refer
ence thereto was ordered to be incorporated in the record
of proceedings.
" While the directors of the Providence Athenaeum feel
constrained to accept as final the conclusion of Professor

64 MEMORIAL.
GammeU, it having been reached ' in accordance with a
purpose formed some years ago,' yet they desire to make
record of the fact that they accede to his wish with reluc
tance, and in disregard of their own judgment and feel
ings, both of which prompt them to continue him in a po
sition which he has so long, so wisely, and so acceptably
filled. " Conspicuous as have been the predecessors of Professor
Gammell for their devotion to the interests of the Athe
naeum, its directors wish to make an enduring record of
their confident belief that no one of them ever did or could
surpass him in the inteUigent zeal, the untiring industry,
and the deep interest with which he has discharged his
duties as its President, and as chairman of its two most
important committees.
" And in tendering him their grateful acknowledgment
of his past services, they wish also to express to him their
earnest hope that he may be spared for many years to
come, to aid by his counsel and cheer by his presence those
to whom the interests of this institution may be intrusted.
" And it is further ordered that a copy of this minute,
signed by the President and the Secretary, be forwarded
to Professor Gammell."
For fifteen years he held the presidency of the
Rhode Island Bible Society. Christian scholar that
he was, none knew better than he, from his histor
ical studies, what a part our EngUsh Bible has played
in EngUsh civilization, and what large and vital in
terests depend on its free circulation among the
people. He followed with interest aU the modern
questions as to its interpretation. When the Revised
Version appeared he studied it with some care, pre
paring a notice of it for the " Providence Journal."

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 65
He vpas too ripe an EngUsh scholar not to be pro
foundly appreciative of the King James Version as
an EngUsh classic. But he was no bUnd worshipper
of the past, kept his mhid open to any hnprovements,
and was ready to welcome the New Version if it gave
a more perfect rendering of the Word of God. His
devotion to the Bible rested, however, on the deep
est foundations, not on scholarly tastes. He found
a congenial field of labor in the duties of his presi
dency of the Bible Society. What he accompUshed
in this field of Christian work the following min
utes from the records of the society wiU show.
Providence, R. I., February 18, 1890.
He was elected President September 2, 1869, and served
the society in this office untU October 14, 1884, when
he declined a reelection. The foUowing resolutions were
presented and unanimously adopted at a special meeting
held May 19, 1885.
Whereas, at the last annual meeting, Professor WiUiam
Gammell, LL. D., on account of other pressing engage
ments declined a reelection as presiding officer of this
society, —
Resolved, That it has been with deep regret that the
society has consented to his retirement from its presi
dency, which he lias held for so many years, and which
office he has filled with so much dignity, faithfulness, and
efficiency. His energy and sound judgment have im
pressed themselves upon the action of the society in its
explorations of the destitute portions of the State, and the
wide circulation of the Holy Scriptures from year to year,
through its agency, has been greatly promoted during his
administration.

66 MEMORIAL.
Resolved, That the thanks of the board are hereby ten
dered to the late President.
Voted, That the resolutions be placed on the records of
the society, and that a copy be sent to ex-President Gam
mell. He was also chosen a Vice-President of the Amer
ican Bible Society in 1884. The managers of that
society, at the time of his death, adopted a minute
recording their high appreciation of his efficient ef
forts as President of the Rhode Island Bible Society
in promoting the " Fourth General Supply of the
United States." In discharging pubUc trusts Uke
these much of Professor GammeU's time was passed.
They engrossed him. He gave to them not only
his time, but his thought, and took no office to which
he did not bring an earnest and willing service.
He had a high ideal of citizenship. Abhorring po
litical partisanship, he had always a decided opinion
on questions of the day. He stood in general aloof
from party gatherings of any sort. He had Uttle
taste for popular assemblies, was wanting perhaps in
popular sympathies. His historical studies as weU
as his inborn predUections gave him a strong con
tempt for the windy patriotism of the stump or the
hustings. He faded, possibly, to realize what the
modern mission of the scholar in poUtics involves.
But one occasion stands out, when he with other cit
izens stepped forward to rouse as well as guide pop
ular sentiment. When Charles Sumner was so bru
tally assaidted in the Senate Chamber of the United
States, the citizens of Providence, without distinction

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 67
of party, met in Howard Hall on the evening of June
7, 1856. His Honor Mayor Smith caUed the meet
ing to order. Alexander Duncan was chosen to pre
side. Dr. Caswell offered a series of resolutions,
which were supported in vigorous addresses by Pro
fessor Gammell, the Hon. C. S. Bradley, the Rev.
Dr. Hedge, and Dr. Wayland. It was a memorable
occasion ia the history of the city as well as the
country. AU the addresses on the topic which was
absorbing the mind of the North were much above
the level of ordinary popular addresses. That by
Professor Gammell, whUe it disclosed the historical
scholar in its aUusions, revealed also the thoughtful
but determhaed patriot. Free from aU empty de
nunciation, it was weighty with righteous scorn and
with just reasoning.
Mention has been made already of Professor Gam
meU's writings, but not of aU his work in this line
of Uterary effort. He was associate editor of the
" Christian Review " for the years 1850-52. Not
only did he contribute articles to its pages, but
gave Dr. Cutting, its editor, the benefit of his coun
sels and help in maintaining it. A more important
work, however, was the contribution of articles to
the "Examiner," a weekly religious journal rep
resenting the Baptist denomination, and published
in New York. During ahnost the entire period of
the war for the Union, he wrote a weekly letter on
the events occurring in the great struggle, and the
principles involved in it. They attracted wide and
special attention, and were complimented in the

68 MEMORIAL.
warmest terms by the great war secretary, the Hon.
Edwin M. Stanton. At no period in the history of
the newspaper press has it been called to more ardu
ous or more responsible service than during the fluc
tuating issues of that fearful strife. It was not
only the varying fortunes of the war, but it was the
very important questions which rose from time to
time, and on which the pubUc needed enUghten-
ment ; it was the need also of encouragement under
the frightful cost of the battles, not in money, but
in Ufe, and of support against insidious foes in the
Northern household, which caUed for the strongest
and most constant service from the press.
Professor GammeU's articles were given a prom
inent place in the paper, and appeared under the
general title of " Thoughts on Current Events." A
glance at the titles of some of the more important
will show the range of discussion they took as weU
as the ahn they pursued. On Jidy 11, 1862, one
appeared entitled " Proposals of Mediation, France
and England." It was succeeded in the issue of the
week following by one on " Sources of Solicitude."
After General McClellan's faUure before Richmond,
Professor Gammell vrrote, August 7, 1862. on " The
Present Hour and its Demands," followed in the next
issue by an article on " The Drafting Order." In
September, he had one entitled " AssaUing the Gov
ernment." He wrote in January of the next year
on the "Border States Becoming Free," and so to
the close of the gigantic struggle. After it was
over his pen was stUl occupied in discussing the

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 69
problems of the hour. Two significant articles ap
peared in the summer of 1865 : one on " Wise
Delays in Reconstruction," the other on " England
and her HumiUation." The tone of these articles
was conservative, but loyal to the core. He held
throughout a courageous attitude. He never be
trayed the sUghtest faltering in the darkest hour.
He viewed the whole contest in the light of history.
He brought his historical studies to bear on all his
discussions. He had learned in that school to dis
criminate between eddies and the main current. He
planted himself on general principles, and hence he
was not easUy shaken. Among all his good services
to the community, this series of writings must al
ways stand conspicuous. As one turns the files of
the paper containing these timely, teUing, well-con
sidered articles, there is no wonder raised at Secre
tary Stanton's warm appreciation of them. They
were worth squadrons in the field.
For many years, also, he furnished articles to the
" Providence Journal," whose accompUshed editor,
the Hon. Henry B. Anthony, was his friend. In
this he foUowed in the footsteps of Professor God
dard. His contributions took various shapes : some
times reflections on current events, then discussions
of matters pertaining to Rhode Island history, or
the cause of education. Notable among them were
his commemorative notices of prominent citizens. If
these were somewhat stately in form, yet they were
always in perfect taste, and deUneated the life or
the services with fidelity and felicity too. It is only

70 MEMORIAL.
needful to recall such notices from his pen as those
on Dr. Isaac Ray, Mr. WUUam T. Dorrance ; on his
coUeagues, President Wayland ("Examiner and
Chronicle "), Professors Caswell and Chace ; on the
Hon. WUUam S. Slater, Zachariah AUen, and Henry
B. Anthony. A kindred service was rendered the
college in the necrology of its graduates, which he
prepared for thirty years. It was read at the annual
Commencement, and was a model of its kind. He
followed closely the fortunes of the graduates, and
as they feU one by one at their different posts of
duty, the departure was chronicled in kindly words.
No matter how humble or obscure the position he
may have filled, if the graduate had done a good
work in life, a few well-chosen words recaUed him
fitly to his brethren stUl in the march of Ufe.
Thus far the sketch of Professor GammeU's Ufe
has been mainly occupied with the outward manifes
tations of that Ufe in its professional and pubUc re
lations. It has sought to disclose the scholar at his
work, and using his scholarly gifts in the ser^dce of
good causes. But did it stop here, some important
characteristics, some of the finer quahties of the
man, would be unnoticed. It is always, indeed, dif
ficult to portray an inner Ufe. It eludes analysis.
Even when " diaries " and " correspondence" furnish
clues to the more private and sacred experiences,
it is hard to transfer to any pages
" The beaming eye, the cheering voice,
That lent to life a generous glow."
Professor GammeU impressed himself on life about

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 71
him largely by means of his superior social gifts.
He had a ready flow of conversation, had at com
mand a varied fund of knowledge derived from his
converse with books, was fuU of a contagious cheer
fulness, brought liEe into the discussions in which
he took part, enjoyed deeply the wit of other men,
and at times threw out flashes of his own in quick
repartee or comment. The society of Providence
for many years recognized in him one of its most ac
complished leaders. If any man of distinction was
to be honored sociaUy, Professor Gammell was sure
to be one of the invited guests. He was speciaUy
fond of coming in contact with those interested in
literary pursuits, dispensed a charming hospitahty
to them in his own home. But in any general com
pany he had the art of enlisting all in talk, and no
one knew better than he how to avoid " shop "
when general conversation was the proper demand.
It is common to hear his manners spoken of as
formal, courtly, with a touch of coldness or reserve
about them. To the pubUc this was his mien, but
to the more private circles he was simply the genial
companion or the kindly, gracious host. Perhaps
his social gifts found one of their best expressions
at the Friday Evening Club, whose story is told by
Bishop Clark, in the following paper, with equal
vividness and beauty.

72 MEMORIAL.

PROFESSOR GAMMELL AND THE FRIDAY EVENING
CLUB.
On the 16th of January, 1868, Professor Gammell, with
a few other gentlemen, organized an association " for the
discussion of Uterary, philosophical, aesthetic, historical,
and scientific subjects," and it was arranged that they
should meet in turn every alternate Friday night at each
other's houses, when "• each member in succession will be
required to prepare and present a subject for discussion,
either orally or in writing, — simple refreshments to be
served at ten o'clock." The Club embraced represen
tatives of the clerical, legal, and medical professions, —
teachers of science, philosophy, history, and the languages,
book-makers and book-collectors, a bank officer, and a
manufacturer. It continued to meet, with its ranks un
broken by death or removal, until the year 1877, when
Dr. Alexis CasweU, formerly President of Brown Uni
versity, in a ripe old age and while his natural force was
still unabated, suddenly passed away. In the course of a
few years, the accomplished Professor J. L. Diman was
taken from us, in the very prime of his days, and without
the slightest premonition of his departure. On Friday,
the 27th of February, 1881, the Club met at his house,
and were entertained by him with his usual cordiality
and cheerfulness, and on the foUowing Thursday he had
ceased to live on earth. Next followed Alexander Far-
num. President of the Rhode Island Trust Company, and
who had been the Secretary and Treasurer of the Club
from the beginning : a man of wonderful gifts and varied
learning, and who, amid the pressure of an active busi
ness life, always found time for careful study and reflec
tion. Then there dropped out of our ranks, in somewhat rapid
succession, John R. Bartlett, who, in his earlier days, was

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 73
at the head of the Mexican Boundary Commission, and
afterward a well-known collector and writer of books, —
holding for several years the office of Secretary of State
in Rhode Island ; Dr. Edward T. Caswell, an eminent
physician, whose papers instructed us in matters of med
ical science which only an expert could be expected to
expound ; Professor George I. Chace, a profound thinker
and a magnetic educator, who did his part in forming
and stimulating the minds of many of our best and ablest
men ; the Hon. Charles S. Bradley, at one time professor
in the Law School at Cambridge, a distinguished and suc
cessful jurist, and at the same time an enthusiast in art ;
Professor William Gammell, of whom we shall have some
what more to say ; and, last of all, the Rev. Dr. Samuel
L. Caldwell, formerly pastor of the First Baptist Church
in Providence, professor in the Theological Seminary in
Newton, Mass., and afterward President of Vassar Col
lege, and who had just begun to collect the materials for
a Life of Professor Gammell when he was suddenly called
to the discharge of higher duties in a higher sphere.
It is not appropriate here to write at any length of the
delightful and instructive meetings that were held on
those winter nights in years gone by, when some of the
ripest scholars and ablest thinkers in our community were
willing to expend their best strength in the preparation of
articles for the edification of the little circle of listeners
who were wont to gather around our Club table. AU
shades of political and theological opinion were repre
sented, and it was understood that every man was at lib
erty to express himself without reserve ; but no unkind
or discourteous words were ever spoken, and no discord
disturbed the harmony of our meetings. The social ele
ment was as prominent as the intellectual, and the feeling
seemed graduaUy to grow up amongst us that we formed
a kind of family by ourselves, — a sacred brotherhood.

74 MEMORIAL.
bound together by peculiar and very intimate ties. It is
sad to think that the lips of nearly all who so often elec
trified us with their brilliant talk are silent now. The
memory of those pleasant evenings lingers in the air, like
a strain of distant and melancholy music.
Professor Gammell was, from the beginning to the end,
one of the most prominent, active, and loyal members of
the Friday Evening Club. He was never absent from its
meetings, unless by some great constraint, and he entered
into our proceedings with an emphasis that seemed to ex
cite and invigorate us aU. The papers that he presented
were carefuUy prepared and fuU of rich and instructive
thought. The subjects of which he wrote are preserved
in the records of the Club, and a somewhat full analysis
of his earlier papers may be found there. The first of
these was read on the 6th of November, 1868, on " The
Nature and Results of Naturalization," and a brief out
line of this paper wiU serve to iUustrate the fuUness and
precision with which Professor GammeU was accustomed
to treat any topic that he was caUed to handle. He begins
with a careful definition of the term "naturalization;"
stating the laws of the United States and of the chief
states of Europe in relation to the subject ; citing sundry
cases which have arisen between our own and foreign
governments in which were involved the rights of natural
ized citizens under differing laws ; showing that the most
recent foreign legislation indicates a tendency towards a
recognition of the doctrine of the right of complete ex
patriation, for which American statesmen have contended ;
and closing with a statement of some of the evils to which
we are exposed by the present state of our naturalization
laws and the methods of their enforcement, with sugges
tions as to the possible means of avoiding those evils.
The next paper was on " The Law and the Gospel of
Divorce." Assuming marriage to be a divine institution

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 75
as weU as a civil contract, the professor proceeds to con
sider at some length the laws of divorce that existed in
the great states of antiquity, with a sketch of the revo
lution that was wrought when the Latin Church pro
nounced marriage to be a sacrament, and therefore indis
soluble. He then goes on to show how the teaching of the
theologians of the Reformation has led to the recognition
of marriage, in most Protestant countries, as a civil con
tract, which, under certain circumstances, may rightly be
dissolved. The existing laws of divorce in various coun
tries are detailed, foUowed by a careful examination of the
argument from Scripture, the general conclusion being that
divorce can be justified for only a single cause.
The third paper is on " The Future of Labor," showing
how largely the future of civilization is involved in the
future of labor; but we have not the space for giving a
fuU analysis of this valuable contribution to a subject that
is now to so great an extent agitating the community.
" Belligerency, Neutrality, and Peace " was the next
topic presented by the professor ; but as the outline of this
treatise fflls five or six closely written pages in the records
of the Club, I must leave it without further notice.
The professor's fifth paper, on " The Agency of Cities
in Modern Civilization," was particularly adapted to bring
out the stores of historical knowledge which in a lifetime
of study he had accumulated, and in a single hour valu
able treasures were opened to us which it would have re
quired weeks of patient toil to explore.
I must now confine myself to a simple recapitulation of
the subjects presented to the Club by Professor GammeU,
taking them in their order, as follows : —
" The Present Aspect of the Labor Question."
" International Arbitration as a Substitute for War."
" The Life and Travels of Marco Polo."
" The Epochs of Civilization in the United States."

76 MEMORIAL.
" Asylum and Extradition among Nations."
" The Confederation Period of the Republic."
" History of the Adoption of the Constitution, by George
Bancroft." "Tendencies towards a General Use of Comparative
Method in History."
" Italy Revisited."
" The Monroe Doctrine."
Not one of these topics was treated carelessly ; in fact.
Professor GammeU was incapable of anything like care
less writing, and if he erred at aU it was in the direction
of an excess of refinement and polish. That he had been
a teacher of rhetoric might be inferred from the stately
flow of his periods and the delicate finish of his sentences ;
just as we might have known that he had been an in
structor in history from the amount of historical Ulustra-
tion in almost everything that he wrote.
It was the custom of the Friday Evening Club, at the
close of every paper, to caU upon each member in his turn
to pronounce judgment upon what had been presented,
and on these occasions the professor was distinguished by
the accuracy and copiousness of his criticisms, — it some
times appearing as if he must have prepared himself for
the symposium with more care than the essayist himself.
His own opinions were very positive, and he was by nature
and education a true conservative ; and yet he was wiUing
to listen to the opinions of others with respect, however
seriously he might differ from them, and ready to accord
to them the same right of private judgment that he
claimed for himself. He was always pleasant and genial
in his talk, and had a keen sense of humor, although he
rarely indulged in it of his own motion. He did not deal
in apothegms or in scintillating expressions ; he was sen
sible, instructive, and entertaining, but made no special at
tempt to say brUliant and sparkling things. He was not

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 77
at aU given to pyrotechnical exhibitions. His humor was
rather of the mild, Addisonian sort, and did not remind
one at aU of Carlyle or Sydney Smith. Still he was never
duU, or prosy, or commonplace, and when he opened his
mouth we were sure that we would learn something.
Professor Gammell was loyal to the Club from the be
ginning to the end, seeming to regard it as one of the
chief enjoyments of his life ; and when on the evening of
the 21st of November, 1884, he found himself present at
what proved to be its last meeting, with only four others
present of the original members of the Club, the reluc
tance with which he relinquished his hold upon the old
fraternity, and his unwiUingness to do anything that might
look like putting a deliberate end to its existence, is evi
dent in the following extract from the minutes : —
" On motion of Professor Gammell the foUowing vote
was passed: 'Voted, that the meetings of the Friday
Evening Club be suspended tUl such time as it may seem
practicable to resume them, at the call of the Secretary
pro tem.' "
That time wiU never come, and already two of the four
original members who were present that evening have
passed away.
It has interested me to find that the last entry made in
the minutes of the Club is from Professor GammeU's pen,
and reads as foUows : —
" Since the last meeting of the Friday Evening Club,
our greatly esteemed associate, Alexander Farnuin, has
been removed by death. He was the only officer the
Club has ever elected, and in a fuller sense than is true of
any other one of its members he was the representative
and embodiment of its life and spirit." After a brief
sketch of Mr. Farnum's career, he eulogizes him in lan
guage, which we transcribe, not only as a just tribute to
the memory of a very gifted man, but also as a specimen

78 MEMORIAL.
of the professor's stately and flowing style : " Possessed
of inteUectual endowments of superior order, he had ac
quired that liberal and many-sided culture which comes
from weU-directed studies, from travel in many lands,
and from practical acquaintance with the methods of
business and the principles of finance. He had also col
lected for his own use a large and select Ubrary of the
best books in the best editions, and among these he de
lighted to spend the leisure hours of every day. He had
thus informed himself on a great variety of interesting
subjects, and was familiar with most of the important
questions of the time, whether political, literary, or phUo
sophical. But over all his gifts and acquirements there
shone a radiant and quick inteUigence, a genial social
spirit, and a responsive intellectual sympathy, which fitted
him to enUven and adorn the social circles in which he ap
peared. He thus possessed in a remarkable degree those
qualities of mind and character which always impart the
most attractive charm to the meetings of an association
like ours. Nowhere did he appear to better advantage
than here. How nobly he performed his part, how weU
he fiUed his place among us, we shall never forget. How
finished were his papers, how independent were his criti
cisms, how briUiant his conversation, how sprightly his
wit, how much in every way he contributed to these
' Nootes Ambrosianae ' which we have passed together,
wiU always be among the cherished memories of his asso
ciates in the Friday Evening Club."
After the last meeting of the Club in 1884, the pro
fessor cherished the feeling that it might stiU be revived
under new auspices ; but now that he has gone, the fra
ternity is extinct, and the little handful of us who remain
can only look forward with the hope that we may be al
lowed to meet again in a nobler and purer sphere.

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 79
Only the few know what warmth of affection
dwelt in his nature. He made, however, long
and lasting friendships. If to some he seemed un
sympathetic and distant, it was because he never
cared to " wear his heart upon his sleeve." Two of
these friendships are types of an intimacy so high
and true that they weU deserve a passing com
memoration. His friendship wdth Professor Chace
was formed in the years of college Ufe, when together
they were " nursed upon the selfsame hUl." It was
kept up through years of kindred association as
members of the Faculty, in different chairs of the
same university. It was preserved by devotion, each
to the other's interests, as true as steel and more
precious than gold. They shared the trials and tri
umphs of life — sorrows which darkened and joys
which brightened its skies — more closely than
brothers. It lasted to the end, — through fifty-
seven years ; and now, together in the land of light,
we doubt not they have renewed its bonds.
Scarcely less notable was Professor GammeU's
friendship with Mr. Robert H. Ives. It was of early
growth. It deepened with every year. To him Mr.
Ives gave his confidence freely. He was intrusted
with confidences no one else shared. On aU matters
of literary taste or execution Mr. Ives sought his
opinion, and deferred to it absolutely. Every day
saw them together. Professor Gammell reverenced
in Mr. Ives that noble elevation of character, that
strong, massive comprehension of affairs, that mod
est, qmet demeanor, which so weU became but never

80 MEMORIAL.
concealed his strength. They had common respon
sibilities as members of the Corporation of Brown
University. In the work of founding the Rhode Isl
and Hospital, of which Mr. Ives, bore so consider
able a part, the sympathy between them was per
fect. And it was one of many proofs of regard for
Professor Gammell given by Mr. Ives, that in his
wiU he bequeathed an annuity of ten thousand dol
lars and a life interest in the old famUy mansion to
his friend.
If the circle of Professor GammeU's more inti
mate friends was not large, it was choice. Among
his pupils he numbered some of these. They
shared his gracious and genial hospitality. How
warmly he followed their careers in Ufe ! How
ready and how full his gratification over their suc
cesses I How open to their desires for counsel !
Indeed, outside academic circles, his friendship was
a help and solace to some who knew him. "He
was the best friend I ever had," writes an accom
plished Christian woman, whom he had known for
many years ; indeed, from ghlhood. In the time of
bereavement and consequent care, struggle, and
loneliness, he had proved the most sympathetic of
friends, cheering and sustaining her by almost daUy
visits to her darkened home. The foUowing tribute
to his memory by the Rev. J. G. Vose, D. D., whUe
it dwells on other points in Professor GammeU's
character and career, lays special emphasis on his
qualities as a friend.
" I learned to esteem Professor GammeU before I be-

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 81
came acquainted with him. As I had not the honor of
graduating at this University, I count myself very for
tunate in having the early acquaintance, in my profes
sional studies at home and abroad,- — not the acquaintance
only, but I may venture to say in some cases the intimate
friendship, — of some of the choicest sons of Brown Uni
versity : the lamented Diman and Dunn, and, among the
living, such men as Professors Fisher, of New Haven,
and Murray, of Princeton. From these men I first heard
the name of Gammell, not as of an ordinary teacher, but
spoken of with youthful familiarity ; indeed, with an af
fectionate gratitude, as of one who had led them into the
pleasant paths of literature, and inspired them with a de
sire for something pure and lofty, encouraging their youth
ful efforts. I learned to admire and respect our friend
from them. His life had gone out into theirs, as is the
case with all true teachers ; not the precepts only, not the
canons of literary taste, but a certain quality of mind and
heart, a love of aU high thoughts and generous emotions,
that must be felt to be understood. Professor Gammell
did the best of his work, perhaps, in the influence he ex
erted over others. He certainly spent many of the best
years of his life in this service.
" I am not unmindful of his excellent writings ; surely
in this place we cannot forget his historical papers, his
studies in special fields, or his wide acquaintance with the
domain of history. But he gave a great deal of his life
to the work of teaching. He spent some of his best years
in those efforts which seem to many men petty and trivial,
to correct the faults and prune the exuberance of youth,
to impart to generous minds a sense of the sacredness of
aU truth and beauty, and the close relation there is be
tween refined expression and a pure life. Few men have
ever accomplished so much as he in that particular de
partment of influence.

82 MEMORIAL.
" It is common to look down on criticism ; no doubt it
has been perverted. Men have themselves become lim
ited and narrowed in attempting to employ it. Matthew
Arnold teUs us that Wordsworth had a low idea of criti
cism, and quotes this saying of his : ' That if the quantity
of time consumed in critiques on the works of others
were given to original composition, of whatever kind, it
would be much better employed ; it would make a man
find out sooner his own level, and do infinitely less mis
chief.' We can see reasons why Wordsworth should have
thus spoken, in the shaUow, unjust, and even spiteful criti
cism to which he was subjected. But the work of a critic
who has a large heart and a quick perception of genuine
exceUence is far different from this, and may save to Ufe-
long usefulness what would else be wasted. Such was the
efficient work of our lamented friend for the young men
of a generation ago in Brown University, who imbibed
from him just views of expression, of a simple and manly
style, enriched by aU the wealth of heartfelt imagination
and a sincere love of the beautiful. It was aU the grander
because it seemed humble, and must have cost an amount
of patience and forbearance that can scarcely be realized.
It was aU the richer in its results because it touched life
so near the fountain head ; and its influence has been seen
in many a noble treatise, in oratory that has charmed the
world, in a higher standard of journalism, in all the de
partments of literature and the utterances of moral and
religious truth.
" And here we reach the secret of exceUence in the
character of our honored friend : that he gave so much
of his life to others. Whatever knowledge and skiU he
possessed he held as a treasury, on which every man might
draw who needed them. I can bear personal witness to
his cordial readiness to give advice and encouragement
in literary matters, such as few could bestow. His own

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 83
stores were used to aid men, and not to hinder them. He
cherished no contempts. He was full of all kind and
friendly sentiments. His sympathies were not locked up
in his own bosom. I shall not forget his coming to my
house in a time of sickness, when I was suffering from
the deepest parental anxiety, bringing with him that
genuine fellow-feeling by which our burdens are made
lighter and our faith in God strengthened. Nor will
either you or I forget the great fortitude which he ex
hibited under the recent disappointment of his earthly
hopes. Yet the prevailing characteristic of his life was a
friendly cheerfulness. He put aside his own sorrows for
the welfare of others. This was what made it always
pleasant to meet him. The rare courtesy that character
ized his outward demeanor was the product of a true gen
tleman's instinct, the desire to confer happiness wherever
he went. If his manners seemed to some a little formal
and precise, they were the courtly manners of the old
school, and we felt beneath them the throb of a genuine
hospitality at home and a hearty interest abroad. His
air of leisure and of deference was in delightful contrast
to the brusque and hurried greetings of modern times,
such as we catch from the telephone, and which seem to
come to us with the rush of modern inventions and of
labor-saving machines and threaten to destroy the rever
ence of the young and the charm of social life.
" It was indeed a pleasure to meet him at any time.
Like some of our good citizens on the hill, he often ex
tended his walks far over on the west side of the city.
His cordial greeting can never be forgotten. Rarely have
I met him but he wished me to share his walk, and en
tered into genial discourse on matters of literature or
morals, with frequent and kindly reference to the friends
of early days. I seem to see him now at the corner of
the street, near my house, where he lingered with me

84 MEMORIAL.
in the warm sunshine, but four or five weeks ago ; his
voice, his smile, his figure, all are distinct before me. This
is the every-day mystery of life, that those we value so
highly vanish like a dream."
But if in the circles of friendship Professor Gam
meU's nature showed its capacity for large and gen
erous affections, in the sacredness of home that na
ture displayed still more its affluent tenderness and
beauty. The deUght in children and grandchUdren
was a constant brightness in his life. He used to
say that he thought it the highest privUege that
he could live to see a third generation growing up
around him. The birth of a grandchUd always
stirred in him new thoughts of tenderness. For
his chUdren his love took on often the shape of a
solicitude which seemed to brood over every interest
of their lives. He delighted in their society. His
native cheerfulness of temperament kept itself fresh
and hearty by his sympathy with them. When, in
1887, his son Arthur, a promising student of law in
Harvard University, died, the bereavement, though
accepted in aU the meekness of Christian resigna
tion, was an anguish to his spirit which only those
near him ever knew. Outwardly calm, his suffering
was, like the quiet of those stUl, dark waters which
sunlight does not pierce, and far below the surface
of which we know are unsounded depths.
Any memorial of Professor Gammell which did
not advert to the happiness of his home-life would
be greatly wanting. It was what he emphasized as
the token of a "gracious loving- kindness in his

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 85
Heavenly Father towards him." Those who ever
shared the hospitality of that beautiful home by
the sea, at Newport, will readily recall the cheerful,
bright look as he sat at his table, or as he walked
upon the lawn by the shore, looking out upon the
sweep of waters. For thirty-eight years that home
gave him " sympathy in his aims and labors." It
gave him rest. It gave him in the growth of his
children an ever present joy. The letters of those
thirty-eight years show how perfect was the union
of hearts. A sacred reserve forbids lengthened aUu
sions to the inner life of that home ; but how ample
and rich were its blessings for him his own expres
sions tenderly record.
His rehgious character was decided and deep. He
had an unquestioning faith in the great verities of
the Christian revelation. It was not only unshaken
by aU the modern assaults on Christianity, but grew
in strength and determination to the last. His re
ligious life was inward, meditative, averse to all pe
riodical excitements or enthusiasms, but pronounced
in the observance of the Sabbath, in the worship
of the sanctuary, and in the training of his house
hold. On a regular and devout family worship
he set the highest value, and visitors at his home
will recaU the fervency and aptness of his prayers
at the household altar. That serAace he never al
lowed to be hurried nor lightly performed. " He
was," said the Rev. Dr. CaldweU in the singularly
just and beautiful tribute to his memory published
in the " Providence Journal," just after his death,

86 MEMORIAL.
" a man averse to pretense, sham, indirection, mere
rhetoric, and yet he had no tolerance for anything
like impropriety, vulgarity, low tone, in reUgious ser
vice. He cared most for what is true and spiritual,
and yet he wanted the outward observance worthy
of the humble, devout, adoring spirit. He learned
the way of faith in his father's house, and he con
tinued in it to the end of his days, unseduced, un
shaken by any doubt. In the famiUar intercourse
of more than thhty years I never discovered any
wavering in the confidence of his faith. His views
were large enough and Uberal enough, but his sim
ple trust in Jesus Christ and beUef in the gospel
and kingdom of God were never disturbed." He
was always glad to have conversation take a reU
gious turn. It was natural for him to speak of re
Ugious themes, for they interested him deeply. On
one occasion he remarked to a friend that he " was
sorry there was so little doctrinal preaching. The
laity needed instruction on such themes." Indeed,
the sermons which interested and held him were ser
mons unfolding Christian truth to the understand
ing. He distrusted the hortatory appeals except in
special cases, and when supported by a previous
convincing exhibition of solid teaching. For every
thing that trenched on the dignity of the pulpit,
for everything that bordered on the flippant or the
coarse in pidpit teaching, he manifested a hearty
disgust. Both by hereditary ties and by firm conviction
he was a Baptist. But no man was more cathoUo

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 87
in his religious sympathies. He had the widest in
terest in the growth of Christ's kingdom, and could
not tolerate any sectarianism which did not rejoice
in aU victories for that kingdom gained by any body
of Christian disciples. He was a worshipper fre
quently in other sanctuaries than those of his own
denomination, and his tolerance was as marked as
was his quiet devotion to his own church.
Professor J. L. Lincoln, who has delineated so
admhably Professor GammeU's career in the Uni
versity, has also sketched his connection with the
First Baptist Church of Providence : —
" You requested me to add to my recollections of Pro
fessor GammeU's relations to the coUege Faculty a men
tion of his relations to the First Baptist Church and So
ciety of this city. Gladly do I accede to this request, as
it is in the spirit and conduct with which he maintained
these relations that the best qualities of his character
found their crowning iUustration and influence. I have
spoken of his loyalty as a son of this coUege, the place of
his education. This virtue of his character shone forth
yet more conspicuously in a devotion to yet higher in
terests than those of education and good learning, — the
interests of the Christian religion and of the kingdom of
Christ. In his youth he confessed by baptism his faith
in Christ and Christianity, and this faith grew with his
growth and strengthened with his strength to mature
manhood and age. He was a member of the First Bap
tist Church from 1837 to his death, a period of fifty-two
years ; and for a still longer period — for sixty-two years,
if we begin with 1827, when he entered coUege — he was a
devout attendant upon its services. For six years he was
a superintendent of the Sunday-school, and for a much

88 MEMORIAL.
longer time he was teacher of one of the Bible classes.
He rendered most valuable service in promoting in the
church the interests of foreign missions, by his personal
efforts to increase its contributions to this cause, and also
by his addresses at its missionary meetings. A like ac
tive and useful part Professor GammeU bore in the pro
motion of the secular and financial interests of the church,
as a pew proprietor and member of the Charitable Bap
tist Society. On important committees he shared vsdth
his colleagues responsible trusts of the Society, and gave
to it, in its deUberations and acts, the aid of his counsels,
and contributed generously on all occasions when its
finances needed aid. The records of the Society for more
than a generation are full of evidence of his efficient
labors in furthering aU that pertained to its progress.
His death was felt to be a great loss to the Society as weU
as to the church ; and it was meet that, on the day of the
funeral, the services should be held in the meeting-house
where he had worshipped for more than half a century,
and that from that sacred place his remains should be
borne to their last rest."
The features of Professor GammeU's reUgious
life, so weU delineated by the Rev. Dr. Thayer in
the tribute he has prepared, wUl be recognized by
aU who knew him. His independence of spirit was
one of his more prominent characteristics. When
ever manifested, it was always maintained with just
deference to the opinions and feeUngs of others. It
added strength to his influence, and whUe it ac
cented his individuality, as Dr. Thayer says, it never
isolated him from his fellow-Christians or from his
associates in the work of life.

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 89
Newport, March 15, 1890.
I have been asked to join in a testimonial to Professor
Gammell. My increasing intercourse with him of late
years, has made me feel his loss too much not to comply
with the request. One shrinks from a formal tribute
to a friend. Yet it is a real tribute which I pay Pro
fessor GammeU in saying that through all the changes
about him he preserved his identity. For all agree that
a wonderful process of assimUation is going on, and every
body is becoming like everybody else. Perpetual con
tacts with all sorts of people are unconscious attritions
that rub down personal peculiarities to an uninteresting
sameness. Fashionable life renders its votaries indis
tinguishable by the enamel it puts on them. PoUtics
bring men into disgusting resemblance, while our litera
ture of all kinds is strangely alike, and forms its readers
to its own average. What wonder, then, that men lose or
greatly qualify their identities, that coUeges are conform
ing to the pattern of the age, and that presidents and pro
fessors are becoming Hke the rest of mankind, — the pres
idents largely employed in collecting funds, and the
professors no longer living and working in the college
only, but playing the scholar in politics and acting in
peripatetic universities? But Professor Gammell was
whoUy formed in Brown University when — defects and
all — it was the old American college, and his life was
concentrated there with singular devotion. That cast of
character he never lost. Not obtrusively, but decidedly,
it impressed you, and it was easy to conceive of him as
in the class-room. His opinions were positive and given
emphaticaUy, but not offensively ex cathedra. He loved
racy good English, taught it and used it, though I doubt
not he exercised literary charity for his pupils and friends
who have come to prefer poets and thinkers whose mean-

90 MEMORIAL.
ing is not plain to their readers, nor probably was to
themselves. Professor Gammell lived on the verge of fashion, yet
had no heart for it, but cultivated the society of scholars
and Christian gentlemen, who, among others, sometimes
visit Newport. His own religious convictions were quiet,
but assured, and he never faUed in his testimony to the
truth. Fully recognizing other Christian communions,
he was faithful to his own, and his pen vindicated the
claims of its worthies to the esteem of mankind. So he
did not accept dilutions of doctrines, nor look with favor
on Christianity held in solution, but believed and loved
the simple, strong faith of his fathers. If some of his
friends advanced towards a Protestant purgatory, or fa
vored those who did. Professor GammeU, without inter
rupting his friendship, did not accompany them, since,
trusting in the sufficiency of Christ's atonement and the
abounding grace of God to his own soul, he was not wont
to look for ' another probation.' He gloried in the work
of missions, and found, as others do, chiefest hope for
man in their progress. As years passed on, and from his
quiet life he looked out on the great world, his thoughts
grew more massive with ideas of God and Law and Prov
idence, and his heart more responsive to Christ and his
gospel. And then sorrow which ' comes to aU ' came to
him. Very great was the disappointment in the loss of a
most promising young life, exceeding dear to a father's
heart, — very sad the loneliness. Old age feels more
deeply than youth. But Professor Gammell bowed him
self humbly, and those who saw him in private felt a
chastened, mellowed tone that told of a blessed work
within. Very painful this breaking up of such a circle as ex
isted in Brown. Yet very pleasant to recoUect them as
with varying gifts and genial feelings they pass before

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 91
the mind. Not the least worthy of affectionate memory
was the subject of this notice.
Yours, sincerely, T. Thater.

Professor GammeU's closing years were fuU of
vigor. In 1887 he showed some signs of failure.
He seemed far from weU. His striking personal
presence, erect form, and bright eye were stUl ob
served, but there was less elasticity in his step and
less vivacity in his conversation. From aU this, how
ever, he rallied, and his health had been exception
ally good through the winter of 1888-9. He was
never more cheerful, and never entered with more
zest into life. He was seen, as of old, taking the
famUiar walks, delighted most i£ some companion
would share them with him. But the end was un
consciously drawing nigh. On Tuesday evening,
March 26, he attended the monthly meeting of the
Historical Society, presiding as usual, and entering
with his accustomed spirit into aU the exercises.
On the day foUowing, a meeting of the Corporation
of the University was held to consider and act upon
the resignation of the office of President by Dr.
Robinson. He took an active part in the counsels
of the occasion, making one of his felicitous ad
dresses. The long continued strain of the meeting,
without his usual meal in the middle of the day,
perhaps with some exposure to a biting wind in a
long walk taken after adjournment, seemed to ex
haust hhn. On Thursday he was confined to the
house. During Friday and Saturday he resumed

92 MEMORIAL.
his usual course of life. On Sunday, however,
pneumonia set in. " I am taken sick," he said to
his wife, " on the anniversary of our son's death."
For a whUe the doctor encouraged hope of re
covery. Some days later, in the morning, having
been refreshed by an ice-bath, he was Ufted from
his bed to the couch, and asked for the " Providence
Journal." He turned to the account of the Histor
ical Society's recent meeting. It was the last act of
the Christian scholar, but characteristic of his schol
arly habits. He soon showed signs of growing
weakness, and none more clearly, none so calmly,
recognized the approaching end. With undimmed
intelUgence and perfect serenity of spirit, he ex
pressed his trust in the Redeemer, as one who knew
Him whom he had believed, and was persuaded that
He was able to keep that committed to Him against
that day. On the morning of the day before he
died, he said to his devoted wife, " I am spared to
you one day more ; " and it was touching, during his
last Ulness, to hear him " rejoice that he was taken
first," and was not to be left as the survivor of his
beloved wife. He made aU the arrangements for his
funeral, enjoining the utmost simphcity in aU the
services. Life drew gently, but swiftly, to its close.
He died on April 3, 1889, in his seventy-eighth
year. His funeral took place on the following Saturday,
April 6, from the First Baptist Church, where for
sixty-two years he had been a worshipper. His pas
tor, the Rev. Edwin Brown, D: D., read selections

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 93
from the Holy Scriptures. His friend of thirty years,
who had also been his pastor, the Rev. Dr. Samuel
L. Caldwell, since " passed into the world of light,"
made the prayer. And then he was buried in the
beautiful cemetery of Swan Point, close by the grave
of his son Arthur.
A few months later came the Commencement of
the University. For more than half a century his
presence had added to the life and interest of the
academic gathering. With possibly two or three
exceptions he had always been there to greet the
old graduates. He loved the occasion consecrated
to college memories and to the interests of good
learning. All his love for the college then shone
conspicuous. As the groups of returning alumni
assembled, his name was mentioned, his labors
were recalled, his long and faithful devotion to
the honored Alma Mater was rehearsed, and the
general grief that they " should see his face no
more " found ready utterance. And when, in the
course of the Commencement festivities, the alumni
assembled in their annual session, the desire of aU
hearts was met in the adoption of a minute on his
death. This biographical and memorial sketch, pre
pared by a grateful pupU, is best concluded by the
graceful appreciative testimony of this minute to
the exalted character and services of Professor
Gammell : —
" It is with profound sorrow and a sense of great loss
that the members of the Alumni Association, assembled
at their annual meeting, record the death of Professor

94 MEMORIAL.
GammeU, of the class of 1831. He will be sadly missed
this week at the college anniversary occasions, public and
social, which for so many years he has alwaj's attended,
and to which his dignity of presence and gracious man
ners have always lent distinction. For more than sixty
years, the period which covers his undergraduate and his
subsequent professional life, and during which he has re
sided in Providence, and sustained intimate relations to
the coUege, his name has been honorably associated with
its prosperity and progress. We recaU with gratitude
the valuable services which he has rendered as a coUege
instructor in rhetoric and English literature, and in his
tory and political economy, bringing to these departments
unusual qualifications by his literary tastes and attain
ments, and by his zealous pursuit of historical studies;
promoting in the one, by his rhetorical instruction and
lectures and by his discriminating criticism of rhetorical
exercises, the literary culture of his pupils and the Uter
ary character and reputation of the coUege, and by his
intelligent and faithful work in the other, inaugurating
an era of historical instruction and study which has been
most worthUy perpetuated by his successors. Many are
the classes, many the students, of our University who wUl
ever cherish his name and the influence of his teaching
among the choicest memories of their coUege life. We
recall, too, the services which he rendered, after his re
tirement from the Faculty, by his counsel and action as
a member for eighteen years of the Board of FeUows of
the University. But, devoted though he was with a loyal
affection to his Alma Mater, his labors were not confined
to his offices of trust in her service. As a citizen he took
a generous and active interest in good learning and lib
eral education everywhere, and in all worthy enterprises
in philanthropy, morals, and religion which advanced the
progress in this country and the world of a truly Christian

WILLIAM GAMMELL. 95
civilization. And with aU these remembrances of Pro
fessor GammeU's various and useful labors we gladly as
sociate our recoUections of those sterling qualities of his
personal character and life which won for him the respect
and affection of his numerous friends."

HISTORICAL PAPERS.

SAMUEL WARD, GOVERNOR OF RHODE
ISLAND.i I.
The generation who peopled New England during the
middle of the eighteenth century were witnesses of a se
ries of events whose importance in shaping the subsequent
character and the ultimate destiny of the colonies can
scarcely be estimated too highly. It was the age in which
was brought to a close the protracted struggle between
England and France for ascendency upon this continent ;
in which were suffered the worst evils of the ill-devised
legislation of the Parliament, and the earliest aggressions
of the British ministry upon the rights of the colonies ;
and in which were seen the first acts of resistance that
terminated at length in the war of American indepen
dence. To this generation belonged Governor Samuel
Ward, the subject of the present sketch ; and in the col
ony with which he was connected he was among the
foremost of the patriotic actors in the stirring scenes of
the age.
He was descended from an ancient and respectable
family, of which the first representative in this country
was his grandfather, Thomas Ward, who came to New
port, Rhode Island, soon after the restoration of Charles
the Second. In England he had been attached to the
republican party, and had been somewhat conversant with
the affairs of the Commonwealth. He was highly re
spected in the colony, to which he rendered many valuable
1 Reprinted from Sparks's American Biography.

100 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
services, both as a private citizen and as a member, at dif
ferent times, of both branches of the colonial legislature.
Thomas Ward died in 1689, leaving a second wife, whose
maiden name was Amy Smith, and their only child,
Richard Ward, who was born a few months before his
father's death. Richard Ward, the father of the subject
of this memoir, on attaining to manhood, was an active
and exemplary citizen of Newport, engaged in commerce,
and devoting much attention to the affairs of the colony,
in whose service he was distinguished for his fideUty and
probity of character. He was for several years Recorder,
or Secretary of State, and afterwards Deputy-Governor,
of Rhode Island, and was twice elected to the office of
Governor, in 1741 and 1742 ; after which he declined a
reelection, and retired to private life.
Samuel Ward, the second son of Richard, was born at
Newport, on the 27th of May, 1725. His mind was early
subjected to the discipline of that best kind of education,
which arises from the associations of a well-regulated
family circle, of cultivated manners and Uberal tastes.
He was also sent to a grammar school in his native town,
which in its day maintained a high celebrity as one of the
best schools in the country. Here, aided, as is probable,
by the instructions of his elder brother, Thomas, who
graduated at Harvard College in 1733, he passed through
a course of study which was probably more than usually
extensive and thorough for one not destined for either of
the learned professions.
For a considerable period prior to the American Revo
lution, the ancient town of Newport was among the most
flourishing commercial towns on the Atlantic coast. Its
capacious harbor made it the resort of much of the for
eign shipping that visited the colonies. The enterprise of
its inhabitants had embarked in nearly every branch of
colonial trade, while the salubrity of its cUmate and the

SAMUEL WARD. 101
surpassing beauty of its ocean scenery were already attract
ing temporary visitors from less favored climes, and making
it what it has since become, the most delightful watering
place upon the continent. Amidst its external prosperity
and its intimate relations with the mother country, the
society of the town is said to have been distinguished for
its poUshed manners and the intellectual spirit with which
it was pervaded.
Here the philosopher Berkeley passed two years in ma
turing his generous plans for civilizing the Indians and
educating young men of the colonies for the ministry of
the gospel. This eminent man was much in the society
of the town, and for a time assisted the rector of the Epis
copal parish in the performance of his parochial duties.
His active and generous spirit, enriched as it was by the
most liberal culture and the noblest benevolence, must
have exerted a controlling influence over every circle in
which he moved. While residing at Newport, Berkeley is
said to have composed his " Minute Philosopher," the most
finished and the most enduring of all his writings, which
has forever linked his name with the quiet shores of the
beautiful island which was then his home. He also
founded a literary and social club, made up of the gentle
men of the town, which, no doubt, was instrumental in
elevating its character, and promoting a unity of feeling
in relation to subjects of general concern. From this
association, whose object was "the promotion of know
ledge and virtue," at a subsequent period sprang the Red
wood Library, which, had it been earlier started, would
doubtless have received from Bishop Berkeley the valua
ble collection of books which, on leaving Rhode Island,
in 1731, he distributed among the clergymen of the col
ony and presented to the colleges at Cambridge and at
New Haven.
In the midst of a community whose social and literary

102 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
character was expanded by influences like these, Samuel
Ward passed his boyhood and youth, enjoying, in addition,
the best advantages for a common education which the
colony in that age could afford. He is believed to have
devoted himself to the acquisition of knowledge with
earnest diligence, and to have derived from the advan
tages which he enjoyed what for the time was considered
a remarkably good education. His father had long been
extensively engaged in navigation, and was at the head
of a trading house in Newport. He was also possessed
of considerable estates in King's County, on the opposite
shore of Narragansett Bay, which had also received a
share of his personal attention. To the charge of the
same interests Governor Richard Ward directed the at
tention of his second son ; and, by the time he had reached
his majority, he had become conversant with the business
alike of a merchant and of a farmer. He mairied, in
early Ufe, Anne Ray, the daughter of a respectable far
mer of Block Island, and soon after removed to Westerly,
and settled on a farm, which he received from his father-
in-law as the dower of his wife.-'
Here, in a secluded portion of the colony of Rhode
Island, Mr. Ward entered upon the duties of manhood,
on a quiet plantation, which by his industry and judicious
expenditures he soon formed into a valuable and beautiful
estate. In accordance with the hereditary custom of his
famUy, he also kept a store in the town of Westerly, and
was often engaged in commerce both at Newport and at
Stonington. In all these enterprises he was blessed with
1 This lady was an elder sister of " Catherine Ray of Block Island,"
whose name frequently appears among the correspondents of Dr.
Franklin, and to whom he addressed some of the sprightliest of his
familiar letters. See Sparks's Franklin, vol. vii. pp. 85 et seq.
The incidents referred to in the letter on tlie eighty-fifth page must
have occurred while both Dr. Franklin and Miss Ray were ou a visit
at Mr. Ward's in Westerly.

SAMUEL WARD. 103
a good degree of prosperity, and early became possessed
of such pecuniary means as rendered him independent of
personal labor, and enabled him to devote his time and
energies to the interests of his native colony, whose ser
vice was soon to demand the most patriotic exertions of
aU her sons. Though living in retirement, he did not
withhold his attention from the public events which took
place around him ; and, as the subsequent course of this
memoir will show, he was always sagacious in apprehend
ing the questions at issue, and among the foremost in
advocating, both in private circles and in the public offices
with which he was intrusted, the interests of justice, and
truth, and freedom.
For a considerable period after his settlement at Wes
terly, Mr. Ward appears to have devoted his principal
attention to the improvement of his estate and the prose
cution of the commerce in which he had embarked. He
studied agriculture as a liberal art, and soon became dis
tinguished among his neighbors for the success with which
he applied its principles. He gave much attention to the
improvement of the several breeds of domestic animals
with which his farm was stocked, and was particularly
celebrated for the specimens he raised of the Narragan
sett pony, a race of horses which has now become entirely
extinct, but which in that day constituted a leading article
of export from the colony, and was greatly admired for
the ease and fleetness of its movements.
According to the traditions which are still preserved in
Rhode Island, the farmers of the Narragansett country,
for a long period before the Revolution, were generally
men of a superior inteUigence and a higher breeding than
were often to be found in their brethren of the other agri
cultural districts of New England. Many emigrants of
considerable fortune, who had come to this country in the
early part of the eighteenth century, had been attracted

104 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
to the beautiful and fertile farms which skirt the western
shores of Narragansett Bay, and had planted there a large
though scattered community, distinguished for inteUigent
enterprise, for accomplished manners, and for elegant
hospitality. The mode of life then prevalent there com
bined much of the quiet and simplicity of the country with
many of the characteristics of a commercial town. The
distinctions of master and slave were stUl maintained ;
and negroes, most of whom were in servitude, and who
then constituted nearly one tenth of the population of the
colony, were to be seen in great numbers on every large
estate. These features suggest to us a conception of agri
cultural life and of social relations such as would, per
haps, best be realized in our own day among the planta^
tions of some of the upper counties of Virginia.
In retiring thus to the country, Mr. Ward by no means
withdrew from the intellectual activity and cultivated
society to which he had been accustomed at Nevrport.
There were living around him some of the leading men
of the colony, whose companionship, not only in his own
chosen pursuit of agriculture, but in every other sphere
of life, was fitted to improve, as well as gratify, an in
telligent young man. These persons formed themselves
into a club for social intercourse and intellectual improve
ment, and were accustomed to meet at each other's houses,
to bring together at the festive board the results of their
reading or experience, and to discuss the pubUc events
which were then beginning to assume an unwonted im
portance. In this manner, interrupted only by occasional visits to
Newport, and more rarely to Boston and New York, Mr.
Ward passed the years of his early manhood. Living
upon his own well-ordered estate, from which, with a
grateful spirit, he received the bounties of Providence,
surrounded by his family and in the midst of congenial

SAMUEL WARD. 105
neighbors and friends, he stands out in the foreground
of a picture which any man might well aspire to realize.
From this retirement, however, he was soon to be sum
moned forth to mingle in the agitating poUtics of the day ;
and, after engaging in the fiercest strifes of the politician,
and reaping all his ephemeral honors, he was at length to
act an heroic part in the opening drama of the Revolution.
His first appearance in the public service of the colony
was in 1756, when he was elected to the General As
sembly, as a deputy or representative from the town of
Westerly ; a post which he continued to occupy with but
a slight interruption till May, 1759. In that early time
the legislature of Rhode Island, though not inferior to
other similar bodies either in the dignity of its forms or
in the variety of the powers which it exercised, yet pre
sented but a limited theatre for public debate. Its mem
bers were always few in number, and, being elected twice
every year, they brought with them to its councils the
fuUest sense of the popular wishes respecting nearly every
public measure. Hence their sessions were short, and
their acts were usually passed with but little debate. In
the proceedings of the Assembly Mr. Ward appears im
mediately to have taken an active part ; and, though prob
ably one of the youngest of its members, he early won for
himself a wide and commanding influence. The frequent
recurrence of his name upon the pages of its records in
dicates how intimately he was connected with the most
important public measures which occupied its attention.
The irregular contest between England and France,
which had been waged for more than two years in their
respective colonies, had now broken out into an open war,
which was declared on the part of England in May of the
same year ; and the several colonies were preparing to en
gage in it with their utmost zeal. A considerable number
of French residents in Rhode Island, who had been seized

106 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
by the colonial officers and thrown into the jaUs as prison
ers of war, sent a petition to the legislature, praying for
their liberation and the privilege of removing to some
neutral port, and claiming an exemption, in the mean
time, from the laws of war. Their situation excited no
smaU interest among the people of the colony, and in
volved a principle which was likely to prove important in
the subsequent progress of the contest. The whole sub
ject, when presented to the legislature, was referred to a
committee of which Mr. Ward was a member, who re
ported a bUl authorizing the government to transport the
Frenchmen in question to some neutral port, but refusing
them any exemption from the ordinary fortunes of war,
and requiring them still to be kept in jaU ; a measm-e
which was doubtless thought to be necessary on account
of the facilities they would possess, if set at Uberty, of
giving information to the king's enemies.
Mr. Ward was also a member of the committee for
levying the annual tax, and proportioning it to the several
towns of the colony, a work which was at that time con
sidered among the most difficult and embarrassing of the
duties of the legislature. So diverse were the interests
and the resources of the several towns that scarcely a
year passed away without occasioning a protest from some
of them against the rates which had been assessed ; the
agricultural community now insisting that the commercial
interests should bear a larger share of the pubUc burden,
and the southem towns now complaining that the grow
ing capital of the north was regarded by the Assembly
with too indulgent an eye.
Another of the services which he rendered to the col
ony in his capacity of legislator was in the investigations
he made as a member of the committee on the violations
of the laws of trade. The instructions which had been
received from the king were urgent and peremptory, that

SAMUEL WARD. 107
the Assembly should " pass effectual laws for prohibiting
all trade and commerce with the French, and for prevent
ing the exportation of provisions of all kinds to any of
their islands or colonies." The existing colonial statutes
for enforcing the Navigation Acts of the British Parlia
ment were but slightly regarded ; and an extensive con
traband trade was carried on by merchants in all the
colonies, in defiance of the authority of Parliament, and
in most instances without the interference of their own
legislatures. When the state of the trade was spread be
fore them, the General Assembly, in accordance with the
report of their committee, adopted such regulations as
were necessary in order to comply with the instructions
of the king, and in every way in their power prepared
the colony to engage in the war as it became true and
loyal subjects.
It was also during the year 1756 that the legislature
of Rhode Island passed its first general act for the relief
of insolvent debtors. It provided that persons who should
give up their property for the benefit of their creditors,
and make oath to the fidelity of the surrender, should be
discharged from all claims preferred against them. The
law was undoubtedly called forth by a few instances of
failure, which, in the distresses of the times, had occurred
among the merchants of the colony, one of the first and
the most conspicuous of which was that of Mr. Joseph
Whipple, a merchant of Newport, who at the time of his
failure held the post of Deputy-Governor. The law which
was then passed has served as the basis of all the subse
quent legislation upon the subject of insolvency in Rhode
Island, and does not differ very materially from that
which is now in force in that state, and indeed in most of
the other States of the Union.
The war with France was now becoming an engross
ing subject of attention with all the northern colonies of

108 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
America. It had thus far been prolific of nothing but
disaster and disgrace to the English arms. The colonists
had engaged in it with their utmost zeal ; but, such was
the delay of the ministry, and such the incapacity of the
generals who had been sent to conduct it, that every year
had witnessed the gradual decline of the English power
in America. The French, on the contrary, were every
year "gaining ground, and were gradually encircling the
British possessions by the lengthening chain of their mili
tary posts, and, with the aid of their Indian allies, were
spreading terror and dismay through the settlements.
Immediately on the formal declaration of war, in 1756,
the Earl of Loudoun was sent to America with a large
force, which, together with such as should be fumished by
the colonies, he was directed to employ against the French.
His arrival in America was greeted by the several col
onies, and Mr. Ward was appointed one of a committee
to prepare an address of welcome on the part of Rhode
Island. One of his first acts, on assuming the command
of the forces, was to levy four thousand troops from New
England ; and of these the proportion to be raised in
Rhode Island was four hundred and fifty. The troops
were raised, and were on their march for the rendezvous
at Albany ; but the season was too far advanced to admit
of any effective operations, and they were dismissed at the
beginning of November without having been employed in
actual service, but were ordered to be in readiness when
summoned again to the field in the ensuing spring.
It was early evident that the reverses which the Eng
lish had experienced thus far in the war were not likely
to be soon retrieved by the generalship of Lord Loudoun.
He appointed a convention of the Governors and Com
missioners of the several colonies to be held at Boston, in
January, 1757 ; which seems to have terminated only in
still greater distrust of the mUitary capacity of the Gen-

SAMUEL WARD. 109
eral-in-chief. The colonies, though commonly yielding a
ready compliance with the requisitions which were made
upon them, yet found serious cause of complaint in the
unequal levies that were successively imposed; and the
troops themselves were unwilling to be mingled with
the British regulars, but demanded to be placed under
the command of their own officers. Questions like these
served only to embarrass the plans which the commander
had set on foot, while, by the distrust and apprehension
which they awakened, they added a deeper shade to the
general gloom which hung over the colonies.
Rhode Island had a deep interest in the speedy ter
mination of the war, as well as in all these questions relat
ing to the terms of its continuance. She had already lost
from ninety to one hundred vessels that had been cap
tured by the enemy, a loss, which, according to a state
ment of her Secretary of State, made in 1758, was three
times as great as that of New York, and four times as
great as that of Massachusetts. She had added immensely
to her public debt ; and, in addition to fifteen hundred
men, who were engaged as privateers in the war, she was
obliged to maintain an armed vessel for the protection of
her coast, and had also furnished to the campaign of 1757
not less than a thousand men for the service of the king.
This was done at a period of gloom and dismay, when the
whole number of her citizens between the ages of sixteen
and sixty, then the legal limits of military service, scarcely
exceeded eight thousand. It was an effort scarcely equalled
by that of any other colony, for she had nearly a third of
her whole effective force in actual service beyond the
limits of her own territory.
In the winter of 1758, the Earl of Loudoun, finding
himself still surrounded with difficulties and embarrassed
by the jarring interests of the colonies, summoned another
convention to meet at Hartford, in the month of Febru-

110 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
ary. At this meeting. Governor Greene, at that time the
chief magistrate of the colony, and also Mr. Ward and
Mr. John Andrews, were appointed to represent Rhode
Island. The commissioners received fuU and explicit in
structions from the legislature as to the course which they
were expected to pursue. In these instructions they were
directed, on arriving at Hartford : —
" 1. To lay an exact state of the colony before his lord
ship with regard to its fortifications, cannon, warUke and
military stores, the number of inhabitants, state of the
treasury, and funds for supplying the same.
" 2. To beg his lordship to lay the defenseless condition
of the colony before his Majesty in the most favorable
light. " 3. To request his lordship to make the colony such
an aUowance for the provisions and mUitary stores fur
nished by this colony for the two last years as wiU corre
spond vnth his Majesty's gracious intentions signified unto
us by his Secretary of State."
The commissioners were also directed to " request his
lordship that the forces raised by this colony may be under
the immediate command of their own officers, and no
others, except the Commander-in-chief."
To these directions, which were probably open to aU
the commissioners who composed the convention, the Gen
eral Assembly ordered the following to be added, which
was to be regarded as a private instruction for the guid
ance of their representatives in adjusting the quota of
troops, the most difficult and delicate part of their task :
" And as to what aid or number of men you are era-
powered by virtue of your commission to furnish his lord
ship with, on the part of this colony, towards the ensuing
campaign, you may agree to raise one fourteenth part of
the number that shall be raised by the New England col
onies ; but, if that proportion cannot be obtained, you are

SAMUEL WARD. Ill
then to agree to such other proportion as shall appear to
you just and equitable."
These instructions aid us in comprehending the circum
stances of the times, and illustrate the nature of the ques
tions which were at issue, while they also serve to indicate
the spirit of loyalty and of sacrifice for the general good
which pervaded the people of Rhode Island.
Governor Greene was prevented by sickness from at
tending the convention, and the performance of the duty
assigned to the remaining commissioners feU almost en
tirely upon Mr. Ward, who, on his return from Hartford,
submitted to the legislature a full report of the doings
of the convention. From this report, which is entered at
length in the records of the Assembly, it appears that the
Rhode Island commissioners proposed that the several
colonies should furnish troops for the next campaign in
exact proportion to their respective population ; an ar
rangement by which Massachusetts would have raised
2,432 soldiers, Connecticut 1,582, and New Hampshire
and Rhode Island each would have raised 425. This num
ber on the part of Rhode Island was objected to by Lord
Loudoun as smaller than that which had been agreed
upon by the convention at Albany as the quota of the
colony ; and the commissioners were obliged to waive their
proposal, and yield to the levy which his lordship de
manded. They were, however, assured by the Command
er-in-chief that no further difficulties should arise re
specting the command of the troops, for he would take
those from Rhode Island under his own especial com
mand. The report of the commissioners was fully ap
proved by the Assembly ; the men, whose levy they had
guarantied, were immediately ordered to be raised for the
campaign of the following summer. This campaign, how
ever, fumished far better illustrations of the valor and
endurance of the colonial troops than of the skill and con
duct of their commander.

112 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
II.
The period at which Mr. Ward entered upon pubUc
life in his native colony was one distinguished for the vio
lence of the local jealousies and party animosities which
so frequently appear in the history especiaUy of smaU
communities. The people of the southern counties of
Rhode Island, from the first institution of the govern
ment, had been more or less at variance with those of the
northern. The town of Newport was at that time the only port of
entry in the colony, and in point of commercial impor
tance was one of the foremost towns along the entire At
lantic coast. It was the centre of the principal wealth,
and the residence, probably, of most of the leading men,
of the colony ; and, though the legislature was accustomed
to hold its sessions in each of the several counties, yet
Newport had long been the place where the offices of state
were established, and was more than any other town the
seat of the colonial government. Providence, standing at
the head of the navigation of Narragansett Bay, was the
older town, and was rising rapidly in wealth and impor
tance, and already beginning to dispute the supremacy of
the ancient capital. Amidst these relations subsisting be
tween the two leading towns, a mutual jealousy had grad
ually sprung up, which had doubtless been fostered by the
aspirants for office, and strengthened by the various local
interests that had been incidentally involved in the issue,
until it now divided the opinions and controlled the poli
tics of the entire colony.
Among the incidental questions upon which this jea
lousy had fastened, the two most important were, the policy
of the government in relation to supplies for the French
War, to which allusion has already been made, and the
famous question of paper money, which, in aU the colonies

SAMUEL WARD. 113
of America, was a subject of endless perplexity and em
barrassment, and in Rhode Island appears to have yielded
its fullest harvest of social and political evils. The whole
subject of the emission of paper money in the colonies, to
the statesman and the political economist, would be one
of the most curious and instructive connected with their
history. For fifty years this deceptive currency spread
its disastrous influence over the trade and the morals of
the country, and was not wholly abandoned till the bene
fits of political independence had changed the relations of
trade between America and all other parts of the world.
The earliest emission of bills of credit, to take the
place of gold and silver in Rhode Island, was made in
1710. The colony had been at great expense in furnish
ing supplies for the war with France, in which the mother
country had been involved ever since the accession of
William and Mary to the throne. Finding the resources
of the treasury inadequate to the exigency, the General
Assembly, following the example already set by Massa
chusetts twenty years before, adopted the fatal though
perhaps inevitable expedient of issuing bills of credit, and
thus delaying the actual payment of the debts which had
been incurred. The first emission did not exceed the
sum of five thousand pounds ; but this mode of postpon
ing to the future the necessities of the present, having
been once invented, was found to be too convenient to be
readily abandoned. Other emissions followed in rapid
succession, until, in 1749, after the lapse of nearly forty
years, the bills which had been issued amounted to not
less than three hundred and twelve thousand three hun
dred pounds, of which one hundred and thirty-five thou
sand pounds were still standing against the treasury, in
one form or another ; and these constituted the depreci
ated and almost valueless currency of the colony.
Every occasion of pubUc expenditure furnished an ex-

114 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
cuse for the issue of a new Banh ; and though merchants
were everywhere suffering from the policy, and frequently
petitioned against it, and most inteUigent persons were
satisfied of its ruinous tendency, yet so captivating to the
people is always the idea of plentiful money, and so clam
orous were now the multitude of those who were largely
in debt, that numbers of the Assembly constantly yielded
to the popular wiU, and in some instances, it is said, act
uaUy legislated to meet their own private necessities. The
currency which was thus created tended in no equivocal
manner to impair the commercial contracts, and to pros
trate the commercial honor, of the whole community,
while it perpetually offered to the reckless and the profli
gate an opportunity, too tempting to be resisted, to coun
terfeit the bills of the colony ; a crime of frequent occur
rence, though punished in Rhode Island with cropping
the ears and branding the forehead of the offender, to
gether with the confiscation of his entire estate.'
Such is a brief outline of the subject upon which the
two political parties in Rhode Island were accustomed
most frequently to divide during the period of which we
are now writing. The mercantile, and what was then re
garded as the more aristocratic, portion of the community
were usuaUy opposed to the emissions of paper money,
while those whose fortunes and avocations placed them in
humbler life were arrayed in their favor. At the head of
this latter party, which was also supported by some of the
leading citizens of Providence, stood Stephen Hopkins, a
gentleman whose name is conspicuous in the annals of the
colony, and who, both as a determined opponent in the
fiercest contests of local politics and an unwavering coad
jutor in the far nobler struggle of the Revolution, was for
1 For a full view of this curious subject, see a pamphlet by Elisha
R. Potter, entitled A Brief A ccount of Emissions of Paper Money made
by the Colony of Rhode Island.

SAMUEL WARD. 115
many years intimately connected with the public life of
Samuel Ward. Supported principally by the northern
towns of the colony, Mr. Hopkins, in 1755, had succeeded
Governor WiUiam Greene as the head of the govern
ment, in opposition to the wishes and efforts of a power
ful minority who were attached to the interests of the
south. The success of the Hopkins party raised to a high
pitch of excitement the animosity between the two dis
tricts of the colony, and, during the years in which Mr.
Ward was a member of the Assembly, this animosity was
frequently manifested in the action of that body.
In the political contest previous to the election of 1757,
when Governor Greene was stiU the candidate of the mer
cantile and southern party, in opposition to Governor
Hopkins, to whom strong objections had been raised, the
latter gentleman published an address to the freemen of
the colony, in which he insinuated that the legislature, in
its recent sessions, had pursued a policy hostile to the suc
cess of his administration. Mr. Ward was at that time a
member of the Assembly, and took occasion immediately
to come forward in its vindication. In defending it from
the charges of Governor Hopkins, he reviewed the Gov
ernor's administration, and stated at large the official acts
which had given offense to the people, dwelling particu
larly upon the conduct of the executive in relation to a
cargo of sugars which had been forfeited to the colony,
and also in relation to the liberation of spme French pris
oners of war, which had been made contrary to the acts
of the legislature.
For some cause or other, which, to one at all conversant
with party warfare in our own times, it is by no means easy
to assign, this vindication gave great offense to Governor
Hopkins, and, though at the time occupying the chair of
chief magistrate, he immediately commenced an action
for slander against Mr. Ward. The action was entered

116 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
in the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Provi
dence, the county where the Governor had always resided,
and which was warmly enlisted in the interest of the po
litical party of which he was the acknowledged chief. In
order to escape the prejudicial influence of party feeling,
and to secure a fair trial, Mr. Ward petitioned the legis
lature to remove the cause to one of the other counties.
On this petition being granted, Mr. Hopkins, who was
now out of office, and was doubtless suffering from the
mortification of recent defeat, immediately discontinued
the suit, for the purpose of evading the legislative decree,
and, on the rising of the Assembly, commenced another,
still in the county of Providence. At length, however,
after many delays and evasions on the part of Mr. Hop
kins, which could have been suggested only by feeUngs of
political rivalry or the exasperation of disappointment, it
was agreed by the two parties that Mr. Ward should sub
mit to an arrest within the territory of Massachusetts, and
that the trial should be had before the court at Worcester,
beyond the limits of the colony whose citizens were so
generally embroiled in the question between their rival
pohticians. The case appears to have excited no smaU interest, not
only in Rhode Island, but also within the neighboring
jurisdiction to which it was referred ; and the distin
guished name of James Otis is recorded as one of the
counsel for the complainant. It would seem, however,
that after the virulence of party feeling had somewhat
abated by the lapse of time, Mr. Hopkins attached less
importance to a judicial remedy, and, it may be, felt less
confidence in the justice of his cause ; for, when the trial
came on at Worcester, in 1759, he did not appear at the
court, and, after his counsel had made some slight attempt
to have the case continued to another term, it went atrainst
him by default, and he was required to pay the costs of
the prosecution.

SAMUEL WARD. 117
Thus ended a case of political litigation, in which, as
usually happens in such transactions, the gratification of
party feeling was the end proposed, far more than the
vindication of injured justice. Mr. Ward does not ap
pear to have been guilty of anything like slander, or
even of reprehensible severity, in his remarks upon the
administration of Mr. Hopkins, which were strictly con
fined to his official acts. Indeed, were such a writing to
be produced in our own day, and aimed at a public officer
on the eve of an election, it would rather be considered as
remarkable for its courtesj"- and forbearance, and the can
didate would be pronounced little less than mad, who, for
no greater cause, should follow the example of Mr. Hop
kins, and bring an action for slander against its author.
But the adjudication of the suit pending between the
rival chiefs of the Rhode Island parties by no means al
layed the political strife with which the colony had al
ready begun to be divided. Both Ward and Hopkins
were now candidates for the office of Governor, and they
continued to stand in opposition to each other, at the head
of powerful parties, for nearly ten years, in which each
experienced alternate success and defeat.
In the year 1761, Mr. Ward, having failed to secure
an election to the chief magistracy, was appointed by the
General Assembly to the office of Chief Justice of the
colony, which, according to the charter, was an office of
annual appointment. He discharged its duties with fidel
ity during the year for which he was appointed ; but his
position at the head of a party whose success was iden
tified with his promotion did not allow him to remain in
the quiet sphere of judicial life. He was the following
year again summoned to the strife for executive office,
and at the election in May, 1762, he was found to be the
successful candidate, and was installed in the office of
Governor. The struggle of the two parties is said to have

118 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
been violent in the extreme, and the towns of the colony
were nearly equaUy divided ; those of the south generaUy
voting for Mr. Ward, and those of the north, with few
exceptions, being strongly in favor of Mr. Hopkins.
It was the ancient custom of the freeholders of Rhode
Island, as the voters were then termed, to meet at New
port, at the general election in May of every year, and
deposit, in person, their votes for the Governor, Assist
ants, and other general officers. In later periods it had
been allowed, to those who could not attend the general
election, to send their votes by those who went, and thus
to deposit them by proxy ; still, as the population of the
several towns increased, an immense multitude would
thus assemble from all parts of the colony, presenting a
mass of human passions, which might be easily inflamed
by the party excitements of the day, and which the stern
est resolves of the government were sometimes unable to
hold in check. The scene which was here presented, in
a sharply contested election, would have furnished many
attractive features for the satiric pencil of Hogarth. There
were gathered all who were hoping for office and all who
were fearing to lose it ; the leaders of either party exert
ing themselves, each to secure his own triumph, and the
friends of each, confident of success and eager for the re
sult, discussing their respective merits with the loudest
vociferations, and sometimes enforcing their opinions with
fists and canes ; and at length, when the vote was declared,
and the proclamation made in the public square, accord
ing to the ancient custom, before all the people, the tri
umph of the successful party would go beyond all bounds
of decency and order, and the day would sometimes end
in disgraceful riot and confusion.
To j)revent the recurrence of scenes like these, and also
to save the time and expense that were wasted by this
perilous gathering of the people, an important alteration

SAMUEL WARD. 119
was made in the election law in 1760. An act was passed
by the legislature, providing that for the future the voting
should be done by the citizens in their respective towns,
and that none but members of the Assembly should be
entitled to vote at Newport on the day of election. The
passage of this law was most seasonable, and its results,
in every way, were beneficial ; the protracted controversy
between the friends of Ward and of Hopkins had already
begun, and, if the people had been still in the habit of
assembling at Newport during its more exciting periods,
the peace of the colony might have been seriously endan
gered in the party strifes that would have ensued.
The year during which Mr. Ward now held the office
of Governor seems not to have been marked by any im
portant public events. It deserves, however, to be men
tioned that during this period the project of founding an
institution of learning in Rhode Island was first made a
matter of serious interest and attention among the people.
From the commencement of this important enterprise.
Governor Ward took an active part in promoting its suc
cess. He belonged to that denomination of Christians by
whom the idea was first proposed, and his own liberal
tastes prompted him to give the full weight of his per
sonal and official influence to the accomplishment of an
undertaking fraught with so many blessings to the people
of the colony.
He was present at the first meeting of gentlemen which
was held to consider the expediency of the project. His
name stands among the first of those who petitioned the
legislature for the charter, and, when " Rhode Island
CoUege " was incorporated in 1764, he became one of the
original trustees. This to him was no merely honorary
post, but one that required of him a portion of his time
and attention, which he freely gave to the interests of the
infant institution. In 1767, he entered his son as a stu-

120 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
dent in one of its earliest classes, and to the close of his
life he continued its fast friend, as well as a member of
its board of trustees.
Governor Ward's present term of office was a period
of great suffering and anxiety among the tradesmen of
the colony, in consequence of the extreme depreciation of
the currency. The general scarcity of gold and silver
and the uncertain value of the colonial biUs depressed
trade, and reduced especiaUy the poorer classes of the
people well-nigh to desperation. Murmurings and com
plaints arose from every quarter, and, notwithstanding
the party then in power had always been known as the
opponents of paper money, yet, in obedience to a natural
propensity of the popular mind, strengthened perhaps, in
this instance, by the intrigues of politicians, the evils of
the time were very generaUy charged upon the adminis
tration ; and, by means of the exertions which were made,
the next election resulted in the defeat of Governor Ward,
and the success of Governor Hopkins, who again took the
oath of office in May, 1763.
At the close of his official year, Mr. Ward, who while
he was Governor had resided at Newport, retired to his
estate in Westerly, and, resuming the quiet occupations
of the farmer and the trader, gave his time to the care of
his family, to reading, and the society of his friends ; a
sphere of life in which he cultivated those elevated prin
ciples and amiable dispositions which not all the rude
collisions of politics, nor the agitations of a troubled age,
were ever able to pervert or to change.
The intervals which elapsed between the annual elec
tions of general officers in Rhode Island seem to have
passed quietly away, with but a rare collision of partisans,
and only an occasional awakening of party feeling. But,
as the political year drew to a close, and the season of
general election came on, the whole colony became a scene

SAMUEL WARD. 121
of agitation and excitement. Every act that was per
formed, and every word that was uttered, by either of the
candidates, became a matter of public interest, and, in
the scarcity of newspapers, was repeated by political gos
sips in every place of public resort, and was borne to the
fireside of every voter in the colony. Neighbor was ar
rayed against neighbor and family against family, in an
irreconcilable feud, which, unless it should be checked,
threatened to ruin the peace of the community, and to be
transmitted from father to son.
Impressed with the disastrous consequences of their
wide separation from each other, the leading men of both
parties seem, at different times, to have entertained plans
of reconciliation, and of thus healing the wounds which
had been made in the peace of the colony. The first dis
tinct proposal, however, for this purpose is believed to
have come from Governor Ward, and is contained in the
following letter, which he addressed to the General As
sembly on the 28th of February, 1764, just as the arrange
ments for the annual election were about to be made : —
Gentlemen, — The many ill consequences necessarily at
tending the division of the colony into parties are too manifest
to require any enumeration, and call for the serious attention of
every man who hath the welfare of his country at heart.
Deeply affected with the melancholy prospect, and sincerely
desirous to restore that peace and good order to the government,
which have been too much obstructed, and without which we
can never be extricated out of our present distressed situation,
I beg leave to lay before you some proposals, which, in my hum
ble opinion, might greatly tend to the accomplishment of these
beneficial purposes.
1. As the Honorable Stephen Hopkins, Esq., and myself
have been placed by our respective friends at the head of the
two contending parties, I think it necessary, and accordingly
propose, that both of us resign our pretensions to the chief seat

122 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
of government ; for the passions and prejudices of the people
have been so warmly engaged for a long time against one or the
other of us that, should either Mr. Hopkins or myself be in the
question, I imagine the spirit of party, instead of subsiding,
would rage with as great violence as ever. And so greatly anx
ious am I for putting an end to those bitter heats and animosi
ties, which have thrown the government into such confusion,
that I can sincerely declare that, for the sake of peace, I shall
cheerfuUy resign all my pretensions to the office of Governor, or
any other office.
2. As it is clear and evident, for many reasons, that New
port is the most proper place for the residence of the Governor,
I would propose that the Governor, to be elected upon this plan,
should reside there, and the Deputy-Governor in Providence.
3. That the Upper House be equaUy divided between the
two parties. This, I believe, would naturally tend to take away
all pretense for a party.
When I made proposals of this nature to Mr. Hopkins about
two years ago, the principal objection that he made to them was,
that a number of his friends had heen deprived of offices, and
no provision was made for restoring them. But as the case is
since altered, and they are now restored, I hope every obstacle
to the proposed plan is removed.
That this may be the case, and that we may all heartily
unite for the public good, is the sincere wish of, Gentlemen,
Your most obedient humble servant,
Samuel Waed.
On the same day, but apparently without any know
ledge of the foregoing letter, the following proposition was
made to Mr. Ward on the part of Governor Hopkins, viz. :
The death of the Honorable John Gardner, Esq., having
left the place of Deputy-Governor vacant. Governor Hopkins,
and those in the administration with him, invite and solicit the
Honorable Samuel Ward, Esq., to accept of that office ; hoping,
as well as earnestly desiring, that such a measure carried into
execution may put an end to the unhappy and destructive party

SAMUEL WARD. 123
disputes, which have too long been extremely injurious to the
colony and its divided inhabitants. Stephen Hopkins, Governor.
Such were the proposals which were simultaneously
made by each of the gentlemen who seemed to hold the
peace of the colony in their hands. The terms in which
they are both expressed, and the common spirit of appre
hension which pervades them both, serve to indicate the
fearful extent to which the party strife of the day had
been carried. These proposals were respectively declined
by each of the parties : Mr. Ward, it would appear from
the correspondence, not thinking his acceptance of the
post of Deputy-Governor likely to secure the peace of the
community ; and Mr. Hopkins regarding his surrender of
the office of Governor as " having no tendency to put an
end to parties, but as evidently calculated to perpetuate
them." As we review the correspondence which passed
between them, and recur to the ordinary principles of
human nature, it is not too much to suspect that an un
willingness to be second to a rival chief may have strength
ened the conclusion of the one, and a reluctance to sur
render the fascinating gift of political power may have
stimulated the patriotism of the other. The attempts of
both parties, however, proved abortive, and the contest
went on with as much virulence of feeling as ever.
In May, 1765, Mr. Ward was again elected Governor
of the colony, and went from Westerly to reside at New
port, where, in consequence of a reelection in the foUow
ing year, he continued to reside till May, 1767. The two
years during which he now held the chief magistracy were
full of excitement, and were marked by events of high
importance. A new spirit was rising in the minds of the
colonists, and the petty distinctions of local party were
for the time lost sight of in the deep indignation called
forth by what were deemed the aggressions of the mother

124 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
country on the rights of the colonies. In the preceding
year the British ministry had already given intimations of
their intention to tax America ; and, soon after the elec
tion of Mr. Ward, the inteUigence was received in Rhode
Island that the Stamp Act had passed both Houses of
Parliament, and had received the royal approbation.
At one of the sessions of the previous year, the Colo
nial Assembly had given utterance to the feeUngs of their
constituents, in the petition which they had adopted and
sent to the king ; and, though a considerable number of
the wealthier inhabitants of Newport and of some others
of the southern towns were stiU unwilling to oppose an
act of Parliament, yet, no sooner was it known that the
Stamp Act had become a law than the minds of both the
government and the people were made up to disregard its
provisions. The act was not to go into operation tiU the
foUowing November, and the events of the interval only
served to strengthen the determination to resist and to
increase the irritability of the popular mind. Commis
sions were sent over, appointing the necessary officers to
superintend the execution of the law, and the cruisers of
the king, which seemed to multiply in all the ports of the
colonies, became subjects of popular jealousy and hatred,
on account of the closeness of their scrutiny and the ar
rogance of their demands upon the inhabitants.
During the summer of 1765, while the Maidstone,
sloop of war, was lying in the harbor of Newport, the
captain, whose name was Charles Antrobus, impressed
some sailors belonging to the town, and dfetained them on
board his vessel. On a complaint being made, Governor
Ward immediately wrote a request for their release, which
not being complied with, a band of people at one of the
wharves seized a boat belonging to the Maidstone, and
burnt it in a public square. This act of violence gave rise
to a series of retaliations on the part of the commander of

SAMUEL WARD. 125
the sloop, which for a time suspended aU intercourse, and
came near producing open hostilities between the people
of the Maidstone and the inhabitants of the town. The
Governor, in his correspondence with Captain Antrobus,
contended that "the impressing of Elnglishmen was an
arbitrary action, contrary to law, inconsistent with lib
erty, and to be justified only by urgent necessity." " But,
as the ship lay moored in an English colony, always ready
to render any assistance necessary for his Majesty's ser
vice, there could be no possible reason sufficient to justify
the severe and rigorous impress carried on in this port."
He also firmly maintained the principle that the com
mander and crew of a ship lying within the jurisdiction
of the colony were subject to its laws.
The men who had been impressed were afterwards given
up, but not till they had been detained for several weeks,
during which there were frequent collisions between the
people belonging to the vessel and the inhabitants of the
town. Incidents like this served only to array the feelings
of the colonists still more decidedly against the officers of
the crown, and doubtless prepared the way for the ex
cesses which were soon afterwards committed against the
vindicators of the Stamp Act and the officers who had
been appointed to superintend its execution.
Mr. Augustus Johnson, a lawyer of respectable stand
ing in Newport, had accepted the office of stamp master,
in contempt alike of the arguments and the threatenings
which were employed to dissuade him, and was preparing
to perform its duties, when the day should arrive for the
enforcement of the act. On the 27th of August, in open
day, a few weeks after the affair of the Maidstone, a
riotous collection of persons appeared in the streets of
Newport, with a cart containing the effigies of Augustus
Johnson, Martin Howard, and Dr. Thomas Moffat, the
stamp master and two gentlemen who had written in de-

126 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
fense of the act, each with a halter upon its neck. The
images were drawn through the streets to a gaUows which
had been erected near the town house, and were there
hung up tUl evening, to the gaze and derision of the mul
titude. On the following day the mob again assembled,
and proceeded first to the house of Moffat, and afterwards
to that of Howard, both of which they stripped of their
furniture and nearly destroyed, the gentlemen themselves
having escaped to a ship of war lying in the harbor. The
house of Johnson was also assailed ; but, by the persua
sions of some of the principal men of the town, it was
spared, on his giving a reluctant promise that he would
not perform the duties of stamp master. ^
Some efforts were made by the government of the col
ony to apprehend the persons who were engaged in these
outrages, and the matter was soon after brought to the
notice of the Assembly, by whom the Governor was re
quested to issue a proclamation commanding all officers to
arrest the rioters wherever they might be found. But a
similar scene had just before been enacted in Boston ; and,
in the excited state of the public mind, which then pre
vailed, though most well-disposed people disapproved, and
perhaps regretted the proceeding, yet none could be found
who were wiUing to come forward and bear testimony
against its authors.
The report of these outbreaks, which went home to
England, produced upon the administration an impression
most unfavorable to the reputation of the colony ; and, in
a letter which Governor W^ard soon afterwards received
from the agent in London, it was stated that the Lords of
1 See Life of Augustus Johnson, in Updike's Memoirs of the Rhode
Island Bar, p. 67. Mr. Updike represents the riot as ha^dng occurred
in 1766, after the repeal of the Stamp Act ; but the recorded pro
ceedings of the legislature, and a notice iu the Providence Gazette,
fix it iu 1765.

SAMUEL WARD. 127
the Treasury had determined to withhold the money which
was still due to the colony for the supplies she had fur
nished in the war, until full indemnification should be
made to those who had suffered from the proceedings of
the rioters. This information gave rise to a long corre
spondence between the government of the colony and the
Secretary of State in England, in which the claim of
Rhode Island to compensation was urged on independent
grounds ; but the condition was stiU insisted on, and the
money was withheld by the ministry.^ Several attempts
were subsequently made to get a bill through the Assem
bly to indemnify the stamp master and his associates, who
had suffered at Newport, but in every instance without
success ; and, as no restitution appears ever to have been
made, it is presumed that the services of the colony re
mained unrequited, until the Revolution put an end to all
urging of the claim. ^
While these events were in progress, the Stamp Act
was becoming a still more engrossing subject of popular
attention ; and, as the time for its enforcement approached,
the feelings of the community were raised to the highest
pitch of excitement. The association of the Sons of Lib
erty, who pledged themselves to abstain from the use of
1 Two letters relating to this subject, addressed by Governor
Ward, one to Mr. Secretary Conway, and the other to the Earl
of Shelburne, are contained in Almon's Prior Documents, pp. 102
and 118.
'^ A bill passed the House of Assistants, in 1768, making full in
demnification for the losses of property sustained by these men ; but
the claims which they presented were deemed exorbitant by the
Lower House, and were also without satisfactory certificates ; they
were accordingly dismissed. In 1772, the claims were again before
the Assembly, and reexamined by a committee appointed for the
purpose. After undergoing considerable reduction by the commit
tee, they were at length allowed by both Houses, and were ordered
to be paid when the Lords of the Treasury should pay the debt due
to the colony for its services in the war. This was never paid.

128 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
every article bearing the odious stamp, extended through
out the colony. Many of the towns held meetings, and
instructed their deputies to urge the strongest measures in
opposition to the act ; and the Assembly, at its session in
September, adopted the five celebrated resolutions which
had been drawn up by Patrick Henry, four of which had
just before been passed by the House of Burgesses of
Virginia. The fourth resolution received an important
modification by the omission of the words " his ^Majesty
or his substitutes," and, as adopted by the Assembly, de
clared that their own body possessed " the only exclusive
right to lay taxes and imposts upon the inhabitants of the
colony." To these resolutions they also added another,
breathing the spirit of a stUl bolder opposition to the
aggressions of the ministry, in which they directed aU the
officers appointed by the authority of the colony " to pro
ceed in the execution of their respective offices in the same
manner as usual, and that this Assembly wUl indemnify
and save harmless aU the said officers on account of their
conduct, agreeable to this resolution." These resolutions,
taken as a whole, are nearly equivalent to a declaration of
independence, though no formal act of the kind had then
been proposed. They appear to have been, at the time of
their adoption, decidedly in advance of those of any other
colony, in the tone of resolute independence which per
vades them, and were undoubtedly a true expression of
the general feeUng which reigned among the people.
At the same session the Assembly also appointed dele
gates to the Colonial Congress, which was soon to meet at
New York, for the purpose of representing to his Majesty
the views entertained by the people of America respecting
the Stamp Act. The gentlemen selected for this delega
tion were Henry Ward, a younger brother of the Gover
nor, and Metcalf Bowles, both of them citizens of eminent
standing, and holding high offices in the colony. The in-

SAMUEL WARD. 129
structions which the Assembly voted to the delegates
breathed the same determined spirit as the resolutions to
which we have already referred, and evinced, in the most
unequivocal manner, that they regarded the concerns com
mitted to the Congress as " of the last consequence to
themselves, to their constituents, and to posterity."
In the spring of the year 1767, the hostility subsisting
between the political parties of the colony reappeared in
aU its violence. Mr. Hopkins was again the opposing
candidate for the office of Governor, at the head of a
ticket of general officers, who, with reference to the dis
tracted condition of the community, were styled by their
friends " Seekers of Peace." The contest which ensued
was attended with unusual excitement in every part of the
colony ; the towns north of Bristol and Warwick all giving
large majorities for Hopkins, while the southern towns
gave their votes, with scarcely less unanimity, for Ward.
The campaign resulted in the election of Mr. Hopkins by
a larger majority than he had ever before received.
This election was the last in which these gentlemen ap
peared as candidates in opposition to each other. At the
meeting of the Assembly in the following March, the sear
son at which the arrangements for the annual election
were usually made, Governor Hopkins, who had been
elected as a " peacemaker," in behalf of himself and the
friends who supported him, put forth substantially the
same proposals for the pacification of the colony which
Ward had made four years before, and which he had
then rejected. These were, that both the rival candidates
should relinquish all pretensions to the chief place in the
government, and that the two parties shoidd unite in form
ing an administration, in which one should nominate a
Governor, and the other a Deputy-Governor, each from
the ranks of its own opponents. The terms were readily
accepted by Governor Ward and his friends ; and the two

130 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
chiefs, who had so long been arrayed in opposition to each
other, met first at Providence, and afterwards at Newport,
and settled the preliminaries of what proved to be a lasting
and happy coalition.
Thus ended what perhaps deserves to be regarded as
the most remarkable contest of parties which has occurred
in the history of Rhode Island. The inquirer at this dis
tant day, who explores its half-forgotten records, finds but
little to explain the length to which it was protracted, or
the acrimony with which it was carried on. Though it
was occasionaUy involved with questions of public poUcy,
yet, in the main, it seems not to have depended on any
important principle of government or any leading interest
of society. It was a warfare between men and classes,
and not between measures and interests. The gentlemen
who for nearly ten years stood at the head of the respec
tive parties were both persons of liberal minds, and, it
would seem, were quite above the petty ambition which
seeks office merely for the sake of its trifling rewards ;
and the strife in which they were so long and so warmly
engaged can only be accounted for by referring it to the
natural antagonism which, in certain states of society,
always exists between persons of different classes and dif
ferent occupations and habits of life. The portion of the
community who supported Governor Ward regarded them
selves as the most suitable guardians of the public weal,
on account of their hereditary wealth, their inteUigence,
and their elevated position in society ; while those who
favored Governor Hopkins were perhaps at first thrown
into the opposition by their jealousj' of a class who claimed
to be their superiors in social importance, and who had
long been accustomed to wield the political power of the
colony. The continuance of the controversy had been productive
of unnumbered evils, and, on account of the expense and

SAMUEL WARD. 131
the excitement it occasioned, had doubtless become weari
some to the leading members of both parties. Besides,
other questions had arisen, embracing wider interests than
those of a single colonj', and new parties were already
forming on principles which involved the dearest rights of
Englishmen. Before these higher questions the petty
strifes of local politics necessarily lost their importance,
and the spirit which had hitherto animated them became
speedily merged in patriotic solicitude for the liberties of
the country. III.
Previously to the period at which Governor Ward
closed his official connection with the government of the
colony, we have seen that he was more than once called,
in the discharge of his duty, to take a firm stand against
the encroachments which the ministry had already com
menced upon the rights of the colonists. To the position
which he thus assumed, we have every reason to believe,
he was directed not less by his personal convictions than
by the dictates of official duty. From the beginning of
the contest with the mother country, he seems to have
given his whole influence to the colonial side of the ques
tions at issue ; and, as he was at the head of the party
then in power, he was doubtless largely instrumental in
promoting the unanimity of feeling which characterized
the opposition to the Stamp Act in the colony. After the
repeal of this act, however, and the passage of the reve
nue laws of 1767 and 1769, the issue which was presented
was thought to be different from that of former years,
and many of the wealthy merchants of Newport, and of
other towns of Rhode Island, who had acted with Gov
ernor Ward in all the contests of local politics, were now
willing to engage but feebly, if at all, in measures of re
sistance to the authority of Parliament.

132 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
To him, however, the questions which were presented
were still the same, and his views of their importance to
the colonies, or of the measures which it was necessary to
adopt in opposing them, were not changed by the opinions
of his former friends and supporters. He was now in
private life ; but he still watched with anxious interest the
course of public events, and, through the medium of his
correspondence, and of occasional intercourse with the
leading patriots of New England, he contributed the in
fluence of his own earnest views towards forming the pub
lic sentiment that ruled the events of the time.
After the renewal of the attempt to tax the colonies by
the Townshend administration, the coast of New England
was carefully watched by cruisers employed by the com
missioners of customs, to repress the iUegal traffic which
was extensively carried on, and to aid the custom-house
officers in enforcing the laws for collecting the revenue.
For these vessels, the harbor of Newport was one of the
principal rendezvous, and, being an important port of
entry, it was constantly frequented by them. The harsh
impressments, and the arrogant demands for supplies
which were often made by their commanders, gave rise
to frequent collisions between them and the inhabitant^
of the colony, and tended gradually to detach from the
mother country the affections even of those who had
hitherto taken no part in the resistance which had been
made to the acts of Parliament. These insolent displays
of authority, and the annoyances which were suffered in
consequence in many parts of the colony, seem to have
rendered the minds of the people peculiarly irritable, and,
like the presence of troops among the inhabitants of Bos
ton, to have kept alive a hostile feeling, which any slight
occasion was sufficient to fan into a flame.
Such an occasion was presented in the summer of the
year 1769. The armed sloop Liberty, commanded by

SAMUEL WARD. 133
Captain Reid, brought into the harbor of Newport two
vessels, one a sloop and the other a brig, which she had
taken in Long Island Sound, on suspicion of their being-
engaged in the contraband traffic. The sloop apf)ears to
have been open to suspicion, but the brig had regularly
cleared at the custom-house of the port from which she
sailed. Both of them, however, were forcibly detained
beneath the guns of the cruiser, and occupied by a guard
whom Captain Reid had placed on board. The seizure
was thought to be illegal by the people of the town, and
their sympathies were warmly enlisted in behalf of the
captured vessels. The commander of the brig, on finding
himself thus stripped of his command, and even refused
access to his personal wardrobe, was forced into an alter
cation and scuffie with the man who had been set over
him, and afterwards, while passing to the shore in his
boat, was fired upon by the crew of the Liberty. This
was provocation enough to call forth aU the indignant
feeling which had long existed in the popular mind to
wards the cruisers of the king. The captain of the
Liberty, being found on shore on the evening of the same
day, was seized by the people, and compelled to send for
his crew, in order that the person who had fired upon the
captain of the brig might be identified. In the mean
time, a party from the shore went off to the sloop, cut the
cables which moored her, and, on her drifting to a neigh
boring point, dismantled her, and a few days afterwards
burnt her to the water's edge.^
This destruction of the sloop Liberty, in the harbor of
Newport, has been justly claimed as among the earliest,
in point of time, of the acts of open resistance to British
power, which terminated in the final separation of the
colonies from England. It was followed, three years
later, by the destruction of the schooner Gaspee, upon
1 See Staples's Gaspee Documents ; and, for a fuller account of the
affair, Bull's Memoir of the Colony for 1769.

134 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
the waters of the same bay, and within the jurisdiction of
the same colony ; and, though less important from the
consequences it produced, yet, as an illustration of the
spirit of the colony, it deserves a place in the history of
the revolutionary struggle, on the same page which re
cords that famous achievement. Immediately after the
attack upon the Liberty, the Governor, with the advice
of such of the Assistants as he could assemble, issued a
proclamation, directing the officers of the king " to use
their utmost endeavors to inquire after and discover " the
persons engaged in the riot, and the commissioners of cus
toms published a notice offering a reward of a hundred
pounds for any information which should lead to their
detection. But no judicial investigation was ever held,
and neither the proclamation made by the Governor, nor
the reward offered by the commissioners, in the state of
feeling then prevalent in the colony, was sufficient to elicit
any important evidence.
The destruction of the Gaspee, in addition to the nu
merous acts of resistance which had preceded it, created
in the minds of the ministry the deepest dislike towards
the colony, and a determination to humble its spirit by
every means in their power. It is said they formed the
purpose of quartering some regiments of soldiers in its
two principal towns, and even advised the king to abro
gate the charter, which had been granted by Charles the
Second. For the purpose of investigating the circum
stances attending the burning of the schooner, a court of
commissioners was appointed under the authority of the
great seal, with instructions to employ, if necessary, the
troops of the king, in executing their commission, and to
deliver the persons who should be found to have partici
pated in the affair to the commander of one of the ships
of war, to be transported to England for trial. The ex
traordinary powers and arbitrary proceedings of this high

SAMUEL WARD. 135
court of inquiry were subjects of widespread apprehen
sion, and attracted the attention of the House of Bur
gesses of Virginia, who appointed a committee to inquire
into their bearing upon the rights and liberties of the col
onies. The investigations of this court, however, which
were conducted with great assiduity for many weeks, were
at length brought to a close, without leading to the detec
tion of any of the offenders, notwithstanding the fact that
they were well known to hundreds of the people of the
colony. The incidents which we have thus related illustrate
the state of popular feeling in Rhode Island, in the early
stages of the contest with Great Britain. That these acts
of violence were illegal, and against the peace and good
order of the colony, cannot be denied ; and as such they
seem to have been generally regarded at the time. But,
when viewed in their connection with the revolutionary
struggle, which was already commencing, they are not to
be condemned as crimes against society. They were
rather the natural consequences of the injurious laws of
Parliament, and especially of the oppressive manner in
which those laws were executed by the officers of the
king, who were sent to the colony.
These officers were in the habit not only of searching
every vessel that came within their reach, which some
times occasioned a detention of several days, but they
would often seize upon the market boats which plied upon
the bay, for the trifling purpose of examining the freights
which they contained, and would subject their crews, who
were usuaUy farmers from the country, to every species of
indignity and oppression. They seldom took the trouble
to exhibit their commissions to any of the magistrates
of the colony, but seemed to hold themselves above the
laws, and to sport with the interests and rights of the
inhabitants. As they were perpetually hovering upon the

136 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
coast, and seldom remained long in port, legal redress for
the injuries they occasioned was impossible ; and it is not
strange that they should have occasionally experienced
the vengeance of an insulted people.
The sky was now growing dark with clouds that por
tended stUl more violent commotions. The impression
which had been produced by the destruction of the Gas
pee, and by the proceedings of the commissioners who
were appointed to inquire into the affair, instead of hum
bling the spirit of the colony, as was intended, served only
to prepare the minds of the people for stiU further acts of
resistance. Reverence for the authority of ParUament
was rapidly passing away, and the necessity of boldly
withstanding the enforcement of the revenue acts was
every day becoming more apparent. Agreements of non
importation and non-consumption had been formed among
the inhabitants of Newport and Providence, as early as
1769 ; and though they seem not in all cases to have been
very faithfully adhered to, yet they served to organize the
opposition that was now very generally felt towards the
proceedings of Parliament.
The tax on tea was still continued ; and the unusual
facilities for its importation into the colonies, which had
been granted to the East India Company, created among
the people, especially of the commercial towns, an appre
hension that they might at length be obliged to submit to
the tyranny that threatened them. In this apprehension
Rhode Island largely shared, for she presented the most
accessible port upon the coast, and numbered among her
eminent merchants a few, at least, who might have con
sented to act as factors of the Company, for the sale of
the tea.
During the whole period through which we have thus
traced the early progress of the revolutionary contest in
Rhode Island, Governor Ward had lived in comparative

SAMUEL WARD. 137
retirement upon his estate at Westerly. He was here
surrounded by his numerous family and by an extensive
circle of friends. He had not been exempt from the
melancholy changes incident to every human lot, but had
buried several of his kindred and his dearest friends ;
and, though he had lost none of his children, he had been
stricken with a still heavier calamity in the loss of his
wife, the amiable and worthy companion of many years,
who died in December, 1770. In addition to the care of
his family and the management of his estate, his atten
tion had been in part occupied by a vexatious suit at law
with a troublesome neighbor, in which he had been com
pelled to engage, in vindication of his title to a tract of
land lying in the Narragansett country. The suit was at
length decided in his favor, after being protracted through
several years, during which his opponent attempted to en
list against him the partisan feeling which still survived
the controversy in which he had formerly been engaged.
But he was also a close observer of the course of public
events ; and, though dwelling apart from the excited feel
ing which now pervaded the larger towns, he was not the
less informed of the progress of liberal sentiments, nor the
less able to estimate with calm judgment the magnitude
of the issues to which they were leading. It was his habit
frequently to attend the sessions of the General Assembly,
and, though he held no official connection with the gov
ernment, his position in the colony enabled him to exert
a wide influence upon the popular mind, and rendered his
advice and sanction exceedingly important in the decision
of every question of great public interest.
Thus far in the contest, the opposition which had mani
fested itself to the measures of the ministry in the several
colonies had resulted from accidental causes, rather than
from any concerted plan which had been agreed upon for
the purpose. The state of the question, however, had

138 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
now become such that some arrangement for circulating
important intelligence and for promoting unity of action
was absolutely essential. For this purpose, the House of
Burgesses of Virginia, on the 12th of March, 1773, ap
pointed a standing committee of correspondence and in
quiry, whose duty it should be to obtain the earliest intel
ligence of all measures of the British government relating
to America, and to maintain a correspondence with such
committees as should be appointed for a similar purpose
by the other colonies, to whom the adoption of the meas
ure was earnestly recommended. The recommendation of
Virginia was immediately adopted by the Assembly of
Rhode Island at its session in the following May, and
seven of the leading citizens of the colony were appointed
a committee of correspondence, one of whom was !Mr.
Henry Ward, a younger brother of the Governor, at that
time holding the office of Secretary of State.
From this period the colony of Rhode Island was
among the foremost in activity and zeal, both in devising
and executing measures for the promotion of the common
cause. Soon after these arrangements had been adopted
for securing a greater unitj' of sentiment and of action
among the colonies, the shipment of several cargoes of tea
was made by the East India Company to some of the
American ports, and serious apprehensions were enter
tained by many of the friends of libertj' in Rhode Island
that boxes of the obnoxious article might be clandestinely
entered at Newport. In order to provide against such
an occurrence, and to secure a more perfect organization
throughout the colony. Governor Ward, in December,
1773, a few days after the destruction of the tea at Bos
ton, addressed a letter, signed by himself and several
others of the inhabitants of Westerly, to some of the
leading gentlemen of Newport, urging the establishment
of a committee of correspondence in each of the towns of

SAMUEL WARD. 139
the colony, and suggesting that Newport, as the seat of
the government and the emporium of trade, should take
the lead in carrying forth the measure.
This letter, which breathes the spirit of a cautious and
wise man, who clearly saw the storm that was gathering
over the colonies, was submitted to the people of Newport
at a town meeting ; and the suggestions it contained were
soon afterwards adopted and carried into effect. He also
addressed similar letters to leading men in other towns of
the colony ; and early in February, 1774, having himself
accepted the post of chairman of the committee of corre
spondence of the town of Westerly, he introduced a series
of resolutions, at a meeting of the town, which, taken as a
whole, form a complete embodiment of the principles main
tained by the colonies, and of the grounds upon which they
rest. For the purpose, as is probable, of instructing the
citizens of the town respecting the cause in which they
were embarked, the resolutions recited very fully the griev
ances which were complained of, and earnestly, yet calmly,
urged resistance as the only remedy which was left, and
as a high civic duty, which they owed not less to them
selves than to the whole British empire and to posterity.
The English ministry had already become thoroughly
incensed at the spirit which the colonies, especially Mas
sachusetts Bay, had constantly evinced towards all their
measures for raising a revenue in America ; and, on re
ceiving inteUigence of the destruction of the tea at Bos
ton, they immediately determined to avenge the insult
which had been offered to their authority. Accordingly,
within a month after the inteUigence was received at Lon
don, they carried through Parliament, by a large majority,
the three celebrated bills, known as the Boston Port Bill,
the Bill for the better regulating of the Government of
Massachusetts Bay, and the BiU for removing persons ac
cused of certain offenses to another Colony, or to England,

140 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
for trial. These famous bills were regarded as special acts
of ministerial vengeance, and the alarm which they every
where occasioned formed one of the most powerful of the
agencies which hastened forward the crisis of the Revolu
tion. Instead of the olive branch which many had hoped
to see, the colonists now saw that only a naked sword was
held out to them.
The sufferings of the people of Boston became a sub
ject of universal sympathy, and a general Congress of
delegates from aU the colonies soon began to be talked
of. The first distinct proposal of such a Congress, how
ever, by any public body, it is believed, was made by the
town of Providence, at a meeting held on the 17th of ^lay,
1774. At this meeting, the deputies of the town were
instructed " to use their influence at the approaching ses
sion of the General Assembly of this colony, for promot
ing a Congress, as soon as may be, of the representatives
of the General AssembUes of the several colonies and
provinces of North America, for promoting the firmest
union, and adopting such measures as to them shall ap
pear the most effectual to answer that important purpose,
and to agree upon proper methods of executing the
same." ^ The citizens of Providence, at the same meet
ing, also directed the committee of correspondence to as
sure the people of Boston of the .sympathy they felt for
the distressed condition of that town, and that they re
garded their cause as the common cause of the whole
country. The session of the General Assembly was held at New
port on the second Monday in June ; and though none
of the other colonies had at this time taken any formal
action respecting the proposed Congress, yet the spirit of
its members was already prepared to respond to the in-
1 Staples's Annals of Providence, p. 235. This date is four days
earlier than the action of any other public body on the subject.

SAMUEL WARD. 141
structions of the deputies from Providence. The subject
was taken up at the beginning of the session, and, after
mature consideration, the Assembly, on the 15th of June,
adopted a series of resolutions setting forth the condition
of the colonies, and declaring that a convention of repre
sentatives from them all ought to be holden as soon as
practicable. By the same resolutions, Stephen Hopkins
and Samuel Ward were appointed to represent the col
ony, and were specially directed " to endeavor to pro
cure a regular annual convention of representatives from
all the colonies." In this vote, which was adopted with
great unanimity, all party feuds were buried forever ;
and the political leaders who, in former years, had so
often been arrayed against each other were henceforth
to be united as friends and fellow-patriots in the council
that planned the Revolution. In this council their ap
pointment bore the earliest date among those of all its
members; and, until separated by death, it is believed,
they shared each other's confidence and sympathy in all
the arduous duties in which they were engaged. ^
The views with which Mr. Ward accepted the impor
tant trust that was now committed to him were of the
gravest and most serious character. He was no frantic
patriot, who supposed that vaporing resolutions and ex
citing speeches were aU that was needed for the crisis
which he saw was approaching. A large acquaintance
with human nature made him distrust the hope, which
many entertained, that the determinations of the ministry
would be changed by any remonstrances or threatenings
1 The delegates from Massachusetts were appointed on the 17th of
June, which has generally, though erroneously, been considered as
the date of the earliest appointment. So far as is now known, it was
at a Rhode Island town meeting that the first public proposal of a
Congress was made, and at a session of the Rhode Island Assembly
that the first delegates to that Congress were appointed.

142 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
of the colonies ; and the religious sentiments which he
had early imbibed, and which were now woven into aU
his reflections, imparted a deeply moral aspect to all the
questions which were likely to be presented to the body
to which he had been appointed. But he had already
decided on which side the right certainly lay, and he did
not waver from the decision to which he had come. In
a letter to his brother, written in the following year, but
referring to this period, he says of himself : —
" When I first entered this contest with Great Britain, I ex
tended my views through the various scenes which my judg
ment, or imagination (say which you please), pointed out to
me. I saw clearly that the last act of this cruel tragedy would
close in fields of blood. I have traced the progress of this un
natural war tlu-ough burning towns, devastation of the coun
try, and every subsequent evil. I have reaUzed, with regard to
myself, the bullet, the bayonet, and the halter ; and, compared
with the immense object I have in view, they are aU less than
nothing. No man living, perhaps, is more fond of his chUdren
than I am, and I am not so old as to be tired of life ; and yet,
as far as I can now judge, the tenderest connections and the most
important private concerns are very minute objects. Heaven
save my country, I was going to say, is my first, my last, and
almost vaj only prayer."
The delegates of the several colonies were at length
all chosen, and the place was fixed upon at which the
Congress should assemble. Mr. Ward left his home
about the middle of August, attended by a faithful famUy
servant, and arrived at the place of meeting on the 30th
of the same month. The journey was made on horse
back, and, on the day after his arrival, he acknowledged
with pious gratitude, in a letter addressed to his chUdren,
the kind Providence which had watched over him amidst
the perils of the way. On the morning of the 5th of
September, 1774, the " Old Congress," as it is now famil-

SAMUEL WARD. 143
iarly known in our history, commenced its sessions, in
Carpenter's Hall, in Philadelphia. The place but ill cor
responded with the real magnitude of the occasion. No
tapestry bedecked its walls, no images of sages and heroes
of other days looked down upon the scene. Yet, to one
who could read the future, it would have presented a sim
ple grandeur, such as we may now look for in vain within
the majestic halls of the Capitol and amidst the imposing
forms of the Constitution.
The forty-four individuals who met on that day for the
first time, were men of different characters and different
opinions, for they had come from the extremes of the con
tinent ; but they came together unfettered by partisan or
sectional feeling. The simple Quakers of Pennsylvania,
the high-spirited Cavaliers of Virginia and Carolina, and
the resolute Puritans of Massachusetts and Connecticut,
all were represented in that body of grave and earnest-
minded men ; yet, amidst all differences of temperament,
of creed, and of opinion, the pervading sentiment was
catholic and patriotic. They had been roused from the
repose of their homes by common grievances, and they
only sought a common redress.
Their resolution of secrecy, the first which they adopted
after their organization, was so sacredly kept that a veil
has rested upon their proceedings to this day, which even
the publication of their " Secret Journal " has aided us
but little in removing. But tradition has reported the
eloquence of their debates, and the recorded results which
they achieved fully show that their daily sessions were
seasons of unremitted deUberation upon the questions be
fore them. Among the different classes of measures which
were proposed to the Congress, Mr. Ward, if we may
judge from the occasional aUusions in his correspondence,
was always an advocate of the moderate counsels which
so eminently characterize its published documents. Cooler

144 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
and more quiet in his temperament than some others of
the New England delegates, while he regarded a separa
tion from the mother country as sooner or later inevitable,
he was stUl in favor of first trying every pacffic measure,
and of thus placing the cause in the best possible light,
both before the colonies and the world.
The CongT-ess closed its session on the 26th of October,
after appointing another session to be held on the 10th
day of the foUowing ^lay, unless the public grievances
should be removed before that time. The results of its
six weeks' deliberation were then probably but imperfectly
comprehended, even by those of its members who looked
farthest into the vista of the future. The consultations
which were held and the friendships which were formed,
blending with the common interests and common danger.s
of the whole country, became enduring bonds of union to
the colonies, which no subsequent differences of opinion,
nor aU the gloomy disasters of the Revolution, were able
to break asunder.
The delegates from Rhode Island retumed immediately
to their homes ; and at a meeting of the General As-
semblj', called specially for the purpose, they made a full
report of the proceedings of the Congress. Its several
acts were unanimously approved, and the delegates, hav
ing received the thanks of the Assembly, were immedi
ately appointed to attend the next Congress, and charged
with suitable instructions as to the objects to be accom
pUshed. Before the meeting of the second Congress, the fields
of Lexington had been reddened with blood, spUt in the
earliest engagement of the Revolution. Tidings of the
battle were received in Rhode Island on the evenin? of
the 19th of AprU, and companies from the northern towns
of the colony made immediate preparation to march to the
assistance of the people of Massachusetts. On the 22d

SAMUEL WARD. 145
of the same month, a special session of the Assembly was
held at Providence, and acts were passed for putting the
colony in a posture of defense, and for raising fifteen hun
dred men, to act with similar quotas from Massachusetts
and Connecticut, as an army of observation. At the same
session, Nathanael Greene was advanced from the station
of a private in the Kentish Guards, the company of his
native town, to the rank of Brigadier-General, and was
placed at the head of the troops from Rhode Island.
To these spirited proceedings of the Assembly, the
Governor, Mr. Joseph Wanton, and the Deputy-Governor,
and several of the Assistants, entered a formal protest, on
the ground that they were unnecessary, and might still
further disturb the relations of the colonies with the
mother country. But, in an emergency like this, the pro
test of men who had been intrusted with the government
of the colony was not to be endured by the people. So
high was the excitement among the members of the As
sembly that the Deputy-Governor and the recreant As
sistants were obliged to resign their places ; and the Gov
ernor, though he had just before been elected for another
term, was suspended from the exercise of all official au
thority. A few months afterwards, the office was taken
from Mr. Wanton by an act of the Assembly, and be
stowed upon Mr. Nicolas Cooke, an eminent merchant of
Providence, who held it with dignity and firmness for
three successive years, during the most trying period of
the Revolution.
In this disordered state of the colonial government, the
delegates from Rhode Island again departed to join the
Congress at PhUadelphia. Their credentials bore only
the signature of Henry Ward, Secretary of State, whom
the legislature, on account of the defection of the Gov
ernor and his Deputy, had authorized to sign the public
papers of the colony. Mr. Ward appeared and took his

146 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
seat on the 15th of May, five days after the session began.
The papers relating to the battle of Lexington had al
ready been presented by Mr. Hancock, on the first day of
the session ; and, in promoting the measures which were
now proposed for the defense of the colonies and for rais
ing and equipping troops, he engaged with the utmost
zeal. His son, Samuel Ward, Junior, who had been re
cently graduated at Rhode Island College, had just re
ceived a captain's commission in the service of his native
colony ; and this circumstance, in connection with the
views which he had long taken of the nature of the con
test and the necessity of preparing for the worst, may
have strengthened his interest in the military estabhsh
ment of the country. In carrying forward aU these mea
sures, Mr. Ward earnestly cooperated with John Adams,
the far-sighted leader of the New England delegations,
who at this very time was writing those dehghtful Letters,
which now throw so much light upon the deliberations
which were held at Philadeljjhia.
On the 26th of May, when the House resolved itself
into a committee of the whole, " on the consideration of
the state of America," Mr. Ward was caUed to the chair
by Mr. Hancock, who had then just been elected Presi
dent ; and from this time onward he seems to have been
selected to preside in the committee of the whole, when
ever the Congress gave this form to its deliberations. In
this situation he was, of course, precluded from engaging
in the debates of the committee ; but, on the questions
which were discussed in the House itself, he was accus
tomed to deliver his sentiments with manly clearness and
earnest eloquence. Every day's deliberations only served
to unite the minds of all the delegates in the opinion, which
a few had entertained from the beginning, that a recon
ciliation was not to be expected, and that vigorous mea
sures must immediately be adopted for defense and resist-

SAMUEL WARD. 147
ance. This sentiment is everywhere expressed in the let
ters of Mr. Ward, written, at this period, to his friends
in Rhode Island, and to his kinsman General Greene, and
his son Captain Ward, at the camp before Boston. With
these and some other officers in active service he main
tained a frequent correspondence, that he might the bet
ter ascertain the views of the troops, and judge of the
public measures needed for their discipline and efficiency.
General Greene, on the 4th of June, writes to him his
opinion that " all the forces in America should be under
one commander, raised and appointed by the same au
thority, subjected to the same regulations, and ready to
be detached wherever occasion may require ; " ^ and on
the 15th of the same month, we find in the Journal of
Congress the following entry : —
" Agreeable to order, the Congress resolved itself into a com
mittee of the whole, and, after some time, the President re
sumed the chair, and Mr. Ward reported that the committee
had come to further resolutions, which he was ordered to report.
It was then resolved. That a General be appointed to command
all the Continental forces raised, or to be raised, for the defense
of American liberty.
" The Congress then proceeded to the choice of a General by
ballot, and George Washington, Esq., was unanimously elected."
Though the full importance of the step which was now
taken could not then have been realized, yet there were
those who saw clearly that they had staked the destiny of
the colonies upon the election which they had made. Mr.
Ward had formed the acquaintance of Washington in the
* The same letter contains the following, at that time, remarkable
passage : " Permit me, then, to recommend, from the sincerity of my
heart, ready at all times to bleed in my country's cause, a declara
tion of independence ; and a call upon the world, and the great God
who governs it, to witness the necessity, propriety, and rectitude
thereof."

148 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
session of the preceding year, and appears immediately
to have conceived for him that sentiment of mingled rev
erence and esteem which his character never failed to
inspire in every ingenuous mind. The vote which was
adopted a few days after the election, and which pledged
the delegates to maintain and assist the Commander-in-
chief with their lives and fortunes, was on his part a
pledge of the deepest and sincerest devotion. A month
or two later, in a letter written to the General in the
hurry of public business, he says : " I most cheerfully en
tered upon a solemn engagement, upon your appointment,
to support you with my life and my fortune ; and I shall
most religiously, and with the highest pleasure, endeavor
to discharge that duty."
In August, 1775, the Congress took a recess for a
month, and Mr. Ward passed the interval with his famUy
in Rhode Island. During this period he also attended the
meeting of the General Assembly, and, in connection with
his colleague, Mr. Hopkins, made a report to that body
of the condition of the colonies, and the measures which
had been adopted for their common safety. He found
the people of Rhode Island, though stUl animated with
the same devotion to liberty, yet more than usually dis
tressed at the depredations of the ships of war which now
covered the Narragansett Bay, and frequently sent their
tenders marauding along its shores. A large proportion
of the towns of the colony border upon navigable waters,
and the property of their citizens was thus continuaUy
exposed to the incursions of an enemy who had fuU pos
session of the harbor of Newport, and withal was not
without the confidence of some of the leading: citizens of
the town.
The great body of the people, however, had long since
espoused the American cause, though, as their fidelity had
been put to severer tests than that of most other towns, it

SAMUEL WARD. 149
had not wholly escaped suspicion. The commerce, which
had hitherto supported the town, within a single year had
been reduced to less than a third of its former extent, and
the sources of its long-continued prosperity were rapidly
drying up. Mr. Ward, whose sympathies were warmly
enlisted in the sufferings of his native town, foreseeing the
doom that must descend upon it when hostilities should
assume a still sterner aspect, earnestly advised its inhab
itants, who were true to the country, to remove their
families and effects to other parts of the colony. The
people of Providence also offered to make provision for
the reception and support of some hundreds of the poor
families of Newport. The proposal, however, seems not at
the time to have been generally accepted ; and the long
possession of the British and the melancholy desolations
of war -annihilated the prosperity of the town, and at the
close of the Revolution left nothing of her former glory
save the changeless beauties of nature which surround her.
For the purpose of protecting the trade of the colony,
the General Assembly, in June, 1775, chartered and
equipped two vessels of considerable force, and placed
them under the command of Abraham Whipple, to whom
was given the title of Commodore. He also received pri
vate instructions to clear the bay of the tenders of the
British frigate Rose, that lay at its mouth ; and in his
first cruise, after a slight engagement, the first concerted
naval engagement of the Revolution, he captured one of
the tenders, and brought her to Providence. In August
this armament was increased by the addition of two row
galleys, carrying thirty men each ; and, on the 26th of
that month, the General Assembly adopted a resolution
instructing the delegates of the colony " to use their whole
influence, at the ensuing Congress, for building, at the
Continental expense, a fleet of sufficient force for the
protection of these colonies, and for employing it in such

150 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
manner and places, as will most effectuaUy annoy our
enemies, and contribute to the common defense of these
colonies." ^
This resolution was the earliest proposal for a Conti
nental navy. It was the natural result of the maritime
experience of the colony, and of the several encounters of
her citizens with the cruisers of the king. The annoy
ances which they had thus experienced enabled them to
appreciate the advantages which might be derived from a
naval armament, and their familiarity with the sea led
them earnestly to engage in its establishment.
These instructions were presented to the Congress on
the 3d day of October, and were ordered to Ue upon the
table. Several vessels of different force were soon after
wards either built or chartered for the service of the col
onies, and Esek Hopkins, at that time a Brigadier-Gen
eral in the army of Rhode Island, was appointed to the
command of the infant navy. He repaired to Philadel
phia immediately on receiving his appointment, in Novem
ber, 1775, and in the following February sailed with the
entire fleet on an expedition against one of the Bermuda
Islands. The expedition seems to have been undertaken
without any precise orders from the Congress, and, though
in some respects eminently successful, it failed to receive
their entire sanction.
In consequence of the urgency of other business, the
instructions to the delegates of Rhode Island were not
taken up for the action of the House till the 16th of No
vember, though several of the intervening days had been
assigned for their consideration. On this day Mr. Ward
wrote to his brother in Rhode Island : " Our instruction
for an American fleet has been long upon the table.
When it was first presented, it was looked upon as per-
1 Staples's Annals of Providence, p. 265 ; also Schedules of the Gen
eral Assembly of Rhode Island.

SAMUEL WARD. 151
fectly chimerical ; but gentlemen now consider it in a very
different light. It is this day to be taken into considera
tion, and I have great hopes of carrying it. Dr. Frank
lin and Colonel Lee, the two Adamses, and many others
will support it. If it succeeds, I shall remember your
ideas of our building two of the ships." The matter, how
ever, seems not to have been brought to a final determina
tion till the 11th of December ; for in the Journal we find
the following entry for that day : —
" Agreeable to the order of the day, the Congress took
into consideration the instructions given to the delegates
of Rhode Island, and after debate thereon. Resolved, That
a committee be appointed to devise ways and means for
furnishing these colonies with a naval armament, and re
port with all convenient speed."
This committee brought in their report on the 13th of
December, and recommended that thirteen ships, five of
thirty-two guns, five of twenty-eight guns, and three of
twenty-four guns, be built and made ready for sea as soon
as practicable. The report of the committee, after being
fully debated, was adopted by the Congress, and the ships
were ordered to be built at the expense of the united col
onies. On the day following the final adoption of this
measure, Mr. Ward again wrote to his brother : " I have
the pleasure to acquaint you that, upon considering our
instructions for a navy, the Congress has agreed to build
thirteen ships of war. A committee is to be this day ap
pointed, with full powers to carry the resolve into execu
tion. Powder and duck are ordered to be imported. All
other articles, it is supposed, may be got in the colonies.
Two of these vessels are to be built in our colony, one in
New Hampshire, etc. The particulars I would not have
mentioned. The ships are to be buUt with all possible
dispatch." We' have thus seen that the first establishment of a

152 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
Continental fleet is to be traced back to the instructions
of the Rhode Island Assembly, and to the exertions which
were made in obedience to them by the delegates of the
colony. The measure was on every account an impor
tant one, and the merit of originating and supporting it,
at that opening period of the struggle for independence,
ought not to be lightly estimated. It is alone sufficient
to entitle the colony to an honorable distinction in the
history of the Revolution, and may be regarded as the
early pledge of the brilliant deeds which have since been
achieved by her sons upon the decks of the American
navy. IV.
In the Journals of the Continental Congress for the
session of 1775, and the early part of the foUowing year,
few names, after those of the immediate leaders of the
Revolution, are more frequently mentioned than that of
Samuel Ward. Though not unused to debate, it is prob
able that his most important services were performed in a
less conspicuous sphere of action. Indeed, the real work
of such bodies is usuaUy accomplished away from the
scenes of brilliant oratory, in the confinement of the com
mittee room or the seclusion of the private chamber,
where business is prepared and plans of public policy are
elaborated and matured. Of this class of labors Mr.
Ward sustained a large share. He entered into the duties
of his station with a patriotic zeal, that shrank from no
sacrifice of personal ease, however great it might be. He
was exceedingly regular in his attendance upon the House,
and uniformly accepted, without hesitation, every work
which was assigned to him to perform.
After the reassembling of the Congress in September,
in addition to the service he almost daily rendered in the
chair of the committee of the whole, he was appointed a

SAMUEL WARD. 153
member of the secret committee, to contract for arms and
munitions of war, and of this committee he was subse
quently chosen chairman. He was also a member of the
standing committee on claims and accounts ; a post which
required his attention to an infinite number of details, and
which compelled him to become conversant with all the
operations of the army, and with the services performed
by each of the respective colonies.
In addition to these two appointments, each of them of
the most arduous and confining nature, he served upon a
large number of special committees, some of which were
charged with the most delicate and responsible duties.
His coUeague, Mr. Hopkins, was at this time disabled
from writing, on account of physical infirmity ; and the
official correspondence of the delegation with the gov
ernment and the citizens of the colony was thus thrown
wholly upon Mr. Ward. To the close confinement thus
imposed upon him by the duties of his station he makes
frequent allusions in the familiar letters addressed to his
family. In one of these, written in the month of October,
he says : " I am almo.st worn out with attention to busi
ness. I am upon a standing committee of claims, which
meets every moming before Congress, and upon the secret
committee, which meets almost every afternoon ; and
these, with a close attendance upon Congress and writing
many letters, make my duty very hard, and I cannot get
time to ride or take other exercise. But I hope the busi
ness will not be so pressing very long."
Our own times are so remote from the period of the
American Revolution that we often are able to gain only
an imperfect idea of the questions which perplexed the
patriots of that day, or of the personal feelings with which
they regarded the scenes that were passing before them.
There were among them men of every hue of character
and every degree of decision ; men who were prompted

154 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
by impetuous temperaments, by selfish hopes, and by a
high sense of duty ; men who were timid champions of
the cause and were always hoping for a reconciliation, and
those who staked their aU upon the issue, who early saw
that reconciliation was impossible, and were only waiting
for the separation which they believed to be inevitable.
In which of these classes of the patriots, who composed
the Congress of the Confederation, Governor Ward de
serves to be ranked has already been indicated ; it may,
however, be more fully seen by the foUowing extracts from
familiar letters written to his brother in Rhode Island,
during the autumn of 1775. On the 30th of September
he writes : —
" No news from England since my last. The gentlemen of
Georgia deserve the character I gave you of them ; they are
some of the highest sons of liberty I have seen, and are very
sensible and clever. Mr. Wythe and Mr. Lee, of Virginia,
have been under inoculation since my last, so that I can say
no more of these than I did then. Saving that unhappy jea
lousy of New England, which some weak minds are possessed
with, great unanimity prevails in Congress ; our measures are
spirited, and I believe we are now ready to go every length to
secure our liberties. John Adams's letter ' has silenced those
who opposed every decisive measure ; but the moderate friends,
or, as I consider them, the enemies of our cause, have caused
copies of it to be sent throughout the province, in hopes, by rais
ing the cry of independence, to throw the friends of liberty out
of the new Assembly, the choice of which commences next Mon
day ; but I believe they wiU fail, and that the House will be
^ Two of the private letters of John Adams had been intercepted
and published. The originals were sent to England, and are now in
the State Paper Office iu London. Mr. Sparks has published ex
tracts from the originals, in Washington's Writings, vol. ii. p. 499.
The one referred to in the text was addressed to James Warren, then
President of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. See, also,
John Adams's Letters to his Wife, vol. i. p. 268.

SAMUEL WARD. 155
more decided than ever. One comfort we have, that divine
wisdom and goodness often bring good out of iU. That the
issue of this same contest wUl be the establishment of our lib
erties I as firmly believe as I do my existence ; for I never can
think that God brought us into this wUderness to perish, or,
what is worse, to become slaves, but to make us a great and free
people." On the 2d of November he writes again in a strain
equaUy characteristic : —
" The evening before last, two ships arrived from England.
The advices which they bring (amongst which is a proclamation
for suppressing rebellion and sedition) are of immense service to
us. Our councils have been hitherto too fluctuating : one day,
measures for carrying on the war were adopted ; the next, noth
ing must be done that would widen the unhappy breach between
Great Britain and the colonies. As these different ideas have
prevailed, our conduct has been directed accordingly. Had we,
at the opening of the Congress in May, immediately taken proper
measures for carrying on the war with vigor, we might have
been in possession of all Canada, undoubtedly, and probably of
Boston. Thank God, the happy day which I have long wished
for is at length arrived : the southern colonies no longer enter
tain jealousies of the northern ; they no longer look back to
Great Britain ; they are convinced that they have been pursuing
a phantom, and that their only safety is a vigorous, determined
defense. One of the gentlemen, who has been most sanguine
for pacific measures, and very jealous of the New England colo
nies, addressing me in the style of ' Brother Rebel,' told me
he was now ready to join us heartily. ' We have got,' says he,
' a sufficient answer to our petition ; I want nothing more, but
am ready to declare ourselves independent, send ambassadors,'
etc., and much more which prudence forbids me to commit to
paper. Our resolutions will henceforth be spirited, clear, and
decisive. May the Supreme Governor of the universe direct
and prosper them !
" The pleasure which this unanimity gives me is inexpressible.
I consider it a sure presage of victory. My anxiety is now at

156 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
an end. I am no longer worried with contradictory resolutions,
but feel a calm, cheerful satisfaction in having one great and
just object in view, and the means of obtaining it certainly, by
divine blessing, in our own hands."
Congress was at this time exceedingly perplexed and
embarrassed on account of the condition of the army, the
headquarters of which were at Watertown, in Massachu
setts. The troops had been enlisted, and brought into
the service, under the authority of the colonies to which
they respectively belonged ; and the conditions of their
enlistment, and the periods for which they were engaged
to serve, were exceedingly various. Even after the ap
pointment of the Commander-in-chief and the other gen
eral officers, and the commencement of the Continental
system, the men were stiU unwiUing to serve far from
home, or under any other than their own officers. The let
ters which General Washington addressed to the Congress,
at this period, contain frequent aUusions to the difficulties
he constantly encountered in the arrangement of the army.
In addition to the information thus communicated. Gov
ernor Ward held a correspondence with General Greene,
from whom he obtained the most accurate views respect
ing its actual condition and the difficulties inherent in its
organization. His own letters are fuU of expressions of
the solicitude he felt upon this subject, and they often
refer to efforts which he made to induce Congress to take
some decisive measures for averting the evils which
threatened the service of the country.^
The councils of that body, however, were far from being
unanimous respecting the extent to which the Continen
tal system should be carried. Not a few of its members
were exceedingly jealous of anything like an abridgment
1 See Johnson's Sketches of the Life and Character of General Greene,
vol. i. p. 35 et seq.

SAMUEL WARD. 157
of the authority of the colonial governments, while others
were for merging the whole of that authority, so far as
the common cause was concerned, in the new central
power which the exigencies of the times had caUed into
being. These differences of opinion, and the feelings of
jealousy and suspicion which were connected with them,
enhanced the difficulty which attended the remodeling of
the army, and filled the minds of those who were ac
quainted with its condition with the gravest apprehen
sions. Governor Ward was heartily in favor of the Con
tinental system, and earnestly advocated the offering of
a bounty by Congress in order to facilitate the enlist
ments; but he still thought that the attachment of the
troops to their respective colonies was a matter too impor
tant to be broken up, or even disregarded, in framing the
conditions of enlistment. He accordingly was exceedingly
desirous that Congress, in building up its authority and
in regulating the military service of the country, should
avoid everything which might have a tendency to weaken
the attachment which the soldiers felt for the colonies to
which they belonged.
His views upon this subject may be best learned from
passages contained in the letters which he addressed to
his friends during the autumn of 1775, especially to his
brother, the Secretary of State in Rhode Island. To this
gentleman he writes, on the 21st of November : —
" By letters from camp, I find there is infinite difficulty in
reenlisting the army. The idea of making it wholly Continental
has induced so many alterations, disgusting to both officers and
men, that very little success has attended our recruiting orders.
I have often told the Congress that, under the idea of new-
modehng, I was afraid we should destroy our army. Southern
gentlemen wish to remove that attachment which the officers
and men have to their respective colonies, and make them look
up to the continent at large for their support or promotion. I

158 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
never thought that attachment injurious to the common cause,
but the strongest inducement to people to risk everything in de
fense of the whole, upon the preservation of which must depend
the safety of each colony. I wish, therefore, not to eradicate,
but to regulate it in such a manner as may most conduce to the
protection of the whole.
" I am not a little alarmed at the present situation of the
army. I wish your utmost influence may be used to put things
upon a proper footing, and must beg leave through you to recom
mend the matter to the immediate attention of the Governor.
There is no time to be lost."
The letters written at this period to Governor Ward by
General Greene, from the camp near Boston, breathe a
similar spirit, and contain many facts which were un
doubtedly the basis of the views above given. The cor
respondence which Washington held not only with the
Congress, but with the Governors and public men of sev
eral of the colonies, indicates how deep was his anxiety
on account of the condition of the army, and how gloomy
a period the autumn of 1775 must have been to aU the
far-sighted patriots of the Revolution. It is from such
sources as these that we derive the means of estimating
aright the nature of the attachment which the people, es
peciaUy in New England, felt for the respective colonies
to which they belonged, and the difficulty with which this
attachment was identified with their interest in the com
mon cause of resistance to the ministry. Though great
confidence was generaUy reposed in the wisdom of Con
gress, and high expectations were entertained concerning
the results of its deliberations, yet the idea of a Conti
nental sovereignty, independent of the authority of the
colonies, was of slow growth in the popular mind, and the
indistinctness with which it was conceived was a fertile
source of embarrassment and confusion in the early stages
of the Revolution.

SAMUEL WARD. 159
But events were steadily, though slowly, advancing
towards the consummation which a few had anticipated
from the beginning. The successive arrivals from Eng
land only confirmed the opinion that the ministry were
determined to persevere in enforcing the measures which
they had adopted, and were preparing additional forces to
decide the contest by the sword, in the approaching spring.
In the mean time, some of the more active and fearless
spirits in the colonies had conceived the idea of separa
tion ; and it was already beginning to spread among the
people, though there might stUl be found those who fondly
clung to the hope of reconciliation. The wife of John
Adams, writing from the heart of Massachusetts, was urg
ing separation upon the mind of her husband with all the
ardor of woman's eloquence. General Greene, in his let
ters to Governor Ward, many months before, had begun
to recommend a declaration of independence, and had
often declared that the people were beginning to wish for
it. The Congress, however, was still inactive and uncer
tain in its opinions. The subject had not yet been dis
cussed, nor had the word " Independence " been uttered
in any of its debates. Its members, as they are described
in the letters of John Adams, sat brooding " in deep anx
iety and thoughtful melancholy," with only rare and re
mote allusions to the mighty question, and waiting for the
occurrence of some critical event to decide their course of
action. Governor Ward, if we may judge from the tone of his
letters, was more patient of this delay than were some
others of the delegates from New England. He felt con
fident that independence would be the ultimate destiny of
the colonies ; and, when the troubles on account of the
Stamp Act first appeared, he had often predicted this re
sult in the friendly intercourse of private life. His most
earnest desire was to see the different portions of the

160 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
country united in the maintenance of their liberties, and
to have the army thoroughly organized. With this prep
aration, he was wilhng patiently to wait the slow progress
of events, and to leave the issue of aU with the justice of
Heaven. The colony of Rhode Island was now suffering the
worst evils consequent upon its exposed situation. The
ships of the enemy, under the command of Captain Wal
lace, were lying along all its shore, and parties of maraud
ers were constantly making depredations upon the prop
erty and threatening the Uves of the inhabitants. Bristol
had been attacked, and, after being laid under heavy con
tribution, was nearly destroyed. The islands of Conani-
cut and Prudence had been ravaged with more than usual
brutality ; and the town of Newport, in which the British
commander stiU had influential friends and supporters,
was compelled to furnish periodical supplies to the fleet,
which had exclusive control of the harbor and the adja
cent bay. The commerce of the colony was entirely pros
trate ; some of the wealthiest inhabitants, refusing to en
gage in the Revolution, had moved away, while the poor
people, who remained, were reduced to the extremity of
suffering by the severity of the winter, the scarcity of pro
visions, and the heavy restrictions which were placed upon
them. So large a portion of the men who were fit for
service were enlisted in the Continental army, or were
otherwise employed away from home, that those who re
mained were wholly insufficient for the protection of the
long line of sea-coast which bounded a large part of the
colony. In this general distress of the people, the Commander-
in-chief, at the request of the Governor of Rhode Island,
sent General Lee with a small detachment to Newport, to
observe the condition of the town, and recommend such
measures for its relief as he might deem practicable. The

SAMUEL WARD. 161
General Assembly passed an act making it a crime for any
person to convey intelligence to the British ministry or
their agents, to supply their armies or fleets with arms or
military stores, or to serve as a pilot to an English vessel of
war ; and providing that whoever should be found guilty
of the offense should be punished with death and the con
fiscation of estate.! Several persons, who had rendered
themselves obnoxious to this penalty, and who refused to
make any promises for the future, were taken into cus
tody, and their estates declared to be confiscated. The
Assembly also adopted an address to Congress, in which
they set forth, in the most urgent terms, the condition of
the colony, the exertions which they had made, and were
still making, for its defense, and their inability longer to
sustain these exertions, or to keep the colony from falling
into the hands of the enemy, unless they should receive
timely aid from Congress. A copy of this address was
forwarded to Mr. Ward at Philadelphia, and another was
sent to General Washington, with a request that he would
second the views which it contained by such recommenda
tion as his knowledge of the colony would enable him to
give.^ ^ The town of Newport was excepted in this act, and, under cer
tain restrictions, its people, in accordance with their own request,
were allowed to furnish supplies to the ships of Captain Wallace,
which lay in their harbor. This was suffered as a measure of safety
to the town, though its expediency was called in question in other
parts of the colony, and by General Washington in his letter to Gov
ernor Cooke. Sparks's Washington, vol. iii. p. 227.
2 This address, which bears the date of January 15, 1776, to
gether with the letter from General Washington to the President
of Congress concerning it, is contained in the American Archives,
vol. V. p. 1148. It is- a document of no small importance, as illus
trating the exertions and the sufferings of the people of Rhode Island
at this early stage of the Revolution. From the account there pre
sented, it appears that the colony, besides minutemen and militia
not yet called into service, had, at this time, not less than 3,743 sol-

162 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
The Commander-in-chief, when he communicated the
paper to Congress, fully indorsed the statement it con
tained respecting the condition of the colony and the suf
ferings of its inhabitants, and expressed his conviction
that it was highly necessary that measures should be
adopted to relieve their distress and to furnish the aid
they required. The delegates of Rhode Island did not
immediately bring the address to the public attention of
Congress, but preferred, according to the instructions
which they received from the Governor of the colony, to
consult some of the leading members upon the subject in
private. A few weeks afterwards, Mr. Ward writes to
Governor Cooke that " this had been done ; and from
their generous concern for the colony, and a universal
approbation of our vigorous exertions for the common
defense, I have not the least doubt but the two battalions
raised by the government will be taken into Continental
pay." The countenance which was received from General
Washington and the assurances of aid from Congress, to
gether with the spirited acts of the Assembly, gave new
energy to the people of the colony, and served to dissi
pate the gloom which had settled around their prospects.
In Newport, the influential men, who still adhered to the
ministry, and who maintained frequent intercourse with
the British officers attached to the ships in the harbor,
were thoroughly humbled by the visit of General Lee to
the town, and by the bold stand which he took against
them.diers and sailors, exclusive of officers, in actual service, of whom
1,700 were in the Continental army, and at least 200 more were on
board armed vessels, beyond the limits of the colony. The whole
population, in the year 1774, amounted to only 69,678 souls, iind of
these 5,243 were Indians and Negroes. The number of families
was 9,437.

SAMUEL WARD. 163
The peace of the town, however, was still almost en
tirely at the mercy of the British commander, whose nu
merous acts of insult and brutal violence in different
parts of the colony called down upon his name and char
acter the direst execrations of the people. In his moods
of malice, which, it was said, were made more vindictive
by frequent intoxication, he would often ravage the shores
of Narragansett Bay, pillage the neighboring farms and
hamlets, and sometimes take the lives of the inhabitants,
in a manner that would be expected only of the outlaw
chief of some horde of pirates. The distresses of his
native colony, and especially of those portions of it with
which, from infancy, he had been most familiar, enlisted
the deepest sympathies of Governor Ward, and the nu
merous passages in his letters relating to the subject show
how earnest were the efforts he made for their relief, both
in Congress and in his communications to the colonial
government. In September, 1775, a detachment of eleven hundred
men had been sent, under the command of Colonel Bene
dict Arnold, on an expedition to Canada, for the purpose
of weakening the British forces stationed there, and of
conciliating the good will of the Canadians towards the
cause of the colonies. When volunteers for this distant
and perilous expedition were called for by General Wash
ington, two hundred and fifty of the troops belonging to
Rhode Island had presented themselves for the service.
Among them was Samuel Ward, Junior, who, as we have
already mentioned, had in the preceding spring received
a captain's commission in the Continental army.
Upon the formation of the character of this young man,
now in the twentieth year of his age. Governor Ward had
bestowed the care which might naturally be expected of
a fond and high-minded father. Having sent him to re
ceive his classical education at the College of Rhode Isl-

164 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
and, he had seen him bear its highest honors at the period
of his graduation, and, at the opening of the Revolution,
he had given him up, the hope and the pride of his fam
ily, to the service of his country. He had early instUled
into his mind his own spirit of self-sacrificing patriotism,
and had constantly enjoined upon him the practice of vir
tue and the fear of God.
After Captain Ward had joined the camp near Boston,
and whUe the period of his enlistment was stiU undecided,
his father wrote to him a letter which contains a fuU ex
pression of his views concerning the duty which a citizen
owes his country in times of calamity or distress.
" With regard [says he] to your engaging in the pubhc ser
vice during the war, my sentiments are these : that so long as
my country has any occasion for my service, and calls upon me
properly, she has an undoubted right to it ; and I shall ever es
teem it the highest happiness to be able, in times of general dis
tress, to do her any material good. Upon these principles, you
wUl give me the highest satisfaction by devoting your Ufe, while
Heaven graciously continues it, to the pubUc service. The poet
justly said, ' Dulce et decorum est pro patria inori.' I can as
justly &AA., pro patria vivere."
With these sentiments, rendered more forcible by pa
rental example, to guide his conduct in the army. Cap
tain Ward early attracted the notice of the Commander-
in-chief, and, though at an immature age, he was permit
ted to join the troops from his native colony, who had
been under the command of Colonel Christopher Greene,
in the expedition to Quebec. Full of hope, and eager
for the service in which they were to be engaged, the
volunteers, under the command of Arnold, left the camp
on the 15th of September, and arrived at the mouth of
the Kennebec River on the 20th of the same month.
Here they commenced their march through an untraveled
wilderness, amidst the severities of an inclement season.

SAMUEL WARD. 165
without provisions, and but poorly clad ; and, after en
during hardships such as were scarcely paralleled in all
the struggle of the Revolution, they reached the bank of
the St. Lawrence, opposite Quebec, on the 15th of No
vember. A few days from this date he writes to his sis
ters at Westerly : —
" We were thirty days in a wilderness that none but savages
ever attempted to pass. We marched one hundred miles upon
short three days' provisions, waded over three rapid rivers,
marched through snow and ice barefoot, passed over the St.
Lawrence where it was guarded by the enemy's frigates, and
are now about twenty-four miles from the city, to recruit our
worn-out natures. General Montgomery intends to join us im
mediately, so that we have a winter's campaign before us ; but
I trust we shaU have the glory of taking Quebec."
This expectation, which was also confidently entertained
both in Congress and at the camp of the Commander-in-
chief, was doomed to a melancholy disappointment. A
few days after the arrival of Arnold, General Montgom
ery joined him on the plains before Quebec, with three
hundred men from Montreal, and took command of the
expedition. Though the force was stiU too smaU for the
reduction of the city, yet the General, relying on the dis
position of the Canadians to favor the cause of the Amer
icans, commenced the attack on the morning of the 31st
of December. The event proved but too clearly that this
reliance was wholly misplaced. The heroic commander
fell early in the battle, and his men were repulsed. The
detachment led by Colonel Arnold was engaged at another
point of the city. It had already forced one of the
barriers, which had been thrown up for its defense, and
was approaching a second, when Arnold was borne
wounded from the ground. The troops, however, led on
by Colonel Greene, were still maintaining the assault,
when they were attacked in the rear, and their retreat

166 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
cut off by a party of the enemy, and nearly four hundred
of them were made prisoners. Among these were Cap
tain Ward and a large portion of the company under his
command. On the 17th of January, 1776, the news reached Con
gress, by despatches from General Schuyler, of the disas
trous fate of the expedition to Quebec and of the fall
of Montgomery. The inteUigence was received with no
common emotion. A brave officer, high in rank, had
been snatched from the service of the country; and the
hopes which had been indulged, that the people of Canada
would join the colonies in their resistance to the ministry,
were blighted at the very moment when they were the
strongest and most ardent. But in the mind of no one
in Congress, who on that day listened to the melancholy
recital contained in the letters of General Schu}ler, was
a deeper anxiety excited than in that of Governor Ward.
As a warm-hearted patriot he mourned the loss of the
gallant General, and, with a father's pride and a father's
solicitude, he learned the heroic conduct and the unhappy
fate of his son, the youthful captain, and his soldiers from
Rhode Island. He was immediately appointed one of the
committee to whom the communications of General Schuy
ler were referred ; and on the 21st of January, so soon as
the duties of the committee had been discharged, he ad
dressed a letter to his son in Canada, which wUl iUustrate
his character both as a patriot and a father : —
My dear Son, — I most devoutly thank God that you are
alive, in good health, and have behaved well. You have now
a new scene of action, to behave well as a prisoner. You have
been taught from your infancy the love of God, of aU mankind,
and especially of your country ; in a due discharge of these va
rious duties of life consist true honor, religion, and virtue. I
hope no situation or trial, however severe, will tempt you to vio
late those sound, immutable laws of God and nature. You wiU

SAMUEL WARD. 167
now have time for reflection ; improve it well, and examine your
own heart. Eradicate, as much as human frailty admits, the
seeds of vice and folly. Correct your temper. Expand the be
nevolent feelings of your soul, and impress and establish the
noble principles of private and pubhc virtue so deeply in it that
your whole life may be directed by them. Next to these great
and essential duties, improve your mind by the best authors you
can borrow. Learn the French language, and be continually
acquiring, as far as your situation admits, every useful accom
plishment. Shun every species of debauchery and vice, as cer
tain and inevitable ruin here and hereafter. There is one vice
which, though often to be met with in polite company, I cannot
but consider as unworthy of a gentleman as well as a Christian.
I mean swearing. Avoid it at all times.
All ranks of people here have the highest sense of the great
bravery and merit of Colonel Arnold, and all his officers and
men. Though prisoners, they have acquired immortal honor.
Proper attention wiU be paid to them. In the mean time, be
have, my dear son, with great circumspection, prudence, and
firmness. Enter into no engagements inconsistent with your
duty to your country, and such as you may make keep inviolate
with the strictest honor. Besides endeavoring to make yourself
as easy and comfortable as possible in your present situation,
you will pay the greatest attention, as far as your little power
may admit, to the comfort and welfare of aU your fellow-pris
oners, and of those lately under your immediate command es
pecially.* During the winter of 1776, the attention of Congress
was earnestly directed to preparation for the campaign,
which it was expected the ensuing spring would open
upon the country. The fall of Montgomery and the faU
ure of the expedition to Quebec undoubtedly had a ten
dency to give a still more serious air to their delibera
tions. He was the first officer of the Continental army,
1 The letter from which this is an extract was published in the
American Annual Register, vol. vii. p. 407.

168 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
high in rank, who had fallen in the service ; and the fa
thers of the country mourned for him, as for one who had
died an heroic martyr to the common cause. The com
mittee who were appointed to consider the subject made
a series of successive reports, which resulted in sending a
deputation from Congress to visit Canada, and in rein
forcing the army which was stationed there.
The military operations of the Continental army were
also greatly extended ; new posts were established, and
arrangements set on foot for undertaking the defense of
the entire continent, as the common territory of aU the
colonies was then termed. The attitude of Congress,
however, had not changed. It was still that of deep anx
iety and painful suspense, in which its members were
waiting for some decisive event to determine the course
they should adopt. Independence was only mentioned
in the privacy of familiar intercourse, or in the corre
spondence of confidential friends. In the haU of Con
gress the word had not yet been uttered. But among
those grave and thoughtful men suspense was not a
natural state of mind, and it could not long continue.
Beneath the solemn exterior which they presented a dis
cerning eye might detect many a current of deep and
earnest feeling, whose sure and silent flow was bearing
the whole body insensibly onward to some mighty crisis.
These were the settled views which now regulated the
conduct and shaped the opinions of Governor Ward ; and
the familiar letters, which have guided us in framing this
memoir, alone can show how deeply he was interested in
the plans which Congress was now adopting, and in the
approach of the events which he felt confident were has
tening on by the appointment of a destiny which no earthly
power could withstand. He also, at this time, as was
natural from the troubled condition of his native colony,
experienced great anxiety on account of his domestic af-

SAMUEL WARD. 169
fairs. Eleven children had survived the death of their
mother, which took place in 1770. Of these, one had died
during his attendance at the session of the first Congress.
The three elder sons were now, in imitation of their fa
ther's example, in the service of the country, two of them
holding places in the army and one in the navy. The
two elder daughters were recently married, and the re
maining children, still of a tender age, were dwelling,
without the protection of a parent, in the mansion at
Westerly, in one of the most exposed situations along the
coast of the colony. To that once cheerful and happy
home of his family his thoughts would often revert, and
his warm, parental affection would urge him to abandon
the public service, that he might watch over the tender
years of his children, and save from wasting and decay
the beautiful estate which his industry had acquired.
But such were not the views of duty which became a
patriot statesman of the Revolution. To him the present
was of little iniportance ; the future was all in all. Never,
perhaps, in the history of mankind, has there been a period
distinguished by so striking instances of the sacrifice of
every private interest to the general good. The individ
ual was but a unit in the mighty mass, whose freedom
and happiness were of immeasurable importance. It was
in accordance with this higher sentiment of duty to his
country that Governor Ward at this time decided against
the dictates of parental affection, and resolved to remain
in the Congress, and there abide the issues of the contest.
In the month of February, of this long and anxious win
ter, he thus writes to the sister to whom he had especially
committed the charge of his family : —
" When I consider the alarms, the horrors, and mischiefs
of war, I cannot help thinking what those wretches deserve
who have involved this innocent country in all its miseries. At
the same time, I adore the divine wisdom and goodness which

170 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
often overrules and directs those calamities to the producing of
the greatest good. This I humbly hope wiU be our case. We
may yet establish the peace and happiness of our native coun
try upon the broad and never-failing basis of liberty and virtue.
" When I reflect upon this subject, and anticipate the glorious
period, the dangers of disease, the inconveniences experienced in
ray private affairs, the almost unparaUeled sufferings of Samuel,'
and all that my dear children and friends do or can suffer ap
pear to me trifling. I am sure your own love of liberty and
your fortitude of mind will not only support you, but wUl en
able you to encourage and support all around you in the hour
of danger. My dear little boys and girls, I know, need me
much ; but my duty forbids my return. I can only recommend
them to God, to you and my other sisters, and to their older sis
ters. Do aU you possibly can to encourage them in the paths of
virtue, industry, frugality, and neatness, and in improving their
minds as far as their situation admits."
Such were the labors, the anxieties, and the hopes
which occupied the mind of Governor Ward, when death,
coming at an unexpected hour, suddenly put an end to
them aU. In the pressure of the many concerns which
had engaged his attention while in CongTess, he had neg
lected to adopt the usual preventive against the small
pox, at that time one of the most dreaded of the diseases
with which humanity could be afflicted. It frequently
appeared with great malignity, especiaUy in the large
towns of the country ; and Governor Ward had received
repeated admonitions, while at Philadelphia, to resort to
inoculation, the only preventive measure at that time
known ; but though, as would appear from his letters, he
dreaded the contagion with peculiar apprehension, he
would never allow himself to be inoculated.^
' His son, Captain Ward, now a prisoner at Quebec.
2 He is said to have had an invincible repugnance to this mode of
taking the disease. Indeed, a strong prejudice had always existed
in the colonies against inoculation, since its first introduction in 1721.

SAMUEL WARD. 171
In the Journal of Congress for the 13th of March is
found the latest mention of his participation in the busi
ness of the House. On that day he presided in the com
mittee of the whole, through a protracted discussion of
several memorials and other papers relating to the trade
of the colonies, and, on reporting to the House the pro
gress of the debate, obtained leave to sit again. He also
accepted an appointment as a member of a special com
mittee, which was instructed to devise ways and means
for defraying the anticipated expenses of the campaign
that was soon to open. These duties, however, were not
for him to perform.
On the two following days he was still in his place in
Congress, with his characteristic punctuality and devotion
to business. From this time his seat was vacant. The
disease, which had already begun to be felt in his system,
now appeared in its worst malignity, and ou the 26th of
March, 1776, put an end to his useful and honorable life,
in the fifty-first year of his age. In the published " Let
ters " of John Adams, the event is thus noticed a few days
after it happened : —
" We have this week lost a very valuable friend of the col
onies in Governor Ward, of Rhode Island, by the smallpox in
the natural way. He never would hearken to his friends, who
have been constantly advising him to be inoculated ever since
the first Congress began. But he would not be persuaded.
Numbers who have been inoculated have gone through this
distemper without any danger, or even confinement. But noth
ing would do ; he must take it in the natural way, and die. He
was an amiable and a sensible man, a steadfast friend to his
country, upon very pure principles. His funeral was attended
Vaccination was first adopted in England, by Dr. Jenner, in 1798,
and was introduced into America, about the year 1800, through the
agency of Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, a native of Newport, and at
that time a lecturer at Harvard College, and also at Brown Uni
versity.

172 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
with the same solemnities as Mr. Randolph's. Mr. Stillman,
being the Anabaptist minister here, of which persuasion was the
Governor, was desired by Congress to preach a sermon, which
he did with great applause." '
He was interred in the burial-place of the First Bap
tist Church, amid the solemnities of religious worship, in
the presence of the members of Congress, of the General
Assembly of Pennsylvania, and a large concourse of the
citizens of Philadelphia, among whom his amiable man
ners and exalted character had won for him many admir
ing friends. A monument was ordered to be erected to
his memory at the place of his interment by a vote of
Congress, and afterwards by an act of the General As
sembly of Rhode Island.
The course of this memoir has furnished but few oppor
tunities to refer to the religious opinions or the religious
character of Governor Ward. He was, however, a sin
cere and humble Christian. He was connected, as were
his ancestors before him, with a church of the Sabbata
rian persuasion ; a name given to what was then a large
and highly respectable denomination of Christians in
Rhode Island, who practiced the rite of baptism by im
mersion, and adhered with singular tenacity to the an
cient Jewish Sabbath as the appointed day of public
worship.^ He was at aU times a careful observer of the
simple forms of the church with which he was connected,
and was withal a truly devout and conscientious as weU
as a high-minded and honorable man.
His patriotism, which was deeply tinged with his reU
gious feelings, was of the most constant and self-sacrificing
nature. To be useful to the cause of American liberty,
1 John Adams's Letters to his Wife, vol. i. p. 02.
^ Among his papers is a confession of his faith in the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity, which was submitted to the church on his
admission as a member.

SAMUEL WARD. 173
then struggling with mighty foes, to see his country suc
cessful in the great contest she had undertaken, and to
win for himself the a2)probation of Heaven, " as a faith
ful servant and soldier of Jesus Christ," — these, we may
well judge, were the controlling aspirations of his mind,
when death summoned him to the scenes of immortality,
and to a nearer communion with the spiritual realities
which he had so long contemplated from afar.
His death took place on the eve of great events, which
no man had more clearly foreseen, and which few men
had done more to hasten forward. His sun went down
ere the star of his country had risen, and while gloom
and night yet hung round the whole horizon. Had his
life been prolonged but for a little season, he would have
beheld his native colony taking the lead of all the others
in asserting the doctrines which he cherished, and becom
ing the first to throw off the allegiance that bound her to
the British throne.^ He would also have affixed his sig
nature to the Declaration of American Independence, and
thus linked with his name an enduring title to the grati
tude of posterity, and won perhaps a prouder place in the
annals of his country.
But this high guaranty of fame he was not permitted
to attain ; and we close this narrative of his life and ser
vices with the following estimate of his character, from
the pen of one who knew him well, and who, while in
Congress, relied with unwavering confidence on his fidel
ity, his wisdom, and his patriotism. The late John
Adams, near the close of his venerable old age, in a let
ter dated January 29, 1821, and addressed to one ^ of the
descendants of Governor Ward, thus speaks of his char
acter : —
1 The act of allegiance was repealed by the General Assembly in
May, 1776.
2 Richard R. Ward, Esq., of New York.

174 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
" He was a gentleman in his manners, benevolent and ami
able in his disposition, and as decided, ardent, and uniform in
his patriotism as any member of that Congress. When he was
seized with the smallpox, he said that if his vote and voice were
necessary to support the cause of his country, he should live ; if
not, he should die. He died, and the cause of his country was
supported, but it lost one of its most sincere and punctual advo
cates." The life of Governor Ward was abruptly closed at a
gloomy period in the history of his country. But his
generous patriotism and his manlj'' spirit did not die. He
had instiUed them with parental care into the mind of the
son who bore his name, and to whose early service in the
army of the Revolution we have already alluded. The
father descended to the tomb in the meridian of his days,
but the leading features of his character were inherited
by the son, who in his own career worthily exemplified
the precepts and counsels which had guided his youth.
Samuel Ward, Junior, was born at Westerly, on the
17th of November, 1756. He was graduated at Brown
University, with distinguished honors, in the class of 1771.
At the early age of eighteen, he received a Captain's com
mission from the government of his native colony, and in
May, 1775, marched with his company to join the army
of observation, which Rhode Island was at that time rais
ing for her own and the common defense. In the autumn
of the same year he volunteered, with a large body of the
troops of Rhode Island, to accompany Colonel Arnold ou
the expedition to Quebec, — an expedition attended wth
sufferings and privations such as were scarcely surpassed,
if indeed they were equaUed, during the war. They were
bravely encountered and heroically endured ; but the ex
pedition terminated in disaster and defeat. With a large
number of his gallant associates, Captain Ward was over
powered by superior force, taken prisoner, and carried to

SAMUEL WARD. 175
Quebec, where he was still detained at the period of his
father's death.
In the course of the year 1776, he was exchanged, and,
on his return to Rhode Island, married the daughter of
W^illiam Greene, of Warwick, who was afterwards Gov
ernor of that State. Soon after his exchange, Captain
Ward was commissioned as Major in the regiment of Colo
nel Christopher Greene, who had been his brave associ
ate in the toils and disasters of the expedition to Quebec.
Under this gallant commander he bore a distinguished
part in the celebrated battle at Red Bank, in which Fort
Mercer was successfully defended from the assault of the
Hessians under Count Donop. Of this action, at the
order of his Colonel, he drew up the official account, which
was forwarded to the Commander-in-chief, and which is
now contained in the published correspondence of Gen
eral Washington.! He was also in the camp of Wash
ington during the dreadful winter in which the army was
quartered at Valley Forge.
In 1778, the regiment of Colonel Greene was detached
for special service in the colony to which it belonged, and
was placed under the command of General Sullivan, whose
headquarters were then at Providence. The General was
preparing an expedition, which he had been ordered to
undertake against the island of Rhode Island, for the pur
pose of dislodging the British forces, and driving them
from the shores of Narragansett Bay. In this expedition
Mr. Ward, though holding only a Major's commission,
was intrusted with the command of a regiment. The en
terprise proved unsuccessful, and the army of General
Sullivan was obliged to retreat from the island ; but the
youthful officer, though charged with a responsibility
above his commission, behaved with prudence and gal
lantry, and contributed his share to the order and success
1 Sparks's Washington, vol. v. p. 112.

176 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
with which the retreat, so mortifying to the commander
and so calamitous to the colony, was conducted.
In AprU of the following year, he received the commis
sion of Lieutenant-Colonel in the first regiment of the
division from Rhode Island ; and in this command he
passed two years in Washington's army, while stationed
in New Jersey and upon the Hudson Eiyer. In many of
the important operations of this period he bore the part
becoming to his rank ; he endured patiently the toils and
privations which the service of his country imposed upon
the army, and won for himself a share of the glory which
belongs to all those who, amidst disappointment, disaster,
and the keenest suffering, were stUl faithful to the cause
of the Revolution.
Near the close of the war. Colonel Ward retired from
the army, and engaged in mercantile pursuits in the city
of New York. WhUe thus employed, he made several
voyages to Europe and the East Indies, and was among
the first to display the flag of his country in the China
Seas. He also resided in Paris during some of the early
stages of the French Revolution, and was present at the
scene when Louis the Sixteenth was beheaded. On his
return to the United States, he retired from the mercan
tile house with which he had been long connected, and
settled with his family on an estate near East Greenwich,
in Rhode Island. Here, amid the quiet pursuits of agri
culture, he revived the studies of his early years, and to
the end of his life maintain e4 a scholar's familiarity with
CsBsar, Ovid, and Horace, the classic writers who had
been the favorites of his academic days. Ou the death of
his wife, in the year 1817, he removed to Jamaica, in the
vicinity of New York. Here and in the metropolis itself,
where some of his children were now settled in business,
he lived for many years in the enjoyment of congenial
society, and blessed with the filial love of a numerous

SAMUEL WARD. 177
family, and with the confidence and respect of a wide
circle of friends.
Colonel Ward, though weU qualified for public life by
his talents and education, as well as by his varied experi
ence of human affairs and his familiar acquaintance with
most of the leading men of the country, yet was too
strongly attached to the quiet scenes of his own home,
and was withal too little ambitious of political distinction,
ever to engage with relish in the exciting labors of the
politician. He was twice, however, chosen to represent
his fellow-citizens in what were then deemed important
public bodies. One of them was the Commercial Conven
tion which assembled at Annapolis, in 1786 ; the other
was the Convention which met at Hartford, in 1812.
W^ith these solitary exceptions, his days were passed in
the humble occupations of a private gentleman. Yet he
was not indifferent to the fortunes of his country. He
had been taught to love her from his infancy, and had
spent the first years of his early manhood in the achieve
ment of her independence. But now that this had been
secured, he yielded to the love of quiet inherent in his
nature, and felt at Uberty to keep himself aloof from her
public concerns. He died at New York, in 1832, at the
age of seventy-five years.
The recollection of the person and the character of
Colonel Ward is stiU vivid in the minds of many who
knew him as he appeared in society in the later years of
his life. One of these, who can well judge of the qualities
he specifies, has pronounced him to have been "a ripe
classical scholar, a gentleman of most winning urbanity
of manners, and a man of sterling inteUect and unblem
ished honor." ^
' Notices of the early graduates of Brown University by William
G. Goddard.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE.i
In the year 1823, James Monroe was in the third year
of his second presidency of the United States ; John
Quincy Adams was Secretary of State ; Richard Rush
was Minister of the United States at the Court of St.
James, where George Canning was Minister of Foreign
Affairs, virtual head of the English cabinet. The presi
dency of Mr. Monroe, from the beginning, had been sin
gularly free from partisan bitterness and poUtical agita
tions of every kind. The old Federal party had gone to
its final rest. The passions engendered during the War
of 1812 had become extinct, and his second election had
been well-nigh unanimous. The acquisition of Florida
had gratified the national appetite for territory, the ^Nlis-
souri Compromise had for the time pacified the section
alism of the South, and the rapid extension of settlements
beyond the Mississippi proclaimed the beneficence of the
government and the prosperity of the people.
In Europe, however, a very different spectacle was pre
sented. The wars of the French Revolution had come to
an end, but their end had brought neither pubUc peace
nor private contentment. The armies of aUied Europe,
which had been engaged in the overthrow of Napoleon,
were stiU kept on foot, and were now employed in the
reconstruction of the continent on the principles of legit
imacy, and in destroying every vestige of the freedom
which revolution had anywhere secured. The Great
' Read before the Rhode Island Historical Society, February 8,
1881.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 179
Powers were resolved not to abandon their efforts at sub
jugation till absolute monarchy should be again estab
lished in every country in which free institutions had
gained any foothold. To Austria had been assigned the
work of popular subjugation in Italy and Switzerland ;
and the restored monarchy of France, with the support
of Russia and Prussia, had sent an army into Spain to
destroy the liberal constitution which the Cortes had
forced upon their faithless Bourbon king, Ferdinand VII.
England had been associated with these powers in the
wars against Napoleon, and had for a time continued in
their bad company. W^hen Mr. Burke, thirty years be
fore, wrote his " Reflections on the French Revolution,"
he penned a passage of brilliant apology for the repres
sive measures which the madness of the Revolution then
seemed to require, closing it with the sententious apho
rism, " Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects
are rebels from principle." But the time for such apology
or for any apology had long passed in England. She
looked with alarm and disgust upon the reactionary move
ments in which the allies were engaged, and found herself
compeUed by every requirement of her free constitution,
as well as by all the best impulses of her Saxon blood,
to declare against them.
It was in these circumstances that in August, 1823,
Mr. Canning took occasion to confer with the American
Minister, Mr. Rush, as to the alarming designs of the
allies, and also to make known to him the fact, which had
come privately to his knowledge, that these designs now
distinctly embraced the restoration to the Spanish crown
of the American colonies which had been wrested from
it by revolution. Mr. Canning's design was to unite
this country with Great Britain in a determined protest
against any forcible interference with the Spanish-Ameri
can colonies, then struggling for their independence, and

180 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
he concentrated his views in the highly suggestive, per
haps artful question, " Are the great poUtical and com
mercial interests which hang upon the destinies of the
New World to be canvassed and adjusted in Europe with
out the cooperation or even the knowledge of the United
States ? "
The conversation, or conversations, for there were sev
eral, which were entirely confidential, were carefiUly re
ported to the State Department. Mr. Adams, the astute
and practiced secretary, immediately comprehended the
situation, and lost no time in deciding as to what he
should advise the President to do. The United States
had already acknowledged the independence of the Span
ish-American republics, and had formaUy urged Great
Britain to do the same. But she had delayed, and now.
instead of acknowledging them herself, ^Ir. Canning had
proposed that the two governments should join in a sol
emn protest against the contemplated proceeding of the
Holy Alliance. With this proposal !Mr. Adams had no
thought of complying. He saw at a glance that, by join
ing with England, this country would perform but a sec
ondary part in a matter of transcendent importance to
her interests and even to her destiny. Accordingly, in lay
ing the whole matter before the President, he ui'ged upon
his attention the fact that here was a great opportunity
to define and declare the position of the United States as
to the movements in question, and at the same time to af
ford special encouragement to the new republics whose
independence we had very recently acknowledged. This,
Mr. Adams suggested, could most properly be done in
the annual message to Congress.
Mr. ^lonroe, it is understood, did not readilv adopt the
views of his secretary. He had intended to advert in his
message to the dangerous proceedings and more danger
ous doctrines of the Holy AUiance, but he shrank from

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 181
adopting the bold declarations of Mr. Adams. He ap
prehended that their utterance might bring embarrass
ment to his administration, in whose quiet, easy-going
character he greatly delighted. He at length, however,
waived his objections, and wrought the sentiments with
which Mr. Adams had inspired him into the message
which he sent to Congress at its assembUng on December
3, 1823. These sentiments are embodied in separate
paragTaphs in different parts of the message. It should
also here be mentioned that a dispute was then in pro
gress between the United States and Russia respecting
the claims of the latter to what was at that time vaguely
known as the Oregon Territory, and that in this dispute
Great Britain was incidentaUy involved on account of the
stiU unsettled boundary between her possessions and those
of the United States in the same Territory. After giv
ing an account of the question then at issue between us
and Russia, the message contains the foUowing sentence,
which, though without any bearing on the Holy AUi
ance or the Spanish- American republics, has always been
considered a part of the so-caUed " Monroe Doctrine : "
"The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as
a principle in which the rights and interests of the United
.States are involved, that the American continents, by the
free and independent condition which they have assumed
and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as sub
jects for future colonization by any European power."
It was, however, in a subsequent part of the message
that he set forth, in several paragraphs, the views which
he had been persuaded to present concerning the threat
ened interference of the allied powers of Europe in the
political affairs of the western continent. The paragraphs
are too long to )be recited in fuU ; they are indeed only
repeated expressions of one and the same general idea,
and of this idea the essential declarations are as follows :

182 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
" The political system of the allied powers is essentiaUy dif
ferent [in this respect] from that of America. This difference
proceeds from that which exists in their respective govern
ments. . . . We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable
relations existing between the United States and those powers
to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to
extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dan
gerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or de
pendencies of any European power we have not interfered, and
shaU not interfere ; but with the governments who have declared
their independence and maintained it, and whose independence
we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknow
ledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of
oppressing them, or controlling, in any other manner, their destiny,
by any European power, in any other light than as the manifes
tation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.''
" In the war between those new governments and Spain, we
declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition ; and to
this we have adhered and shall continue to adhere, provided no
change shaU occur which, in the judgment of the competent au
thorities of this government, shaU make a corresponding change
on the part of the United States indispensable to their security."
In a subsequent paragraph the message sets forth the
marked difference between the policy prevailing among
the powers of Europe as to interfering in the poUtical af
fairs of foreign States and the policy early adopted by
the United States in regard to all those powers. It then
points out that in regard to these American continents
" circumstances are eminently and conspicuously differ
ent." It goes on to declare again that " it is impossible
that the aUied powers should extend their poUtical sys
tem to any portion of either continent without endanger
ing our peace and happiness."
These are the several declarations which together con
stitute what has received the name of the " Monroe Doc
trine." The significance of the doctrine, as intended by

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 183
President Monroe, is to be determined by reference to
the circumstances in which it had its origin and the avowed
objects which it was designed to accomplish. These fully
show : 1. That this second part of it was prompted solely
by the threatened interference of the powers of Europe
in the political affairs of the American States, for the pur
pose of controlling their destiny. 2. That its single design
was to prevent this and all similar interference. 3. That
the doctrine, as put forth by Mr. Monroe, was declared
and promulgated solely in the interest of the United
States, and because the interposition in question would
inflict injury upon this country. 4. It did not promise
or imply military aid to the Spanish-American States in
their existing struggle with Spain. On the contrary, it
expressly declared that neutrality would be strictly main
tained between the belligerents, unless there should arise
a necessity for departing from it. 5. Nor was it a
declaration against the existence of monarchical institu
tions in the western hemisphere ; for such institutions
were already existing in Brazil, in Cuba, in Canada, and
they had scarcely ceased to exist in Mexico, whose first
independent government was an empire. It had to do,
not with existing governments or colonies already here,
but solely with European interposition for the purpose of
oppressing them or in any way controlling their destiny.
The other, or first-mentioned, part of the doctrine —
that which relates to colonization by any European power
— had a different origin, and it would probably have had
a place in Mr. Monroe's message, even if the allied
powers had never thought of intervention in America. It
had been repeatedly asserted before in the diplomatic
correspondence of the government. But it is manifestly
only another declaration of the same underlying fact, and
this fact is that every part of America — both North and
South — had now become the property of some established

184 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
government, and that, consequently, no portion of it could
now be claimed or colonized by any country of Europe in
virtue of any right of discovery or of bargain with its
aboriginal proprietors. The two declarations go naturaUy
together. They unite to form one doctrine of pubUc
law, because they are both parts of one and the same
political idea, viz., the recognized jurisdiction of some
established govemment over every part of the two conti
nents of America. These continents, therefore, are hence
forth no more open to European colonization than is the
continent of Europe open to American colonization.
It should here be especially observed that this doctrine
was at the outset, and still remains, simply a passage in
an annual message of President Monroe. It declared that
European intervention in the political affairs of North or
South America, or the colonization of any part of its
territory by any European power, would be regarded " as
the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the
United States." It did not, however, declare what the
United States would do in case of such intervention or
colonization by the allied powers ; still less did it promise
to the other American States any protection or military
assistance of any kind. What woiUd be the consequence
was left for them to imagine, and this was to give it the
greatest possible effect. It was to the former a matter of
indefinite apprehensions, whUe to the latter it was an
occasion of indefinite expectations. It was designed solely
for moral effect, to deter the great powers of Europe from
their contemplated interference by assuring them that we
should regard it as " endangering our peace and happi
ness." It is also to be said that this doctrine has never
been sanctioned by any enactment of Congress, nor has it,
in any other way, been established as a uniform principle
of public poUcy for the United States. President Mon
roe reaffirmed it in his annual message of December,

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 185
1824; Mr. Adams, his successor, reiterated it in 1825; and
it has since been repeated again and again by other Presi
dents. The first attempt to secure for it the sanction of
Congress was made in 1824, by Mr. Clay, at that time
Speaker of the House of Representatives. He introduced
in the House a resolution for that purpose, and advocated
it with aU his brilliant oratory, but the effort was without
success. On several subsequent occasions, similar at
tempts have been made, but they have uniformly resulted
in failure. It has, however, always been a power in
American diplomacy.
But notwithstanding these limitations and drawbacks
which may be connected with it, this declaration of Presi
dent Monroe, it must stiU be said, produced a profound
impression on the public mind of this country, and a
scarcely less profound impression on the public mind of
the leading nations of Europe. It was one of those
fortunate and significant utterances which mean more
than they at first seem to mean. It expressed a national
sentiment just at the moment when it was forming in the
minds of the people. It published to the world what was
in the national heart, though no one had ever uttered it
before. It embodied at once our American sympathy
with popular freedom, our hatred of absolute govern
ments, the dictates of our national pride, and the aspira
tions of our national ambition. In this country it was
hailed as a sort of Declaration of Independence for the
whole western hemisphere. Nor was this popular appre
ciation of it essentiallj' different from that which was
entertained even in advance by Mr. Jefferson. Weeks
before the message was prepared, Mr. Monroe, while con
sidering the proposal of Mr. Canning, that the two gov
ernments should unite in a solemn protest to the allied
powers against their intervention in Spanish America,
had asked the advice of Mr. Jefferson, who answered in
these earnest words : —

186 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
" The question is the most momentous which has ever heen
offered to my contemplation since that of independence. That
made us a nation ; this sets our compass, and points the course
which we are to steer through the ocean of time opening on us ;
and never could we embark on it under circumstances more
auspicious. Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never
to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second, never
to suffer Europe to meddle with cisatlantic affairs. America,
North and South, has a set of interests distinct from those of
Europe, and peculiarly her own. She should, therefore, have a
system of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe.
While the last is laboring to become the domicile of despotism,
our endeavor should surely be to make our hemisphere that of
freedom." Nor was the effect of this declaration abroad less
marked than at home. Mr. Rush records that " it was upon
all tongues; the press was full of it; the Spanish- American
deputies were overjoyed. Spanish - American securities
rose in the stock market, and the safety of the new States
from all European coercion was considered as no longer
doubtful." It was hailed with the utmost satisfaction
by the liberal statesmen of England. Lord Brougham,
Sir James Macintosh, and Lord John RusseU expressed
their gratification in the House of Commons. Nor did
Mr. Canning, though a Tory, withhold his fuU approval
of the declaration against interference, though it was not
precisely what he desired, while the declaration against
colonization was very different from what he desired. It
was everywhere regarded as a bold assertion of American
spirit and character, and the United States and the Amer
ican continent all at once assumed a conspicuous posi
tion in the thoughts and interests of Europe. The allied
powers still offered their assistance to Spain in the war
with her rebel colonies, but Engl.and immediately de
clared that the first act of intervention would be a suffi
cient ground for recognizing their independence.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 187
Such was the origin of the Monroe Doctrine, and such
the interest with which its first promulgation in 1823-24
was received on either side of the Atlantic. So far as the
intention and design of its author were concerned, it had
to do only with the conjunction of events which called it
forth. It has, however, long survived these events, and
has been connected with several interesting public ques
tions of our national history.
The first of these is the question of the Panama Con
gress. Early in the administration of John Quincy
Adams, Mexico, Central America, and Colombia invited
this government to send envoys to a Congress of American
States, which was to meet in the foUowing spring at the
city of Panama. The general object of the meeting was
to consider what means should be employed by the several
States to defend themselves against the attempts of any
European power either to interfere in their civil affairs or
to colonize their territory. These States sought to con
sult as to their common interests, and their motive in invit
ing our government to meet with them undoubtedly was,
that they might thus have the benefit of our longer expe
rience and superior wisdom as a nation. The idea of the
Congress was a natural result of the declaration of Mr.
Monroe, and some such conference seemed to be required
in order to give that declaration practical effect. The
President immediately accepted the invitation, and in his
first message in December, 1825, he communicated the
fact to Congress, and soon afterwards sent to the Senate
the names of John Serjeant of Pennsylvania, and Rich
ard C. Anderson, of Kentucky, to be confirmed as envoys.
The question also came up in the House of Representa
tives as to the appropriation that would be required. It
was thus, in one form or the other, before both houses at
the same time, and no question of the day gave rise to
so protracted debate or excited so widespread public in
terest.

188 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
The President and his advisers attached extraordinary
importance to the proposed Congress. They saw in it
an unprecedented opportunity, and they expected from it
great results, that would contribute to the advancement
of the South American States in civil and religious free
dom, in good government, and in aU commercial and social
development. Mr. Gallatin was at the outset invited to
be one of the envoys, and, in urging his acceptance of
the invitation, Mr. Clay, the Secretary of State, wrote to
him as foUows : " I think the mission the most important
ever sent from this country, those only excepted which
related to its independence and to the termination of the
late war." The instructions, also, which were prepared
for our envoys were liberal and comprehensive as weU as
careful and weU guarded. They were designed to afford
the utmost encouragement to the new States which it was
in our power to give. The measure could have done no
harm ; it promised to do great good. The two houses of
Congress, however, were at this time largely composed of
the factions which had just been defeated by the election
of Mr. Adams to the presidency, and they, with one ac
cord, seized upon this novel recommendation as an oppor
tunity for bringing annoyance and odium to the adminis
tration. It immediately became the object of bitter and
virulent attack. The proposed Congress was denounced
as a " Council of Amphictyons," — as likely to form a sort
of Holy AUiance in America in feeble imitation of that
in Europe. It would entangle us in the dubious fortunes
of the South American republics and compel us to become
their protector. It would involve us in war with Spain,
and perhaps with all Europe. The ^Monroe Doctrine it
self was condemned as unsound and dangerous ; and the
House of Representatives went so far as to adopt a reso
lution declaring that the United States ought not to be
come a party with the South American States or any one

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 189
of them to any joint declaration even for preventing Euro
pean interference or colonization in the continent of Amer
ica. This resolution was, of course, the same thing as to
annul, so far as the House of Representatives was con
cerned, the whole practical import of the doctrine, and
render it utterly nugatory.
Mr. Adams sent repeated messages to Congress in order
to remove these erroneous impressions. He declared that
there was no intention of binding the United States to
any compact ; that the Monroe Doctrine never contem
plated any guarantee for the South American republics or
any concerted action with them, save that each State, in
its own way and by its own means, should resist the at
tempt of any European power to interfere with its inde
pendence or to colonize its territory. It was all in vain.
The opposition cared only to annoy and embarrass the
administration. But what, in those days of Southern
domination in this country, did most to concentrate hos
tility against the project was the demand of John Ran
dolph in the Senate to be informed whether the Congress
would not recognize the Black Republic of Hayti, or rev
olutionize Cuba and Porto Rico, and free their slaves !
After this, the measure could not pass save with restric
tions and conditions that would strip the envoys of the
United States of everything like prestige or authority,
and make them merely silent and useless spectators of
what the others might do. The nominations, however,
were at length reluctantly confirmed, and the appropria
tions were voted, but not till the season had become so
late that Mr. Serjeant refused to encounter the unhealthy
climate, and Mr. Anderson, the other envoy, was Minister
of the United States in Colombia. The latter commenced
the journey from Bogota, but died on the way to Panama,
from the fever of the country. Others of the envoys
and their secretaries narrowly escaped a similar fate.

190 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
The Congress met only to adjourn till autumn to a place
in Mexico ; but by that time the President, or Dictator, of
that republic had become hostile to it, and it did not as
semble again. Its total failure was undoubtedly owing to
the want of interest in its objects manifested by the United
States, and the only importance which now belongs to it
in American history arises from its connection with the
positive refusal of one house of Congress and the manifest
unwiUingness of the other to give anything like practical
effect to the Monroe Doctrine ; and that, too, within less
than three years after its first promulgation.
The next conspicuous assertion of the Monroe Doctrine
was made by President Polk, whose administration began
in 1845, whUe the Oregon question with Great Britain
was still pending. The raUying cry of the party which
elected him had been " 54° 40' or fight," and in his first
message to Congress he recurred in vigorous words to the
declarations of his predecessor of twenty years before,
and asserted that these declarations would be maintained,
and that " no future European colony or dominion shaU,
with our consent, be planted or established on any part of
the North American continent." When, however, the
negotiations were begun, it was seen that the paraUel of
54° 40' could not be maintained, and the government was
obliged to accept that of 49° for the boundary. Mr. Polk,
in spite of his brave words, did thus consent to the open
ing of a territory of more than five degrees of latitude,
with a longitude extending across nearly half the conti
nent, to both "colonies and dominion " from Europe.
Three years later (in 1848), during the Mexican War,
he sent to Congress a message stating that Yucatan, nom
inally one of the States of Mexico, had appealed to the
United States for protection against the violence of its
own Indian population. A similar appeal was, at the
same time, made to Spain and to England. The Presi-

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 191
dent took the ground that the appeal should be regarded
by our government, because either England or Spain
would otherwise interfere, and this would be in disregard
of our traditional policy, as declared in the Monroe Doc
trine. The suggestion was bitterly assailed in the Senate
by Mr. Calhoun, who had been a member of the Monroe
cabinet. He denied that the doctrine was capable of any
such application, and it again failed to receive the sanc
tion of the legislature, and was also abandoned by the
Executive, — and that even when urged by considerations
of humanity.
In 1850 was concluded the convention between Great
Britain and the United States which bears the name of
the " Clayton-Bulwer Treaty." The special object of this
treaty was to fix the relations of those two powers to the
republics of Central America, and its stipulations very
largely involve the considerations which are embodied in
the declarations of President Monroe. But the}' expressly
disclaim, on the part of the United States, any interest,
rights, or advantages in connection with those Central-
American States other than such as may pertain to Great
Britain or any other European nation. The executive
branch of the government here took the lead in abandon
ing the ground which before it had so constantly assumed
and so generally maintained. The treaty, however, has
never been acceptable to the country, nor has it been much
regarded on either side. So early as 1852, it was wantonly
violated on the part of Great Britain by her claim of a
protectorate over " the kingdom " of the Mosquito Indians
in Nicaragua, and her subsequent occupation of the " Bay
Islands " on the coast of Honduras. These proceedings
led to the introduction in the Senate, by Mr. Cass, of a
series of joint resolutions, which were designed to enact as
a law of Congress the declarations of Mr. Monroe. The
resolutions were debated through several weeks by most

192 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
of the leading statesmen then in the Senate ; but they
again failed of adoption. The Monroe Doctrine, however,
still continued to be urged by the Executive in the diplo
macy of the government ; and England, at the demand
of Nicaragua and Honduras, in 1860, abandoned her
claims both to the protectorate and the islands. By this
proceeding, the last remaining trace of European inter
vention in the affairs of this continent was brought to an
end. But this exemption was not to continue long. Four
years had scarcely elapsed when an enterprise, by far the
most daring and dangerous which had ever been under
taken against the independence of American States, was
carried into full execution in Mexico by the Emperor of
the French. It was the gloomiest moment in the war of
secession, when the French expedition, with MaximUian
at its head, landed at Vera Cruz, and with slight opposi
tion made its way to the capital, where the destined Em
peror was proclaimed, with the seeming approval of the
clergy, the notables, and the most respectable of the pop
ulation. It was the most brilliant pronunciamento that
Mexico had ever witnessed. The repubUc shrank to a
single province or two, where it continued to maintain a
precarious authority and to carry on a guerrUla war in its
own defense. The government of the United States had
sent its reiterated and earnest protests to the Emperor
of France against this reckless menace to all American
States, but he had treated them with undisguised eon-
tempt, for he was persuaded that the Union was hope
lessly destroyed, and that the Southern Confederacy would
soon be his ally. jMeanwhile. the American Minister in
Mexico had remained with Juarez, the President of the
republic, and had given to him the entire moral support
of our government. No notice whatever was taken of
Maximilian or his empire, which had come from Europe.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 193
The enterprise thus went on for more than a year, and
seemed to be a complete success. Louis Napoleon boasted
of it as the greatest achievement of his reign, and was
already dreaming of a still more comprehensive union of
what he caUed the Latin races in America, under the
protection of France. But the new empire was already
on the verge of annihilation. In the summer of 1865 the
Union had subjugated secession and suppressed rebellion.
The Monroe Doctrine, as again uttered by Mr. Secretary
Seward, now sounded in the ears of Louis Napoleon like
the voice of a triumphant and united nation, with a vic
torious army of a million of men fresh from the battle
fields of the war. He immediately heeded its demands,
which were that his troops should be withdrawn from
Mexico, and that the question between the empire and the
republic should be left for the people themselves to decide,
without foreign coercion or dictation. Never did Ameri
can diplomacy win a nobler or more righteous triumph.
Never did the peaceful pressure of a great national idea
secure a more momentous result. We may indeed pity
the tragic fate of Maximilian and Carlotta, the innocent
dupes of Napoleonic ambition, but we must stiU rejoice
in the complete vindication of a great idea, which is es
sential to the political independence of every nation on
the continent of America.
And now has arisen the question of the Isthmian Canal,
to which the Monroe Doctrine is again sought to be ap
plied. The limits of this doctrine, it is true, have never
been very carefuUy fixed, but until now they have not
been imagined to be broad enough to embrace a question
so remote as this. President Monroe announced that no
part of the American continent was any longer open to
colonization, or to any kind of political intervention by a
European power, and that any such intervention would
be regarded as " the manifestation of an unfriendly dis-

194 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
position towards the United States." This declaration,
put forth fifty-seven years ago, is now made to include
the construction of a canal, designed to be, like the ocean
itself, a grand highway for the commerce of all the world.
This is certainly neither colonization nor intervention, but
it has been assailed with as much hostility as if it com
bined all the evils and dangers of both. Our government
is urged to declare and to maintain not only that no canal
across the isthmus shall be constructed by any European
government, but also that none shall be constructed by
any corporation chartered by a European government ;
in a word, that it must be built, if built at aU, only by a
corporation chartered in the United States, and that, when
built, the canal must be under the single guarantee and
control of the government of the United States. AU this,
it is claimed, is a part of the Monroe Doctrine ; and the
reason given is that the construction of this great work
by an European corporation wiU involve the planting
of settlements whose inhabitants will be subjects of an
European government, and that thus a colony wiU be
estabUshed at our very doors. This, it is said, is only
another mode of bringing about the very result which
Mr. Monroe designed to prevent.
It cannot be denied that there are grave questions con
nected with this Isthmian Canal which have a very im
portant bearing on American interests, and demand the
most careful consideration of our government. But among
these questions there can hardly be one of sinaUer conse
quence than whether it is or is not at variance with the
Monroe Doctrine. This doctrine has, no doubt, done
good service in its day. It made an imposing show before
the designs of the Holy AUiance. It proved to be de
cidedly effectual with Louis Napoleon and Maximilian in
Mexico. But it is clearly not equal to solving the mo
mentous problem of how a ship canal from ocean to ocean.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 195
designed to be open to all nations and neutral in all wars,
is to be constructed and controUed iu harmony with the
sovereignty and the interests of the United States. This
new application of the doctrine is, however, so much in
accordance with certain currents of public opinion in this
country that it requires a moment's consideration.
I. In the first place, it is to be remarked that the claim
that the United States alone shall build and control this
and every transit across the isthmus is obviously equiva
lent to a claim of sovereignty over the State through
which it may pass. Colombia, as an independent nation,
has already given the right to build to a French company,
with which she has also entered into very heavy pecuniary
engagements. This she had an undoubted right to do.
How are we to annul those engagements except by a forci
ble intervention of our own, or, in other words, by a war
with both Colombia and France ? And what can be the
issue of such a war but to retard the progress of every in
terest of civiUzation, and to bring dishonor and reproach
upon our national character ? Our Monroe Doctrine, which
we have been so fond of parading before the world, was
originally designed to protect the independence of every
State on the American continent ; but this new applica
tion of it, which is now attempted, threatens the destruc
tion of every State when our interests shall seem to re
quire its destruction. If these Central American States
are to be thus subjected to foreign intervention, they may
well ask us the significant question whether we saved
them from the Holy Alliance only that we might swallow
them up ourselves.
II. Again, it is also to be kept in mind that this new
assumption that we alone must build and control the
canal is wholly at variance with our entire policy and
agreements concerning it. The project of thus connecting
the two great oceans did not originate with us. It is as

196 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
old as the discovery of the continent. Columbus believed
that a connecting strait already existed, and he made his
latest voyage for the special purpose of finding it. After
the discovery of the Pacific, the kings of Spain constantly
instructed their officers in America to see if a water com
munication could not be opened with it from the Atlantic.
Subsequently expeditions were sent to the isthmus by
England, by HoUand, and by France, some of them be
fore the United States were in existence, and all of them
before we had begun to manifest any interest in the under
taking. So soon, however, as our republic had extended
its territory to the Gulf of Mexico, by the acquisition of
Louisiana and Florida, the project began to be regarded
with peculiar interest by the American people. This
interest has deepened with the lapse of years. It has
acquired new force from every new development of our
resoui'ces, from the annexation of Texas, from the rapid
growth of the Pacific States, and, most of all, from the
grander national life which has burst forth in every direc
tion since the overthrow of slavery and the triumphant
close of the civil war.
We began to treat on this subject with the Central
American States so soon as they became independent.
But our treaties never had any other aim than to secure
absolute and perpetual neutrality of any canal that should
be built, and our own right to use it on the most favorable
terms. In one or two instances, we have agreed to guar
antee its neutrality and security, and to induce other na
tions to unite with us in the guarantee. But we have
never before souglit to own or control it, much less to
acquire sovereign jurisdiction over it. On the contrary,
in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain, in 1850,
the two countries bound themselves by a solemn engage
ment that neither shall ever obtain or exercise any con
trol over the canal, or erect forts commanding it, or ex
ercise dominion over the country in which it is built, or

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 197
seek to obtain any advantage for the citizens of either
over those of the other. And what is here to be specially
observed, the two countries agree to " give their encour
agement and support to such persons or company as may
first offer to commence the same," and also " to guarantee
its neutrality, so that the said canal may be forever open
and free, and the capital invested therein be secure."
Under the implied invitation of the stipulations of this
treaty, numerous routes have been surveyed and reported
upon by eminent engineers of several different countries.
Our own engineers have given preference to the route
across Nicaragua, while those of France and England
have declared in favor of that across Panama at Darien.
It is along this latter route that the Count de Lesseps,
the eminent constructor of the Suez Canal, has obtained
the requisite concessions from the government of Colom
bia, has organized his company of French capitalists, and
actually begun the work of construction. Meanwhile, all
that we have done about it, during the two years in which
this preparation has been going on, is to denounce the
whole scheme as at variance with the Monroe Doctrine,
as a movement which " cannot be regarded in any other
light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition
towards the United States ; " for this is the meaning of
President Hayes's message on the subject, and also of the
resolutions now before both houses of Congress. Cer
tainly, no one can expect that a great enterprise in the
interest of commerce and civiUzation, undertaken by pri
vate capitalists, is to be arrested and defeated by fulmi-
nations such as these.
There is, however, one way, and so far as I see it is the
only way, which it would become a great and magnani
mous people to adopt, in order to arrest the building of
the canal at Darien by a corporation chartered in France ;
and that is, immediately to build another and better one
ourselves by the Nicaragua route, — a route nearer our

198 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
coast by two hundred and fifty miles, and making the
voyage from New York to San Francisco or to China
shorter by twice that distance. This it is now proposed
to do, if the sanction of Congress can be obtained. A
company has been formed, a very liberal concession has
been secured, and the work of construction is ready to be
commenced, with General Grant to direct it. Under such
leadership, and with so many advantages and inducements
as attend the enterprise, it wUl be a strange result indeed
if we cannot do this work far more successfuUy than the
Count de Lesseps with his French company. If we can
not and do not, then let us cheerfully concede that he is
fully entitled to all the success he may achieve.
Of the Monroe Doctrine it only remains to be said that,
in its proper and historical meaning, it has done its work
and had its day. The country has passed beyond the ex
igency which caUed it forth, and any new exigencies which
may come hereafter will probably demand new doctrines
for themselves. Indeed, this is even now true of the
question of the canal. It is beyond the reach of the
Monroe Doctrine. But its name has already been appro
priated by a certain sentiment long existing among the
American people, — a sentiment which makes them be
lieve that the whole of North America, if not the whole of
the western hemisphere, belongs, hy reversionary right,
to this republic, and that we are bound to repel every
agency from abroad that may hinder or delav our final
and early occupancy and possession. Under the influence
of this sentiment we have become wholly indifferent to the
fortunes of the other American States, and now regard
these States very much as temporary occupants of terri
tories which " manifest destiny " has assigned to the re
publican empire that is to embrace the cisatlantic world.
This, there is reason to apprehend, is fast coming to be
the only meaning which wiU hereafter be attached to the
Monroe Doctrine.

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION.!
The origin of the United States as a nation was in
part a growth and in part a creation. As a growth it
had been silently and unconsciously preparing through
the whole colonial period ; more rapidly and surely after
the troubles with England began in 1765, — still more
rapidly after the meeting of the flrst Continental Con
gress in 1774. The subsequent collisions of arms be
tween colonists and troops in Massachusetts, and the later
Congresses of 1775 and 1776, completed the preparation.
These Congresses had formed the colonies into United
Colonies, and this name they had already assumed. They
had also exercised large powers of a national, or, as it was
then styled, a continental character. They had voted to
raise an army and a navy, had appointed a commander-in-
chief, assessed a revenue, established a post-office, and ad
vised the colonies to adopt separate measures to secure the
rights of the people, and, last of all, they had incurred a
public debt. All these measures of high public authority,
and many others of similar import, were adopted only as
measures of defense of the rights belonging to the colonies
as a part of the British Empire. They held themselves
to be justified by the British Constitution, and they acted
in imitation of the great examples of the illustrious cham
pions of British freedom in all ages, of the barons who
obtained the Magna Charta from King John at Runny-
mede, and of John Hampden, who resisted the ship money
' Read before the Rhode Island Historical Society, October 31,
1882.

200 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
of Charles I. They, however, had done more than they
imagined. They believed themselves to be only resisting
the unjustifiable taxation of ParUament. They were, in
reality, even then an embryo nation, and on the very
verge of a separate national existence. It needed but
the Declaration of Independence to make this existence
an unalterable fact.
The Congress of 1776, like those of the two preceding
years, was in reality a representative popular assembly,
to the fuUest extent that was consistent with the habits
of the age and the condition of the country. In those
colonies in which royal governors were in power, its mem
bers were chosen by the popular branch of the legislature
as the obvious representatives of the people. In here
and there a colony where the entire government was op
posed to the popular movement, they were chosen either
by a colonial Congress, or by the action of committees of
public safety, or by such local assemblies of the people
as were possible in the circumstances. In Rhode Island
and Connecticut, which had charter governments, they
were, at the beginning, chosen by both houses of the As
sembly, and were commissioned by the Governor. AU
the members of this Congress came together, — in some
instances with specific instructions, in all instances with
the fullest information as to what their constituents de
sired them to do. So soon, also, as the Declaration was
made it was accepted and ratified alike by legislative ac
tion and by popular demonstrations in every part of the
country. It unquestionably breathed the spirit and em
bodied the wishes and determinations of the great major
ity of the people of the colonies.
It was therefore the Declaration of Independence, thus
adopted, proclaimed, and ratified, that called into being
the new political society, — the United States of America.
It created a new sovereign body politic, which from that

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 201
time has claimed and maintained an equal place among
the nations of the world. Up to this time, the colonies,
though taking vigorous measures of redress, had not
ceased to regard themselves as dependencies of England
and subject to her dominion. By the Declaration, how
ever, their people formed themselves into a separate sov
ereignty, and each colony, having now become a State,
came to sustain to this sovereignty relations in some re
spects similar to those hitherto sustained to Great Brit
ain. It was by the direction and authority of Congress
that each State now formed for itself a new constitution
or modified its existing charter, to suit its new relations.
These relations, it is true, were left whoUy undefined, ex
cept that they were of necessity, for certain purposes, re
lations of subordination to the United States, while for
certain other purposes they were left quite independent.
It was never, then, claimed that the Declaration created
thirteen independent sovereign States. Independence and
sovereignty, in their full sense, were accorded to the
United States alone. The nation, from the beginning,
was expected to conduct the War of Independence; to pro
tect, if necessary, every State from Indian depredations ;
to maintain foreign relations ; and, in the words of the
Declaration, " to do all other acts and things which in
dependent States may of right do." It was, from its very
nature and in the name of those who created it, to act for
those high national ends and interests in which all the peo
ple and all the States had a common concern. No single
State ever dreamed of winning its own separate indepen
dence, or of sending its own ambassadors to the courts of
foreign nations, or, indeed, of performing any other act of
independent sovereignty.
In the loose mode of thinking on social questions and
among the inadequate views of jural rights and obliga
tions which then prevailed, it is not probable that the

202 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
relations of the States to the Union were fuUy compre
hended or that they really engaged much attention. In
deed, the leading embarrassment of the time arose from
the fact that all political ideas and interests were exceed
ingly narrow and local. Intercourse had always been re
stricted. The colonies, fringing the Atlantic coast for
nearly a thousand miles, were of necessity but slightly
known to each other, and their social bonds were of very
slender character. Besides this, it must also be admitted
that the words of the Declaration bearing on these rela
tions were much less precise and explicit than they ought
to have been, and that, to say the very least, they did not
fail to suggest the idea that, after aU, it was the States
which had declared themselves independent, and that the
States were now sovereign. Nor, indeed, was this sug
gestion different, in a certain sense, from the actual fact.
They were, by their very organization, in many respects,
independent of each other as weU as of Great Britain.
They were also sovereign, for certain purposes, and these
purposes were liable to be multiplied according as the in
terests or the conceits of States might demand. Ideas
of independence and sovereignty, once entertained, are
highly stimulating to the popular mind, especially in infant
nations. It is not very surprising, therefore, that the
States almost immediatel}', in their legislative acts and
in some of their constitutions, began to style themselves
sovereign and independent, and to accustom the people
both to the phraseology and to the idea which it ex
pressed. But, notwithstanding all pretensions and all declara
tions to the contrary, the nation, for all executive pur
poses, at least, was always held to be greater than any
State or all the States by themselves. And it has ever
since remained the practical principle of our American
institutions that the Union alone is the depositary of su-

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 203
preme and sovereign power, that the Union alone is the
nation, and that to the Union every citizen and every
State are bound by obligations of paramount allegiance.
There have been questions of nullification, questions of
secession, and questions of dissolution, but it has never
been seriously maintained that, so long as the Union ex
ists, it alone may of right exercise the higher attributes
of sovereignty for all its component parts. And this is
equaUy true whatever may be the government which, for
the time, may be administering its affairs ; for it is not
the mode of its government that makes it a sovereign,
but the jural obligations which its people have assumed,
the solemn agreements which bind them together and con
stitute them a nation.
The United States existed in fact as a nation for nearly
five years without any written instrument of government.
It was, however, as sovereign then as it has been since.
The only government which directed national affairs was
the Congress which had been called into existence for
obtaining redress of the public grievances, and which, in
obedience to the voice of the nation, had made the Dec
laration of Independence. It was from the beginning a
purely revolutionary assembly, possessed of no formally
delegated authority, but it was expected to do everything
that might be necessary for securing the independence
which had been declared by its authority. No American
Congress of later times has ever assumed functions more
important or exercised powers more absolute. On one
occasion, in the first year of the war, it proceeded to in
vest the commander-in-chief of the army with unlimited
military authority, such as the Roman Senate sometimes
gave to the Dictators ; and, notwithstanding its revolu
tionary origin, it continued to be the only general gov
ernment of the country from 1776 to 1781. It was not
till this latter date that the " Articles of Confederation "

204 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
were adopted and set in operation. The duration of this
second government extended to the adoption of the pres
ent Constitution and the inauguration of President Wash
ington in 1789. It is this period of eight years, lying be
tween the government of the revolutionary Congress and
the government established by the present Constitution,
that is in this essay designated " The Confederation Pe
riod." It is not a period in which the student of our
political history finds much to gratify national pride or
to awaken patriotic sentiment. It iUustrates, however, the
character of our American institutions, and points out the
origin of the evU tendencies and the conflicting forces that
have done so much to shape our career as a nation.
I have said that the Articles of Confederation went into
effect in 1781. They were, indeed, framed and placed
before the country long before they were adopted as the
fundamental law. On June 10, 1776, the very day on
which the committee was appointed to draft the Decla
ration of Independence, a separate committee was also
named " to prepare and digest the form of a confeder
ation to be entered into between these colonies." This
latter committee reported a form of confederation on the
12th of July, thirty-one days after its appointment. This
was frequently the subject of debate tiU the 20th of Au
gust, when its form was somewhat changed. The whole
subject was then laid aside for nearly eight months, tiU
the 8th of April, 1777. The Articles were then again
taken up for debate ; many amendments were proposed,
and at least one that shows the bad ideas of the times
was agreed to, and was embodied in Article 2: "Each
State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence,
and any power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by
this Confederation expressly delegated to the United
States in Congress assembled." With this unfortunate
provision superadded to them, the Articles of Confeder-

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 205
ation were adopted by Congress and sent to the States
for ratification on November 15, 1777, nearly seventeen
months after they were first reported. They were to go
into effect when ratified by the legislature of every State.
They were styled " Articles of Confederation and Per
petual Union between the States," and they created what
was only a league of state governments, in which the peo
ple of the country had no direct participation or agency
of any kind. The characteristics of this first written Con
stitution of the United States are so well known that I
need refer only to here and there an iUustration. 1. The
new Articles were not much more than a mere embodi
ment in writing of the general mode of proceeding which
had been observed in the revolutionary Congress already
existing. Beyond this crudely extemporized method of
carrying on public affairs it would appear that the com
mittee were unable to stretch their comprehension. 2.
According to this unfortunate model, they vested all the
powers of the govemment, executive, judicial, and legisla
tive, in a single assembly, which was stUl to be called a
Congress, composed of not more than seven, nor less than
two members from each State, chosen as the legislature
might direct, and making a body which, when fully at
tended by the States, might have ninety-one members for
its maximum and twenty-six members for its minimum.
In this body each State was to have a single vote, which
was wholly lost if only one delegate was present ; and all
measures of importance must receive the votes of at least
nine States, and other measures the votes of at least seven
States. 3. Members of the Congress were not eligible
more than three years in any six, and no member could
be chosen President of Congress for more than one year
in succession. 4. The members were to be paid and con
trolled by the state govemments. This composition of
the Congress of the Confederation was singularly fatal to

206 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
anything like unity or efficiency in a body designed for
managing national affairs. But this was reaUy the least
important of the inherent defects of the whole system. It
was f uU of contradictions. The proposed Articles gave to
a Congress in which was embodied the entire national au
thority the sole power to declare war, to make peace, to
regulate weights and measures, to form treaties, to borrow
money, and incur aU the necessary expenses of conducting
national affairs, but they withheld the power to coUect
any revenue whatever. The States alone had the right to
levy duties and to coUect taxes as weU as to fix the rate
of both, nor was there a single source of revenue in the
country that was under the control of Congress. The
Articles provided for a general treasury, but it was to be
suppUed solely by means of assessments made on the sev
eral States. Congress, though it had the power to declare
war, could not enlist a single soldier. It could appoint
foreign ambassadors, but it could not support them while
abroad. It could contract debts, but it could not pay
them. It was required to assume aU national responsi-
bUity and to discharge aU national obligations alike in
peace and in war, but it must depend for the means of
doing this on the uncertain and reluctant votes of the
state legislatures. In doing this it could enact, but it
could not execute. It could make treaties, but it could
not secure their fulfilment. It could vote levies of money
on the States, but it could not coUect a doUar of these
levies even for the most pressing necessity, unless they
were allowed by the legislatures.
Such, in its general outlines, was the government of
the Confederation. It seems to have been aU that the
collected statesmanship of Congress could then contrive
for the new republic. It is one of the foremost marvels
of American history, not to saj' one of the chief humili
ations which it records, that a government so crude and

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 207
ill-devised was proposed by Congress, ratified by the
States, and suffered to bring its calamitous consequences
on the country. One asks in vain where were the illus
trious leaders of the age when such a wretched caricature
of all national authority was proposed for the American
people ? A few of them, we know, saw and deplored the
inherent feebleness of the system, but amidst the narrow
views and local jealousies which then prevailed, they were,
powerless in making it better. Most of them, however,
it must be confessed, wholly failed to discern its total
inadequacy for the necessities of the country.
The " Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union "
were adopted in Congress on November 17, 1777, and
were immediately sent to the States with a circular letter
urging their ratification by the legislature of each before
the 10th of March, 1778. But when that day came, very
few of the state legislatures had acted upon them, and the
matter was not called up in Congress till the 10th of the
following July. In the course of that month the ratifica
tions of ten States were officially reported by their dele
gations. The remaining three were New Jersey, Dela
ware, and Maryland. Amendments, meanwhile, had been
proposed by at least nine of the States, but not one of
them was adopted by Congress.
But what especially delayed the ratification of New
Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland was the question as to
the ownership of the western lands claimed under the
charters of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Vir
ginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. These
lands had been the property of Great Britain, and were
styled " Crown Lands." It was contended by the non-
claiming States that whatever lands had belonged to the
crown should now belong to the United States ; that the
right to possess them had been secured by the common
sacrifices and blood of all the States, and that it would be

208 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
both unjust and injurious to aUow them to become the
property of a few separate States, to the exclusion of the
others. Virginia and New York made the largest claims,
but at least three other States deemed their own to be
too valuable to be readily abandoned. Rhode Island had
no claims of any kind, and scarcely any territory, but
greatly to her credit she was among the earliest to ratify
the Confederation, an act which was prompted by purely
patriotic considerations, and by the generous belief that
the question of the lands would be finally settled on an
honorable basis. The country was already taunted with
its want of organized national authority, and Congress ex
pressed its apprehensions as to the effect of this on its
foreign relations, especially on its relations with France.
In these circumstances New Jersey decided to waive her
objections, and to accede to the Confederation, in Novem
ber, 1778 ; she was followed by Delaware in February,
1779 ; both these States adopting substantiaUy the form
of ratification which had been used in Rhode Island, and
trusting to the justice of their sister States. Maryland
now stood alone in her refusal. Congress again appealed
to her patriotic sentiments. She replied that nothing
would separate her from the cause of American inde
pendence, but that the aUowance of the claims of Virgi
nia would be fatal to her own interests, and also fatal to
the interests of the Union.
This repeated refusal of Maryland gave the greatest
uneasiness to the other States, especially as the substan
tial justice of her position could not be denied. In this
condition of affairs, New York decided, by an act of legis
lature in February, 1780, to fix the boundary of the State
and to surrender the lands beyond it to the United States.
Congress now appealed to the other States claiming such
lands to follow this example, and at the same time again
entreated Maryland to accede to the Confederation. That

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 209
jjatriotic State, confident that the example of New York
must soon be followed by Virginia, and desirous to show
her attachment to the common cause of national indepen
dence, proceeded to ratify the new government on Jan
uary 30, 1781. But as Maryland, for some time, had but
a single delegate present in Congress, her ratification was
not formally presented and carried into effect till the first
day of the following March. The Confederacy was now
completed by the accession of the thirteenth State to the
Articles of Confederation, at the end of three years and
nearly four months after they were sent to the States for
ratification, and of four years and nearly nine months
after they were first reported in Congress by the com
mittee that prepared them in July, 1776.
It was on the following day, March 2, 1781, that Con
gress was first organized under the new fundamental law.
One of the members of that body, a citizen of Rhode Isl
and, then in Philadelphia, wrote to the Governor on the
5th of March as follows : " The Confederation was com
pleted last Thursday at twelve o'clock, and at the same
time was announced by the discharge of a number of can
non, both on the land and on the Delaware. The Presi
dent of Congress gave a general invitation to the mem
bers of Congress, the President of the State, his council,
and the House of Assembly and the civil and military
oflicers of Congress, to wait upon him at his own house at
two o'clock, where they partook of a cold collation. In
the afternoon Captain Jones fired a feu de joie on board
the Ariel. In the evening a number of fireworks were
played off, and the whole concluded in the greatest har
mony to the great satisfaction of every true friend of his
country and mortification of the infamous Tories, who
have long plumed themselves with the vain hope that our
Union would soon crumble to pieces. Our State was not
represented." I do not know that the event was cele-

210 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
brated any wnere else in the country even with this " cold
collation " enthusiasm which it seems to have roused in
Philadelphia. It really touched no chord of patriotic
sentiment in the hearts of the people. Nor was there any
reason why it should. The new government most unfor
tunately was a mere league of the state legislatures, about
which the people had not been consulted and in the mak
ing of which they had taken no part. This first " ship of
State " had been five years in building and many of its
timbers were already rotten, while some of the most essen
tial were wholly wanting, and only here and there one was
really sound and in its right place. It was to be com
manded not by a captain chosen by the American people,
but by a council of its thirteen owners. Who could be
expected to rejoice over the launching of a craft which
may be weU described as
" that fatal and perfidious bark
Built in th' eclipse and rigg'd with curses dark " ?
With auspices such as these the Articles of Confedera
tion, the first written Constitution of the United States.
were adopted and set in operation. The event, however,
produced no important change in the proceedings of the
government save that these proceedings were now sub
ject to an inflexible law. They had been made to con
form very nearly to the existing mode of conducting pub
lic affairs. The presence of at least two delegates from a
State was now required in order to cast its vote. With
less than two its vote was wholly lost, a provision which
soon after, for months in succession, left Congress with
out a working majority. The ineligibility of members
for more than three years in any six, and of the presid
ing officer for more than one year in succession, not only
tended to make that body inefficient by the exclusion of
its experienced members, but to take from it aU attrac-

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 211
tions as a theatre of statesmanship, and to render it any
thing but a school in which men were to leam the lessons
of public service. The result was that the service of the
States became vastly more an object of ambition than
that of the United States. In this manner the Congress
of the Confederation soon presented a marked decline
especiaUy from the early Congresses of the Revolution.
They had sprung suddenly into being at the bidding of
the continental will. They placed themselves at the head
of a mighty movement for independence, and they were
expected to do and to ordain whatever that movement, in
its successive exigencies, should demand. The Congresses
of 1775 and 1776 had exercised vast powers, and to these
powers there was no limit that could be assigned. Not
so with the Congress of the Confederation. Its powers
were limited by a written fundamental law, so worded
and so contrived as to leave only the semblance of au
thority to the national government. It no longer repre
sented the spirit and energy which had asserted the essen
tial rights of man, which had declared the independence
of the colonies, which had summoned the continent to
arms and defied the power of the British empire. It no
longer spoke and acted with the authority of the nation.
Its members ceased to act for the American people, but
now, as mere envoys of the States, they were compelled
simply to execute the will of their respective legislatures.
It bore the name of a govemment, but it possessed scarcely
an attribute of government. For a time it favorably im
pressed the courts of Europe, till its inherent feebleness
came to be understood, and this was its only advantage
over the revolutionary government which it supplanted.
But far more than this is true of the Articles of Con
federation. They were at variance with the true spirit
and the real attitude of the American people in the work
of national organization. They were an illogical and

212 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
iUegitimate conclusion from the doctrines of the Decla
ration of Independence. They made the United States
appear no longer a sovereign nation, with vast resources
in its control and vast possibilities within its reach, but
a loosely formed compact of state governments, of which
the design would seem to be to render the central gov
ernment as weak as possible, and the state government
as strong as possible. How different is all this from the
ringing utterances of the men who were present in the
Congress which caUed the nation into being ! Of Patrick
Henry, who exclaimed in the Congress of 1774, "The dis
tinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New York
ers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Vir
ginian : I am an American." Of Wilson, of Pennsyl
vania, who said : " As to those matters which are referred
to Congress we are not so many States ; we are one large
State. We lay aside our individualitj' when we come
here." Or of John Adams, who said in the Congress of
1776, " We shall no longer retain our separate individ
uality, but become a single individual as to all questions
submitted to the Confederacy." Sentiments like these
had utterly vanished from the public councils when the
Confederation went into operation. Whatever its framers
may have intended, and Wilson was one of them, its
practical effect was exactly the opposite of anticipations
Buch as I have cited.
A falling off so signal and deplorable in the whole con
struction of tills first national Constitution from the ori
ginal spirit and the obvious necessities of the country is
not readily explained. Von Hoist, a recent writer on our
constitutional history, ascribes it very largely to the fact
that the Confederation was framed by Congress and rati
fied by the legislatures of the States, instead of being
framed by a National Convention and ratified by a con
vention in each of the States. There can be no doubt

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 213
that this was a political blunder of the gravest character,
and that neither Congress nor the state legislatures had
any authority to frame or ratify a Constitution for the
United States. The entire proceeding, in its form, was
wholly at variance with the American idea of popular
sovereignty. But this alone did not make the Confeder
ation the thing it was, nor is there any reason to believe
that it would have been essentiaUy different had it been
framed and ratified in any other mode which was at that
time practicable. It undoubtedly reflected the prevail
ing views of the kind of government which the country
needed. The trouble was of deeper origin. The views
themselves, alike of statesmen and of people, were lament
ably narrow and one-sided, and wholly inadequate either
to the emergency of the time or the well-being of the
country. With such views controlling the minds of the
people, the Confederation could not have been essentially
different from what it was, however it had been framed
or however it had been ratified. Indeed the country, as
distinct from the States, was in reality a matter of very
little concern. The minds of the people had not learned
to take it in. A sovereign nation had been called into
existence, but its own people did not comprehend their
relations to it, or have any but the crudest conception of
its true character and office. It was taken for granted
that all would be well with the United States if all was
well with the separate States, and to secure this latter re
sult each State devoted its energies to taking care of it
self, to reconstructing its own government, and to looking
simply after its own local interests. Thirteen popula
tions so distinct as those of the early States could not be
wrought into a nation in so brief a space of time. Until
the struggle for independence began they had never acted
together or had interests in common. The mother coun
try had till then been their only bond of union, and now

214 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
that this was swept away, they had in its place the United
States, which thus far was little more than an abstract
idea, a vague sentiment, not yet embodied in any na
tional insignia or officers of state, or other representatives
of sovereign power. In this manner the States almost
unconsciously looked upon the Union, not as the supreme
and essential head of the political framework, but as a
mere contrivance of their own which had been devised
for securing for themselves a place among the nations of
the earth.
Besides this pitiful narrowness of political thinking,
there sprang up very early in the States an intense jeal
ousy of all power not belonging to themselves. They
were haunted by the idea that they were likely, in some
way, to lose their liberties even before they had fully
secured them. They thought that liberty was the only
end to be provided for in civil society. The vultus in
stantis tyranni glared continually on their morbid imagi
nations as a constant menace of their independence, — as
the only danger in their pathway. Even the feeble and
half-fed army that was fighting their battles was regarded
with ceaseless apprehensions. Both the States and their
public men gave only a reluctant and imperfect confidence
to the iUustrious commander-in-chief who, more than any
mortal man before or since, was bearing on his own shoul
ders the fortunes of his country. But this unreasonable and
idle jealousy found its most conspicuous object in the cen
tral authority that represented the nation. The States very
early began to regard this new power that seemed to be
above them all with feelings of distrust and aversion, such
as when colonies they had constanth' cherished towards
Great Britain. They chained it by their Articles of Con
federation ; they disregarded it ; they evaded it : they even
defied it when it restricted their authority or thwarted
their purposes.

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 215
Considerations and facts such as these, I think, show
that the nation, at that time, was absolutely incapable
either of framing or of approving a mode of administer
ing national affairs essentiaUy different from that of the
Confederation. They also show that, even then, there were
planted in the minds of the American people those con
ceits of state sovereignty which, after seventy years of
struggle, were at length destroyed only on the bloody fields
of the civil war.
In a condition of public opinion like this, the govem
ment of the Confederation was set in operation on March
2, 1781. It is little to say that it was a failure from the
beginning. It was much more than a failure. It had
been before the people for four years before its adoption,
its principles were familiar, and its demoralizing power
had already been felt in every part of the country. It
proved to be probably the most lamentable instrument of
government ever devised among a free people for degrad
ing the national character, for debasing the national con
science, for blighting generous sentiments and heroic
purposes, and for destroying the essential unity and integ
rity of civil society. It was not corrupt ; it was not des
potic. It was only feeble, timid, and incapable ; and this
because it was powerless for the very purposes it was de
signed to accomplish.
I. In October, 1781, the united arms of France and
America won the victory at Yorktown, and virtually de
cided the question of independence. Had Congress now
possessed the requisite energy and power, peace would
have soon followed. It made its requisitions for money
and men on the States, but as usual they were not fur
nished. The legislatures criticised the assessments, and
called in question the purposes for which they were made.
In some States they even suggested that France ought to
bear the expenses of the coming campaign. In this dis-

216 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
graceful emergency, as in nearly every other that arose
during the war. Congress was compelled to ask Washing
ton to use his influence with the state authorities in secur
ing the quotas that were needed.
II. The officers and soldiers of the army had continued
without pay almost from the beginning of the war, because
the States did not respond to the requisitions of Congress.
Several plans of adjustment had been projiosed, but with
out successful result. In consequence of the feeling of
injustice now prevailing, certain regiments, first of Penn
sylvania and afterwards of New Jersey, rushed Uke a
tumultuous mob to Philadelphia to demand satisfaction of
Congress. The story of the Newburgh Addresses affords
a still graver illustration of the desperation to which even
officers of rank and of high character were wrought by
the seeming indifference and contempt as weU as the gross
injustice with which they were treated by the government
of the country. Had it not been for the unequaUed judg
ment and the peerless influence of W^ashingtou, the gov
ernment of the Confederation might then have come to
an ignoble and perhaps a violent end.
III. Meanwhile Congress continued to decline both in
efficiency and in public estimation, and in its own self-
respect. Few of the ablest men of the country were now
among its members, and it constantly illustrated its want
of capacity to maintain its position as the representative
of the national sovereignty. The war was now ended,
and Washington, after depositing with the Treasury an
exact statement of his expenses as commander-in-chief,
and refusing all compensation for his eight years' services,
requested that a day should be named for him to submit
in person the resignation of his commission. The occa
sion was one of transcendent interest and unequalled
moral grandeur. But it was not till the 22d of December
(1783), six weeks after the session began, that twenty

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 217
members, and these from only seven States, were present
to do honor to the iUustrious chief of the Revolution and
the country's foremost benefactor. The treaty of peace
with England had been signed on the 3d of September,
and now waited ratification by Congress; but even this
great consummation was delayed till January 14, 1784,
because the delegations of nine States, the requisite num
ber, could not be brought together to act upon it.
IV. Equally humiliating was the civil administration of
the government both at home and abroad. The public
debt was not only without any provision for its payment,
but its interest was largely in arrears. Even the restora
tion of peace did nothing to revive the sentiment of na
tional honor. The state legislatures disregarded the pro
visions of treaties and broke the solemn pledges of the
nation. The treaty of peace could not go into full effect
because of state laws in conflict with its provisions, which
the legislatures refused to repeal. Applications for for
eign loans and offers of treaties with foreign nations were
alike greeted with the derisive inquiry whether the States
had authorized them, or only the nation by itself.
V. This demoralization, so conspicuous in public affairs,
did not fail to show itself in the condition of society.
Following the example of Congress and the state legisla
tures, citizens refused to pay their honest debts. Courts
were flooded with suits of recovery, and jails were crowded
with debtors and criminals. The most signal instance of
this widespread demoralization was seen in the disturb
ances in Massachusetts known as Shays's Rebellion, which
was only a local outbreak of the general disregard of legal
and social obligations. That was happily suppressed by
the Massachusetts government ; but it was because of the
alarm awakened that, under the pretext of quelling some
disturbances among the Indians, Congress voted to raise
from New England several regiments for the emergency.

218 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
and attention was again tumed to Washington, now in his
retirement at Mount Vernon, as the only champion of
peace and order whom the country could rely on. It was
in reply to a letter thus addressed to him by Arthur Lee,
and asking the aid of his influence, that he wrote the fa
mous passage, prompted no doubt by the bitter recollec
tion of many a similar request in other years: "You talk,
my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present
tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influ
ence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a
proper remedy for the disease. Influence is not govern
ment. Let us have a government by which our lives,
liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know
the worst at once."
But even in this prostration of aU pubUc interests and
this degradation of public honor, high-minded and far-
seeing men were not wanting, though in the hampered
councils of the country they found no sphere for states
manship or for great achievements. The period, however,
affords one iUustrious exception — one solitary act in which
the Congress of the Confederation broke loose from the
trammels of the state legislatures and accomplished a
work whose beneficent results cannot be estimated too
highly. They will last as long as the republic itself. This
was the Ordinance for the government of the territory
northwest of the Ohio, — a territory which was acquired
by the United States through the patriotic surrender by
several States of the lands embraced in their charters and
now occupied by the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota. Antici
pating the creation of imperial States like these, it dictated
to them in advance a perpetual contract of national unity.
It prohibited slavery, it guaranteed to their inhabitants
civil and religious freedom, and secured to them the essen
tial elements of a high civilization and a magnificent social

THE PERIOD OF THE CONFEDERATION. 219
destiny. The framer of this renowned Ordinance of
1787, as has well been said, is entitled to a place among
the most iUustrious lawgivers of the world.
The Confederation was now hastening to its end. It
had thoroughly done the only work of which it was capa
ble, and that work was to demonstrate its own exceeding
worthlessness. The Convention for framing a new Con
stitution was already in session. In that Convention was
sitting a young man of scarcely thirty years, who, ingenious
for constructive statesmanship, was equalled by no one of
his contemporaries. At the age of twenty years he had
been appointed an aid of Washington, and at the head
quarters of the great commander, where the anxieties
and sufferings of the whole country were all brought to
gether, he had learned the solemn lessons of the time, and
had since sought to impress them upon his countrymen.
Since the close of the war, his one endeavor had been to
secure nationality for the nation. He was, I believe, the
youngest member of the Convention, but he was also the
foremost master of the difficult problems it had to solve.
Older statesmen, more closely in sympathy with the popu
lar mind, modified many of his opinions and shaped the
new Constitution to the necessities of the time ; but the
mighty and heroic work of preparing the way for that
instrument, of explaining it to the country, and of secur
ing its adoption, is to be very largely ascribed to Alex
ander Hamilton. In the continually darkening sky of
the Confederation period, his luminous genius shone as
the morning star of the brighter era that was soon to
dawn on the distracted and declining republic.
I have thus traced here and there an outline of the
period which was controlled by the Confederation. In its
political aspects, it is the dreariest period of American
history. It fully justifies the words of Mr. Hamilton :

220 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
" A nation without a national government is an awful
spectacle." And, indeed, if we may rely upon the testi
mony of contemporaries, its social and moral aspects were
far from radiant with either personal or civic virtues.
Washington writes of it thus : " From the high ground
we stood upon, from the plain path which invited our
footsteps, to be so fallen, so lost, is reaUy mortifying ; but
virtue, I fear, has in a great degree taken its departure
from our land, and the want of a disposition to do justice
is the source of the national embarrassments." Unless
the army of the Revolution presented an exception, this
covUd not have been the heroic age of the nation. The
astonishing fact is that, with such a government, national
independence was ever achieved, and that, when achieved,
it was not immediately lost. The period, however, is fuU
of instruction. It was not wanting in specimens of iUus
trious character, and it produced at least one that wiU
shine forever in the annals of mankind. But its chief
lessons are those of warning for later times. It was the
period in which were developed the ideas and tendencies
which have done most to disturb the peace, to degrade the
character, and to peril the life of the republic. The chief
est satisfaction connected with it is that it was inevitable
at our national beginning, that it prepared the way for
all that has foUowed, and most of all that, without having
the humiliations of the Confederation, we could not have
had the triumphs of the Constitution.

THE HUGUENOTS AND THE EDICT OF
NANTES.i
Gentlemen of the Historical Society :
The twenty-second day of October just past was the
two hundredth anniversary of the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes. It has been commemorated by descendants of
the Huguenots in many different parts of the country.
Several of you have united in a request that I begin our
winter course of Historical Papers with one relating to
" The Huguenots and the Edict of Nantes," and it is in
accordance with this request that I present to you the fol
lowing : — •
The Protestant Reformation in France had a compara^
tively brief career, and finally came to a disastrous over
throw. While it lasted, however, it was associated with
resolute and unfaltering faith, with heroic courage, and
with sufferings scarcely paralleled in any other country or
at any other period of history. Its beginning was nearly
coeval with its beginning in Germany, though well-nigh
independent of it, and it maintained substantially the
same character in both countries. It was in both an up
rising of the human mind against the principle of abso
lute authority in matters of religion. In both it asserted
the supremacy of the Holy Scriptures over the traditions,
the usages, and the authority of the Church. In neither
country was it really the work of any single leader. It
began in the minds of thoughtful people before any lead-
1 Read before the Rhode Island Historical Society, November 3,
1885.

222 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
ers appeared, and it was the expression of a prevailing
sentiment, of which leaders were only the asserters and
exponents. Indeed, they became leaders only as they
publicly declared the ideas and beliefs, the cravings and
aspirations, which already existed in multitudes of minds.
The Reformation demanded that the Scriptures be given
to the human race for whom they were designed, instead
of being confined to the priests alone. The invention of
printing had just made the Bible an accessible book to all
who could read, and multitudes everywhere were search
ing for its hitherto unknown teachings and promises. In
palaces and in hovels they read its sacred pages or heard
them read, that they might learn the truths which it con
tained, but which had never before been within their reach.
In France, more generaUy than in Germany, the doc
trines of the Reformation were for a time regarded with
great favor by the more intelligent classes of the popu
lation. The relations of the Galilean Church and the
Papacy had been disturbed, and the popular fear of the
Vatican had been diminished in consequence. This was
especially true in the southeasterly portions of the country
which were nearest to Switzerland, in whose freer air these
doctrines were received with singular readiness. Their
votaries were caUed "gospeUers," because they encour
aged by precept and by example the reading of the New
Testament, and the doctrines which they held and which
they everywhere taught to the people were styled " the
religion," as if they were a new gift to mankind. Many
of its early ministers were men of learning, who had been
trained at the Sorbonne in Paris, the most iUustrious
school of mediaeval theology. It also early numbered
among its votaries men and women of rank, officers of dis
tinction in the service of the country, and even princes of
the royal blood. But its most efficient propagators for a
considerable period were undoubtedly to be found among

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 223
the traveUing traders of the age, many of whom had now
added the New Testament to the wares in which they
trafficked alike at castle and at cottage, all over southern
France. They were the humble beginners of rural com
merce and rural handicraft, whom history seldom men
tions, but who rendered invaluable services in the centu
ries to which they belonged. Those who have looked over
the writings or the life of Palissy the Potter will recall
the service he thus rendered, as he travelled over the
country, in promoting that beautiful process of enameling
clay, which he had so laboriously invented. Wherever he
went in the practice of his art, with which he at length
decorated some of the grandest castles and palaces of the
age, he bore with him copies of the New Testament, which
he sold or gave to all who would receive them. He was a
simple " gospeller," without church and without creed,
— a man of extraordinary genius and of heroic Christian
faith, whom threatenings did not disturb and persecutions
did not destroy. So quietly for a time did " the reUgion "
thus make progress in the minds of the people that in
many places its services were frequented almost as largely
as those of the ancient faith. Rural churches were opened
for conducting them on Sundays, and they were often at
tended by many who had already celebrated the mass and
listened to the teachings of the priests.
The city of Meaux for a time became the centre of this
singular tolerance. Here lived James Lefevre and Wil
liam Farel, men of education and learning, who had been
among the earliest preachers of the new faith. They had
prepared for their congregations a new translation of the
Evangelists, and when it was finished they submitted it to
the kind-hearted bishop of the city, who not only approved
what they had done, but gave them assistance in publish
ing it. He also found many of his priests to be non-resi
dent and without vicars, and he invited Farel, Lefevre,

224 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
and others to preach in their vacant pulpits, and himself
assisted in circulating their Four Gospels among the poor
of his diocese. The effects of this new agency of divine
truth were soon visible in the improved morals and better
lives of the people of the city and its environs. But a
still more remarkable promoter of the new faith appeared
in the person of Queen Margaret of Valois, the sister of
Francis I., King of France. She, while residing in Paris
at the court of her brother, introduced certain Reformed
preachers into the pulpits of that city, acting, possibly, on
the principle that both sides were entitled to a hearing.
It thus seemed for a time as though the new faith might
have at least a fair field in which to assert and maintain
its doctrines. It was also at this time that its professors
began to be called Huguenots. They had not, thus far,
attacked the institutions of the Church. Nor had they de
nounced the priesthood and the Pope, as had been done so
fiercely by the reformers in other countries. They had
simply searched the Scriptures and proclaimed the great
ideas which they had thus discovered. , They were, there
fore, scarcely regarded as reiormers, nor did they desire
to be so caUed. The origin of the name of Huguenots,
which they now began to bear, has received not less than
fifteen different explanations. It was probably given to
them in derision, and taken from that of some obscure or
despised representative of their cause. They, however,
seem to have preferred it to every other, and to have
clung to it till all others were abandoned. The name soon
became synonymous with heretics, and they were placed
beyond the protection of law and proscribed as enemies
of the Church in every country in Catholic Christendom.
That they had been encouraged by the Bishop of Meaux,
and, still more, that they had been favored by the sister of
the king, soon stirred the wrath of the ecclesiastics and
caUed forth the remonstrance of the Pope. The fickle and

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 225
timid monarch, dreading the papal displeasure, made
amends for all that had been done, by a proclamation of
atrocious cruelty, which proved to be but the beginning
of that long series of cruel enormities which finaUy oblit
erated nearly every vestige of Protestantism from France.
In January, 1535, at the most magnificent fete which in
that age Paris had ever beheld, Francis 1. solemnly pro
claimed his determination to punish all heresy with death,
and not to spare even his own children if they should be
guilty of it. This declaration of the king was received
with the utmost delight by the fanatical multitude to
whom it was addressed. It was regarded as a permission
— perhaps as an invitation — to begin the work of slaugh
tering heretics at that very time and on the spot where it
was uttered. The ceremonies of the fete closed with the
burning of six Huguenots, suspended from six beams
made to revolve in succession over a flaming furnace, into
which they were dropped at each revolution till they were
burned to death. Thus was planted in the French nature
that appetite for Huguenot blood, which for more than a
hundred and fifty years fed itself on massacres and butch
eries, on murders and slaughters, the enormities of which
no history has fully described and no imagination has
fully conceived.
Thus far the Huguenots, though they had become very
numerous, were without any recognized leader. In this
same year (1535), John Calvin published at Basle, in
Switzerland, his " Institutes of the Christian Religion," a
book which not only united the French Protestants in a
common faith, but also wrought their persecuted congre
gations into an ecclesiastical body of self-governing be
lievers who acknowledged him as their patriarch and
chief. A self-denying scholar who, as a student at the
Sorbonne, had been sent away from Paris because of his
heresies, he had studied the profoundest problems of reli-

226 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
gion with an abUity and a zeal which no man has ever
surpassed. With a mind of the acutest and most compre
hensive order, he embodied in his Institutes the doctrines
which not only gave character and organization to the
Protestants of France, but have ever since exercised a
controlling influence on the religious thought of at least
half of Protestant Christendom. Seldom in human his
tory has the power of a single mind been so deeply and
so widely felt, not only in his own but in subsequent ages.
Thus organized as a religious body, they took another
step, and in 1569 made themselves also a separate poht
ical body, — a Christian State, — framed in accordance
with the theories of Calvin, though not witli his special
approval of the proceeding. Thus, in an age of violence
and of brutal war, they became a religious repubUc, and
sought to be recognized among the great estates of the
realm which were subject only to the king. The effect of
this was that they came to be regarded by aspiring nobles
and ambitious princes as a power that might be concil
iated and used for their own advancement. They soon
began to be courted and flattered, their cause was pro
fessedly and often sincerely espoused, iu order to induce
them to become tributary to poUtical schemes whoUy for
eign to every interest of religion. Placed as they now
were, with an ecclesiastical and civil organization of their
own, in the midst of the factions and combinations of a
tumultuous age, it is perhaps not surprising that they were
drawn into the civil and political struggles which were
going on around them. They received assurances of as
sistance from one and another of the great leaders in these
struggles, some of whom had earnestlj^ accepted their own
religious faith. They saw no escape from destruction
save by some sort of alliance with those who were con
tending with their common enemy and destroyer. Their
numbers had become so great and their importance so

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 227
considerable that they were able to dictate terms of union
which gave promise of security to their religion, — the
great end which they always kept in view. It was thus
that they aUowed themselves to make alliances with those
who sought to become the controllers and masters of the
State : at one time with the Family of Bourbon, at another
with the party of the PoUtiques, at another with the
Princes of Conde, and last of all with the chiefs of the
House of Navarre, who were soon to become the rulers
of France. But whatever their motives may have been,
whatever the promises of advantage that were made to
them, these alliances were always a mistake, and always
disastrous to the interests of religion. As religious re
formers, their sole work was to cherish and proclaim the
teachings of Jesus Christ, to set them forth in their writ
ings, to illustrate them in their lives, and to teach them
everywhere to their fellow-men. It is thus, and thus only,
that Christianity in all ages has won its splendid triumphs
in all the earth. It is only degraded and dishonored
when its disciples league themselves with princes or accept
the services of armies to accomphsh religious ends. It
was this forgetting of the essential and unchangeable fact
that the kingdom of Christ is not a kingdom of this
world, which more than any other cause — more indeed
than all other causes — very early involved them in dis
asters, and finally prepared the way for their greatest suf
ferings and for the humiliating failure of all their heroic
endeavors to establish the Protestant Reformation in
France. The immediate consequence of this mingUng of the re
ligious struggles of the Huguenots with the politics and
cabals of the age was the outbreak of the Wars of Reli
gion, as they are styled, of which the narratives flll so many
repulsive chapters of French history. They were really
civil wars among rival factions, in which the Huguenots

228 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
became enlisted. They lasted for forty years, and the trage
dies which are connected with them are amongst the most
revolting in which human beings have ever been the actors.
The belligerent Huguenots gained occasional advantages,
and for a brief season they expected to triumph. But in
the end they utterly failed. They were corrupted by bad
associations. They lost the religious character which they
originally possessed. They caught the worldly spirit of
the ambitious adventurers with whom they were allied.
They contended no longer for their faith, but for power to
rule. They even followed the example of their enemies
and avenged their sufferings by needless atrocities. In
at least one most lamentable instance, one hundred and
twenty defenseless Catholics, of whom seventy-two were
prisoners of war, were massacred in cold blood by one of
their military bands at the city of Nismes. It is true that
the outrage was a solitary exception to the general con
duct of their campaigns, and was condemned by their min
isters and their military leaders. It may be, even, that it
was perpetrated by ferocious soldiers acting without or
ders ; but it was done in their name, and it was sure to be
avenged a hundred fold by their malignant enemies. It
undoubtedly became a precedent anil a provocation for the
far more fearful massacres of 1562 at Vassy, at Paris, at
Senlis, at Meaux, at Chalons, at Epernay, at Tours, and
at so many other towns inhabited by Huguenots. It was
even cited in justification of that most atrocious of all
slaughters recorded in modern history, the massacre of
St. Bartholomew's Day, on the 24th of August. 1572, —
a slaughter perpetrated at the command of the royal
authorities of France, the beginning of which in Paris
was witnessed by the weak-minded King Charles IX., and
his intriguing motlier, Catherine de Medicis, a woman who
deserves the detestable distinction of having suggested or
sanctioned aU the Huguenot murders of that sanguinary

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 229
period of violence and persecution. This queen-mother
was so much delighted with her bloody work of three days
iu Paris that she immediately dispatched letters to Philip
II. of Spain, to the Duke of Alva, and to Pope Gregory
XIII. at Rome. PhiUp, on receiving the tidings of what
had been done, is said to have laughed aloud for the first
and only time in a life made morose and gloomy by a
fanaticism which knew no joy but in the persecution and
destruction of heretics. At Rome the occasion was one'
of extraordinary jubilation. A Pontifical salute was fired
at the Castle of San Angelo. Gregory XIII. and the
College of Cardinals went in procession from one church to
another " to render thanksgivings (such is the ancient rec
ord) to God, the infinitely great and good, for the mercy
which He had vouchsafed to the See of Rome and to the
whole Chiistian world." A painting of the massacre was
ordered for the Vatican gallery, and a medal of gold was
struck, with the head of the Pope on one side, and on the
other the Destroying Angel exterminating the Huguenots,
with the inscription Hvgonotorum Strages. In Paris
the whole body of the clergy celebrated the massacre with
public processions, and established an annual jubilee to
commemorate it. They also had a medal prepared in
honor of the event, bearing the legend " Piety has Awak
ened Justice." The feeble-minded king, by whose author
ity these dreadful deeds of blood had been perpetrated,
soon afterwards lay upon his death-bed, — his intellect
well-nigh extinct, and his wild fancy peopling every scene
with the victims of the massacre, as he wasted away under
the power of a slow poison, believed at the time to have
been administered by his mother.
I have thus given a hasty outline of the bitter expe
riences of the Huguenots under the last five kings of the
House of Valois, through a period of fifty years. The
reign of each, happily for his subjects, had been brief, for,

230 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
as has been truly said, " bloody and deceitful men shall
not live out half their days." The name of Huguenot
had become more odious than ever, and the policy of the
government had now left them without protection to the
fanatical hatred of their proud and vengeful enemies. In
this condition of affairs, after the brief and uneventful
reign of Henry III., the throne descended to his successor,
Henry IV., son of Anthony of Navarre. His mother was
Jane D'Albret, a Protestant alike by birth and by choice,
and a champion of the Protestant faith, Henry had been
excommunicated for heresy by Pope Sixtus V., and his
right to the throne had been annulled. On this account
he was compelled to contend in arms for its possession,
and at length to make his submission to the Papal Church.
In consequence of these hindrances, he was not crowned
till 1594, nearly six years after the death of his predeces
sor. His character has received an estimate higher than
it intrinsicaUy deserves, because it is compared with those
of his predecessors and those of his immediate successors.
His great merit is that in a critical period he dared to act
as the head of the nation, and to take measures to secure
its unity and peace.
France had become so distracted and wretched that it
was constantly exposed alike to internal decay and to for
eign subjugation and dismemberment. It is the merit
and the glory of Henry IV. — a merit and glory, how
ever, tarnished by many a vice and many a folly — that
he made one heroic endeavor to put an end to the merci
less persecutions which now for fifty years the Protestants
had been compelled to endure from their Catholic fellow-
subjects. So soon as his seat on the throne had been
fuUy secured, he called before him, on separate occasions,
the representatives of both, and after a patient consulta
tion with each, he caused to be prepared and promulgated
the Edict of Nantes, — an edict which has usually been

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 231
styled the Charter of French Protestantism, and which
certainly is a noble and generous attempt to secure a ces
sation of the bloody religious strife that had blighted the
happiness and well-nigh destroyed the prosperity of France.
The Edict bears the date of April, 1598. It contains the
substance of several other edicts relating to the Hugue
nots which had been issued in former reigns, and is ex
panded through ninety-two articles. It is supplemented
by three additional documents, of which two are entitled
secret articles, and the remaining one is styled Brevet ;
the secret articles qualifying and in some instances en
larging the provisions of the Edict itself. They together,
in the only form in which I have seen them, fill some forty
closely printed crown octavo pages, and are certainly very
dull reading. Their prevailing tone is very kindly, and
shows the utmost desire on the part of the king to eradi
cate and destroy the reUgious animosities which had so
long disturbed the peace and order of his kingdom. In
this respect it is undoubtedly intended to be equivalent to
an act of indemnity and oblivion, and for this purpose it
provides several items of pecuniary compensation to be
paid from the royal treasury. It is only when we exam
ine it as a charter of liberties for the future that its inad
equacies present themselves, though even thus considered
it may be all that ought to be expected from an age and
a country in which constitutional liberty was wholly un
known. It was undoubtedly intended that the people of
France should have the right to choose between the two
religions, but this right is hampered by so many restric
tions and reservations that it could never be freely ex
ercised. The Edict recognizes two distinct classes into which the
subjects of the king are divided : first, those who pro
fess " the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion ; " and,
second, those who profess " the Pretended Reformed re-

232 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
lig-ion." The former of these relioions it declares to be
the established religion of the country, and wherever it
has been overthrown or abandoned it is to be reestablished
in full possession of aU its former rights. The latter, or
the Pretended Reformed religion, on the other hand, is
placed on an entirely different foundation. Those who
profess and cherish it are admitted to certain privileges
rather than rights, and these privileges are conceded to
them, not from any principle of justice, but wholly from
considerations of expediency, and because of the trouble
they have occasioned and may occasion again. Through
all its concessions it presents the votaries of the " Pre
tended Reformed religion," not only as an inferior part
of the population, but as persons having no claims what
ever to the privileges which it confers. It was thus inci
dentaUy fitted to inspire, in fuU measure among the more
favored class, that haughty contempt, that disdainful in
tolerance, which a national church, supported by law and
protected by government, always cherishes for those whom
it scornfully styles dissenters and schismatics and here
tics. It allowed them simply to exist, but only by suffer
ance. Though the Protestant Reformation in France,
even after sixty years of almost ceaseless persecution, now
numbered as its adherents scarcely less than a mUlion of
Frenchmen, among whom were princes of the royal blood,
noblemen of illustrious lineage, officers of distinction in
the army and navy of the king, and a most respectable,
industrious, and thrifty portion of the population, yet the
tone of the Edict is one of condescension and of reluctant
interposition in behalf of an inferior class, who had been
deluded with troublesome doctrines and were practicing
strange rites of religion, rather to be indulged and borne
with than to be approved or respected.
If we pass from its general tone to its special provi
sions, we find that it permits every person to select the

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 233
Reformed religion without hindrance or restriction of any
kind, but he can make uo public exercise of it save in cer
tain districts and places which are specially named. These
places and districts are those in which it already exists.
From all other places its public exercises are expressly
excluded, and among these are comprised the city of Paris
and the country around it to the extent of five leagues, in
which their worship could not be held. The professors of
the Pretended Reformed religion are made eligible to all
public offices and employments, and also to all schools and
colleges, and all hospitals and charitable institutions.
They may reside in any part of the kingdom, but they
may hold their worship or any public exercises of their
religion apart, or keep for sale books relating to it, only
in the specified places. It is obvious from restrictions
such as these, especially in an age when intercourse was
difficult and exceedingly limited, that the reformers could
look forward to no organized growth and to no prolonged
future for their religious faith. They could cherish it in
their own hearts provided they kept it to themselves.
They could not commune with each other in any religious
exercise, stiU less could they explain their doctrines to
others anywhere but in the districts and towns specified
in the Edict ; and wherever they might be, they were re
quired to " observe the festivals in use in the Church,
Catholic, Roman, and Apostolic, and on such days not to
sell or to expose for sale in shops, or to engage openly in
any work." Numerous sections of the Edict relate to the
manner in which justice shall be administered in all civil
suits and processes which affected them, and in this con
nection special officers were appointed to act in their be
half in several of the high courts of the realm. As I
have already mentioned, the Huguenots had organized
themselves into a sort of Christian State, — a political
body without reference to territory, — which had, in some

234 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
respects, been recognized by the government. This rec
ognition was ratified in the Edict, and several fortresses
in the districts assigned to them were placed under their
control to give military importance and strength to their
State. No sooner was the Edict of Nantes promiUgated than
it was denounced in almost equal measure by both Cath
olics and Huguenots. The former regarded it as a boon
too great to be given to heretics ; the latter as a conces
sion too smaU for them to receive. The former declared
it to be a proof of the insincerity of Henry's conformity
to the Church ; the latter styled it the treacherous work
of a renegade Protestant, who had abandoned the faith
of his ancestors that he might receive the crown and sit
upon the throne. Henry himself clearly thought it to be
all that could be done with any advantage to either. His
great aspiration was not so much to benefit either reli
gious party as to bring peace and order to his distracted
kingdom. It was in reality a great and beneficent act of
royal authority, — an act whose true significance reached
far beyond the subject to which it related, and which pro
claimed that a new mode of government had begun in
France. It was an assertion of prerogative on the part
of the monarch which gave notice to feudal lords and local
authorities of every degree that their importance was
henceforth to be merged in the sovereign importance of
the king himself. Henry was the first of the Bourbon
race of kings, a race that created a new era in France
only to show how incompetent they were to guide its spirit
or to meet its necessities. The absolute monarchy which
Henry founded made France a nation, but it also, in the
hands of his successors, brought on the Revolution which,
for the time, destroyed both nation and monarchy.
But the Edict was yet to be sanctioned by the Parlia
ment of Paris, and by the other local Parliaments which

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 235
in those times performed the functions of legislative as
semblies, with something like the conceited independence
and provincial narrowness which were so frequently dis
played by our own state legislatures in the days of the
old Confederation and the Continental Congress. It was
in these bodies that the Edict of Nantes assumed its true
political and historical significance. With them it was
not merely a recognition of the Huguenot churches and
their religion, but it was an act vastly more vital in its
bearings. It entered into the very springs and sources
of public authority, into the political life of the nation.
It was an act such as that which our English ancestors
in the days of Cromwell, fifty years later, used to style
a Root and Branch measure. A new age had come, and
but few were aware of its advent, and fewer stiU knew
what kind of an age it was to be. Henry comprehended
the exigency of public affairs and determined to meet it.
He commanded the Parliaments to sanction the Edict,
and they obeyed. In spite of his Huguenot training he
was far from being a saint. He was licentious in his life,
and to a large extent a votary of expediency in his morals.
But he was kindly in his spirit, and more just than his
predecessors in his acts. He found the country ruined
by rival factions and religious wars. Civil society was
falling to pieces amidst the universal prevalence of jea
lousies and hatreds, of intrigues and cabals. Life was
\vithout security and had but little value. The single ex-
])lanation of this social disorganization and decay was to
be found in the fact that there existed no government
strong enough to become a guarantee of order and security ;
no single force paramount over all other forces, that could
limit their action and control the manner of their opera
tion. The Edict of Henry IV. was thus the first great
exercise of royal authority in France. Had he lived to
carry it into full operation and complete development, its
revocation might have become impossible.

236 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
Henry IV., like his predecessor, feU by the hand of an
assassin in one of the streets of Paris, in 1610, after a
prosperous reign of sixteen years. The Huguenots now
discovered how great a friend he had been to their cause.
The provisions of the Edict soon began to receive new
constructions. New annoyances were contrived for their
humiliation and new restrictions were placed on their wor
ship. Under the bad influences which stUl controUed
them, they at length rose in armed insurrections, and in
1629, after they had been subdued with needless cruelty
by the soldiers of Louis XHL, they were pardoned and
restored to their reUgious rights, but deprived of their
political organization and their military fortresses, and
made simple subjects of the king. This was what Henry
IV. himself had foreseen would be necessary, and it proved
to be the greatest boon they had ever received from the
government. They were now deserted by the great nobles
and military leaders who had acted with them. They
gave up the engrossing business of governing themselves,
and devoted their energies to agricultural industry, to
commerce, and to the useful arts with a success which had
never before been witnessed in France. Even in their
worst days they had not ceased to read the Bible, to listen
to sermons and prayers, and to sing their hymns of devo
tion and thanksgiving. They had thus kept alive the
essential rudiments of reUgious life, which neither war nor
worldliness had wholly destroyed. Their industry and
prosperity soon became characteristic features of the re
gions which they inhabited. Indifferent to the holidays
of the Church, their labor was remitted only on Sundays
and on some occasional festival of thanksffivius: or some
chosen day for fasting and prayer. Their industrial year
was thus nearly one third longer than that of their Cath
olic neighbors. In addition to this they conducted their
work with a self-directing intelligence which never fails

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 237
to insure the highest industrial success. Hence it came
to be remarked that wherever the harvests were most
abundant, wherever the vineyards yielded the most de
licious grapes and the finest wines, wherever the silk and
the woolen manufacturers were the most prosperous, wher
ever in the ports, either of the Mediterranean or the Brit
ish Channel, the largest ships bore away the richest car
goes and brought back the most ample returns, there the
Huguenots were to be found in the greatest numbers. So
much better is quiet industry than war or than politics as
an occupation of life. So much more beautiful and at
tractive, so much more effective over aU human hearts, is
the example of Christian faith when ruling in the daily
lives of its disciples than it ever can be when courting the
aUiance of rank and power, or soliciting the favor of
princes and monarchs. These were the best years of the
Huguenots, — years in which they engaged in no wars
and no cabals, in which they asked for nothing from the
government but to be let alone. Louis XIIL, in dissolv
ing their political organization, became incidentaUy their
greatest benefactor.
Louis XIV. came to the throne in 1642, at the age of
five years, and his reign lasted till his death, in 1715, a
period of seventy-three years. When he was at the age
of fourteen, he declared himself qualified to reign, and on
the death of Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661, he became his
own prime minister, and assumed the entire management
of the government. He was a man of extraordinary ad
ministrative abilities and of singular power of controUing
other men. That centralization of power which Henry
IV. had begun he carried to the fuUest completion. He
made the government of France not only an absolute mon
archy, but an Oriental despotism, in which the word of the
king was the law. His leading idea was that the country
and its people of every degree, with all that they pos-

238 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
sessed, were his property, to be used at his discretion. /
(uri the State was the maxim that controUed his reign.
He made war on the grandest scale. He lavished the
wealth of his subjects on the adornment of his capital, on
palaces, churches, fortresses, on libraries and museums.
He gathered around him scholars and men of genius,
great statesmen and great soldiers, and made his reign
the most brilliant in the history of France. It was for
tunate that for a considerable period he gave little atten
tion to the religion of his subjects. His spiritual advisers,
writes the historian Sismondi, limited their counsels to
two essential precepts : 1. Abstain from incontinence ;
2. Exterminate heretics ; and it has been said of him
that " if he feU short iu the first of these duties, he cer
tainly wrought works of supererogation in the second."
The extraordinary zeal and the still more extraordinary
cruelty of Louis XIV. in the destruction of Huguenots
had their origin in part, at least, in his imperial passion
for unity of every kind in his kingdom. With him non
conformity in religion was rebeUion, and he treated it as
such. Whatever spirit of fanaticism he had was breathed
into him, in a large degree, by Madame de Maintenon,
a woman of disreputable celebrity, strangely enough of
Protestant descent and training, who was first the teacher
of his children, and afterwards his wife. She controUed
what was called his conscience. She claimed and perhaps
deserved the distinction of converting the king, by which
she meant that she made him the foremost of religious
persecutors in modern times. He did not massacre the
Huguenots, as his predecessors had done. He adopted a
different mode of proceeding. He began with a proposal,
in full accordance with his magnificent ideas, to purchase
the conversion of the entire body of the Huguenots at an
average price of five livres a head, and for this purpose
he set apart one third of the entire revenue of all the

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 239
vacant benefices of the kingdom, as a special fund, which
was styled the Bank of Conversion, and was administered
by agents, called Converters. Multitudes of the baser
sort took the money, but when the lists were published it
was observed that they were not Huguenots, but persons
— not scarce in any country or in any age — always ready
to be bought or sold, and that very many of them had
been paid for several conversions.
Enraged at his failure, he soon devised new methods of
securing Catholic unity among his subjects. He ordered
that all sorts of people should conform in outward ob
servances to the Established Church. To promote this
end, he suppressed the synods of the Huguenots ; he for
bade them to be employed in the charge of estates and in
all kindred positions. He forbade Catholics and Protes
tants to intermarry, and the children of such marriages he
declared illegitimate. None but Catholics could be em
ployed in any domestic service. Catholics becoming Prot
estants were visited with the severest penalties, while
Protestants becoming Catholics received special privileges,
one of which was the extension of their debts for five
years. All public positions of every kind, the practice of
all professions, and admission to all schools were denied
to Protestants. Children of seven years might be brought
to Catholic baptism without the consent or knowledge of
their parents, and, once in the Church, they could not
leave it. Multitudes of parents, in agony and despair,
sent their children to England, to Holland, and to Den
mark to be cared for. Huguenot families, also, in great
numbers, began to seek homes in foreign countries. This,
however, was immediately forbidden under the penalty
of being sent to the galleys, but their ministers were en
couraged to depart, and not suffered to return. These
are but specimens of the harassing despotism which was
brought to bear upon them, in total disregard of the Edict
of Nantes.

240 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
In 1681 the quartering of soldiers on Huguenot fam
ilies was first resorted to for " missionary purposes," as
it was styled. This practice had not been unknown in
France in times of war or national necessity. Now, in
the province of Poitou, they were compeUed to receive
these dreadful guests, and feed and lodge them, often to
the number of a hundred in each house, if their estates
were large. But beyond the insufferable annoyances and
outrages it involved, this first attempt at mUitary conver
sion was not regarded as a success. Three years later,
however, in 1684, it was renewed on a far broader and
more terrific scale in nearly aU the Huguenot provinces.
For this purpose dragoons were selected as the most avaU
able, and Ukely to be the most effectual, instruments in the
work. The enterprise thus received the name of dragon-
nade, a new word then added to the French language.
Chosen squadrons of these terrible troopers lighted hke
filthy birds of prey on the homes of the Huguenots aUke
in cities and provinces, wherever they were found. They
carried with them the whole machinery of agony and de
spair, — insult, outrage, degradation, the destruction of
estates, the wanton violation of every sanctity, the inhu
man practice of every atrocity, save murder alone. It was
probably the most appalling form of wholesale persecution
ever visited upon a civilized people. Human nature broke
down beneath the infliction. Despair, insanity, and sui
cide marked its progress. City after city, province after
province, professed their submission to the Church on the
approach of the dreadful dragonnade. Nismes was con
verted, as was said, in twenty-four hours. Swift couriers
bore daily reports of the universal surrender, till the king
and his courtiers were made to believe that there were no
longer any heretics in France. He had often professed
his unwillingness to annul the Edict which had been pro
claimed by his grandfather, though he had repeatedly vio-

THE EDICT OF NANTES. 241
lated every one of its provisions. But now, said he, it
is no longer needed, for the Huguenots have all become
Catholics. Deceived by false reports, flattered by cour
tiers and priests, elated by what he deemed the greatest
of triumphs, he signed, on the 22d of October, 1685, the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which had been pro
claimed by Henry IV. eighty-seven years before. This
act removed every semblance of protection that remained,
and let loose upon them the wildest fury of their enemies.
The revocation was applauded in the splendid eloquence
of Massillon and Bossuet, the most illustrious preachers
of the age, but it gave a shock to the French people. It
was the first break in the spell which had enthralled the
nation. It occasioned the loss of at least three hundred
thousand of the bravest, the most industrious, and the
most intelligent of the population of the country, — a loss
which well-nigh destroyed several of the great industries
in which it most excelled. Their emigration was prohib
ited, and the coast was constantly watched ; but amidst
dangers, privations, and sufferings which no pen has fully
described, they fled to England, to Germany, to Holland,
and to the colonies in America, bearing with them not
only immense wealth, but industrial skill, commercial en
terprise, and high character, which enriched and adorned
the countries that received them.
But I cannot linger on the scenes connected with this
stupendous expatriation and exile. As they are portrayed
in history they are the perpetual shame of our common
humanity, the foulest reproach that has ever rested upon
Christian civilization. We are not, however, to imagine
that the spirit which produced them is confined to a sin
gle church or to a single type of Christianity. Religious
intolerance belongs to human nature, and manifests itself
in a vast variety of ways. Its most common device has
been to seize upon the fatal assumption that the State is

242 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
bound to prescribe or support the religion of its people.
When Louis XIV. exterminated the Huguenots and put
an end to the Protestant Reformation in France, this as
sumption was well-nigh universal among Christian nations.
It is scarcely too much to say that religious persecution
or religious restriction, in one form or another, was at
least possible, if it was not practiced, in nearly every State
in Christendom. It had been made impossible in Rhode
Island alone by the very terms of the social organization.
Here, and here alone, the body politic had no power to
prescribe, or control, or in any way to affect the religion
of its members. It was an idea far in advance of the age,
and was everywhere derided and disparaged. But how
splendid are the triumphs it has won, — how manifold are
the blessings it has brought both to religion and to the
State ! It has made persecutors like Catherine de Medicis
and Louis XIV. no longer possible in civilized nations.
It has brought together warring churches in the bonds of
a common faith, and animated them with new zeal in pro
claiming the gospel to all mankind. It has emancipated
Christianity from a debasing bondage and restored it to
its original freedom. It has compelled the State to be
come the equal protector of every creed however despised,
of every worship however humble. Thus it is that the
seed planted here by our exiled founders two hundred and
fifty years ago has become a mighty tree, " and the leaves
of the tree are for the healing of the nations."

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION.i
The first hundred years of American history are about
to close. They have witnessed a national growth and
a development of civUization different in many respects
from any other hitherto known among mankind. Both
the nation and the civilization which it embosoms have
encountered perils and have been engaged in struggles
which have tested their temper and their endurance, and
now, at the end of a hundred years, these perils and strug
gles may be deemed not unworthy of such brief review as
the hour may admit.
The elements of American society, and of the civiliza
tion which it has created, were wholly of transatlantic
origin. Unlike those which were brought from Europe
to other portions of the continent, they have remained
uncontaminated by any admixture borrowed from the ab
original races. They were also mainly English, includ
ing in that designation both Scotch and Irish. It is true
there were settlements made here from other countries.
The Dutch were the original occupants of New York ; the
Swedes mingled largely in the settlements of New Jer
sey and Delaware, the Germans in that of Pennsylvania,
and the French Huguenots in that of South Carolina.
But these soon became absorbed by the English, and as
all the colonies became possessions of England, so they
all took on an English character, spoke the English lan
guage, and came to be controlled by English ideas. This
was most slowly accomplished in New York and Penn-
1 Read before the Friday Evening Club, December 31, 1875.

244 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
sylvania, in the former of which States, more especiaUy,
another race had long a foothold, and many of their fami
lies exerted an important influence not only upon social
manners and modes of thought, but also upon political
events. It is not true, however, that all the elements of the
English social system were ever represented in the col
onies. 1. There were here no branch of the royal family
and no families of the feudal nobility of England. The
nearest approach to the former was the brief possession
of New York by the Duke of York, afterwards James II.,
and the only real feudalism we ever had was to be found
among the Dutch Patroons of the same State. 2. There
never existed here any uniform ecclesiastical establish
ment. Religion was provided for by law in aU the colo
nies except Rhode Island, but it was in several different
forms of ecclesiastical organization. At the period of
the Revolution, when our survey begins, there was every
where a substantial religious freedom. 3. WhUe social
distinctions were still marked in a manner somewhat
rigid, yet the political ideas which ruled in aU the col
onies were essentiaUy democratic, and the theory of the
social organization rested upon the equality of its mem
bers. 4. In addition to this we must not omit to men
tion that negro slavery stiU existed in every colony, but
flourished most especiaUy in those south of Delaware Bay.
To the north of this point, on the coast, it had proved
unprofitable, and had also become the subject of moral
reprobation among considerable classes of the population,
especially in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
The civU and social elements wliich had been intro
duced by the settlers had also undergone some important
modifications during the colonial period by the operation
of the new forces which were brought to bear upon them.
They had been planted in the wilderness, in a climate

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 245
different from that of England, and amidst scenes and in
fluences of nature which necessitated a ceaseless struggle
for existence, in which only what was hardy and endur
ing could by any possibility survive. There were thus
created both a sentiment and a condition of social equal
ity. Few of the colonists belonged to the higher classes
of English life, few were men of wealth, and these were
scattered among colonies which were wholly distinct from
each other, which indeed had scarcely anything in com
mon save their English origin and their dependence on
the mother country. AU public interests were thus exclu
sively provincial. Their settlements skirted the Atlantic
coast from New Hampshire to Georgia, and extended but
little way into the interior. They were connected by no
political and few social ties ; their inhabitants, even in
New England, were strangers to each other, and the pol
icy of England was to prevent as far as possible any
intercourse in the way of trade.
A civilization thus transplanted and isolated from its
parent stock by an intervening ocean must of necessity
deteriorate. At the period of the Revolution the colo
nists were thought, in England, to have degenerated in
their wilderness life. They had at least grown to be dif
ferent from Englishmen, and this fact, far more than any
real oppressions which they were obUged to endure, was
the cause of their political separation. The British civi
lization which they had brought with them had undergone
a change, and this change now made distasteful the laws
and restrictions and the entire rule which England con
tinued to exercise over them. The traditional principles
of British constitutional law had come to be differently
understood and applied by the two divisions of the Eng
lish race. Here, amidst the looser freedom of colonial
life, these principles seemed to forbid restrictions, to de
mand self-government, and even to justify resistance to

246 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
taxation, unless levied by colonial consent. There, the
principal thought was of the power of Parliament, the
expense incurred in defending the colonies in the war
with France, and the best way in which they could be
made to reimburse the treasury. The views of the col
onists were rather vigorously put forth in petitions and
documents of various kinds, often rudely written, but
breathing strongly the ancient spirit of English freedom.
The views of the government were embodied in acts of
ParUament and in innumerable state papers of the
ministers, while the average tone of British opinion was
pretty faithfuUy reflected in literary productions Uke
Dr. Johnson's " Taxation no Tj-ranny." The materials
which had thus been coUected in these scattered English
settlements of the Atlantic coast, modified as they had
been by the trials and struggles of colonial life, were now
to be wrought together in a new political organization,
and, under the new forces brought to act upon them, were
to be formed into a new civilization, whose diffusion over
the continent is the most remarkable social phenomenon
of the last hundred years.
The epochs or periods in the progress of our civUiza
tion may be most naturally made to conform to certain
periods in our political history to which they correspond,
though these periods are not very precisely fixed, and at
many points they run into each other. ]\Iy general pur
pose is to set forth the agencies which throughout the cen
tury have shaped this civilization and made it what it is,
rather than to point out any precise stages of its progres
sive development. These periods may be stated as fol
lows : 1. The period of the War of the Revolution and the
organization of the constitutional government, extending
from 1776 to 1789. 2. The period in which American
nationality became fully asserted and established, which
also includes the purchase of Louisiana. This period

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 247
ends with the peace of 1815. 3. The rapid development
of the internal resources of the country, the growth of the
leading American industries, and the rise and prolonged
discussion of great constitutional questions to 1850. 4.
The formation of sectional parties on the question of
slavery, the war of secession, and its consequences to the
present time.
There is certainly one aspect in which the War of the
Revolution is a most unattractive subject for history to
describe ; and this is found in the want of unity in the
colonies, the petty jealousies which separated them, and
the unmitigated selfishness which so generally controlled
the action of their legislatures. Independence was de
clared long before any political organization was formed
for maintaining it. A Congress, as it was called, had
assembled in 1774 to consider what ought to be done,
but its members had no power to bind those whom they
represented. They were not indeed representatives. A
second Congress met in 1775, but it had no power to do
anything, and all its resolutions were mere recommenda
tions. It, however, in some sense raised an army, ap
pointed a general-in-chief, and, on receiving permission
from the colonies, it made the Declaration of Indepen
dence, a Declaration which was ratified and repeated over
the whole country. But as yet there was neither govern
ment nor nation, save in a very limited and inadequate
sense. Never in history has a great war been carried on
to a successful issue under an authority so ill contrived
and so little suited to the purposes which it had under
taken to accomplish. But the colonies persistently re
fused to make this authority any stronger or to invest it
with any greater efficiency. To create a nation in any
true and proper sense was not at the outset an aspira
tion of the colonial legislatures. AU they aimed at was
independence. They aspired rather to be thirteen States,

248 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
like the cantons of Switzerland, and they would then have
shrunk from giving up their several sovereignties in order
to become one nation. Fortunately, the American Revo
lution accomplished far more than its original aims. If
it had not done so, it would have been an event of little
importance to the progress of civUization. Along with
the independence which it finally secured, it also gave the
colonies an impulse towards that national unity without
which independence would have been of but secondary
moment. It raised them above the narrow political ideas
which had ruled the minds of the people. It Ufted them
out of their isolated provincial existence, and imparted to
them the rudiments of a national Ufe. In this way, and
in this alone, the dreary War of the Revolution was eiril-
izing in its agencies and its results.
But after independence was once secured, national senti
ments seemed for a time to decline. The prevailing idea
was that the work to which the colonies had been called
was already done, instead of being just begun. The spec
tacle is a melancholy one to contemplate. The concep
tions of what was requisite in order to be a nation and to
have a permanent place among the nations of the world
were all of the most meagre character, save as they existed
in a few broad and far-seeing minds. The country was
stiU, as it had been from the beginning, without a govern
ment. Articles of Confederation had been proposed by
Congress as early as 1776, but they had not been adopted
till 1781, near the close of the war, and even the feeble
restrictions which they imposed upon local sovereignty
were scarcely heeded. Congress had established a post-
office and a national flag, and beyond these there was litr
tie, if anything, to remind the people of the States that
the United States existed. Each State stUl collected the
revenues, levied all the taxes, and exercised every attribute
of sovereignty except treating with foreign powers, and

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 249
each State paid its share of the public expenditures with
such promptness or such tardiness as best suited its own
convenience or inclinations. The Congress of the Confed
eration was at best merely a legislative body, and that only
in a very loose and uncertain way ; for its subjects were
not citizens, but impracticable and unmanageable sovereign
States. There existed neither executive nor judicial au
thority. It could not pay its debts, it could not suppress
insurrection, it could not fulfill its treaty stipulations. The
greatest and most useful work it ever did was to demon
strate its own incompetency, and the necessity of creating
a government that should be able to rule the country, to
take possession of its resources, and to compel submis
sion from the local democracies into which its population
was distributed. That such a government was so speed
ily created, and that, too, without tumult or distraction,
was the proudest triumph of the age, — more creditable to
American character than all the endurances and all the
achievements of the war. The latter secured indepen
dence, but the former secured nationality, without which
independence would have been of little importance, and
any brilliant career in civilization impossible. Fortu
nately, the framing of the new govemment fell into the
hands of no professional constitution - makers, such as
were so common in Europe after the French Revolution.
It was the work of practical rather than philosophical
statesmen, and it carefully provided for the great and ob
vious necessities of the country without attempting to re
construct the social organization. It was such as grew
naturally out of the existing condition of the country. It
was republican, because aU the social antecedents of the
country required that it should be so. It was federal, not
from any choice, but because the population from the be
ginning had been grouped in Colonies and States, and it
could not now be changed. It protected slavery in the

250 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
States that chose to tolerate it, because without such pro
tection no constitution could be adopted and no govern
ment could exist. It had also the great peculiarity of
containing no provision for the support of reUgion. In
this respect it was the first experiment that had ever been
made. Though aU admitted that no other plan could be
adopted, yet the experiment was deemed to be full of
dangers, and was regarded with the gravest solicitude by
many of the best and most patriotic men of the time. As
a whole, however, it was a work of singular wisdom. It
forms a briUiant and triumphant close of the first period
of American civilization ; the harbinger, also, and in some
sense the guarantee, of aU that has thus far foUowed in
the social and political progress of the country. That it
was so readily adopted and set in operation by nearly all
the States, in the face of prejudices and difficulties that
seemed insuperable, is a result to be gloried in : that it
was accepted by majorities so small in some of the States,
and was for a time rejected by our own, only suggests
how nearly they all came to missing the only career that
could lead them to greatness and power. The work, then,
of this first period was to create a nation capable of
guaranteeing the individual and social progress in which
civilization consists.
The second epoch opens with the inauguration of Presi
dent Washington in 1789. Already a more national tone
inspires the public councils, broader ideas prevail among
the people, and the statesmen of the country are animated
by loftier hopes. The great name of the President, how
ever, was still the only basis of confidence with other
nations. The conspicuous task of the new government
was to satisfy the nations of Europe that the colonies had
achieved a truly national independence, and were deter
mined to maintain it. This was the essential work of the

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 251
period now under consideration. England had retained
the military posts within our frontiers ostensibly because
the Confederation had not been able to fulfill its part of
the treaty of peace, but really, as her ministers declared,
because she expected soon to recover her lost possessions,
and to this end was her policy directed. The contempt
for the Americans, rooted so deeply in the English mind
when the Revolution began, had not been eradicated by
the events of the war. It prompted every sort of inso
lence which British officials dared to show. They inter
fered with our rights of fishery ; they insulted our flag
on the seas ; they kept alive with aU sorts of encourage
ment the revengeful passions of the Indian tribes that
prowled around our settlements, and still hoped, with Brit
ish help, to regain the hunting-grounds which they had
once possessed. It was no wonder that the masses of the
people were filled with intense hatred of England, aud,
though the suggestion was ludicrous, it was scarcely
strange that they were soon ready and even clamorous for
another war with the mother country. Barely was the
new government in full operation when the world was
startled by the most exciting event of the eighteenth cen
tury, — the overthrow of the French monarchy and the
proclamation of the French republic. Most exciting was
this event in the United States. France had followed
our example in overthrowing kingly power! A sister
republic had proclaimed death to tyrants and was claim
ing American sympathy within fifteen years from the
Declaration of American Independence ! The appeal was
irresistible. The new repubUc rushed into the arms of
the American people with gushing declarations of lib
erty and fraternity. She solicited our closest friendship.
She reminded us of the aid given us by France, and with
out delay she began to use us as confederates in her wild
propagandism of revolution. The affectionate embraces

252 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
of France soon became more dangerous to national inde
pendence and dignity, and no less offensive to national
pride, than the open insults of England. Both these na
tions, though in different ways, treated the American peo
ple with an effrontery which not only outraged the national
sovereignty, but showed that they held us not as their
equals, but as their inferiors. Never was the firmness of
Washington so severely tried. He was determined that
this country should remain neutral in the wars of the
French Revolution, and most heroicaUy did he carry his
determination into effect, though in doing so he periled,
and for a time lost, his unequaled popularity among his
countrymen. War either with England or France seemed
inevitable ; but he postponed it with either, though it came
a few years later with both. Nations decline in seU-
respect and true glory, and civUization takes on an infe
rior character, when they submit to be underUngs to others.
To save the republic from this humiliation was the chief
work of the period we are now considering.
So soon as the country recovered from the impoverish
ment of the war of separation, American commerce opened
trade with the great marts of the world. On entering the
Mediterranean, it immediately encountered the tribute
which the States of Barbary had long levied, vrith the
connivance of England and France, on the ships of all
nations. Our vessels refused to submit to the lawless ex
action, and their crews in great numbers were carried into
Mohammedan slavery. The war with Tripoli which en
sued, and the gallant exploits of Preble and Decatur, of
Truxton and Morris, may be said to have created the
American navy, and to have demonstrated how formidable
a power we might become upon the seas. This country
thus became not only the first to refuse the tribute exacted
by the Algerines, but also the first to proclaim the freedom
of the seas.

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 253
Of similar origin was the war with England in 1812.
It grew out of a series of studied insults to the American
flag and outrages on American citizens. Though it left
unsettled the particular questions for which it was avow
edly waged, yet it demonstrated the national strength and
exalted the national character. With this war became
extinct the great political party which had formed the
Constitution and set its machinery in motion, which had
sustained the administrations of Washington and Adams,
which had withstood the fascinations of a French aUi
ance, which had kept the peace with England in the face
of mighty provocations to war, and which, though out of
power for ten years, had steadily opposed the War of 1812.
The Federal party, though probably the purest in Amer
ican politics, had yet aimed at what was impossible, and
what was undesirable even if it were possible. The spirit
and manners of the American people were from the be
ginning essentially democratic, and it was inevitable that
the popular will would sooner or later make itself directly
felt in the action of the government. The extinction of
this party altered the fortunes of the country, and in some
sense the character of the government. From that time
all parties have been essentially democratic, and the peo
ple have been the controlling force in national affairs, and
have held in their own hands the destiny of the republic.
Hence have arisen universal suffrage, a rapid and vast
development of popular talent, energy, and ambition, and
the continual rise of men of eminence and renown from
the humblest ranks of social life. All this was attended
by an immense increase of national sentiment, which, had
it not been for counteracting agencies, would have created
a vigorous national unity that no state -rights theories
could ever have harmed.
But, considered in its ulterior consequences, no event
belonging to this epoch was so important as the purchase

254 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
of Louisiana from France in 1803. Prior to this, Spain,
and afterwards France, had held control not only of the
mouth of the Mississippi, but also of its entire westem
bank, — a fact that was sure to be prod uctive of unnum
bered woes. This transaction, in its bearing on our
American destiny, is to be associated with the previous
cession to the United States in 1784, by New York, Penn
sylvania, and other States, of the great territory north
west of the Ohio. By the Ordinance of 1787 — one of
the few illustrious enactments in the dreary legislation of
the Continental Congress after the Revolution — this splen
did tract was organized into a territory, out of which
five future States were to be created, from aU of which
slavery was to be forever excluded. It was in connec
tion with this that the Louisiana purchase assumed its
vast significance. It stretched from the Gulf of Mexico
northward to British America, and from the Mississippi
westward, in indefinite lines, to the Pacific Ocean. The
purchase was admitted to be beyond the constitutional
authority of the government, and was strongly opposed by
the Federal party. Even Washington recorded his oppo
sition to it. But it was deemed to be justified by its great
importance, even when that importance was only partiaUy
developed and dimly perceived in the distant future.
These two imperial possessions have ever since been the
unconscious guardians of the republic and the architects
of its destiny. In the first place, the mighty river that
rolls between them, and washes one or both of them from
its sources to its mouth, makes them one country, which
no hand of man can separate or divide. In the second
place, they furnished the most important theatres in which
the stupendous struggle between freedom and slavery for
the mastery of the government was to be mainly decided.
As should be the occupants of these central regions, so
would be the fate of the republic. The early exclusion of

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 255
slavery from the former pledged its people to the cause
of freedom by their ovm organic law, whUe all but two
of the great States that have been formed in the other sent
their hardy sons to battle for the Union. It was in Kan
sas, too, that the two forces first met in open conflict for
the possession of the embryo State, and the issue of that
preliminary conflict foreshadowed the grander issue of the
Civil War. Though the extent of this magnificent pur
chase was imperfectly known either by the government
that sold it or the government that bought it, its impor
tance to this country was but narrowly estimated by Na
poleon, then First Consul, who said to the commissioners
that signed the treaty, " This accession of territory es
tablishes the power of the United States, and I have now
given to England a rival that will sooner or later humble
her pride."
The third epoch of our civilization I make to extend
from the close of the war with England to 1850, when
slavery had become the controlling question in American
politics. The position of the republic was fully assured
among the nations, and was the subject of unlimited satis
faction to all its inhabitants. The cessation of party strife
which followed soon after the war was especiaUy favor
able alike to new enterprises of maritime commerce, to the
development of new industries, and the exploration and
settlement of the new regions which had been added to
the public domain. With these, too, were mingled wide
spread popular sympathies in the revolutionary move
ments then going on in Spanish America. It was a period
of immense activity and enterprise, in which the whole
country appeared to be filled with a full consciousness of
its greatness and strength. All this, it must be admitted,
was attended with drawbacks and dangers, which were
speciaUy felt in American civilization. The prosperity of

256 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
the country and its geographical dimensions seemed aU at
once to enlarge the importance of every one of its citizens,
and to give to them an inordinate faith in its manifest
destiny. We became a nation of braggarts, with man
ners that made us particularly disagreeable to foreigners.
W^e also were seized with an appetite for new territory,
which, for a generation and more, was well-nigh insatia
ble, and which continually prompted us to measures, both
of peace and of war, that were of the most dubious recti
tude. During the period now in question Florida was
purchased of Spain, in 1820 ; the republic of Texas, at its
own solicitation, was annexed as a State in 1845 ; and Cali
fornia, Utah, and New Mexico were added to the repub
lic at the close of the Mexican War in 1848. To explore
and settle, to organize and govern, the vast regions be
yond the Mississippi has, ever since their acquisition, been
the ceaseless and stiU unfinished work of the American
people. It has offered the fullest scope to their migra
tory propensities, and it has been greatly stimulated and
abundantly rewarded by the unimagined resources which
have been brought to light.
It was not to be expected that the civilization of the
thirteen colonies, which a century ago contained only
3,500,000 white people, could thus be expanded over the
continent without being diluted and enfeebled on its way.
The civUized man of necessity parts with some elements
of civilization when he moves to the frontier, and there
fights the battle of life with the mighty forces of nature
and with barbarians. But more than this is true. The
vast westem emisrrations which have been a:oin<r on
through tlie entire century, and especially through the last
fifty years, have retarded our civilization even in its ori
ginal seats. For its higher developments it requires com
pact communities, where public interests, intellectual cul
ture, and social refinement are concentrated. Nor were

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 257
the settlements in the new States made by our own peo
ple alone. The emigration from the various countries of
Europe, from the close of the Revolution to the present
time, is estimated at six millions of people, comparatively
few of whom have been above the standard of our own
civiUzation, while the immense majority have been below
it. It is not surprising that our progress in higher civili
zation has fallen far behind our progress in material pros
perity. It was inevitable. The real occasion for surprise
is that our civilization has borne as well as it has the tre
mendous drains which have been made upon it, and es-
j)ecially that it has received into its bosom, and assimilated
to itself with so little deterioration, the diversified ele
ments that were poured into it from beyond the Atlantic.
What has been done required not intellectual culture and
aesthetic tastes, but rather a vigorous manhood and the
ability to subjugate nature, or what perhaps is the same
thing, the common sense that learns her laws and makes
them subservient to its own purposes. It should be added
that this work was immensely facilitated by the great wa
tercourses which were long the only highways of westward
emigration. Afterwards came the roads and canals, which
were built either by the national government or the
States. When to these were added the steamboat, a
purely American invention, the tide rolled westward with
a tremendous volume. The later appliances of the rail
road are only completing the exploration and settUng of
our public domain.
It was during this period, also, that there arose those
great questions of public poUcy and of constitutional in
terpretation, which, while they profoundly agitated, also
educated the minds of the people and made them familiar
with the principles of our government. It was the age of
parliamentary eloquence and of famous national orators,
whom multitudes flocked to the Capitol to hear, and whose

258 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
printed speeches were read not only in the cities of the
Atlantic States, but in log-cabins on the remotest frontier.
These questions at first related to the power of the gen
eral government to impose tariffs and make intemal im
provements. Then came the more vital question, born of
our very organization, whether we were a nation or only a
league of sovereign States. Behind all these there grad
ually forced itself on public attention the still graver and
more exciting question of slavery, which from an early
period in the present century had darkened the horizon of
the republic. These questions were debated with an elo
quence never equaled in American annals. So long as
they related to state-rights and federal authority alone,
they were not sectional questions. The people of both
South and North were on both sides of them. Slavery,
however, was always making use of them to strengthen
its own position. So anomalous was its character in the
midst of our democratic freedom, so wanting was it in
any moral basis to rest upon, that it instinctively sought
to protect itself by every species of aUiance and by aU
possible safeguards of its interest. UntU 1830 its mo
rality was still an open question in the South. It soon,
however, became so profitable and so vital to Southern
prosperity that differences of opinion were no longer tol
erated, and all voices of dissent were effectually silenced
both in Church and State. The Southern people, with
few large cities, with an industry almost whoUy agricul
tural, and with only two or three staple productions, cared
little for national roads and canals, and were especiaUy
averse to tariffs. The result was that they soon organ
ized themselves into a vast society for the protection of
slavery. On other questions they might be divided, but
on this they stood together in solid phiilanx, without wa
vering and without hesitation. They had long insisted
that the number of Slave States and of Free States should

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 259
be kept equal, and that for any new free State a new
slave State should be admitted into the Union. As the
northwestern territory had been consecrated to freedom,
they demanded, as an offset, that the whole Louisiana
purchase should be open to slavery, though they at length
accepted the Missouri Compromise in 1821, which limited
slavery to the parallel of 36° 30' of north latitude. As
we now recur to the debates of those eventful years, the
statesmen of the Free States often appear to have per
formed uo other part than that of mere temporizers and
trimmers, so uniformly did they modify their principles
to suit their circumstances. They held forth in their
speeches the bravest views of the supremacy and power
of the Union, but they invariably shrank from carrying
them into effect. They sometimes spoke of trying the
strength of the government to enforce the laws of Con
gress against a rebellious State, but when the crisis came
they always avoided it by a compromise. General Jack
son, it is true, was ready to strangle nullification in South
Carolina, but that necessity also was avoided by a com
promise. Indeed, on this class of questions compromise
was then the only statesmanship that was possible. Nor
is this to be set down to a want either of wisdom or of
courage. The interests of slavery in the South were
closely connected with the interests of industry in the
North, and they were supported by a powerful political
party. Besides, the early aims of the abolitionists were
avowedly at variance with the Constitution. In these cir
cumstances I cannot think that the statesmen of that day
are now to be condemned for urging forbearance and con
cession to their utmost limit of endurance, rather than
put in jeopardy the transcendent blessings of the Union.
Thus, though in the midst of unequaled prosperity and
with the greatest apparent strength both at home and
abroad, the government was continually shrinking from

260 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
the threatened colUsion with a State. This was remarked
by De Tocqueville as early as 1831. One half the States
were now holding their aUegiance to slavery as paramount
to every other. For its preservation new territory was
continually demanded. It had been contended that slavery
was to foUow the law of the soU. The French had held
a few slaves in the territory out of which Louisiana and
Arkansas had been created, and slavery was of course to
be admitted in these States. This rule would have ex
cluded it from New Mexico and Utah, for there slavery
had been abolished by Mexican law. The ground, how
ever, was now changed, and the right was claimed to carry
it into every territory by the force of the Constitution it
self. California was made free by its own choice. But
its admission as a State was violently resisted, and was
secured at length in 1850 only by another compromise, of
which Mr. Clay was the author. It provided : 1. That
California be admitted as a free State. 2. That New
Mexico and Utah be organized as Territories, without re
striction as to slavery. 3. A pecuniary compensation to
Texas for the surrender of her claims to certain territory.
4. The enactment of a new fugitive slave law. 5. The
suppression of the slave-trade in the District of Colum
bia. This was the Compromise of 1850, the last ever
consummated between freedom and slavery under the
government of the United States.
Thus we reach the latest epoch of American civiliza
tion, — an epoch which was only to bear the fruits of aU
that had gone before, to reap the bitter harvest of suf
fering and war, of which the seeds had been planted
in our original social organization. It embraces twenty-
six years, of which eleven were years of growing sec
tional alienation and strife, five of open war, and the re
maining ten of reconstruction and recovery. For the first

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 261
time since slavery had begun to assert its claims as a po
litical power, the Compromise of 1850 had left the advan
tage with the Free States, but with the fugitive slave law
as a tremendous offset. The compromise produced any
thing but contentment on either side. In the South the
alarm was well-nigh universal lest it would speedily lose
its control in the republic. It put forth its utmost efforts
to people Kansas with slave-holders, in order to make it
a slave State, but it utterly failed, and experienced the
most ignominious of defeats. Virginia and Kentucky, the
great slave-breeding States, " the Congo," as Lord Macau-
lay called them, " of the other States," could not produce
slaves enough to meet the wants of their cotton growing
sisters. In this emergency a frantic movement was made
to reopen the African slave-trade, and some cargoes of
slaves were unquestionably landed on the coast. So com
plete, however, was the debasement of the Southern mind
that even this atrocity received only a qualified rebuke,
and that on the grounds of expediency and good policy.
Not only all public interests, but all sanctions of morality
and all teachings of religion, were forced to be subservient
to the maintenance and perpetuity of slavery.
In the Free States the hostility to the institution was
constantly increasing among all classes of the people.
By far the most numerous class, however, comprised
those who were willing to accord to it its constitutional
guarantees in the States where it already existed, but were
determined by all legal means to resist its extension into
the Territories of the United States ; a second but much
smaller class were comparatively indifferent to the whole
question, and were quite willing to let the South have its
own way ; while a third class, most especially feared and
hated in the South, comprised the open abolitionists, who
aimed to overthrow and extirpate slavery from the coun
try, though into doing it they should hurl the Constitution

262 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
and the Union into common ruin. The general conscience
of the people in the Free States was fast declaring itself
at variance with the slavery provisions of the Constitution.
Multitudes of the people felt called upon by the highest
sentiments of duty to act against an institution to which
the laws gave their protection. A condition of affairs
like this in the two great sections of the country insensi
bly wrought a demoraUzation that was well-nigh univer
sal, and threatened serious disasters to aU high civiUza
tion. In one part of the country all moral sentiments
were held in absolute subordination to the despotism of
slavery. In the other they assumed a position and
prompted an action at variance with the Constitution and
laws of the Republic. In the former there was a growing
brutality which burst forth on the slightest provocation,
in spite of the utmost effort that could be made to re
press it. In the latter there was open resistance to law
as often as it was invoked for the rendition of a fugitive
slave ; and this too not among the lawless and criminal
classes, but on the part of citizens of character and stand
ing, often distinguished for their piety and worth, who
appealed for their justification to a law higher than any
human enactments. Fortunately, the continuance of all
this was short. The outbreak of the Civil War put an
end to it all. And when that war was ended not a vestige
remained of the maUgnant power which had threatened
such disasters to American civilization ; which had en
thralled the bodies of four millions of black men and the
souls of thirty millions of white men. The triumph was
complete. The cost indeed was tremendous, but not
greater than it was worth ; for it was a triumjjh not over
secession and slavery alone, but over barbarism and wrong
which were debasing the conscience and degrading the
character of the American people. After what was then
accomplished, whatever our future may be, it certainly
cannot be like the past.

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 263
I. It must be admitted, I think, that our civilization
during the century has been distinguished rather for its
wide and rapid diffusion than for the elevation which it
has attained. Its special work has been to subdue the
forest and people the prairie, and this work is scarcely
compatible with high refinement either of thought or of
life. It has reclaimed multitudes from barbarism rather
than raised a select few to the highest excellence of which
they were capable. It has produced a high average of
popular intelligence and character rather than eminent
examples of genius or learning or intellectual culture. De
Tocqueville remarked of the United States that " in no
other country in the world does one find either so few
men of great learning or so few men of great ignorance ; "
and the remark is even now almost as true as it was fifty
years ago. Until recently there was nothing in our edu
cation to encourage tastes for special studies or acquire
ments, nor were such tastes appreciated in the country.
Our educated men knew a little of many subjects, but
they mastered none. We also became early possessed of
an inordinate national conceit which was unfriendly to
anything like thorough or careful culture. Mr. Adams
has lately reminded us that a committee of the House of
Representatives prepared an address to President Wash
ington, in which they styled him the Chief Magistrate of
the freest and most enUghtened nation of the world, and
this too at a time when all our science and all our litera
ture were to be found in the writings of Dr. Franklin
and of Phillis Wheatley, the colored poetess. We dwelt
too exclusively on ourselves, and too readily thought our
popular freedom not only a cure for all the iUs of so
ciety, but a guarantee for every excellence. We wor
shiped utility in intellectual culture as in everything
else. Our intellectual activity was long expended almost
wholly on practical inventions, in which we certainly

284 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
achieved eminent success. AU this, however, if it has
not ceased to be true, is far less true than it was thirty
years ago.
II. Much has been said in disparagement of our civU
ization, on account of its democratic spirit. We have
been so often told, that we almost beUeve it to be true,
that this is necessarUy unfriendly to cultivated manners,
to superior intellectual culture, or to success in literature,
science, or art. But every word of this disparagement,
as time is showing, has been premature. There have been
faults and disagreeable peculiarities enough in American
character and life. But none of these are essential or
permanent. Our visitors and critics from abroad used
to delight themselves in showing them up, and in ascrib
ing them to the democratic spirit of our society, greatly to
the disturbance of our sensibilities as a people. The early
volumes of our older magazines abound in elaborate and
often angry rejoinders to these irritating criticisms. Our
critics assumed that our civilization must always be in
ferior. But no one now believes that there exists here
any actual hindrance to the indefinite progress both of
man and society, in all that constitutes the highest civil
ization. We have dispensed both with princes and aris
tocracy, and the century has shown that large-minded and
patriotic citizens have done all, and more than aU, that
princes and nobles in other countries have ever done for
the inteUectual training of the people, and for collecting
the means of the highest culture. It is the peculiarity of
our civilization that, far more than any other, it makes
every man the master of his own social destiny, and places
the destiny of societj'^ in the hands of its members rather
than of its rulers. As they are so will civilization be.
III. A paper recently read to the Club indicated how
complete is the revolution which has taken place during
this century in the relations of religion to the State. It

THE EPOCHS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 265
has ceased everywhere throughout the country to be a
matter of which legislation takes any direct cognizance.
It is the one thing before every other which legislation
studiously avoids. The State, by the very terms of its
fundamental law, no longer cares whether its people are
Christians, Mohammedans, or Pagans, or unbelievers in
all reUgion. This is, perhaps, the natural result of our
views of religious freedom, which have been pushed to some
wild extremes in this country. It still remains true, how
ever, that the essential life of all high and lasting civili
zation is in the reUgion of the people. To keep it alive,
and to make it efficient in the formation of character and
the guidance of conduct, is a work that cannot be dispensed
with. Indeed, taking into consideration the whole nature
of man, it is not too much to assert that the true end of
civUization is to make society a theatre as favorable as
possible for the moral probation of its members and their
preparation for the life to come. It is a serious question
whether an American theory of the State is entirely ade
quate to conducting civilization to any such end as this.
IV. The triumphant issue of the civil war has secured
new advantages for American civilization. It was a tri
umph of what was best over what was worst in our polit
ical organization. It not only subjugated secession, but
it put an end to those theories of state sovereignty which
have always stood in the way of national unity and na
tional advancement. And what is far more important in
its bearings on every national interest, it overthrew and
utterly annihilated slavery, the transcendent bane and
disgrace of our social system. The republic, thus victori
ous in the mighty contest, towers in grandeur and renown,
and steps forward to a place among the foremost powers
of the world. In this altered position there is an inspirar
tion such as has never been felt before, as there always
is in a nation's history after heroic sacrifices and great

266 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
achievements. The life of nations, as of men, is a per
petual struggle, and the future of both is always uncer
tain. It is, however, safe to say that our civilization is
as likely to last as any other. It has no Uability to dis
aster or decay which every other does not share with it.
A thoughtful English writer has lately pointed out what
he styles "Rocks Ahead," political, economic, religious,
in the pathway of aU existing civUizations. But if such
" Rocks " exist, they are not more numerous in our path
way than in that of every other people, and we are at least
as able as others to avoid them. We must not ask for
exemption from the trials and dangers that belong to aU
human institutions. It is enough that our future is at
least as fair and as inviting as that of other nations.
With this we wiU be content, ..." Nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope : but stUl bear up and steer
Right onward."

THE FORMATION AND ADOPTION OF THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
AS EXPLAINED IN MR. BANCROFT'S VOL-
UMES.i
The volumes of Mr. Bancroft which describe the for
mation and adoption of the Constitution of the United
States were published when their author had more than
half completed the eighty-second year of his life. A work
so thorough in its research, so elaborate and accurate in
its preparation, and so clear and condensed in its style, is
certainly to be regarded as a rare exemplification of in
dustry unabated and of inteUectual powers unimpaired
in the lapse of years. While, however, in these respects
it bears no trace of inteUectual decay, I cannot but hesi
tate to say that it was altogether wise for him to attempt
so great and difficult a task at so advanced a period of
life. But the fact that it had been his cherished aspira
tion for fifty years to close his History only with the in
auguration of Washington disarms criticism and almost
rebukes regret. The work is undoubtedly creditable to
the genius of the venerable historian. The only draw
back is that it is not in every respect all that the subject
demands. Over and above thoroughness of research,
judicious selection of materials, and accuracy of narra
tion, to treat a critical epoch such as this with the best
effect requires that the faculties of historic generaliza
tion and of historic imagination be in undiminished vigor
and fullest activity. It is in those features of the work
1 Read before the Friday Evening Club, November 23, 1883.

268 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
in which these faculties would be displayed, and possibly
in those alone, that the careful reader discerns the dif
ference between the volumes which were written in Mr.
Bancroft's youth and those which have been written in
his advanced age.
In his copious and interesting preface he writes, " That
which I attempt to do is to trace the formation of the
Federal Constitution from its origin to its establishment
by the inauguration of its first President. The subject
has perfect unity, and falls of itself into five epochs, or
acts. I have spared no pains to compress the narrative
within the narrowest Umits consistent with clearness. In
weighing authorities, I have striven to foUow with strict
severity the laws of historical criticism ; ever careful to
discriminate between those materials which are sources
and those which are but helps or aids." But even with
this purpose so distinctly announced, his two volumes are
not exclusively the history of the formation of the Con
stitution, but rather the history of the United States dur
ing the period in which the Constitution was prepared for
and formed, beginning precisely where his last preceding
volume had ended. The volumes thus embrace passages
and events which have no direct connection with the sub
ject whose " perfect unity " he has so weU set forth in his
preface. They also become a continuation of the His
tory of the United States, in which the change of the gov
ernment from the Confederation to the Constitution is
the most conspicuous event. This disregard of the essen
tial unity of his plan may have been almost unintentional,
and in many cases it would have been whoUy unobjection
able. But here, it seems to me, it both disappoints and
troubles the reader, and also embarrasses the author.
The amazing changes in the minds of the American peo
ple, that led to the formation of the Constitution and
rendered its adoption possible in the States, constitute

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 269
the real subject of the volumes. It is a subject of very
great importance, and is worthy to be treated by itself.
Indeed, unless it be so treated it cannot be presented in
its full proportions and effects, and made to teach its
proper lessons for subsequent generations. Associated as
it is, in these volumes, with the general course of events,
and made merely a part of the general history of the pe
riod, it loses its distinctive unity and is divested of much
of its impressiveness and interest. The deliverance of
the repubUc from the Confederation and its settlement
under the Constitution, next to the triumph of the Union
arms in the civil war, I regard as the most honorable and
most significant event in American history, and I regret
that our iUustrious historian has not made it stand forth
by itself in all the historic and political importance which
belongs to it.
Another serious disadvantage attends the modified unity
which Mr. Bancroft has allowed to shape his volumes.
He fails to supply to the reader any adequate classifi
cation of the agencies and events by which the grand
consummation was accomplished. He in reality deals
with aU that belongs to the period, both those events and
agencies which relate and those which do not relate to his
special subject. The result is that the reader is obliged,
to a large extent, to do the work of selection and classi
fication for himself, instead of having it done for him
by the historian. The subject, as is suggested in the pre
face to the volumes, is one of perfect unity, and is capa
ble of a dramatic development of great interest and ef
fect, such as I have no doubt the historian designed to
give to it, but which his method made impossible. The
result is that the most momentous and vital moral and
social change recorded in the history of the country stUl
remains to be adequately treated. Let it not be thought,
however, that the narrative is not clear and well wrought.

270 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
or that any material facts are omitted, stiU less that it is
not discriminating and fair, and after aU, perhaps, the best
history of the formation of the Constitution which has
thus far been written. What most of all is wanting is a
more perfect unity of design, a more adequate grouping
of the social forces which were at work among the
American people, and possibly stUl more the exercise of
that historic imagination which alone can transfer to the
pictured page the majestic march of public events. That
these are wanting in a historian of more than fourscore
years is only what is to be expected. The extraordinary
fact is that other faculties are in fuU vigor, and that the
work as a whole is pervaded with an accuracy and thor
oughness not surpassed in any previous volumes which
have come from the pen of the venerable writer.
The government of the Confederation was not, save in
a very vague sense, the creation of the American people,
nor did it have the people for its subjects. It was in
direct antagonism with the ideas of popular sovereignty
which now prevaU, for it was framed by the Revolution
ary Congress, and adopted, not by the people, but by the
state governments, and the state governments were its
only constituents and its real masters. Indeed, popular
sovereignty, though much blazoned in the Declaration of
Independence and other political manifestoes, was then but
imperfectly understood. In those days the people of the
States chose their legislatures very much as some of the
great corporations of our own days choose their direc
tors. They vested them with fuU authority, and then left
them to conduct the affairs of the State as they thought
best. It was assumed that the legislatures were wiser
than the people, and that whatever they might do the peo
ple would of course ratify and approve. AU the powers
of the Confederation government were vested in a single
body known as a Congress. It had no separate executive

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 271
head, it had no judiciary. This Congress assumed to gov
ern the United States of America, — the new civil society
which the Declaration of Independence had called into
existence. It had assigned to itself aU the legislative,
executive, and judicial authority which pertained to this
society. It conducted its correspondence with foreign
governments by the agency of a Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, its mUitary administration by a Secretary of War,
and its financial business by an officer whom it styled
" Financier." Each State had a single vote. In all im
portant matters the delegations of at least nine States
must be present ; in matters of mere form or routine those
of seven States were sufficient. But no State could cast
a vote at all unless two members, a majority of its dele
gation, were present. The members of Congress were
paid by their respective States, and the States cared very
little whether they were present or not, and often pre
ferred to avoid the expense of supporting their delegations
in Congress. The result of such an organization of the
only governing body of the Confederation was that for a
large part of the time it was without the number of dele
gations required for a quorum. It often made appeals to
the absent States to send forward their delinquent delega
tions, but seldom with much effect. The little real busi
ness which Congress had the power to transact was thus
continually delayed, and sometimes wholly frustrated. So
long as the War of Independence engrossed the interest
and attention of the country. Congress retained at least
an appearance of importance and a shadow of authority.
When this was ended, it sank into impotency and con
tempt. The leading men of the country ceased to be
members, in part because of the rule of rotation pre
scribed in the Articles, but more largely because the public
service of the States had become more attractive and more
honorable than that of the United States.

272 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
The functions of this ill-devised and almost powerless
government had to do, first, with the state governments,
for it had no direct relations with the people ; second, with
the creditors of the country, both at home and abroad ;
and, third, with the governments of foreign nations, in
cluding the Indian tribes. It is not easy to determine in
which one of these three departments of its agency it
soon proved to be the most inefficient, or in which its
ultimate failure was the most signal and disastrous.
I. As to the States. The Confederation as a govem
ment was from the beginning regarded by the States as a
sort of disagreeable necessity, made indispensable only by
the exigencies of the war. So soon as the war came to
an end they looked upon it with constantly increasing
jealousy and aversion. They thought of it, even in its
weakness, as a perpetual menace to those conceits of state
sovereignty with which their imaginations were fiUed.
There was really nothing that Congress could do without
the consent of the States. It levied quotas of troops, it
made requisitions of money, it negotiated treaties, it con
tracted debts ; but not one of these acts could go into
full effect without the consent of the States. They were
always ready to restrict it. In many of them it was re
garded as a special favor if the requisitions of Congress
were taken into consideration at aU by the local legislar
ture. During the five years immediately preceding 1787,
of the requisitions made by Congress for national pur
poses. New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Georgia had paid nothing whatever ; Connecticut and
Delaware had each paid one third the amount ; Mas
sachusetts, Rhode Island, and JMaryland had paid one
half, Virginia three fifths, Pennsylvania nearly aU, and
New York more than all ; while New Jersey had not only
not paid, but had distinctly refused to pay, giving as the
reason that New York had stripped her of her revenues

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 273
by levying duties on all the commerce of the bay that
washed the shores of both States.
II. With such inattention on the part of the States to
requisitions for money, it is easy to see how impossible it
was for Congress to deal with its creditors, both at home
and abroad. Fisher Ames wrote that " it had bare rev
enue enough to buy stationery for its clerks and to pay
the salary of its doorkeeper." Certificates of the indebt
edness of the United States sunk to one tenth of their
nominal value. This depreciation gave rise to unlimited
distress in aU mercantile classes. Merchants of unques
tioned credit were compelled to pay discounts of thirty
to fifty per cent, on their notes. The army had been dis
banded in 1783. Its unpaid officers went to their homes
in poverty, and multitudes of the unpaid soldiers, disabled
in the service, obtained their daily bread only by beggary.
The currency of the States was in inextricable confusion,
while the Continental paper money was to silver as forty
to one. Financial ruin brooded over all enterprises of
business, and among the ignorant classes of the population
was appearing that recklessness of social and moral obli
gation which always presages social decay. The insurrec
tion in Massachusetts in 1786 was the natural result of
the real sufferings and the dangerous theories that were
prevalent all over the country.
III. This condition of affairs soon became partiaUy
known in foreign countries, and created the utmost dis
trust of all American obligations. The representatives
of the government were treated with indignity at Euro
pean courts, and were distinctly asked whether they repre
sented the States as well as the United States. The Duke
of Dorset, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, wrote
to the commissioners of the United States, who had come
to London in 1785 to negotiate a treaty, that " the appar
ent determination of the respective States to control their

271 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
own separate interests renders it indispensable that my
court should be informed how far they are authorized to
enter into engagements which any one of the States might
not render totally useless and inefficient." English states
men regarded it as a mistake that a treaty of peace had
been made with the United States. They thought it would
have been better merely to have acknowledged indepen
dence, and to have made commercial arrangements with
such of the States as desired them. Both England and
France believed that the American Union was a failure,
and that the republic was fast tending to disintegration
and ruin. So dilatory and irresponsible as to all public
interests were the members of Congress that Marbois,
the French minister, on arriving at PhUadelphia, found
there neither Congress nor any representative of the gov
emment to receive him. He wrote back to his court,
" There exists no general government in America, neither
Congress nor President, no head of any one administrative
department," which at the time was literally true, though
it was nearly a month after the session ought to have
begun. It should not be inferred, however, that the Confedera
tion Congress was unmindful of the evils which had be
fallen the country, or of the inherent defects of the system
which had been devised for its government. It had made
repeated and most earnest endeavors to obtain larger
powers from the state legislatures that always held it in
control. So early as 1783 it had earnestly solicited from
its sovereign masters the power to levy a duty of five per
cent, on the imports of each State. With much difSculty
and after long delay, consent was obtained from the legis
latures of all the States with the single exception of Rhode
Island. Her refusal annulled the whole measure. Mr.
Hamilton was requested to prepare a remonstrance, but
his arguments were of no avail with the legislature. New

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 275
York and Virginia subsequently revoked their consent,
and though Congress in later years more than once re
peated its solicitation, it was always without effect. Other
amendments were proposed for increasing the powers of the
central government, but they constantly failed of success ;
and it is a singular fact, especiaUy in the light of our sub
sequent history, that the Articles of Confederation re
mained unaltered to the end of their existence. Every
change required the consent of the legislatures of all the
States. The most insignificant of the States could thus
thwart the wishes of all the others. It was undoubtedly
fortunate for the country that all these attempts to in
crease the powers of Congress ended as they did. Had
they succeeded they would only have j^rolonged its useless
life. The republic could be saved only by abandoning
the Confederation, and with it all the false and pernicious
ideas on which it rested.
From the midst of this general decay of all national
sentiments and aspirations, from this prevailing predomi
nance of local ideas and influences, this debasing jealousy
between States and sections, how were the American peo
ple to be led up to the creation of a government which
should rescue them from the frightful evils and perils of
the time, and guide them onward towards the happy des
tiny that still loomed before them through the shadows
of the future? The deliverance of the country from^the
humiliations of the Confederation and its establishment
under the guidance of the Constitution were a work which
transcends in importance aU other achievements of Amer
ican statesmanship. This work involved a social and
moral transformation whose magnitude can scarcely be
overestimated, and even to the broadest and wisest states
men of the age, who contemplated it in advance, it seemed
to be beyond any reasonable expectation. For, it is to be
remembered, it was one thing clearly to point out the ex-

276 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
isting evils, and another and far more difficult to devise
a new government which the ill-instructed and wrongly
guided people of the States could be persuaded to adopt.
The political conceits of the time were monstrous and ap
palling. It was fondly believed that this was the only
country on which civil liberty had ever dawned, that
everywhere else the governments were tyrannies and the
people were slaves, and that the only danger to be watched
for and guarded against was the loss of liberty, and, worst
of all, that for a free people very little govemment was
required. The prevailing idea of the people was that by
their example they were to become the emancipators of aU
the world. They vastly overestimated themselves. They
read almost incessantly the Declaration of Independence.
They breathed in its inflations. They became intoxicated
with its spirit. They looked with ignorant contempt on
other nations. There was reaUy no more impracticable
or unamiable specimen of civilized humanity to be found
on earth than the free and independent American of the
first five and twenty years after the close of the war of
separation. By what agencies were such a people at length
induced to surrender the loose freedom of the Confed
eration, and place themselves under the obligations and
restraints of the Constitution? It is to this question
that Mr. Bancroft devotes several of the best chapters
of his work.
First of all, he reminds the reader that there stUl lin
gered in the country certain uniting influences, which
kept the States from final separation far more than their
written articles of aarreement. Among: these the most
important were : 1. A prevailing attachment to the Union.
In spite of the common conceits of state sovereignty, the
idea of the nation did not cease to stimulate and delight
the minds of the people. 2. The Articles of Confedera
tion had specially provided for inter-citizenship among

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 277
the States, which had done much to promote intercourse
and to diminish the importance of state lines. 3. More
powerful than either of these was the interest which was
felt by the States in the vast territory which had been
surrendered to the United States, and had become the
common property of the American people. The feeling-
had become general that every citizen had a right to the
benefits of this magnificent national domain, which would
be forfeited by a separation of the States. 4. The hos
tile commercial policy of England also greatly tended to
strengthen the sentiment of nationality. The undisguised
purpose of her ministry had been to divide the Confedera
tion. They did not believe that it could last long, and
they sought to hasten its overthrow, expecting it to be
dissolved into separate republics, like those of Greece
and Italy. The treatment the Confederation received
from England helped to prevent this result and to hold
it together. But agencies such as these were effective merely for
delaying or hindering separation. They were of them
selves wholly insufficient for working the radical change
that was needed in the opinions and modes of thought of
the people. Coincident with these, however, were more
positive influences, exerted by the foremost minds of the
country, which had long been slowly working out the prep
aration that was required. Foremost among these was
the personal authority of Washington. The Confedera
tion had scarcely been submitted to the States, certainly
it had not been adopted by them aU, before he pointed
out its inherent and fatal weaknesses. No man in the
country had suffered as Washington had suffered from
the incompetency and inefliciency of Congress. He never
lost an opportunity of setting forth the necessity of a
stronger government for the republic. In his Farewell
Address to the army he had urged every officer and every

278 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
soldier to use their influence in securing a change. He
had done the same in his Address to the Govemors of the
Several States, at the close of the war. In subsequent
years he appears to have written scarcely a letter to any
public man in which he did not advert to the engrossing
subject. Indeed, it is not easy to conceive how any single
man could have done more to present to his countrymen
the perils that threatened the repubUc from the weakness
of the Confederation.
Next to AVashington, Alexander Hamilton was un
doubtedly the most efficient advocate and promoter of
the change. He shared all the views of his great leader,
and he thought even more profoundly on the manner in
which the defects of the government were to be remedied.
Mr. Bancroft makes less mention of his services in this
respect than might naturaUy have been expected, — pos
sibly for the reason that Hamilton, after the war, was but
little in public life. He left Congress because he could
do nothing in that body. He was, however, a member of
the Convention, but on the withdrawal of his two asso
ciates the vote of New York was lost on the questions
which subsequently arose. But his clear views of the
strength which the government ought to possess, as they
were put forth on many public occasions, and embodied
with persuasive force in several series of articles in the
journals of the time, attracted the attention of the whole
country more than any other publications on the subject.
And when the Constitution was framed and submitted to
the conventions of the States, he wrote in its defense and
explanation nearly all of those masterly papers now
known as the " Federalist," and in every other way gave
his constant efforts to securing its adoption.
Mr. Madison was more conspicuous in the Convention
than Mr. Hamilton, and undoubtedly did more to shape
the details of the Constitution, and he receives much

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 279
stronger applause from Mr. Bancroft. He certainly de
serves to be ranked among the foremost leaders of the
movement towards a better government. Jefferson and
John Adams were absent from the country, but many
others might be named who contributed their full share to
the work of bringing about the deliverance of the country
from the dominion of its own follies and conceits. But
even after a change was seen to be indispensable there
was little agreement as to what the change ought to be,
and neither Congress nor any one of the States was ready
to take the first step. In this condition of affairs it for
tunately happened that commissioners from Maryland and
Virginia met at Mount Vernon to adjust the long-stand
ing difficulties between these two States relating to the
navigation of Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers. It
was one of a large class of controversies between States
with which the country was afflicted. The agreement of
the commissioners was adopted by Maryland in Decem
ber, 1785, and in communicating its action to Virginia
the legislature proposed that all the States should be in
vited " to meet and regulate the commerce of the country."
Virginia readily acceded to the proposal, and arranged a
meeting to be held at Annapolis in September, 1786.
This meeting was attended only by Virginia, Maryland,
Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York,
though delegates were appointed by Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and New Hampshire, but faUed to attend. The
manifesto of this Convention, prepared by Hamilton, pro
posed stUl another step : that the States there represented
should urge aU the other States to meet with them in
Philadelphia on the second Monday of the foUowing May,
to consider and to report to Congress what further pro
visions were needed to render the Articles of Confedera
tion adequate to the exigencies of the Union. Madison
immediately secured the unanimous approval of the Vir-

280 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
ginia legislature, and the Governor transmitted its action
to Congress. But that body was unwiUing to act on the
recommendation of a State. After considerable delay,
however, when delegates had been chosen by several
States, it adopted an independent resolution, caUing a
convention to meet at the same place and on the same
day, but without reference to what had been done either
at Annapolis or in Virginia. Thus the object was ac
complished, and Congress seemed to originate the mea
sure which Virginia had forced upon its attention.
According to the dilatory habits of the time, the Con
vention did not have a quorum tUl more than two weeks
after the appointed day. Its members, like those of Con
gress, were chosen by the state legislatures, for no distinct
idea of popular sovereignty had yet been developed in
American affairs. They were, however, wisely chosen,
for among them were the ablest and most experienced
statesmen of the country. W^ashington was President,
and Franklin, at the age of eighty-four, was the senior
member. Many of them had made special studies of the
great masters of jurisprudence, in order to be qualified
for the work before them. There was among them the
utmost diversity of opinion as to what the Convention
ought to do ; whether merely to amend the Confederation
in a greater or less degree, or to frame an entirely new
govemment with powers hitherto unrecognized in the re
pubUc. The task which necessity demanded, and which
it really performed, was one of surpassing difficulty. It
was to frame a new constitution for a federal republic, —
the most complex form of civil society. To found a mon
archy would have been comparatively easy, had there been
any material for such a government and a public opinion
that would make it possible. The work to be done, in
its essential peculiarities, was then without a paraUel in
history. All the existing governments of the world were

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 281
growths, — not one was an original creation, — and they
could afford no incidental suggestions in what was here
to be done. If we add to this the clashing opinions of
the country, the existence of negro slavery as a local in
stitution, the crude ideas of government, the false theories
of liberty, the jealousies and strifes that prevailed among
the States, with all the bad precedents and bad influences
of the Confederation, the probabilities of success appear
exceedingly small.
The Convention sat with closed doors, and secrecy was
enjoined on its members. At its opening session the Vir
ginia delegation presented to the body through Gover
nor Randolph a plan for a new constitution, which had
been prepared by Madison as a basis for discussion. In
its essential features it was mildly national rather than
federal. Other plans were subsequently submitted, but
the Virginia plan, more than any other, though with a
multitude of modifications, was the groundwork of the
Constitution. The first great question which it raised
was whether the States should be on an equality In all
respects, as they were In the Confederation. This ques
tion, with all that It involved, was debated with the ut
most acrimony, and the votes that were taken repeatedly
showed the same number of States on either side, with
others divided and not voting. At the end of thirty-four
days the Convention had made no progress, and members
despairingly wrote to their friends that nothing could be
done. At this juncture, Franklin made his famous speech,
in which he said, "The wit of man Is exhausted. I firmly
believe that, unless the Lord build the house, they labor
In vain that try to build It," and proposed that the daily
sessions be opened with prayers. The whole matter was
then referred to a committee, and through their agency
the great compromises of the Constitution were prepared
and adopted, and positive nationality became its pervad-

282 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
ing character. Had this not been secured, the Conven
tion would have ended in Ignominious failure.
But after all these great adjustments had been made,
there still remained the stupendous work of devising the
machinery by which these essential ag^reements should be
carried Into effect. It is here quite as much as in the
agreements themselves that the real statesmanship of the
Convention is displayed. The compromises of the Con
stitution were dictated by the necessities of the country.
The Convention was compelled to accept them. Not so
with the innumerable contrivances and adjustments which
are designed to combine the different branches of the
govemment into a harmonious whole, to give efficiency
to every part, and to concentrate the united strength of
the whole for the enactment and maintenance of law, and
for the defense alike" of the Union and of every State.
Arrangements like these in other countries have slowly
grown up in the lapse of ages. Here they had to be
created In advance, and In doing this the far-seeing states
men of the Convention achieved, perhaps, the most won
derful part of their work.
The sessions of the Convention had begun on the 14th
of May ; they terminated on the 17th of September. For
several of the closing weeks, the Constitution, which had
been substantiaUy agreed upon, was in the hands of com
mittees, who perfected its provisions aud gave the final
touches to its forms of expression. Its closing article
provided that its ratification by the Convention, chosen by
the people of nine States, should be " sufficient for the
establishment of the Constitution between the States so
ratifying." On the 17th of September it was finally
adopted by the delegations of the eleven States that were
represented in the Convention, though three conspicuous
members refused to give it their signatures. Many did
not believe that It would be accepted by eleven States ;

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 283
some perhaps did not desire it to be. The general feel
ing, however, was that they had done better than they
anticipated, and the best that was possible. Mr. Ban
croft says : " The members were awestruck at the result
of their councils ; the Constitution was a nobler work than
any one of them had believed it possible to devise. They
all on that day dined together and took a cordial leave of
each other. Washington at an early hour of the evening
retired ' to meditate on the momentous work which had
been executed.' "
The Instrument was now In the hands of the people,
who were to choose the state conventions. It was imme
diately assailed with a violence and fury which it Is now
difficult to explain. It certainly sprang from no well-
grounded objections to the Constitution Itself. The new
government was denounced In advance as a rich man's
government, an aristocracy, a gilded bait, a triple-headed
monster, a stepping-stone to monarchy, and by a multi
tude of similar names suggestive of the low tone of the
popular mind and the narrow range of the popular intelli
gence. Delaware was the first to accept the Constitution,
which she did unanimously on December 6. Pennsyl
vania adopted It on December 12. These were foUowed
by New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Maryland, South Carolina, and New Hampshire, on June
21, 1788. Nine States had now adopted the Constitution,
the number required for Its establishment. But there con
tinued to be great anxiety among its friends. It was easy
to see that without Virginia, and especially without New
York, the Union would still be dangerously Incomplete.
Four days later, on June 25, Virginia gave her ratifica
tion, and New York on July 26, by a majority of two
votes. North CaroUna did not adopt it till November,
1789, eight months after the inauguration of the govern
ment, and Rhode Island not till May, 1790, when the gov-

284 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
ernment had been in full operation more than a year
and then by a majority of two votes. The great charac
ter of Washington at the head of the nation had already
done much to subdue the opposition of these dilatory
States, and to draw the whole people towards a govern
ment of which he was the head. Mr. Bancroft does not
state it too strongly when he writes that " but for him
the country could not have achieved its independence ; but
for him it could not have formed the Union ; and now
but for him it could not have set the federal government
in successful motion." ^
Nowhere was hostility to the Constitution so bitter as
in Rhode Island and New York. These were the only
States in which the passions of the people broke out in
riotous proceedings. Rhode Island, especiaUy, clung to
the Confederation with a tenacity unequaled in any other
State. The people of her rural districts seemed to de
light in its impotence and inefficiency, for It left them
undisturbed in the delusions of their paper money, with
which they sought to pay their debts. Her legislature,
under the control of its rural majority, had refused to
send delegates to the Convention, giving as a reason that
it had no power to do so. Inasmuch as the delegates to
Congress, since March, 1777, had been chosen by the peo
ple of the State, which was true. It refused on seven
different occasions to caU a convention of the State to
act on adopting the Constitution, but submitted it to the
people in their town meetings, a mode of procedure
wholly at variance with the requirements of the instru
ment Itself. Five of these seven occasions were after it
had been adopted by nine States, and was therefore sure
to go into effect, and two were after it had reaUy gone
into effect, and the federal government had been organ
ized according to its provisions. The State also continued
' Vol. u. p. 360.

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 285
to vote for delegates to the Confederation Congress, just
as if that body had not been superseded. Like the Eng
lish Jacobites, she stIU clung to the old dynasty after It had
been destroyed. The reason which she gave for this dis
play of irrational and offensive oddity was that the State,
though she stood alone, was bound by the Articles of Con
federation till they were legally set aside. The real rea
son was that the men then in power were too Ignorant
and narrow to understand the obvious interests of the
State, and so wedded to their paper money that they could
not be induced to do anything which would threaten its
overthrow. The State was tjieated with the utmost In
dulgence by the new government. On the petition of the
merchants of Providence, Newport, and Bristol, Congress
fixed a day so late as the 15th of January, 1790, as the
time when her vessels must be treated as foreign in the
ports of the United States. The time was afterwards ex
tended to the 15th of April ; but they were not molested
even then, for the legislature, after its seven refusals, had
now called a convention to act upon the Constitution. A
little longer delay, however, would have subjected her
citizens to very great embarrassments and sufferings. A
continued persistence In her experiment of separate exist
ence as an Independent State would have led, of necessity,
to her dismemberment, and destruction.
Her conduct at this time of Infatuation brought an
injury to her character from which the State did not soon
recover. She was visited with contempt and every kind of
obloquy. Her name became a by-word in nearly every
part of the country, and it was not till another generation
had arisen that she began to recover from the conse
quences of the bad influences which then controUed her
action as a State.
The conduct of New York was scarcely less discredit
able and vastly more harmful than that of Rhode Island.

286 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
She had persistently disregarded the maritime rights of
her nearest neighbors. New Jersey and Connecticut, and
had long been the centre of an unyielding and reckless
opposition to every measure that was designed to give to
the government the control either of revenues or of com
merce. She sent only three delegates to the Convention.
Two of these were determined anti-Federalists, and they
withdrew so soon as that body decided to frame a Con
stitution, and not to amend the Articles of Confederation.
The remaining delegate, most fortunately for the State
and for the country, was Alexander HamUton. He could
not give the vote of his State, but he did give the whole
weight of his commanding influence and his great abU
ities to the success of the Constitution, and to him Its
final adoption by New York is mainly to be ascribed. Its
foremost opponent was Governor George CUnton, who
presided In the state convention and controlled a large
majority of its members. But neither he nor his fol
lowers dared wholly to reject it. This would not only
have destroyed the union of the States, but it would have
compelled New York to maintain an army and a na\-y In
order to preserve the commercial supremacy which she
had already attained. New York, no more than Rhode
Island, could prosper out of the Union. The aim of the
opposition, therefore, was to embarrass the question as
much as possible. They proposed a multitude of amend
ments, and sought to make their incorporation into the
Constitution a condition of its adoption by the State, and
at the same time they voted to invite aU the States to
meet In a second convention for framing another Consti
tution. The Federalists were alarmed at the situation.
Hamilton was their acknowledged leader. For months he
had given his days and nights to the success of the Con
stitution. He had organized a system of rapid communi
cation among its friends in every State. He published the

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 287
successive numbers of the " Federalist." He wrote many
letters. Swift riders brought him intelligence from New
England, which, by others equally swift, he dispatched
to Madison, In Virginia or in Congress. To him Ham
ilton now submitted the question whether any concession
ought to be made as to a conditional adoption. Mad
ison immediately repUed that a conditional adoj)tIon is
not an adoption. The crisis was one of great difficulty
and danger. Hamilton, however, and his associates suc
ceeded In getting the caU for another national convention
and the vote for adoption, with the words " on condition
that " changed to " In full confidence that," both united
in a single resolution. This finally passed the Convention
by a majority of two votes, the same majority as in Rhode
Island, and even then It was something less than an un
qualified adoption. But the qualifying clause was happily
made nugatory by the amendments immediately recom
mended by Congress and adopted by the States, in the
mode prescribed by the Constitution itself. Thus, as it
were, against the determination of her own people and
their representatives, did the great State of New York
ratify the Constitution of the United States ; and it is to
be observed that neither here nor in Rhode Island, the
two States in which the vote was the smallest, nor in any
other State, did there appear the slightest dissatisfaction
with what had been done. The defeated party was as
submissive to the new government as the triumphant
party. The members of the one immediately became as
loyal as those of the other ; and both were equaUy ready
to accept the offices and to discharge the responsibilities
which the Constitution had caUed into existence.
I have thus suggested the outUnes of the momentous
moral and social as well as political transformation which
was wrought in the minds of the American people at the
period of the formation and adoption of the Constitution.

288 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
The magnitude and the results of this change amazed
even those who had labored most earnestly to brino' It
about. It transcended their utmost expectations. It was
as If the nation had been bom into a new poUtical life.
A new blood seemed to flow in its veins and new joys
glowed in its heart. In the place of dangerous political
theories, of narrow Ideas, of local prejudices and Inflated
political conceits, there immediately sprang up national
sentiments, comprehensive interests, patriotic aspirations.
The people of the States began to abandon their notions
of state sovereignty, their groundless alarms lest a new
tyranny should be imposed upon them, and. In obedience
to the voice of the public reason, they accepted a frame of
government whose essential features were directly repug
nant to all that they had been struggling to secure. There
Is no other proceeding recorded In Mr. Bancroft's twelve
volumes of American history which does so much credit to
American character. The resistance to British taxation,
the Declaration of Independence, the war of separation, all
were less remarkable than the result of this great struggle
between the good and the evil tendencies then embosomed
in the republic. In other struggles they had won victories
over their enemies ; in this they conquered themselves.
Before they had contended for Independence and for
greater liberty ; now they gave up a portion of their in
dependence and placed wholesome restraints on their
liberty — a vastly higher achievement, as self-denial is
always higher than self-indulgence.
Professor Seelye, in his lectures on " The Expansion of
England," refers to the separation of the American colo
nies as, perhaps, the event foremost in importance in the
history of the English race, for it called Into being another
Britain greater than the island " that rules the waves."
But of how little importance might this separation have
proved to be, had the Constitution not been formed, or.

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 289
when formed, had It not been accepted, and the loose and
disjointed union of the Confederation been left to shape
the then dubious destiny of the American States ! Both
Spain and Portugal had colonies In America, and like
those of England, they too separated from the mother
country. But no greater Spain or greater Portugal had
sprung, or is likely ever to spring, from them. It is the
Constitution of the United States — the guarantee of
liberty regulated by law, combining In harmonious rela
tions the local governments of many separate States with
the central government of the single united nation — self-
governing provmces wrought together in a self-governing
union, — it is this solution of the most difficult of prob
lems that has given paramount and ever-increasing impor
tance to the separate nationality of the English colonies
In America, and has secured for the widespread English
race a leadership among mankind such as otherwise it
could not have attained. Great Britain now looks proudly
abroad over another Britain vastly greater than herself,
but still an expansion of herself and of the civilization
which she represents, spreading over nearly one quarter of
the planet. Of the greater part of this expanded Britain
she is still the mistress and ruler. If she is able to keep
together and govem this stupendous empire, she must do
it very largely, as her own statesmen admit, by employing
the methods and foUowing the example furnished by the
Constitution made by her American children nearly a hun
dred years ago, of which Mr. Gladstone has given his esti
mate in the following familiar sentence. Inscribed by Mr.
Bancroft on the first page of each of his volumes : " As
the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which
has proceeded from progressive history, so the American
Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at
a given time by the brain and purpose of man."

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION AMONG
NATIONS.i
As I rise to read the paper of the evening before this
Historical Society, I cannot forbear, first of aU, to give
some brief utterance to the sense of loss which we all ex
perience In the death of our distinguished associate. Pro
fessor Diman. To me it is Uke a personal bereavement.
Elsewhere, and on other occasions, his character will be
delineated as a scholar, a professor In the university, a
Christian minister, and an eminent citizen. Here we
think of him In his connection with this Society, and the
pursuits In which we are engaged. We aU recaU his
readiness to Instruct us by his papers, and to contribute
his services in the work of coUecting and preserving the
materials for our state history. We remember, too, the
volumes pertaining to Rhode Island which he has so care
fuUy edited, the public discourses in which he has cele
brated our local anniversaries and the characters of our
distinguished citizens, and above aU, how important was
his influence in promoting historical studies, in his capa
city as professor of history in the university. The pro
fessorship of history was not established tlU about the
time of his graduation, but in such incidental work as was
then done, I well remember the taste and aptitude for this
class of studies which he evinced. Twelve years later,
when the professorship became vacant, 1 was invited by
those charged with making the appointment to name
' Read before the Historical Society of Rhode Island, March 9,
1880.

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 291
some son of the coUege who might be selected to fill it,
and without hesitation I named Mr. Diman, then settled
as a minister in Brookline, Mass. It was a weU-consid-
ered suggestion, and I look back upon it with proud and
perfect satisfaction.
He entered upon his work in the university In the
autumn of 1864, and for more than sixteen years he has
prosecuted it with ever-growing and briUiant success.
His instructions embraced the long period which has
elapsed since the faU of the Roman Empire, and were
designed to explain the origin and formation of the states
of modern Europe, and to trace the progress of modern
civiUzation. Upon this subject, in all its departments, he
had gathered large stores of information from the litera
ture of many languages. But It Is not learning alone that
constitutes the true qualification for a professor of history.
Professor Diman was penetrated with that comprehensive,
liberal, and Christian philosophy which looks beyond the
facts into the laws that govern them, which searches for
the hidden meaning of the changes alike in states and in
the opinions of mankind, and which in the long sequence
of ages recognizes the process by which the Divine Ruler
of the world unfolds the destiny of man and society.
He worked easily and cheerfuUy, with a candid and
unbiased spirit which Imparted itself to those whom he
taught. Nor was his Influence or his work confined to
the university. They spread themselves over the commu
nity. He taught classes of ladies, beginning in many
cases when they had just ceased to be school-girls, and
going on after they had become women and heads of
famihes. For several years, also, he had given courses of
lectures on the constitutional history of the United States
to the State Normal School, which were received with
very great satisfaction and interest, and drew large assem
blies at their delivery.

292 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
The Usage of Asylum, or, as it is styled in recent
times, the Right of Asylum, is of very ancient origin, and
is very widely spread among mankind. It would seem to
be as old as civil society itself, and it has prevailed so
extensively In early periods of history as to have ac
quired a special and mysterious significance. It was long
associated with religion, but religion seems not to have
been the source from which It sprang. It Is to be regarded
rather as the expression of a sentiment of dissatisfaction,
which springs spontaneou.sly in the minds of men, with
the institutions and operations of aU human justice, —
a sentiment which revolts from the taint of selfishness
and tyranny, of private hostUIty and revenge, that so
generally affected the making and the execution of aU
human laws. This sentiment, especiaUy In early ages,
when individual rights were insecure, created a certain
sympathy with the offender, and made men not only un
willing to assist in his arrest and punishment, but willing
to afford him. If not assistance, at least some folorn oppor
tunity to escape the penalties he had brought upon him
self ; to open for him some place of refuge in which he
might be secure from the seizure of those who pursued
him in the name of the public authority. This sentiment
finds less to justify it In civilized ages, but it has not be
come wholly extinct even in the most civilized countries.
Religion very easily took this usage of asylum under Its
own sanction and care, and for many ages it was associ
ated exclusively with religious institutions. Religion thus
proclaimed that no criminal should be taken from its tem
ples or altars, or any of its sacred places, and that aU who
had found a refuge In these places shoiUd be beyond the
reach of the civil power, at least tiU their cause could be
examined and decided upon by its own ministers, acting
under the sanction of the divinity.
The oldest historical trace of this usage of asylum Is

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 293
found among the Hebrews. By the provisions of their
laws six cities were especiaUy set apart as cities of refuge,
to either of which the slayers of men might flee, and re
main beyond the reach of that terrible agent of Jewish
justice, the avenger of blood. The temple, also, and the
altar of burnt-offerings appear to have afforded the same
protection. This Hebrew law was doubtless only a formal
recognition of the custom of a stiU earlier time, — an
authoritative declaration of a sentiment which the Jews
had long shared with other portions of mankind. Its
design, its effect everywhere, was to rescue human life
from the violence to which It was exposed in ages when
personal passion aud revenge so often assumed the name
of justice, and usurped the authority of law.
Among the early Greeks the same usage prevailed.
The groves and temples, and aU places sacred to the
divinities, were made asylums for criminals, and indeed
for persons of every description who were fleeing from
those who sought to Injure them. No punishment could
be Inflicted, and no violence of any kind could be used,
within these sacred inclosures, nor could any one be taken
from them by force to be punished elsewhere. In later
ages different temples were especiaUy designated as asy
lums for different classes of fugitives, as that of Diana at
Ephesus for fugitive debtors, and that of Theseus at Ath
ens for fugitive slaves, and the shrines of Mercury every
where for thieves. Here the religious idea had become
conspicuous, and the sacredness of the place seemed to be
the controUing consideration. The fugitive was protected.
In appearance at least, not because of any sympathy which
he deserved, but rather because the divinity would be
offended If he were molested. It Is probable, however,
that humane feehng may stUl have prompted the usage,
and that religion only gave it its sanction, and invested it
with its own sacred authority, and thus made it more
effective In its benevolent agency.

294 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
With equal distinctness is the same usage traceable
among the early Romans. If there Is any truth in the
legends recorded by LIvy, Romulus had scarcely com
pleted the walls of his city, when he made it an asylum
for the criminals and outcasts of aU Italy, and invited
them to come and share its rising fortunes. There was
no period of Roman history, from the days of the earliest
kings to those of the latest emperors, when the various
sacred places of all the Roman cities were not constantly
resorted to as asylums ; not by fugitives from justice
alone, but also by those who sought to escape from every
form of outrage or oppression. The usage was the com
mon law of the state long before it was enacted by the
senate or decreed by the emperors. Indeed, it was so
thoroughly wrought into the social system, that it at
last proved to be difficult for either senate or emperor
to modify or control It. The right of asylum became
greatly extended as the sacred spots grew more numer
ous, and as nearly aU the divinities of the world one
after another set up their shrines in and around the im
perial city. After the empire was established, the stat
ues of the Caesars were made to rank with those of the
gods, and criminals who were able to touch them, or reach
the inclosures in which they stood, claimed the same priv
ilege as if they had fled to a temple, or to the wayside
shrine of a divinity.
But whoUy Independent of any influence of either the
laws of Moses or the mythology of Greece or Rome, the
same usage of asylum also appeared among the Franks,
the Visigoths, and the Germans, on their settlement In
Western Europe. It became especiaUy conspicuous In
Lyons and Vienne, and in some German cities it lingered,
as it has also in Edinburgh, almost to our own times.
A prescriptive institution Uke this would be sure to be
constantly abused by those who resorted to It to escape

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 295
the penalties of the law. The temples of the gods and
the sacred places of religion were often crowded with the
guUty and the depraved, who sought to place themselves
beyond the reach of the public prosecutor. The right of
asylum, thus perverted from its original uses, was often
disregarded by the civil authorities, and well-known crim
inals were taken from its protection even at the risk of
every penalty which the divinities could Inflict. This is
more than once mentioned in the Greek annals. In Rome
the abuses became stIU more flagrant, but so powerful
were the priests, and so superstitious the masses of the
people, that for many generations no government dared to
attempt their reformation. Tiberius is said to have been
the first who succeeded in arresting these abuses, and
imposing effectual restrictions on the usage of religious
asylum. He was able to accomplish this mainly by secur
ing a wiser and juster administration of the laws, and by
preventing, to a great extent, the wrongs and outrages
which this usage was designed to remedy. He limited It
to the temples and altars of certain divinities, and desig
nated certain crimes for which the offender could not
take refuge in them. He narrowed the Inclosures within
which It could take effect, and he reduced the number of
asylums In aU the cities. The abuses, however, returned,
and so long as the line of pagan emperors lasted, the tem
ples of the gods continued to offer Impunity to every sort
of crime, and thereby to swell the dangerous multitude
of the lawless and the dissolute.
When Christianity established itself in the empire and
became the rehgion of the state, the asylum of the ancient
temples was Immediately transferred to the churches.
Christianity had, from the beginning, been the religion of
the poor and the oppressed. It was always opposed to
violence and tumult and strife. It had no sympathy with
the guilty. It did not care to shield even the fugitive

296 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
unless he was Innocent. For a long time the change was
most salutary. But the empire was already faUing to
decay, and ere long the barbarian took possession of its
ruins. In the universal wreck of society the Christian
Church was the only organized and vigorous social force
that survived, the only one that possessed either the
courage or the ability to Interpose In behalf of justice and
right and humanity. The duties that were thus forced
upon the Church contributed to make her ministers the
leaders and lawgivers of the new kingdoms that sprang
up in Western Europe. In every one of them the right
of asylum, or of sanctuary as it had now come to be caUed,
was fuUy recognized, and the churches and sacred buUd
ings In many of them soon began to be the resort of crim
inals and fugitives of every description. The ends of
justice were frequently perverted just as they had been in
the days of the heathen temples. Great ecclesiastics
clung to the usage just as the pagan priests had done be
fore them, and It was as much abused and as firmly rooted
as it had ever been. Governments complained of it, but
they dared not destroy It ; the best men of the Church
were ashamed of it and denounced it, but they could not
shut their eyes to the manifold benefits that were mingled
with its vast abuses. The masses of the people demanded
its continuance as a prescriptive right, which In those
ages of depotism and violence they could not afford to
surrender. It had Its root, too. In the universal sentiment
that the civil authority was stUl too vengeful and arbi
trary, and in aU respects too barbarous, to be aUowed an
unobstructed sway over the interests and Uves of these
whom it assumed to govern.
From causes like these this ecclesiastical sanctuary,
though restricted by the later popes and often for a time
disregarded by the more powerful of the temporal sover
eigns, continued to be a recognized custom in every state

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 297
in Europe till the close of the Middle Age. As govern
ments became more fuUy established, and more humane
and just in their administration, the necessity for such a
custom was diminished. In Italy, where the Church was
powerful and the State was weak, it prevailed to the
greatest extent, and survived in a modified form down to
the occupation of that country by Napoleon In the early
part of the present century. Indeed, the environs of the
papal palaces and the houses of the cardinals at Rome
still served as sanctuaries for fugitive debtors even so
lately, as 1871 when Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy,
made that city his capital. In Germany It was always
more Umited than in any other country, and It whoUy dis
appeared there with the coming of the Reformation. In
England It was in full force till the reign of Edward III.
(1487), when it was first restricted by a papal bull. In
the reign of Elizabeth the privilege was denied to aU who
were charged with treason and several other crimes, but
was continued to debtors. In that reign It appears to
have been a subject of unusual popular Interest. Shake
speare has not less than twelve references to it, and In
" Richard III." he makes the cardinal express the import
ance which was attached to it by the Church.
" God in heaven forbid
We should infringe the holy privilege
Of blessed sanctuary ! not for all this land
Would I be guilty of so deep a sin."
It survived the Reformation for the benefit of debtors, and
was not finaUy taken from the churches In England until
1697, in the reign of WUUam HI. The latest remnant
of it in Scotland is still attached to the palace of Holy-
rood, an ancient abbey, which retains the right of afford
ing temporary sanctuary to certain classes of innocent
debtors.

298 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
WhoUy independent of the sanctuary which the Church
so long maintained and so reluctantly surrendered was
the asylum which was afforded by the feudal towns dur
ing the latter portion of the Middle Age. These httle
hamlets which sprang up on the domains of the great pro
prietors, almost from their origin, made it a point to
protect the fugitive serfs who sought refuge at their
gates. Once within the Umits of a town, the right of the
feudal proprietor over them was sure to be contested by
force. At length It was whoUy abandoned. This usage
of asylum came to be aUowed by common consent, and
was at length enforced by decrees of the sovereigns, who
ordained that any serf residing in a town " a year and a
day " should be free and entitled to be ranked among the
burghers. The operation of this form of asylum was
always beneficent. It afforded a way of escape from
feudal servitude. It aided largely In increasing the
population and strength of the towns, and did its part in
creating the early institutions of civU liberty in Europe.
It had not any necessary connection with reUgion, though
it may have often invoked the sanction of the Church. It
had its origin In a love of freedom and a hatred of feudal-
Ism, in a sentiment of humanity, and In the common in
terest which the burghers had in the growth of their free
communities. But this usage of asylum presents Itself in its most
imposing form in the relations of nations with one an
other. When the temples of paganism, the churches of
Christianity, and the cities of the feudal age had aU
ceased to afford shelter to the fugitive in his own country,
he has in later times found It in a foreign land. The
states of Europe long sustained only loose relations with
each other. Their boundaries were vaguely defined
They were often at war. They were rivals in trade.
They were jealous of each other's strength. The legal

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 299
status of their subjects when away from their country
was uncertain and precarious. But In spite of aU this
the first instinct, even of the feeblest sovereignty, always
was to resist any Inroad of a foreign jurisdiction, any
exercise of a foreign authority within its territory. Un
der this impulse no government would consent to sur
render a fugitive of any description who had crossed the
border and sought Its hospitality. This determination
too would be strengthened by considerations of humanity,
by a sensitiveness to Its Independence, and often, perhaps,
by a desire to add to Its population. Nations, too, then as
now, differed in freedom and In the justice of their laws.
Refuge would be sought and emigrations would be made
from the less free to the more free. It thus became a
dictate of humanity as well as of seU-Interest that every
country should proclaim itseU an inviolable asylum for
those who placed themselves under its protection. The
fugitive and the exile, the victims of despotic power, of
popular hatred, of reUgious persecution, as weU as of
legalized justice, were aU safe If they could touch the soil
of a foreign country.
This international asylum had its origin, no doubt. In
mixed motives, as do aU human institutions, but its ne
cessity in the age in which It began was never seriously
questioned, and it has long been accepted as an essential
principle of pubhc law. It began to be asserted in an
age of Intense international hatreds and of fierce religious
wars, — in an age when popular freedom was beginning
Its long struggle with prescriptive despotism, and multi
tudes of the noblest spirits in Western Europe hastened
to take advantage of it. Its beneficent agencies have given
it an importance and a sanctity which never rested on the
sanctuary either of pagan temple or Christian church.
The French Huguenots, to the number of 500,000, hunted
down in their own country, sought the shelter of this

300 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
asylum in foreign lands. The persecuted Puritans of
England, in like manner, fled for refuge to Switzerland
and HoUand. In later ages, the proscribed scholar and
the crushed artisans have made themselves exiles on for
eign shores in order to secure an inteUectual or Industrial
liberty which was denied to them at home. The right of
asylum has proved itself equaUy benignant to princes and
their subjects. How many a monarch, when driven from
his throne, has had recourse to a foreign asylum for his
own life and those of his family and foUowers ! The last
three sovereigns who sat upon the throne of France saved
themselves from the revolutionary fury of their own sub
jects only by seeking the Inviolable sanctuary of British
protection ; and there have been periods In our own his
tory when no Inconsiderable portion of our foreign-born
population were exiles, and could not have safely returned
to the country of their birth.
I have thus Illustrated at length the progress and the
agencies of the ancient usage or right of asylum in the
several forms In which It has prevaUed. It Is evident, I
think, that in each one of its forms it has been a most
beneficent custom, notwithstanding the perversions and
abuses to which It has been so frequently Uable. In its
origin it was prompted by humane instincts in the minds
of men, which barbarism did not whoUy obUterate, and
which civilization has not wholly outgrown. Within the
last hundred years there has arisen among the leading
nations of the world another practice, of an entirely op
posite character, which is now ui-glng its claims to uni
versal recognition. The practice I refer to is that of
surrendering to the government of their country certain
classes of the criminals who have taken refuge in other
countries. It is obvious that this usage is, in its operation,
directly at variance with the usage of asylum, and indeed
that, so far as it goes, it is a positive infraction of the

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 301
principle on which asylum rests. It is claimed, however,
that, in the present relations of civilized nations with
each other, both justice and good policy require this in
fraction to be made, and the right of asylum, in certain
cases, to be sacrificed to a higher end which cannot other
wise be attained. Portions of the world the most widely
separated from each other have been brought near to
gether by the modern facilities of intercourse. The same
Une of railroad now often runs through many different
countries. Steam navigation has bridged the broadest
rivers, and has closely connected the opposite shores even
of the Atlantic. The perpetrator of a crime may now
reach a distant land almost before his guilt is discovered,
if he has friends to assist him and money to pay his way.
Besides this, criminals are no longer, as they once were,
obscure and powerless members of the community. They
often hold prominent positions of public or private trust ;
they have the control of wealth, and not unfrequently they
are even able tp^ictate the terms on which their crimes
may be compouuvt,^!, and their offense is permitted to go
unpunished. In these altered circumstances of mankind.
It is urged that, unless justice is to be set aside by the
Increased facilities for escaping it, the right of asylum
ought, in certain cases at least, to be waived, and the
fugitive criminal who has taken advantage of it ought
to be surrendered for trial and punishment in the country
whose laws he has violated. This surrender has come to
be denominated extradition.
It should be observed that. In the absence of a special
agreement for the purpose, a surrender of this kind has
not hitherto been deemed to be a matter of obligation ;
nor Is It an act which one nation, in the absence of agree
ment, has any right to demand of another. The prac
tice has thus far been regarded as purely a matter of In
ternational comity, and as made obligatory only by the

302 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
express stipulations of treaties. Such treaties are now
not uncommon among nations. They always specify the
crimes for which the extradition of the criminal may be
demanded, the nature of the evidence that is to be in
sisted on, and sometimes other particulars relating to the
manner In which the transaction shaU be accomplished.
AU these specifications are designed to secure such judi
cial carefulness and formaUty as ought to attend so grave
a proceeding. But while, as a general rule, fugitive criminals are not
surrendered, save in accordance with treaty agreements
to this effect, such a surrender has not unfrequently been
made as an act of comity in the interests of justice, in
cases where no such agreement existed. It is certainly an
act which every nation has a right to do if It chooses. Two
notable Instances of this kind have occurred in our own
recent history. In 1864, in the height of the cIvU war,
the government of Spain represented to that of the United
States that a Spaniard named ArgueUes had committed
a crime repugnant alike to justice and humanity, and had
escaped to New York ; and that, as no treaty of extradition
existed between the two countries, his surrender would
be accepted as an act of special comity by her Catholic
Majesty, the Queen of Spain. ArgueUes was an officer of
the Spanish army, and also deputy governor of a district
In the Island of Cuba. In this latter office, he was espe
ciaUy intrusted with rescuing a cargo of over one thou
sand African slaves, which had been brought into a Cuban
port contrary to the laws of Spain. He seized the negroes
and held them, ostensibly for restoration to Africa, and,
for his success in doing this, received a large reward from
his government. But while they were In his charge, he
conspired with others and made sale of one hundred and
forty-one of them to planters in Cuba, representing to the
government that they had died, and fled to New York

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 303
with the proceeds of his treacherous and nefarious traffic.
The President of the United States immediately caused
the man to be arrested and delivered to an agent of the
Spanish government, by whom he was taken back to Cuba
for trial. The surrender called forth sharp criticism ; first,
because it was made In the absence of any treaty agree
ment ; and, second, because it was not attended with any
judicial inquiry Into the evidence of the man's guilt. A
resolution of censure was introduced in the House of Rep
resentatives. This resolution called forth from Secretary
Seward a communication which. In thoroughness of discus
sion, is scarcely surpassed by any state paper which the
secretary ever produced. It secured the defeat of the
resolution by a very large majority. It is unquestionably
one of the fuUest presentations of the whole subject of
extradition that can be found in the annals of American
diplomacy. It vindicated completely the right of the
President to make the surrender, and at the same time
demonstrated his obligation to make it, not only on the
ground of justice, but also on account of many similar
acts of comity which our government had asked and re
ceived from Spain, in days when our West India com
merce was threatened by pirates who were constantly tak
ing refuge in her colonial ports. We were also in the
midst of a civil war which had been brought upon us by
slavery, and It was not for the government to hesitate In
dehvering up to justice a fugitive slave-trader. The vin
dication thus made has been accepted as complete, so far
as the surrender In the absence of a treaty was concerned,
but I think it has been generally held that even in so clear
a case, there should have been a formal and public exami
nation, before a court, of the evidence on which the man's
guilt was made to rest.
The second instance to which I have referred was the
surrender of Tweed, the famous financial poUtician of the

304 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
city of New York. What diplomatic correspondence
took place in relation to this proceeding I have not been
able to ascertain. The fact appears to be that, after
many tribidatlons at home and long wanderings abroad,
he landed in Spain. Almost as soon as he stepped on
shore he was arrested by the police, on the evidence of his
resemblance to certain photographs in their possession,
and, with as little formality as had attended the case of
ArgueUes, was placed on board a national vessel of the
United States, brought to New York, and delivered, not
to the government of the United States, nor to that of the
State of New York, but to the municipal authorities of
the city. The Spanish police who arrested him. It Is said,
thought their prisoner was the abductor of Charley Ross,
and they regarded him with great abhorrence. The two
cases resemble each other in the absence of aU judicial
inquiry as to the evidence of guUt, or even as to that of
personal Identity, and the prompt surrender of Tweed has
been commonly understood to have been an act of reci
procity for the surrender of ArgueUes.
Concerning treaties of extradition as they now exist,
.several considerations are worthy to be mentioned.
I. Such treaties, by common consent, do not embrace
poUtical offenders. Whether the exception is inserted In
the treaty or not, no nation ever faUs to make it in prac
tice. Such offenders always remain safe In the asylum to
which they have fled. It is, however, generaUy conceded
that, while enjoying this security, they are not to be per
mitted to do anything to harm the country or the govern
ment of the country from which they have escaped.
They are not to make their new-found home the theatre
of conspiracies against the life of the government, or
the base of hostile operations of any kind. In 1858, the
Emperor Louis Napoleon came near being assassinated in

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 305
the streets of Paris by an infernal machine prepared by
Orslnl, an Italian, who was one of a large company of
republican refugees residing in London. The French
government complained to that of Great Britain that it
was harboring assassins within Its asylum. The charge
was Indignantly repeUed, but there was no doubt that the
conspiracy to murder the emperor had been formed by
the refugees In England, and that they were continually
plotting against other govemments in Europe. The min
istry, recognizing their obligation to prevent such crimes,
introduced in the House of Commons a biU entitled the
" Conspiracy to Murder Bill." The principle of the bill
was undoubtedly right, but the opposition raised the cry
of French dictation. The result was the House of Com
mons refused to pass it, and Lord Palmerston, one of the
strongest and most popular of ministers, was compelled to
resign. The biU, however, three years later, became a
law without opposition.
Indeed, it Is due to the English government that this
exemption of political refugees, during their good behav
ior, from aU Uability to extradition has come to be a
recognized doctrine of International law. Nowhere has
the great principle of asylum been so persistently main
tained as in England, and that, too, amidst difficulties and
embarrassments of the gravest character. During the
long era of revolutions In Europe, at the close of the past
and the beginning of the present century, England be
came the common asylum of the persecuted and the op
pressed of every nation and of every party. Thousands
of such exiles flocked to her hospitable shores. The
countries from which they fled still feared and hated
them, for they were In many instances eminent as states
men, as ecclesiastics, as scholars, or as soldiers ; and
England was constantly urged to deliver them or drive
them away from her protection. But she never yielded

306 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
to the importunities addressed to her. She watched over
her unbidden guests with constant vigilance ; she gave
them all the rights of her free asylum ; she even fed them
from her bounty ; but she did not suffer them to violate
her laws or abuse her hospitality. Her courts were
always open to foreigners, and almost at the same time
presented the extraordinary spectacle of the Emperor of
Russia and the First Consul of France prosecuting for
libel English journals edited by refugees, and each of
them winning a verdict from an English jury.
II. Extradition treaties Impose no obUgation for sur
render except for the crimes speciaUy named in them.
Demands for persons accused of any other crimes are not
recognized. Those crimes only are mentioned which are
of such heinous nature as to be generally condemned by
the moral sentiments of civilized nations, and also such as
with both parties to the treaty receive substantially the
same punishment. It is generally held that an accused
person ought not to be given up to a punishment severer
than that which he would receive in the country in which
he has found refuge.
III. Great Britain and the United States are the only
important nations which consent to the surrender of their
own citizens or subjects. Most other states refuse to
make treaties for the surrender of their own subjects for
trial and punishment by a foreign state. The Umitations
in this particular are by no means uniform.
IV. Every act of extradition must be founded on
proofs, formally presented, of some particular crime
among those named in the treatJ^ When the surrendered
person has been tried for that crime. If acquitted, he
cannot be tried for any crime previously committed, at
least without the consent of the country delivering him.
The reason for this is that he was surrendered for a par
ticular purpose, and for no other. Indeed, it is maintained

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 307
by some high authorities that he has the right. In such a
case, i. e., arrest for another crime, if he so elect, to be
restored to the asylum from which he was taken, and this,
too, at the expense of the party that claimed him. On
this point of trial for another crime arose the recent dis
cussion between Great Britain and the United States re
specting the case of Wiuslow, the Boston forger. Our
demand for this man's extradition was refused, save upon
the condition that the government would promise that he
should be tried for no other crime than forgery, the crime
named In the demand. This condition was declined by
Secretary Fish, because It was not warranted by the terms
of the treaty, and a somewhat sharp though miscellaneous
correspondence ensued. Meanwhile, the treaty was for a
time suspended by our government, but was renewed by
consent of both, on the assurance of Mr. Fish that we had
no thought of trying Winslow for any other crime. By
this time he had been released, I believe by a writ of
habeas corpus, and his extradition proved a failure. The
discussion, however, brought out the fact that neither gov
ernment had before been careful on this point, but that
Great Britain had determined to be hereafter. There can
be no doubt that the ground taken by her government In
that case, though not recognized by the treaty, is generaUy
sanctioned by the usage of nations and by the best author
ities in International law. That it be mentioned in trea
ties is by no means essential.
V. It has been already remarked that agreements among
states for the extradition of criminals are of modem ori
gin. A century ago, Great Britain had no treaty of the
kind with any foreign country. Indeed, the word did
not exist in the EngUsh language. The first provision
for this purpose in a treaty of the United States is found
In the British treaty of 1794, known as Jay's Treaty.
The agreement was limited to twelve years, and expired in

308 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
1806, and the only crimes named In it were forgery and
murder. It led, I believe, to only one surrender on the
part of the United States, and that was made in 1799.
The circumstances in which that surrender was made, and
the consequences to which it gave rise, rendered it exceed
ingly odious to the American people, and were made use
of in effecting the overthrow of the administration of
John Adams. After this Inauspicious beginning, there
was little disposition to introduce extradition engage
ments into our treaties with foreign nations. It was
far enough from the policy of the general govemment
to send out of the country any one who had come to it
for refuge. Some attempts were made to secure the rendi
tion of fugitive slaves escaping to the West India Isl
ands. The period was one of great political agitation In
Europe, and it was the aspiration of the United States to
become the chosen asylum of the oppressed and the dis
contented of all nations. Fugitives flocked to our shores
in vast numbers, some of whom became eminent citizens
of the country. But among them were doubtless very
many who might well have approj^rlated to themselves the
lines of the bard of Botany Bay : —
" True patriots all ; for be it understood
We left our country for our country's good."
They were seldom molested. The national authorities
discouraged aU applications for surrender in the absence
of treaties, and here and there a state took up the work
of occasional extradition on its own accoimt, according
to the crude notions of state sovereignty wliich then pre
vailed. It was not tlU 1842 — after nearly fifty years — that a
second treaty containing an extradition agreement was
made by the United States. This was the Ashburton
Treaty with Great Britain, which Is stIU in force. The

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 309
crimes for which extradition may be demanded by either
country, imder this treaty, are seven in number, viz., mur
der, assault with Intent to murder, piracy, arson, robbery,
forgery, the utterance of forged paper. It Is also ex
pressly stipulated that a person charged with either of
these crimes shall be delivered only upon such evidence
of criminality as would justify his arrest and commit
ment for trial In the country which Is caUed upon to
make the surrender. Since the adoption of this treaty
the usage of extradition has entered very largely Into our
foreign relations, and not less than thirty treaties for that
purpose have been made. The list embraces states as
Insignificant as the Hawaiian Islands, the Dominican Re
pubUc, and the Orange Free States, and even some of the
free cities and petty principalities which have since been
absorbed In the German Empire. The crimes named in
them do not vary very materlaUy from those named above,
though in the later treaties It Is to be observed that embez
zlement by pubUc officers or by salaried persons has been
added, and also that the specifications respecting crimes
have become more minute. It is pretty certain that our
extradition treaties are much more numerous than those
of any other country, — a fact which would seem to indi
cate that most other countries expect to find their fugitive
criminals in the United States. Our recent experience
with Great Britain In the Winslow case has developed
the fact that our agreements in relation to extradition are
especially liable to adverse constructions, and it has also
given rise to the apprehension that they have often been
carelessly made and loosely Interpreted in practice.
The great question relating to extradition is whether,
after aU, there Is any sufficient reason to justify its pre
valence among nations. Is it really in the interest of
humanity and of civilization ? It claims to be the growth
of the highest and broadest sense of justice. It is in

310 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
the name of universal justice that it demands that the
rights of asylum be set aside. It is for the ends of
justice that it claims to stretch forth its arm across na
tional boundaries, over dividing rivers and mountains,
beyond the ocean Itself, to seize the fugitive criminal, It
may be in the remotest part of the world, and bring him
back to be punished by the country whose laws he has
violated. The essential Idea of asylum, on the contrary,
has been clemency and mercy. It holds the escape of the
criminal beyond the jurisdiction of his crime as equivalent
to civil death, by which the proper demands of justice are
satisfied. It recognizes in perpetual exUe a substitute for
the penalty which the laws of the country would Inflict.
If the country which shelters him chooses to take the risks
which belong to a character and a life Uke his, his own
country ought not to be permitted to visit him with its
vengeance for the crimes of the past.
The question thus raised has recently been discussed
with much earnestness In a series of articles in the " Al
bany Law Journal," by the Hon. WiUiam Beach Law
rence, than whom this country has no more learned or
eminent writer on public law. The articles were caUed
forth by the correspondence between the government of
Great Britain and that of the United States concerning
the Winslow case. Mr. Lawrence appears to entertain
the opinion that the importance of extradition has been
vastly overrated, and that Its operation Is attended with
drawbacks and evils which counterbalance, or more than
counterbalance, aU the benefits It ever produces. He
urges : —
I. That, after all, but very few criminals are. In this
manner, ever brought to punishment. Our present treaty
with Great Britain has been in force thirty-five years, and
thus far the number of applications made under It by the
United States to Great Britain is eighty-eight, of which

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 311
only thirty-four resulted In surrender ; and the number of
applications made by Great Britain to the United States
is forty-eight, of which only nine resulted In surrender.
In addition to these, Mr. Lawrence states, there have been
nineteen surrenders from the United States to the British
Provinces, while the United States has recovered in return
thirty-one criminals who were demanded for justice.
II. That the InviolabiUty of asylum is of greater im
portance than any results of extradition are Ukely to be.
To have this asylum imperiled by treaties and practices
at variance with It involves injury to society and to civil
ization itself.
III. He maintains that the Idea of asylum Is that those
whom it receives are to be treated as citizens and subjects,
amenable to the same laws, entitled to the same rights
and privUeges, and protected by the same muniments as
the other inhabitants of the country. How, he asks, can
a government containing so many guarantees of freedom
as does that of Great Britain or the United States ever
legaUy surrender a fugitive, whether native or foreigner,
to be dealt with by a despotism, or indeed by any govern
ment whose fundamental ideas of human right are es
sentiaUy different from Magna Charta and the BIU of
Rights ?
IV. He contends that exile is of itself a sufficient pun
ishment for any crime. The ancient Romans regarded it
as the greatest of aU punishments, and there are few
criminals having experienced it who have regarded It as
anything less.
On the other hand, it is to be said : —
I. So far as criminals, by any means, escape the pun
ishment of their crimes, the authority of law and the
prevalence of justice are diminished in any country ; and
if the criminals who thus escape are conspicuous and
hkely to become notorious as examples, law and justice
lose their power everywhere.

312 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
II. It is manifestly for the interest of every country
that the crimes perpetrated In it should be punished as
they deserve, and It. is, therefore, for the interest of all
countries that they should assist each other in securing
this end.
III. The time has passed, if there ever was such a time,
when any Interest of humanity required a nation to afford
asylum to fugitive criminals of other nations. Such an
idea is a perversion of the right of asylum. A criminal
has no claim to protection anywhere, and the sooner he is
brought to punishment the better.
IV. It may also be urged that, In the progress of civil
ization, nations are adopting common views of justice and
of the true methods of securing It. The objection that
extradition may sometimes deliver an accused person to
unjust modes of trial, or to inordinate punishments, is
losing Its force. Nations, too, are becoming more closely
linked together by the bonds of common Interests and a
common civilization, and it Is claimed that the reciprocal
surrender of fugitives who are guUty of great crimes wUl
tend to strengthen these bonds. It is in accordance with
views like these that our own country has been so ready
to take the lead in making treaties for this purpose, alike
with powers that are strong and with those that are weak.
And It was only a step in advance of such views that a
Senator of the United States, some years since, proposed In
the Senate a plan by general law, without the agency of
any treaty, for the extradition of aU fugitives from justice,
upon proper application being made and adequate proofs
submitted ; and also for refusing asylum to aU criminals,
and removing them from the country. The proposition,
however, has never been acted upon in the Senate.
In the present condition of civilized nations and their
relations with each other, there is clearly no reason why
the ancient usage of asylum should any longer be em-

ASYLUM AND EXTRADITION. 313
ployed for the special protection of fugitives from justice
who are guilty of heinous crimes. There is not now any
where in the civilized world any such inhumanity in the
administration of justice as will justify this protection.
The continuance of it, and the sensibility with which any
Infraction of it Is so generaUy regarded, save in accord
ance with the express stipulations of a treaty, would seem
to have outlived the age to which they properly belonged,
and in which they were useful to the Interests of hu
manity. Besides this, states are moral beings, and are bound to
cooperate with each other In the promotion of general
justice and right In the world. This they certainly are
not doing If they afford asylum to criminals, and make it
as difficult as possible for each other to obtain them and
bring them to punishment. So soon as a state Is satisfied
by judicial examination that the fugitive under Its pro
tection is probably guilty of the crime with which he is
charged, is there any sufficient reason why he should not
be surrendered? Extradition would thus become a mat
ter of positive obUgation, which could not be refused
among friendly states. Treaties do not create obUga
tions ; they only recognize them, and contain agreements
to fulfill them. Such obligations are recognized in aU
confederations of states, and, as civilization advances,
nations become bound to each other by something like
confederate bonds.
This view I find to be fuUy sustained by President
Woolsey, who, more than most living writers on the sub
ject, makes International law rest on ethical principles.
He thinks that asylum should be less and less afforded to
criminals, and that extradition, when properly demanded,
is to be conceded as a matter of right. We may thus
conclude that the time is not distant when the fugitive
criminal guUty of a great offense wiU be surrendered to

314 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
the nation whose laws he has violated by that to whose
asylum he has fled, with something like the readiness and
the facility with which the same surrender is accomplished
among the States of the American Union. Clearly, the
man who has committed a great crime ought not to be
secure in any country to which he may flee. Even if no
requisition Is made for his surrender, it would be but just
and right, if his guilt be great, that he be required to
depart and become, like the first murderer, a fugitive and
a vagabond in the earth. Had a monster like ArgueUes
been protected from punishment by the asylum of the
United States, the world's sense of justice would have
been outraged, and gigantic atrocities of every kind would
have received new encouragement. On the other hand,
the summary extradition of a political peculator like
Tweed, and the disgrace and ruin which came upon him
In the city which he so shamelesslj' govemed and plun
dered, proclaim to the official thieves of every city and
every country that the world has no retreat in which they
can hide themselves from the retributions which their
crimes deserve.

ITALY REVISITED.i
My first visit to Italy was made in the winter of 1851-
52, when I was there nearly four months. My second
visit was made in the winter of 1878-79, — twenty-seven
years later, — and It extended over nearly an equal time.
It Is my purpose here to sketch some of the most con
spicuous changes which had taken place within this inter
val, alike in the condition of the country and In the expe
rience of the traveler. Before doing this I ought perhaps
to say that in my earlier visit I was accompanied by my
wife alone, while in my late visit I had the company of
my wife and of five of my children. The party of which
I had the charge numbered in all nine persons, — a fact
which of itself made a very marked difference In the
journey. The local characteristics of Italy of necessity undergo
but little change in the lifetime of a single generation.
Centuries, Indeed, have come and gone and have witnessed
scarcely any important alteration. The face of nature
there remains singularly the same. The aspect of most
of the great towns and the condition and modes of life of
the people were stereotyped In the Middle Age, and, with
here and there an exception, they remain substantially as
they then were from one generation to another. The spell
of a strange and mighty past rests on its population as
it does nowhere else in Europe. It turns their thoughts
backward rather than forward. They dwell on what they
have been, rather than on what they are able to become.
1 Read before the Friday Evening Club, AprU 9, 1880.

316 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
The grand enterprises that belong to the youth or the
vigorous manhood of a nation are foreign to their con
dition, and they remain from one age to another, if not
content with being only what they are, at least without
any grand aspirations for the destiny which was once nur
tured, and then lost forever. Nothing Is more striking
than the clinging to antiquated modes of tlUIng the soil,
and of conducting most of the mechanic arts, which has
long prevailed in Italy. Nor is the common mode of life
materially different from that which existed there long
ago. New tastes and foreign fashions have been intro
duced among the wealthy and the refined, but they have
left no traces In the homes of the poor and the lowly, and
it is among them that the national characteristics are
really found. Nor do the relative proportions which these
classes bear to one another appear to be different now
from what they were before. Splendor and squalor stIU
flourish side by side, and sustain about the same relations
to each other as they did at far earlier periods of history.
Northern Italy, it is true, stiU has its marked social and
industrial characteristics, which make it appear almost
like a different country from the Italy of the south. Its
people are vigorous, industrious, and in many respects
progressive ; while those of Southern Italy are of feeble
organization, indolent, superstitious, and stationary. But,
after all, the two are near enough alike to show their
common origin, and the common features which so many
similar agencies have imparted to their character. The
former are more Gothic, the latter are more Latin ; but
they are aU distinctively Italian. In aU this, Italy as a
whole appeared to me to have changed but little in the
interval between 1852 and 1879, though I suspect that
even this little was more than had taken place in a cen
tury preceding.
In revisiting the peninsula, the first conspicuous novelty

ITALY REVISITED. 317
which struck me was seen in the vastly altered mode of
traveling. The mountain ranges which environ Italy
have at all periods rendered it difficult of access. Over
several of these ranges roads were made in some period
of remote antiquity, along which invading hordes of Car
thaginians, Gauls, Germans, Lombards, In successive ages,
forced their conquering way to the gates of Rome. To
the traveler, however, Italy was never readily accessible
by land, until Napoleon constructed those wonderful pas
sages over the Alps which were designed to aid him In the
conquest of Europe. Of these stupendous roads, one ran
along the shore of the Mediterranean, at the base of the
Maritime Alps. Others traversed Mont Cenis, the Sim-
plon, the Great and the Little St. Bernard. Thirty years
ago these magnificent roads were the admiration of the
crowds of travelers who went to Italy by land, though
the route by sea was then far more frequented than either
of them or perhaps aU of them together. For more than
half of every year, however, excepting that along the
shore of the Mediterranean, they were all more or less
obstructed by Alpine snows, and scarcely a winter passed
in which travelers were not overtaken with storms or
threatened with avalanches that filled Europe with alarm,
and called forth those splendid feats of benevolent hero
ism which we associate with the monks of St. Bernard.
Entering Italy over either of these roads, by short
stages or long stages, according to his own pleasure, the
traveler with observing eye made himself acquainted with
the entire route along which he passed. He obtained
views of the scenery which spread itself around him ; he
caught the spirit of every historic spot ; he saw the peo
ple, both peasants and villagers, in their own homes, and
at their daily labors both in the field and In the shop ;
he alighted, if he chose, at wayside shrines and rural
churches, aud looked at the pictures, sometimes painted

318 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
by great masters, which adorned them. At the end of
each day's travel he was conscious that he had added to
his treasures of knowledge and experience, and that a
new quickening had been imparted to his intellectual and
moral life. This mode of journeying undoubtedly had
Its drawbacks, for it certainly consumed much time and
money, yet it was singularly favorable to the best objects
for which one goes to a country like Italj% for he is thus
enabled to make himself in some degree acquainted with
what Is most worth visiting and knowing In this historic
land. How changed Is all this to the traveler who now makes
his pilgrimage to that country ! The diUgence, the vettu-
rino, and the post chaise of a few years since are all past
and gone. They are as obsolete on all the great routes of
travel as the stage-coach Is in New England. RaUroads,
which were then (thirty years ago) scarcely known south
of the Alps, have now been built along the most fre
quented passes ; and the Alpine ranges, which from the
creation encircled the peninsula with their ramparts, and
made it so difficult of access, are now pierced by tunnels
and traversed by locomotives and trains, in utter disregard
of the stately grandeur that Invests them. The NIcene
Railroad runs from Nice to Geneva along the mUitary
road of Napoleon, though, at nearly every point at which
the views are the finest, it shuts itself up in tunnels
through the Maritime Alps. A railroad was buUt in zig
zag sections over Mont Cenis some twenty years ago, but
in 1870 the tunnel through the mountain was completed,
and has ever since formed the great avenue of communi
cation between France and Italy. So recently as the 29th
of February, in this year [1880], the stupendous tunnel
of Mt. St. Gothard was completed for the connection of
Switzerland and Germany with Italy. The former is a
little less than eight miles In length, and its construction

ITALY REVISITED. 319
required nine years. The latter is nine and a quarter
miles In length, and Its construction required a little less
than seven years and a half. They are by far the longest
tunnels In the world, and their united effect on the com
merce of the great nations which have united In their
creation must be beyond all present estimate.
It Is needless to remark that this introduction of rail
roads has made the approach to Italy a very different
affair from what it was twenty-five or thirty years ago.
The common mode of making the journey now is to enter
the train at Paris, and to leave it only when the Alps have
been penetrated and some great city in Italy has been
reached. This is what we call traveling In Europe, and
what we cross the ocean to accomplish. Nor Is It different
when Italy is reached ; for scarcely any one now thinks of
traveling there save by the railroad, on which he Is borne
along with the smallest possible opportunities of seeing
either the face of nature or the life of the people, or of
gaining any useful impressions of any kind respecting the
country. I remember with pleasure that in the spring of
1852 I made the journey from Rome to Florence in a
hired carriage, with Mr. Hazard as one of my companions.
We were four days on the way, and I think that both he
and I received very distinct impressions of natural scenery,
of churches and works of art, of famous historic spots, and
also of the character and life of the Italian people, which
we shall never lose. In my recent visit I made the jour
ney between the same cities four times on a railroad train,
being eight hours in accomplishing what then required
four days ; and I can only say that I received no impres
sion whatever that I now retain, except of the amazing
disadvantage of traveling by railroad. If we go abroad
for business, or for any purpose which demands the utmost
saving of time, the railroad is, of course, a help above
all estimate. But if, as most Americans do, we go in

320 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
order to become in some degree familiar with the coun
tries in Europe which we visit, the raUroad is certainly a
very unsatisfactory mode of making our journeys. The
experience which it affords Is substantially the same in all
countries, and it leaves little in the mind of the traveler,
whatever part of the world he may traverse, but the con
fused and useless memory of monotonous locomotion.
For aU the higher purposes of travel. It Is but little better
than being at sea in a steamer. The only satisfaction Is
in having reached the journey's end.
Nor Is this all. The old mode of travel was continually
diversified by suggestive incidents or exciting adventures,
some of which, indeed, may have helped to verify the say
ing of Dr. Johnson, that " it is not pleasant to travel but
to have traveled," but of which, after all, we were sure to
think, et haec olim meminisse juvabit.
The consequence of this new mode of traveling is, that
in foreign countries we now see only the great cities, — aU
that lies between them is to us only a barren waste, — and
in cities we Uve at great hotels, where we meet, not the
people of the country, but travelers like ourselves. We
thus lose in a great degree the peculiarities of the coun
tries we visit, for great cities are very much alike the
world over, and so are railroads and great hotels. Living
at the latter is substantially the same thing, whether we
are in Paris, in Rome, in Vienna, or In New York. Since
railroads have been Introduced, travelers, especiaUy from
the United States, have multlpUed perhaps a hundredfold.
They also make the tour of Europe In less than half the
time that was formerly required. But, if I am not greatly
mistaken, they bring home vastly less information, vastly
less of that practical experience of the world which it is
the special office of foreign travel to supply, and vastly
less intellectual benefit of any kind, than did the same
classes of persons five and twenty years ago.

ITALY REVISITED. 321
In visiting Italy a second time, I was Immediately and
forcibly struck with the great political change which had
come over the country ; and this underlies and accounts
for nearly every other change that has taken place.
When I was there In 1852, the peninsula was divided
into some ten or twelve separate states, more or less
independent and sovereign, some of which were called
kingdoms, others were called states, and others duchies,
while one and perhaps more bore the name of principality,
and one also the name of republic. They had each a
separate government, a separate army, a separate police
force, a separate custom house, and a separate currency, —
all forming together a combination of annoyances, extor
tions, and frauds such as the unwary traveler encountered
nowhere else In Europe. The passport system, too, was
in full force, and presented an opportunity for the exer
cise of the petty suspicions and absurd apprehensions
which a despotic government is sure everywhere to breed
among its Ignorant officials. All these, too, had then
been Intensified by the popular uprisings which followed
the French Revolution of 1848. The whole crowd of lilli-
putian sovereigns had been driven away, and were now
just reinstated in their lost authority by the reactionary
movement which had taken place. The result was, that
the people of the Italian States were the wretched victims
of several of the meanest and most contemptible of des
potisms. In Naples, the King of the Two Sicilies, as he
was styled, had come back to his throne, as Napoleon
said of his Bourbon cousins in France, having " learned
nothing and forgotten nothing " during his enforced ab
sence. He had wreaked his vengeance on the whole lib
eral party, and It was said that the prisons of the city,
and of the islands that stud the beautiful waters that lie
around It, then held not less than twenty thousand of the
best young men of the country, — statesmen, scholars.

322 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
patriots of every calling, who had opposed his govern
ment. Mr. Gladstone had just before visited Naples, and
had attended the trials and learned the history of several
of these state prisoners ; and 1 well remember how his
description of their sufferings stirred the Indignant sym
pathy of liberal minds In every land. Nor were things
much better In the Papal States, where the Pope, himself
at first a reformer and a champion of Italian freedom, had
been driven from Rome by the republic of Mazzini. He
had now just been restored, and was stiU guarded in his
own capital by the troops of Louis Napoleon. In Tus
cany, In Venice, in Lombardy, the hereditary dukes had
been reestablished by Austria, and her troops alone kept
the people In subjection. In Sardinia alone was there
anything like constitutional government. Here, under
the liberal statesmanship of Count Cavour, the king had
made generous concessions to the people, and was consoU-
datlng a government which was at length to bring redemp
tion to aU Italy. With this exception, the governments
were despotisms as hateful and repulsive as could be found
In the civilized world. Their narrow, suspicious, and mer
cenary spirit pervaded their humblest officials, and the
traveler encountered It constantly in his dealings with the
custom-house inspectors, the passport examiners, the local
police of every degree with whom the necessities of travel
In those days brought him in contact.
Now aU this Is happUy changed, and one sees from his
first experience in Italy how radical and beneficent this
change has become. Not only is all Italy under one gov
ernment, but it is immediately evident that this govern
ment is constitutional and liberal. There is no longer
interference with private rights, no espionage of personal
conduct, no extortion, no petty tyranny of officials. Even
custom-house Inspectors treat you civilly, and make no
demands for passing your baggage. You become immedl-

ITALY REVISITED. 323
ately Impressed with the fact that you are in a country as
free and as well governed as any on the continent of P2u-
rope, and this Impression abides with you so long as you
remain there. The great social results of this change are
becoming everywhere visible. Education, though still too
much neglected. Is awakening greater interest than before.
The condition of the people, it is said. Is beginning to im
prove, especiaUy In the north, where the new order of
things has prevailed the longest. Superstition Is still con
spicuous everywhere, but religious freedom is the law of
the land, and signs of a higher and better national life are
appearing all over the peninsula.
This unification of Italy, after ages of division and of
strife among Its provinces, deserves to rank among the
foremost events of the century to which It belongs. It
was brought about by unexpected agencies singularly
diverse aud Independent of each other, and often designed
for ends very different from that which they finally ac
complished. The central force among them all was al
ways the resolute purpose of the King of Sardinia, whose
constant aim was towards this single result. Among the
foremost, however, of the Incidental agencies which
brought It to pass was the twofold ambition of Louis
Napoleon, who on the one hand desired to be considered
the protector of the Papacy, and on the other was deter
mined to humble the Emperor of Austria. This led him,
first of aU, to overthrow the Roman republic, and soon to
secure the Pontifical States with French troops ; and then
to engage with Victor Emmanuel in the war with Austria,
which resulted In the annexation of Lombardy, Parma,
and Modena to Sardinia In 1860. On this large accession
to his territory Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King
of Italy, and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany Immediately
placed Itself under his jurisdiction. Another agency, of
quite an opposite character, now for a time becomes con-

324 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
splcuous, and, though with doubtful willingness, contributes
to the same result. Garibaldi, the military creator of the
fallen republic of Rome, without authority of any kind
fits out an expedition of a thousand men at Genoa, and
invades Sicily and the Neapolitan States. The people
everywhere receive him with acclamations ; the king flees
in terror from his capital ; and Garibaldi forms a provi
sional govemment, apparently on his own account. When
the King of Sardinia demands an explanation of this
singular movement, apparently for founding a separate
republic, he answers that his only purpose had been from
the beginning to make the Two Sicilies a part of the
Italian kingdom, which was accomplished without de
lay by the votes of the people. His success in Naples
prompted him to attempt a similar enterprise in Venetia,
which was still in possession of Austria ; but the Italian
king was obliged to suppress It, which he was able to do
only by the arrest and imprisonment of its daring and
valorous leader. In 1865 the capital of Italy, hitherto at
Turin, was established at Florence, a city of central posi
tion, and more secure alike from Austria and from France.
And In the following year, the contest between Austria
and Prussia led to the abandonment by the latter of the
Venetian States, and their voluntary Incorporation with
the Italian kingdom. Meanwhile the French occupation
of the Papal States had been partiaUy abandoned by the
withdrawal of the troops from several of these states,
and these had Immediately added themselves to United
Italy. In this manner, within six years, was accomplished what
had been the fruitless aspiration of centuries of struggle,
and Italy was now free from her foreign oppressors.
Nothing remained but the absorption of the Pontifical
States to make her union complete. This the Irrepres
sible Garibaldi and his associates were ready to bring

ITALY REVISITED. 325
about by rifle clubs and popular uprisings, and for this
they were willing to drive the Pope from his ancient seat,
and make him a wanderer on the face of the earth. The
king, however, and advisers saw the difficulty and delicacy
of the situation, and he determined to take no step which
he should be obliged to recall. Indeed, had It been pos
sible, there Is reason to think that he would have preferred
to leave the Pope with little or no further disturbance.
Excommunicated though he was, he evidently had a
kindly regard for the sovereign pontiff of the Church.
The Pope, however, had denounced him from the begin
ning. He had denied all right to the title of king of
Italy, and had declared it to be impossible for the Church
to recognize his authority.
But the question was soon to be decided by the unex
pected course of events. The war between France and
Germany broke out, and detachment after detachment of
the French troops was recalled by the exigencies of the
time. The last embarked at Civlta Vecchia on the 9th of
August, 1870. On the 1st of September Louis Napoleon
surrendered at Sedan, and with that event the French
Empire fell. The country was greatly excited by the
revolutionary ideas which were widely prevalent. They
were propagated by the emissaries of Mazzlnl and Gari
baldi, and were designed to excite the young men of Italy
to strike for what was called the Universal Republic. In
these circumstances, Victor Emmanuel saw that decisive
action could no longer be delayed. It was as necessary
for the safety of the Pope as for that of the kingdom of
Italy. He Immediately ordered a division of his army to
enter the papal territory, and at the same time addressed
to the Pope a most respectful letter, remarkable alike for
its practical wisdom and the careful consideration which
It expressed of what was due to the head of the Church. It
assured him that his temporal power was no longer possible.

326 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
and implored his assistance in carrying into effect mea
sures for securing and harmonizing the rights of the Ro
man population, the inviolability of the supreme pontiff,
aud the Independence of the Holy See. The Pope made
no answer to the letter. He saw that the end was at
hand, but he refused aU overtures, and simply protested
against what he denounced as " a great sacrilege and a
most enormous Injustice." At the end of eight days the
king sent a flag of truce to Rome, demanding the sur
render of the garrison that defended the city. Every
effort was made by the foreign ministers at the papal
court to bring about the surrender without the loss of
life. The papal general, however, had received orders
not to yield tlU a breach had been made by the Italian
troops. The cannonading lasted four hours, when the
gates were opened, and the king, on the 20th of Septem
ber, 1870, took possession of Rome, amidst the acclama
tions of the people for United Italy. Thus feU the tem
poral sovereignty of the Roman pontiff, — a sovereignty
which dates back from that distant period when the Im
perial capital was occupied by Alaric the Goth, which
ruled over a wide district of Italy as early as the first
quarter of the eighth century, and which at its overthrow
was by far the oldest sovereignty in Europe. By a strange
coincidence the Vatican Council, which in the preceding
July had sanctioned the dogma of Papal Infallibility,
was still In session at St. Peter's, and iUustrious ecclesias
tics from every country of Christendom were thus pres
ent at Rome to witness the final overthrow of the ponti
fical power, and the personal humiliation of the head of
the Church, and the union of the entire papal territory
with the kingdom of Italy. To them, the spectacle must
have presented a melancholy contrast with that tran
scendent arrogance with which the Pope had summoned
a council of the world to give Its solemn sanction to his

ITALY REVISITED. 327
claim to infalliblUty. Indeed, had It not been for the
promulgation of this dogma, so threatening In its bear
ings on civil allegiance, the catastrophe which had befallen
them might have been alleviated by the sympathy, perhaps
even partially averted by the Interference, of the Roman
Catholic sovereigns of Europe. The alienation, however,
which it created in Austria, in Germ.any, and in Spain, is
to be reckoned as another of the agencies which made this
catastrophe so complete.
The King and the Parliament of Italy now addressed
themselves to the great questions which the course of
events had forced upon their consideration ; especially,
what position should be assigned to the Pope, and what
relations should subsist between the Church and the new
State. These questions received the most careful atten
tion, and in May, 1871, they were formally settled In what
Is called the "Law of Papal Guarantees," which, It must
be admitted, is exceedingly liberal In Its provisions. By
this law the person of the Pope Is declared to be sacred
and inviolable, and any offense against him is to be pun
ished as an offense against the king. He is to be received
by the government officials with royal honors, and is al
ways to have the same precedence as is accorded to him
in all Catholic countries ; to have as many guards as he
may desire; to remain In possession of the Vatican, the
Lateran, and the Castel Gandolpho, with all their out
buildings, libraries, picture galleries, and furniture, and
other contents, which are to be inalienable and exempt
from taxation. No official of the government, without
permission, can enter them for any purpose v/hatever.
He is to have a post-office and a telegraph service of his
own for each of his palaces, and is free to correspond, with
out interference, with whomever he pleases. The semina
ries and places of education in Rome and the suburban

323 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
dioceses are also to be under his sole control.^ As for
the relations of the Church and the State, the law de
clares the Church to be entirely independent of the au
thority of the State. The State abandons aU right of
nominating for offices in the Church, providing only that
Italian subjects alone shaU be appointed to them ; and
claims no right of revision of decrees, or pubUcations of
ecclesiastical authorities, and no appeal Is to be allowed
from any sentence of ecclesiastical courts, but the civil
officers are not permitted to assist In executing such sen
tences. It Is to be a free Church In a free State.
This law was offered to the Pope In the most respect
ful manner by the Italian government as a basis of settle
ment, but he indignantly refused to take notice of It, or to
make any terms whatever. He claimed that his authority
and his possession could rest only on divine appoint
ment. He would not accept the annual allowance of
§645,000, or allow that the government had any right to
guarantee his personal safety, his sovereign rank, or the
property that had always belonged to him and his prede
cessors. In short, he showed himself wholly impractica
ble, and chose to regard and represent himseU as a pris
oner shut up in his own palace, and stripped not only of
the means of maintaining his state as the supreme head
of Christendom, but also of procuring the comforts of Ufe.
The postulates which he enjoined on the acceptance of all
faithful Catholics in Italy were : 1. That the temporal
power must be speedily reestablished. 2. That all sincere
votaries of the Church must abstain from political elec
tions. 3. That it is impossible for the Papacy and the
kingdom of Italy to exist together. This was of course
a declaration of relentless hostility to the entire new order
of things.
' He is also to receive an annual allowance of 3,225,000 lire
($645,000), free from aU taxes.

ITALY REVISITED. 329
This hostile and disdainful attitude of the Pope, how
ever, made no difference In the conduct of the govem
ment. The removal of the capital to Rome had become
a state necessity which the king could not escape, reluc
tant though he might be to take the step. Accordingly, so
soon as arrangements were completed, the government
offices were transferred from Florence, and the king ar
rived In Rome on July 2, 1871, and made his residence
at the Quirinal Palace, amidst the loyal demonstrations
of the Roman people.
Had it been possible to avoid this removal, I cannot
but think that It would have been better to do so. In the
first place, Florence Is a healthy and cheerful city ; suffi
ciently central for all the interests of the kingdom, and
In all respects suitable to be capital of Italy. Rome, on
the'contrary, apart from the associations that belong to it
as the seat of the ancient empire, has no such suitable
ness. It is not central ; it is not healthy ; for at least
five months of the year the king and the chief officers of
state must reside elsewhere, because of the malaria that
broods over the city. The population withal is not of a
character to be desired in the national capital. The mass
of the people are essentially republican ; and however loyal
for the time, they regard the present order of things only
as a prelude to the restoration of the Roman republic.
The noble families, on the other hand, very generally
sympathize with the Pope. They turn their backs on the
king and his court. They never visit the Quirinal, and
present themselves only at the receptions of the Vatican.
The presence, too, of the king in what has for ages been
the papal capital, is sure to be a perpetual grievance to
the Pope, and an unfailing reminder of the humiliation
to which he has been reduced. It is said the king him
self had no desire to establish himself in Rome. At the
same time there seemed to be no alternative, and in the

330 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
judgment of his wisest ministers. It was as essential to the
security of the Pope as it was to the satisfaction and
quiet of Italy. The only other plan that was suggested
was that Rome be made a free city, though a part of the
royal domain, and that the Pope be placed at its head,
with guarantees similar to those enacted by the Italian
Parliament. It is not probable, however, that he would
have fared as well with the people as with the king.
When I was in Rome a year ago, it had been for eight
years the capital of United Italy. In that time both a
new Pope and a new king had come upon the scene, but
the Quirinal and the Vatican were stIU wholly at variance
with each other. They were the seats of opposite and
hostile jurisdictions. The young king and queen were
daily seen In the public drives of the city, on the Pincian
HIU, and In the Borghese Gardens. The Pope, on the
contrary, never leaves the Vatican. He acts on the theory
of his predecessor, that he has been robbed of his right
ful possessions, and that he is now restricted as a prisoner
to his palace and its inclosures. And in this view he is
encouraged by the sympathies of a very influential por
tion of Roman society, whom the king finds it impossible
to conciliate. So It is likely to be until some future and
wiser Pope shall show himself willing to accept what is
inevitable, to relinquish all pretensions to temporal sov
ereignty, and to make the most of that unrestricted spirit
ual dominion which seems to be spreading more and more
widely over the world.
Meanwhile Rome is undergoing changes of the most
striking character. The whole machinery of the old des
potism has been demolished and destroyed. There is en
tire freedom of the press, entire freedom of speech, and
entire freedom of thought, action, and worship. In these
particulars it Is no longer the same place that I had
visited before. Then suspicion and espionage were in the

ITALY REVISITED. 331
air, and half the population seemed to be spies on the
rest. The government professed to watch over the souls
of Its subjects. It took Bibles and Protestant books from
the trunks of travelers, and aUowed no word nor thought
of dissent from either the religion or the politics of the
Pope. The English church stood, as It stands now, with
out the gates, because no permission could be had to build
It within them, and the little congregation of Americans
held their worship In the apartments of Mr. Cass, the
minister of the United States, because no room could be
rented for the purpose. Now an American Episcopal
church stands within the waUs, and congregations of wor
shipers from several Protestant countries meet every
Sunday; and more than this, the British and Foreign
Bible Society has opened a Depository of Italian Bibles
and Testaments, and is scattering them all over Italy, and
there are mission schools and chapels of Wesleyan Meth
odists, of Scottish Presbyterians, of Baptists, of French
Protestants, and perhaps of others, all openly maintained
In the heart of the city. The same is true of other Italian
cities. The Pope has Issued a pastoral letter denouncing
these schools and chapels, which shows full well how per
nicious he thinks them to be, but I doubt if the letter
serves any other purpose than to make them more widely
known. During the brief period in which the Italian govern
ment has been in possession, a special commission has
been appointed for prosecuting antiquarian researches in
Rome, in accordance with a definite and carefully con
sidered plan, and very important results have been ob
tained. Up to this period the work had been carried on
sometimes by the papal government and sometimes by
foreign governments, especially those of France, Russia,
and Germany, but always with too little method and per
sistency. Now, under the direction of a commission com-

332 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
posed of the most enlightened antiquaries, the task of un
earthing the ruins of the ancient city is making progress
more advantageously than ever before. I was most forci
bly Impressed with what had been accomplished on and
near the Palatine Hill. On the slopes formerly covered
with convents and villas and gardens are now disclosed,
some thirty feet below them, the ruins of those stupen
dous structures which bear the name of Palaces of the
Caesars, which are regarded as among the most interest
ing and important ruins of the days of the emperors. In
the progress of this work, relics and works of art of every
kind have been found in such numbers that a new mu
seum has been opened for their reception. Of the extent
to which the old Roman soU is fiUed with this curious
wealth, some idea may be formed from the foUowing list
of what was obtained in the year 1873 alone, viz. : 17
statues, 24 busts, 6 basso - rUievo, 7 sarcophagi, 2,700
fragmentary sculptures, 125 epigraphs on marble, 14,900
coins, 700 stamped bricks, 2,050 stamps on amphorae,
217 terra-cotta lamps, 8 rings, and 2 collars of gold, be
sides numerous objects In bronze, all estimated at ^£8,000
sterling.! But far more noticeable than these, to the traveler who
revisits the city, are the local transformations which cer
tain parts of It have already undergone. The creation of
the new Is more striking than the uncovering of the old.
The coming of the government to Rome Is said to have
added some 30,000 to its popuLation. The consequence is,
that vast enterprises and local improvements of different
kinds have been undertaken to an extent which had not
been witnessed before In many centuries. Most of these
are in the region of the Quirinal Hill, where the old pal
ace of the popes, now the residence of the king, has been
renovated and enlarged, and where grand buildings for
' Hemans, p. 696.

ITALY REVISITED. 333
the several departments of the government have been
erected. It Is evident that a people thus recently brought to
gether requires the guiding hand of some sagacious states
man and leader, such as Count Cavour was to Sardinia,
for there are many serious difficulties to be overcome, and
such a statesman, I fear, Italy does not now possess. The
national debt Is so large as to destroy the public credit.
The currency is wholly of paper, and Is, of course. Im
mensely depreciated. The government, too, is afflicted
with the apprehension of Austrian or other foreign Inva
sion, and, in addition to an expensive fleet, it maintains a
peace establishment of 600,000 men taken from the In
dustrial population of the country. In addition to this,
the people are still in wretched Ignorance, scarcely more
than one third of them being able to read and write. But
no single problem relating to the condition of Italy is so
pregnant with danger or so difficult of solution as the
problem of the Papacy. The attitude of the Pope, from
the beginning, has cast a blight over the political interests
of the new kingdom. He denies its right to exist ; he
pronounces anathemas on its government, and warns Its
subjects, if they would be faithful to the Church, to re
frain from participating In political affairs. Whether it
be in consequence of this or not. It is said to be a fact
that not more than a third of the voting population ever
take part In elections. The high ecclesiastics and the
parish priests everywhere echo the utterances of the Vati
can ; and the Pope, pauper and prisoner though he claims
to be, is yet able to wield a power which the King and
Parliament cannot control. To conciliate this hostile
agency has thus far proved to be Impossible ; to annihilate
it is deemed equally impossible.
But I will not enter into the possibilities which attend
this embarrassing and difficult problem. I need only re-

334 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
fer to the methods in which, on the one side or the other,
it is hoped that a solution may be found. In the flrst
place, there are those who maintain that the temporal
power may yet be restored to the Pope; that, as its over
throw was made possible only by a peculiar juncture in
the affairs of Europe, so. In some future juncture, it may
be reestablished. Associations for securing this result
exist in several Roman Catholic countries, and even in
England. These aU cherish the idea that the Almighty
wIU punish the sacrilege which has been committed, and
reinstate the Church in her rightful authority. On the
other hand, several different methods of settling the rela
tions between the Pope and the Italian govemment have
been suggested on the part of those who are champions
of Italian unity, and care nothing for the vested rights of
the Papacy.
I. It is proposed that the government repeal the Law of
Guarantees, abolish the quasi-sovereign rights of the pon
tiff over the Vatican and the Lateran palaces, and place
him In the same civil condition as every other ecclesiastic
in Italy. It is held that the government did not go far
enough at the beginning, that It was a mistake to leave
him in possession even of the semblance of temporal sov
ereignty which he now possesses, and that nothing short
of the annihilation of this sovereignty can destroy his
power to Injure the state. It is feared, however, that a
proceeding like this would awaken the sympathy of Cath
olic Christendom, and produce a reaction most harmful to
the government.
II. It Is proposed that Italy shall invite other Roman
Catholic governments to join with her In some plan of
guaranteeing the support of the Pope in honorable inde
pendence, with a stipulation that he will abandon his an
tagonism and place the Church In full harmony with the
State. The obvious objection to this is that it involves

ITALY REVISITED. 335
foreign interference and cooperation, and thus perils the
independence of Italy.
III. There are those, both In Italy and out of it, who
think that the present Pope is possessed of excellent
sense, and even of statesmanship, — attributes to which
his predecessor possessed no claim whatever. They be
Ueve that he fully appreciates the necessity of a final ad
justment of some kind. Indeed, he has announced it
to be his desire to adapt the Church to the condition
and spirit of modern civilization. The advice, therefore,
which they give to the government is, to avoid all coUisIon
with the Pope, to maintain a conciliatory policy, and wait
tlU an occasion shall arise that shall be favorable to a re
ciprocal recognition, on the one hand, of the political su
premacy of the Italian State, on the other, of the spiritual
supremacy of the papal Church, of a temporal kingdom
in which the head of Latin Christendom shall be secure
and independent, and of a spiritual church which shall be
the unfailing moral bulwark of the civil throne. It must
be admitted that this would require the Pope always to
be an Italian, as indeed he has In fact been for the past
three hundred and fifty years ; and, what is of far graver
Importance, it would give to the Papacy an aspect of local
nationality, instead of the universality which Is Insepara
ble from its real character. That the relations of the two
be established on an amicable basis is of great importance
to Italy, and of nearly equal Importance to the Papacy.
The attitude of Irreconcilable hostility is adverse to every
interest of both. Nor Is the interest in this question con
fined to Italy, or even to the limits of the Latin Church.
Cardinal Newman has recently called attention to the
vastly altered tone of public sentiment towards Roman
Catholics in England. He has had ample reason for this
in his own personal experience. The same may be said
of public sentiment in this country, and probably in every

336 HISTORICAL PAPERS.
Protestant country, for every Protestant government reck
ons them In multitudes among Its own subjects. These
altered feelings towards the Individuals naturaUy extend
to the Church itself. Enlightened Protestants no longer
regard it with the hostility which they once cherished.
The Pope thus naturaUy becomes a subject of interest
throughout Christendom, by more than half of whose in
habitants he Is acknowleged as their spiritual ruler. He
is the most conspicuous personage in Christendom, even
to those who have separated themselves most widely from
his sway. While very few Catholics probably desire him
to stand In the way of Italian unity and progress, there
are also very few Protestants who desire to have him sub
jected to any needless humiliations. His independence is
undoubtedly indispensable to the Roman CathoUc Church ;
and after all that has been said about it, no thoughtful
man believes that the destruction of the Roman Catholic
Church would now be other than a disaster alike to
Christianity and civilization.

PUBLIC ADDRESSES.

ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE RHODE
ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
AT the opening OF THEIR CABINET, NOVEMBER 20,
1844.
Gentlemen of the Historical Society : —
W^E have come together to celebrate an event which
may well form an era in the history of our Society, — the
completion and opening of the chaste and commodious
structure which is henceforth to become the permanent
depository of our collections for Rhode Island history.
The occasion, though far removed from the exciting scenes
that ordinarily occupy the attention of men in this bus
tling and restless age, is yet one which holds high and im
portant connections with the dignity, the prosperity, and
the fame of the city and of the State. Let us, then, turn
aside, for a brief time, from the engrossing occupations of
every-day life to consider the purposes of our association,
and at this new altar to kindle afresh our devotion to the
objects to which It Is to-day to be forever consecrated.
They are objects which intimately concern some of the
best interests of society, and they earnestly appeal to some
of the noblest sympathies of our intellectual and spiritual
nature. The care which preserves the materials for a people's
history is characteristic only of advanced stages of civiU
zation, and a high degree of social and Intellectual cul
ture. The barbarous passions that crave merely present
gratification, and the engrossing spirit of trade that heeds
only the prospect of pecuniary gain, are alike unmindful

340 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
of the connection that subsists between a nation's history
and a nation's character. Wealth and power may rear
costly monuments to the memories of the great ; the bard of
a rude age may celebrate In mythic verse the achievements
of heroism and courage ; but the collection of the scattered
memorials of the past, the nice and discriminating research
into its obscure recesses, and the writing of history, — such
history as may instruct mankind, — these are never accom
plished until society has made progress in social and moral
culture, until out of the mighty mass of its baser passions
and perishable interests there has sprung an intellectual
spirit, — ¦ a sense that craves a deeper wisdom than the
voices of the living world can ever teach. It Is then that
we study the characters of the past, and reproduce them
In the present. " We give in charge
Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic muse,
Proud of the treasure, marches with it down
To latest times ; and Sculpture, in her tum,
Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass,
To guard them and to immortalize her trust."
It is the appropriate object of an historical society to
collect and preserve all the relics of the past that may
serve as materials for history. This object, when UberaUy
prosecuted, cannot fail to exert the most salutary influ
ences, not only upon those immediately engaged in its
accomplishment, but upon the whole spirit of a commu
nity. It leads us along the checkered course of human
affairs. It conducts us through the successive experi
ments that have been made In politics and morals ; the
changes of social condition, of language, and of manners ;
the controversies that have agitated society, and the en
terprises that have resulted In its comfort and improve
ment ; and it brings to our notice all that has affected the
interests of humanity within the sphere to which It more

ADDRESS. 341
especially relates. This object, in all civilized lands, has
at aU times been regarded as of the highest importance.
Not only does its successful accomplishment ensure accu
racy and completeness to the labors of the historian, but
it also suggests innumerable topics to the philosopher and
moralist, and sheds new light upon the mysterious prob
lems of man's social progress and destiny.
But in this country, especially, the objects which asso
ciations like ours have In view address themselves with
still more commanding Interest to the attention of the
scholar and the citizen, and ally themselves even more
closely with the well-being and improvement of society.
I speak not now of the shadowy period which elapsed be
fore the settlement of America began, fraught with curi
ous interest, and fruitful of mighty problems though it
be. The researches of the antiquarian traveler are just
disclosing the burial-place of its perished races, and lift
ing the veU of oblivion from the ruins of its wonderful
civilization. Without reference, however, to this remote
antiquity, so filled with mysteries and marvels, and so over
whelming by its vastness, there are subjects enough of
transcendent interest In the origin and progress of our
own civilization, which has sprung up and borne Its aston
ishing fruits upon these transatlantic shores. It is indeed
of recent origin, but it is of peculiar character. It was
engrafted upon this wild continent from the world's best
stock. Its earliest eras are comparatively of yesterday ;
but Its growth and development have been marked by
great events, and illustrated by deeds and characters of
the loftiest heroism. It has given a new continent to the
dominion of the Anglo-Saxon race, and has opened here,
for the language, the laws, and the religion of our British
forefathers, the path to a destiny more glorious and sub
lime than has ever been recorded in the annals of man
kind. The origin and history of this pecuUar civilization,

342 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
the early struggles It maintained with the perils of the
wilderness and the hostility of savages, the virtues that
adorned Its character, and the men who pioneered Its pro
gress, — these and aU their numerous relationships and
results are subjects that demand the careful and reverent
study of the American people. That such subjects be
thoroughly investigated, and the memorials relating to
them be carefully treasured up, may be of unspeakable
benefit to the future fortunes of mankind. No toil,
whether of hands or of minds ; no expenditure, whether
of effort or of wealth, that may be required to do this, —
wiU be bestowed In vain.
Nor is the influence which such inquiries exert upon
the spirit and character of a people to be lightly estimated.
It liberalizes their aims, breaks down their prejudices, ele
vates and ennobles their Interests, and enlarges their sym
pathy with the changeful fortunes of the common hu
manity. The English moraUst has weU remarked, that
" whatever withdraws us from the power of the senses,
and makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate
over the present, advances us In the dignity of thinking
beings." Now it is precisely this influence which historic
studies, above aU other pursuits, are particularly fitted to
exert. They serve to multiply the ties which bind a peo
ple to an honored ancestry, and to rally with new energy
their hopes and affections around the brilliant eras of their
history, and the monuments which record the struggles of
patriotism or the triumphs of freedom. They caU back
the buried forms, the forgotten achievements, the vanished
scenes, of a departed age, and cause them to move again,
in a brilliant and Impressive panorama, before the mind of
the present generation. They thus mingle the interests
and images of other times with the engrossing cares and
pursuits that now occupy our attention, and, amid the
wrecks of departed ages, they read to us lessons of the

ADDRESS. 343
truest practical wisdom. By thus opening to the minds
of a people the fountains of their early history, may be
best secured that unity of national character and that
high-toned national spirit which more than armies or na
vies, more than legislative codes or written constitutions,
preserve from decay the institutions of a country. " These
noble studies," as Milton has said of kindred pursuits,
" are of power to imbreed and cherish in a great people
the seeds of virtue and public civility." They interpret
the prophetic voices of the past, and by clothing each
famUiar spot, each ruin and hill-top and river, with the
associations of history, they increase and justify the feel
ings of veneration and pride with which the patriot clings
to the institutions of his country.
No sooner does a nation become indifferent to her his
tory than her national spirit begins to decline. The chain
of consanguinity which runs through successive genera
tions, and binds them in perpetual union, is broken asun
der. The state, no longer venerated as a parent, is sub
jected to the experiments of wretched empirics, or, it may
be. Is turned adrift on the wild sea of revolution, with
no principles of inherited wisdom to guide her, no lights
of the storied past to shine upon her wayward course.
Modern times have furnished at least one memorable ex
ample of this truth in the frenzied struggles of revolu
tionary France, and that one example, it may be hoped,
is enough for all ages. It seemed as though, to her, her
whole previous existence as a nation were utterly useless,
and almost as though Time had rolled his course In vain.
In her proud self-conceit she heeded none of the lessons
of her own or of others' experience. From the ages of
her national glory, from the brilliant rallying-polnts of
her history, she turned away in contempt to pursue the
glittering phantoms of an upstart, impracticable philoso
phy. The altars of her ancient religion she threw down,

344 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
and from the proudest spots of her soU she removed the
monuments of early patriotism and valor, haUowed by the
associations of centuries, that she might set up there the
blood-stained emblems of her fanatical, atheistical repub
lic. It was said by one of her own statesmen, with almost
literal truth, that " you might alter the whole poUtical
frame of the govemment In France, with greater ease
thau you could introduce the most insignificant change
into the customs or even the fashions of England."
But the labors of an historical society are of more
particular benefit in their specific connection with the
office of the historian. Their object is to provide the ma
terials of which history is to be composed. In this coun
try, especiaUy, this is a work which private associations
must do. The government, whether of the States or the
nation, has hitherto done but little to rescue from oblivion
the minuter materials for our national history. They
must be discovered and brought together, and prepared
for the historian's use, by private efforts alone, or they
will perish forever. It is thus only that the narratives of
American history can be raised to that higher standard
of truth and accuracy which shaU make them faithful ex
ponents of the real progress of the nation. Lord Bacon
has remarked, that " nothing is so seldom found among
the writings of men as true and perfect civU history."
And the remark is scarcely less applicable to the writings
of our own age than of that in which it was uttered. A
part, however, of the imperfection which it implies, may
be remedied by a nicer and more discriminating research,
a more careful collection and preservation of all the ma
terials that can iUustrate the spirit or the facts of an age
or a nation.
But, after all, what is written history but the exponent
and suggester of that which is not, and which cannot be,
written ? The events that no pen records always far out-

ADDRESS. 345
number those contained on the historic page ; and there
are a multitude of characters haunting the mysterious
chambers of the past, whom no artist has ever sketched
for the picture galleries of history. This fact the historian
must keep constantly in view, and he must write in such
a manner as to concentrate and preserve the spirit of the
whole in the part which he records. For this purpose, he
must pursue innumerable investigations whose results he
cannot use ; he must thread many a labyrinth of contro
versy which will not yield him a single fact ; and he must
study the lives and deeds of men whose names even will
not appear In the pages of his writings. It is only in ac
cordance vdth this principle that historical accuracy has
ever been secured. Herodotus, the father of this species
of composition, spent years in traveling over many lands,
in conversing with their various inhabitants, in gathering
up their scattered traditions and legends, and In extract
ing from them all whatever could illustrate the times of
which he wrote, ere he delivered his immortal work to his
assembled countrymen at the games of Greece. Gibbon
devoted the enthusiasm of youth, and the best energies of
manhood, to delving in the lore of classic antiquity. He
studied the doctrines of every philosophic school, the prin
ciples of every art and every science, and " crossed and
re-crossed, again and again, the gloomy gulf that separates
the ancient from the modern world," and gathered the
relics of many a perished race and broken dynasty, ere he
was prepared to write the " Decline and FaU of the Ro
man Empire." And the historian of modern Europe
informs us that his recent briUiant work on the French
Revolution was the result of fourteen years of traveling
and study, and of fourteen more devoted to the labors of
composition. There is also another respect in which the collections of
an association like ours are of essential service to the his-

346 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
torian. It is not always the most splendid events that
do most In moulding the character of an age, or in shap
ing the destiny of a people. The mightiest streams of
political or of moral influence often spring from some
humble fountain embosomed in the retreats of private
life, and quite shut out from the notice of the mere gen
eral inquirer. To these sequestered places the historian
must penetrate, by the aid of the minutest investigation
and of the most comprehensive generaUzations. In doing
this, his first resort is to the coUections which others have
made, to the materials which have been provided ready to
his hand. He uses them and makes them tributary to the
lessons he would teach. In accordance with the same high
principle as that on which the philosophic astronomer em
ploys the results of the humble observer who nightly
watches the stars, and chronicles the silent changes
through which they pass. As, in comparative anatomy,
a single disconnected bone reveals to the naturalist the
structure and habits of a race of animals that has been
extinct for ages ; so, often, the mutUated record of some
forgotten manuscript, the neglected work of some ancient
chronicler, will open to the historian the whole history of
an age, and enable him to revive its spirit and exhibit
" its very form and pressure." Thucydides has sketched,
in glowing colors, the revolutions of the States of Greece ;
but could some Athenian letters, wrrltten by the patriots
who lived during the terrific era he describes, now be
rescued from the oblivion to which they have passed, they
might reveal to us the scenes of Corcyra or of Corinth,
the motives of statesmen and the springs of revolution,
far more fuUy than they can now be gathered even from
the pages of the most graphic of historians. And, to take
a more familiar example, he who would thoroughly un
derstand the social spirit and character of the early set
tlers of our own Providence Plantations must have re-

ADDRESS. 347
course, not to the provisions of the first or the second
charter, nor even to the records of the town alone, but to
the scattered documents that describe their strifes with
the people at Pawtuxet, and their endless disputes about
bounds, and about the meaning of the famous words, " up
stream without limits," In the sachem's original deed ; or
to the singular paper which Roger W^IUIams submitted to
the town, entitled " Considerations Touching Rates." It
is from these, and such as these, the incidental relics of
things that have passed away forever, that the historian
forms his conception of an age, and spreads it forth upon
his pictured page.
But collections like these of which I am speaking are
not only of essential service to the historian ; they also
enable the reader to verify the statements, to enlarge
and extend the views, contained In history Itself. How
many theories have been exploded, how many misrepre
sentations have been corrected, long after they have been
chronicled in history, by the subsequent researches of
more diligent or Impartial inquirers ! Hume was for a
long time regarded as the almost perfect embodiment of
philosophical Impartiality, and his " History of England "
was read with universal delight, as the authentic narrative
of the proud march of the English people from barbarism
to civilization through the checkered fortunes of their
career. But the researches of later Inquirers, and espe
cially the publication of documentary details, relating to
the more important periods of which he treats, have cast
a shadow over his historic fame, which is growing deeper
and deeper with every succeeding generation. The inim
itable qualities of his style, and the charming grace of his
manner, will long make his great work the delight of all
who read English history ; but it is only when its errors
have been corrected, its partial representations extended,
its cold indifference to the interests of humanity animated

348 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
with philanthropic sentiment and generous sympathy, that
it becomes a safe guide to the true principles of the
English Constitution, or the real fortunes of the English
nation. We may recur, for other illustrations, to the history of
our own State, at a period within the recoUectlon of some
who are present to day. All are familiar with the fact
that Rhode Island was the last of the thirteen States to
adopt the Federal Constitution, and to join the union
which had been formed. But how small a portion of the
real history of that event is this single fact ! There Is
here no explanation of the causes of this reluctant assent ;
no Illustration of the influences which were at work to
blind the people to the true dignity and happiness of the
State. It is only when we leave the historic record, and
go back to the scattered chronicles of the day, or converse
with the aged men who still live to describe it, that we can
form any adequate conception of the conflicting passions
which then rent our little republic on this engrossing
question. Many a quiet citizen of the present day, who
glories In the Constitution of his country, would hear with
astonishment of the strifes which agitated this State at
the period of its adoption ; when towa. and country were
in arms against each other, and military officers, and even
legislators and judges, assembled with a rustic mob to pre
vent by violence the civil rejoicings which the success of
the Constitution In other States called forth among the
people of Providence !
Other illustrations without number might be adduced
to show how much of our knowledge of the spirit and pro
gress of a people depends upon coUecting and carefully
treasuring up all the materials for composing, Illustrating,
and explaining their history. But I need not dwell upon
these familiar and well-established views respecting the
importance of historic studies. In other countries they

ADDRESS. 349
have created a deep and widespread interest, they have
received the fostering care of government, and have re
sulted in the accumulation of the most magnificent treas
ures of historic lore. The rich coUections of the King's
Library at Paris, of the British Museum at London, of the
splendid libraries at Copenhagen and Gottingen, at Ber
lin and Vienna, each containing, on an average nearly
400,000 volumes, show how much has been done to keep
the past from being forgotten, and to preserve aU its im
portant facts and teachings, and even its evanescent spirit,
for the future instruction and guidance of mankind. What
event In the history of modern Europe cannot there be
iUustrated ! What age cannot there be revived ! The
visitor to these stupendous coUections of books and manu
scripts, as he wanders amazed through their crowded al
coves, sees piled on every side around him all that the
diligence of man, aided by princely munificence and im
perial power, has been able to rescue from the mighty
wrecks of the past ; and he feels a generous pride In the
thought that so much at least is safe, of aU which gifted
genius has created, or which the race of man has suffered
and achieved, through the long centuries of its existence.
Our own country, though far behind the leading na
tions of Europe in her coUections of books, has, however,
begun to cultivate a most worthy and commendable In
terest In the monuments of her early history. Every
thing pertaining to the planting and the early growth of
the settlements of America has at length acquired a high
value, and is becoming a matter of universal demand. It
can now no longer be said that the richest coUections of
materials for American history are in foreign lands, shut
up in the libraries of princes or of curious scholars, or
sealed away in the Plantation Offices of the British gov
ernment. They are here in the heart of New England,
where they have been gathered by the munificence of pri-

350 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
vate citizens, and the enUghtened agency of our literarv
institutions, and here they must remain forever.
The numerous Historical Societies which have been
formed in this country, furnish also another most gratify
ing proof of the growing interest in all that pertains to
American History. The Massachusetts Historical So
ciety was founded In 1790. During the period which has
since elapsed. It has published twenty-seven volumes of
its Collections. It has accumulated, by Its researches, a
library of books and manuscripts of Immense value, and
has set on foot inquiries and historic labors, whose influ
ence has been felt In every part of the land. At later
periods, similar societies have been established in the
others of the New England States, In New York, Penn
sylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Georgia, each
one of which has contributed something for the Illustra
tion or the enriching of our local or general history. Of
these, the society In New York is by far the most liberal
in its resources and aims, and the most active and diligent
in its inquiries. It has published six volumes of CoUec
tions pertaining to the history of Its own State, and is at
this moment prosecuting Its objects, with a zeal and enter
prise which give full assurance that all that has ever been
achieved, in earlier or in later days, by the sturdy set
tlers of the New Netherlands or their persevering suc
cessors, will be duly chronicled on the pages of American
history. But the history of no State In the Union, we may safely
say, presents claims upon the attention and study of her
citizens so strong as does that of Rhode Island. Her
origin was peculiar, and her position among the States of
New England was marked, for many generations, by the
same peculiarity. The three divisions of the State, the
Plantations of Providence, the settlement at Aquetneck,
and the settlement at Warwick, were first peopled by

ADDRESS. 351
those who had been driven from the neighboring colonies
for opinion's sake. Though differing in almost every
other respect, they were entirely agreed in maintaining
the one great principle which persecution had taught
them, the inalienable freedom of the conscience, the un-
derlved, unchartered Independence of the human soul.
In others of their political and ethical opinions, they par
took of the errors of their time, other interests of society
they may even have neglected, but In their perception and
application of this principle — the basis of all real free
dom — they strode far before the age to which they be
longed. They seemed to their contemporaries to be pur
suing, with reckless zeal, a startling and Impracticable
paradox ; but they felt, themselves, the greatness of the
mission they were appointed to accomplish — to found a
refuge for " true soul Uberty," to hold forth to mankind
the first " lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil
State may stand, and be best maintained, with a full
liberty in religious concernments." This noble purpose
they adhered to with a tenacity that never yielded — with
a consistency that never was marred, amidst the penury
and the privations of the wilderness, amidst the scorn and
the persecutions of all their neighbors. The colony, from
the first, in the language of the settlers at Newport, was
"a birth and breeding of the Most High." Here, "be
yond the chartered grasp of civilized men," it was founded
by " an outcast people," who gloried most in " bearing
with the several judgments and consciences of each other
in all the towns of the colony." In this consisted the
pecuUarity of Rhode Island. In this, the fundamental
principle of her society, she stood forth In the age, single
and alone — nee viget quidquam simile, aut secundum.
This peculiarity in her early character made her the
object of incessant suspicion and distrust, and, at length,
arrayed against her the combined legislation and proscrip-

352 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
tion of aU the other colonies of New England. They
chose to regard her as a heterodox, and almost as an out
law State, whose interests and happiness they might prey
upon at pleasure, and without rebuke. They laid claim to
her territory, and extended their jurisdiction over her peo
ple, and weU-nigh crushed her in her very cradle. Mas
sachusetts passed a law forbidding the Inhabitants of
Providence from coming to her towns ; and when a re
spected clergyman of Newport, with two companions, went
to visit an aged member of his church, resident at Lynn,
he was seized by the beadles of the town, while preaching
on the Sabbath, at the house of his friend, and was pun
ished, under sentence of the court, by a heavy fine and
Imprisonment, with the alternative of being publicly
whipped ! The fine was paid without the good man's
knowledge or consent, and he was released from prison.
One of his companions, however, was stiU retained in con
finement, and when set at liberty, was whipped with thirty
stripes. Inflicted with that merciless severity which heresy
alone could have provoked. Under the operation of this
exclusive policy, which was adopted by the neighboring
colonies, the inhabitants of Rhode Island were not only
cut off from the trade of the country, but were often
obliged to forego the comforts and the common necessaries
of life. This hostility, which, from the beginning, had
characterized the intercourse of the other settlements with
the fathers of Rhode Island, in 1643, was embodied in the
confederacy which was established among the colonies of
New England. The leading object of this confederacy
was the mutual protection of its members against the
Indians, whose hostility was threatened on every side, and
against the rising settlements of the French and the
Dutch, with whom England was then frequently at war.
The circumstances of its formation are worthy of a mo
ment's particular consideration. The contracting parties

ADDRESS. 353
to the league were the colonies of Massachusetts and Plym
outh, of New Haven and Connecticut, each of which, by
its commissioners, signed the articles at Boston, on the
19th of May, 1643. This union Rhode Island was not
invited to join, and subsequently, at her own apphcation
to be admitted a member, she was deliberately refused
admission ; an act which, taken In all Its circumstances,
stands out among the most unchristian and Inhuman re
corded In Puritan history, in whose strange records are so
often blended the direst atrocity and the loftiest virtue.
Here was an infant, feeble colony, situated between two
powerful races of savages — the Wampanoags on the east
and the Narragansetts on the west — and separated by the
wide Atlantic from the mother country. Its people were
of the same Anglo-Saxon stock, and professed the same
Protestant faith with their neighbors. They had come
from England in the same ships which bore the colonists
of Plymouth and Boston, of New Haven and Hartford.
Like them they had lighted the fires of civilization In the
wilderness, and by their beneficent Influence with the In
dians they had, more than once, saved the whole country
from the desolations of savage war. Yet it was all In vain.
They had adopted the startling heresy, that men are re
sponsible for their opinions to God alone ; that the civil
power may not Interfere in religious concernments ; and
that before the law of the land aU should alike be equal,
whether Protestants or Papists, whether Jews or Turks.
For this opinion, which they had dared to proclaim, and
to carry into practice, they were placed beneath the ban
of universal proscription, and were deliberately excluded
from the alliance and the sympathies of the whole civili
zation of the country — to perish, it might be, from the
wastings of starvation and disease, or amid the terrors of
Indian massacre and conflagration.
At a recent celebration of the era of this confederacy,

354 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
In a neighboring State, a distinguished and venerable orar
tor discoursed, with more of rhetoric than of truth, con
cerning what he was pleased to term " the conscientious,
contentious spirit " of the early fathers of Rhode Island.
But to what manner of spirit shall we attribute this act of
the Puritans of New England, by which a Christian colony,
of their own brethren, was deprived of aU the benefits of
their neighborhood, and left unprotected In the wilder
ness, to contend with merciless savages and struggle alone
" against necessity's sharp pinch ! " Was It mere indif
ference to the fate of those whom they deemed heretics
and outcasts ? Or was It the vain hope, that by the pres
sure of want, or the threats of Indian massacre, the colony
would yield to her confederate neighbors, and quietly sub
mit to be partitioned among their several jurisdictions ?
Whichever of these may have been the motive, the act
itself bespeaks a dark and malignant bigotry, which can
not be veiled, aud for which it is in vain to apologize — a
bigotry which. Indeed, need not be dwelt upon, amid the
general blaze of Puritan virtues, but which we may weU
be proud to think, has left no traces of its existence In the
history or the character of Rhode Island.
How different from all this is the spirit which charac
terized her legislation, even at the same gloomy periods of
New England history ! In turning to consider it we seem
to have advanced a whole age in the progress of cIvU and
intellectual freedom. Take a single Ulustration. In
1656, Massachusetts commenced the persecution of the
Quakers, which soon extended through all New England.
Banished from every other colony, they fled to Rhode
Island, where, though they had but few sympathies with
the inhabitants, they were kindly received, and were ad
mitted to all the privileges of citizens and freemen. But
the Commissioners of the United Colonies hunted them
even here. ^In two several appeals, they urged the author-

ADDRESS. 355
ities of this colony, by every motive that could be ad
dressed to the self-interest of a community, to join in the
general persecution. But with what dignity does the
Legislature reply : " As concerning these Quakers (so
called), which are now among us, we have no law whereby
to punish any for only declaring, by words, their minds
and understandings, concerning the things and ways of
God as to salvation and an eternal condition." And,
when finding all persuasives vain, the Commissioners, ir
ritated at her Inflexible adherence to her noble princi
ples, threaten to suspend all intercourse, and thus dry up
the very sources of subsistence to the colony, the As
sembly calmly make their appeal to " his Highness and
honorable council " in England, and, through their agent,
ask that they " may not be compelled to exercise any civil
power over men's consciences, so long as human orders. In
point of civUity, are not corrupted or violated ; which,"
say they, " our neighbors about us do frequently practice,
whereof many of us have large experience, and do judge
it to be no less than a point of absolute cruelty."
Now, look along the history of mankind, up to the lat
ter half of the seventeenth century, and where else do you
find that language like this had ever proceeded from a
legislative assembly ? Yet, strange to say, the age was
preeminently distinguished for its attention to religious
truth and to the rights of conscience. England was rent
by civil wars, of which these rights were professed as the
sustaining principle. Her people were divided into four
great parties, the Roman Catholics, the Episcopalians, the
Presbyterians, and the Independents, all of whom were
contending for what they called freedom of conscience ;
and many a noble spirit had been offered up as a sacrifice
to the cause, on the scaffold, or on the field of battle.
Here, too, upon the barren coasts of New England, were
hardy settlements, just springing into vigorous existence.

356 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
each of which had been planted for the freedom of the
conscience. Yet on a closer Inspection, the freedom which
all were pursuing proves to be freedom only for them
selves, not for others. It was freedom to rear their own
altars and to offer their own worship. Beyond this it did
not go. And the student of history turns from them aU ;
from the religious parties then struggUng for ascendancy
in England, and from the colonies which had sprung up
on the shores of America, and finds here alone, in a col
ony which had been neglected by her mother and despised
by all her sisters, the solitary refuge for true soul-Uberty
— that unlimited InteUectual freedom, higher than mere
toleration — which makes all opinions equal In the eye of
the law, and which forbids the civU power to touch the
inviolable sanctuary of the conscience.
Thus peculiar — far more so than has been generaUy
understood — was the spirit of the early fathers of this
State. The memorials of their labors, of their legislation,
of their sufferings for the maintenance of this principle —
which they alone of all the world understood and cher
ished — are worthy of the minutest Inquiry. They can
not be too thoroughly explored, or too carefuUy treasured
up in the depositories of historic lore.
But, in addition to the greatness and value of the prin
ciples at issue, there is another consideration, which urges
us perhaps, stUl more strongly, to the careful coUectlon
and preservation of the materials, especiaUy for our early
history. It Is found in the fact that these principles, and
the characters of the men who here asserted them, have
been singularly misrepresented and misunderstood. The
literature of New England, at that day, was confined to
Massachusetts and Plymouth, and their early annalists
seem never to have dreamed, that a faithful narrative of
the planting and growth of this heterodox colony, where
aU sorts of consciences were tolerated, would ever be of

ADDRESS. 357
the sUghtest interest or benefit to mankind. Hence It
happened, that our early history became known to the
world, mainly through the Imperfect sketches of Winthrop
or Hubbard, the prejudiced statements of Morton, the
controversial sarcasms of Mr. Cotton, and the ridiculous,
and sometimes vulgar jibes, of Cotton Mather. Many of
these misrepresentations have been corrected by subse
quent writers, in the same States from which they ema
nated ; and the fame of Rhode Island has been brightened
by their labors. But she still appeals to her own sons
for a fuller vindication ; she claims it for the lessons she
has taught them, for the inheritance of freedom she has
transmitted to them. From these eminences in her social
progress to which she has attained, she points us back
to the scattered graves of her original Planters, and de
mands of us that we build monuments to their memory ;
that we guard their fame, and transmit their principles,
undisguised and unperverted, in the imperishable records
of history.
Among these early fathers of the State, I may here
mention one, whose fame has been too much neglected,
but whose character has descended to us, in the memory
of his deeds, embalmed with the purest associations of
devoted patriotism and exalted virtue. I refer to Dr.
John Clarke, of Newport — the associate of Roger Wil
liams — the procurer of the second Charter — the tried
friend of the colony, at a time when friendship for her
was the sacrifice of all else that New England had to be
stow. His life ought long ago to have been written, and
every lineament of his pure and spotless character, on
which even enmity and envy have fastened no reproach,
should have been held forth to the respect and admira
tion of those who enjoy the fruits of his labors. A scholar,
bred probably at one of England's ancient Universities —
a physician, accustomed to the practice of his profession

358 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
in the circles of the British MetropoUs — a teacher of re
ligion, despised and persecuted by those among whom he
had cast his lot — he came hither, the mild and benignant
advocate of religious freedom, and, next to the exiled
founder of Providence, was the truest friend, and the most
generous benefactor of Rhode Island. For twelve troubled
years he resided in England as the representative of the
colony, supporting himself during all this period by his
own labors, and by the mortgage of his estate in Newport.
He was an intimate associate of many of the eminent men
of the time, and was doubtless a witness of many of the
stirring scenes of the English Revolution. By his un
wavering fidelity, by his winning manners, and his diplo
matic skill, he maintained the rights of the colony, amid
the changes and tumults of a revolutionary age, and at
length, upon the restoration of the Stuarts, he succeeded
in obtaining from the second Charles that Charter of
civil government which has shaped the institutions of the
State, and identified itself with all her glory. The disin
terested benevolence which had animated his life, stIU
lighted up its closing hours. He died at Newport in
1676, and In his last will bequeathed a handsome estate
" for the relief of the poor, and the bringing up of chU
dren unto learning."
" Peace to the just man's memory — let it grow
Greener with years, and blossom through the flight
Of ages ; let the mimic canvas show
His calm benevolent features ; let the light
Stream on his deeds of love that shunned the sight
Of all but Heaven ; and in the book of fame,
The glorious record of his virtues write.
And hold it up to men, and bid them claim
A palm like his, and catch from him the hallowed flame."
I have referred more particularly to the early periods
of the history of Rhode Island, in lUustrating the pecu
liarity of her position, and the value of her fame. But

ADDRESS. 359
other periods are equally replete with historic interest, and
present scarcely fewer claims upon the attention and the
study of her sons. Her participation in the struggles of
the Revolution has not yet been fully told. All that may
illustrate the services she rendered the cause of national
independence, whether by legislation or by arms ; all that
embodies the spirit that made her the nursery of heroic
commanders and of brave troops ; and all that may ex
plain her reluctant adoption of the Federal Constitution,
or the origin and growth of her great social Interests,
her commerce and her manufactures, her education and
her religion — all these should be faithfully explored and
carefully garnered up, away from the reach of oblivion.
There is also another period, equally important to the
fame of the State, and it may be equally instructive In
Its lessons for mankind, the memorials of which we, of
the present generation, are especially bound to preserve
from decay. I refer to the recent civil controversy, whose
furious passions have scarcely yet died away. W^hatever
may be the opinions we entertain respecting it, all will
admit the Importance of treasuring up everything that
can explain Its origin and Issue, or Illustrate Its spirit and
character. We owe It to the State, whose bosom has been
rent, and whose peace has been disturbed — and we owe
it scarcely less to the nation, whose interests are involved
in the principles at issue, to see to it that Its history be
faithfully written, not with the pen of partisan passion,
or beneath the narrowing Influence of political prejudice ;
but that it be written In the light of the Constitution, with
the spirit of calm philosophy and discriminating research.
Let everything pertaining to It be carefully preserved,
that when in a future age, after our petty Interests shall
have perished, and our short-lived passions shall have died
away, the historian shall come to trace the causes of these
unhappy strifes, he may find here the means of thoroughly

360 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
understanding the princlijles at Issue between the contend
ing parties, and the spirit and the acts that have marked
the character of each, as well as the issue that has sprung
from the angry passions that have been so deeply stirred.
Thus let the cause be committed to the tribunals of pos
terity. Let there be materials for removing every blot
that may have been cast upon the escutcheon of the State,
of refuting every calumny that has been uttered against
her fair fame, that the truth, the simple unvarnished truth,
may alone be committed to the records of history.
For purposes such as these has the Rhode Island His
torical Society been established. It dates back to the
year 1822, and in the order of time it was the fourth In
stitution of the kind established in the United States. It
owes its origin to the spirit and activity of a few true-
hearted sons of Rhode Island, who chanced to meet In the
office of a gentleman ^ whose historic zeal, even then dis
tinguished, has since led him onward to the most com
mendable labors, and the most valuable results. It was
in the course of their conversation that the suggestion
was first made of a Society, whose aim should be to collect
and preserve, for the use of the historian, the scattered
memorials of the successive periods of our progress as a
Colony and a State. The suggestion was speedily carried
into effect, and this Society commenced its useful career.
Twenty-two years have since elapsed, and, amidst many
discouragements it has gone steadily forward in the prose
cution of its worthy aims. Though It has never occupied
a conspicuous place In the public estimation, and Its ac
tive supporters have always been few, yet It has already
done essential service In the IUustration of the spirit and
the characters that belong to our early annals. It has
published five volumes of its coUections, and has garnered
up in Its archives a large mass of materials, which have
* Hon. William R. Staples, .author of the Anvah of Providence.

ADDRESS. 361
already rendered valuable aid to writers of American his
tory, and among which the future historian of the State
or of the country will find all that now remains of many
a forgotten era of the past. Through the agency of a
succession of Indefatigable secretaries and directors, the
Society has maintained an extensive and useful correspon
dence with similar associations in this country and in for
eign lands. Its correspondence has rendered signal aid
to the antiquarians of Denmark, In their attempts to deci
pher those mysterious inscriptions upon the rocky shores
of New England, which seem to point back to the visit
of some unknown voyagers centuries before the heroic en
terprise of Columbus. The aid which was thus received
has been acknowledged with grateful applause by this
learned association. In the " Antiquitates Americanae," —
the magnificent work in which they have embodied their
researches respecting the ante-Columbian periods of Amer
ican history.
After many efforts and long delays, the Society, aided
in part by private munificence, has at length been able to
rear the modest structure, whose completion we have to
day come up to celebrate. We have watched its progress,
from its commencement to Its final consummation. In
hope and in joy we now set it apart to the purposes for
which it has been erected. We dedicate it to the muse of
history — "the muse of saintly aspect and awful form,"
who ever watches over the fortunes of men, and guards
the virtues of humanity. We wish it to be a place of
secure and perpetual deposit, where, beyond the reach of
accident, or the approach of decay, we may accumulate
all the materials for our yet unwritten history. We would
gather here aU that can illustrate the early planting or the
subsequent growth of our State, the lives of its founders
and settlers, the manuscripts of Its departed worthies, the
history of its towns. Its glorious proclamations of religious

362 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
liberty, and its heroic sacrifices, both in peace and in war.
We would also gather here, the few remaining relics of
the long perished race of Canonicus and Mlantonomo, and
keep them as precious memorials of men, who, though un
taught In the lessons of civilized benevolence, received to
their rude hospitality, the fathers of the State, when Chris
tian pilgrims persecuted and banished them. We would
also deposit here everything that is connected with the in
terests of society within the limits of the Commonwealth —
the chronicles of every controversy, the organs of every
party, the wretched sheet, that In its day was too worth
less to be read. If so be it iUustrate the morals, the man
ners, or the deeds of the time, and the most valuable
volume In which genius and wisdom have embodied their
Immortal thoughts. We may hope, too, that within its
alcoves, " rich with the spoils of time," may at length be
seen the features and forms of the men, who in peace and
in war have reflected honor on the State, by the wisdom
they have carried to the councils, or the glory they have
added to the name of the country. Thus, distant generar
tions may come up hither, and while they study the me
morials of the past, they may gaze upon the Uneaments of
the men whose names they have learned to identify with
whatever is heroic in action, or dignified in character.
It is to these objects, and to others such as these, that
we dedicate this edifice, which we have reared in this
friendly neighborhood of learning, as the depository of
historic lore. They are liberal and noble objects, and
worthy to command the respect, and enlist the efforts, of
an enlightened community. They are limited to no local
bounds. They embrace the whole territory of the Com
monwealth, and concern as intimately the settlements on
Rhode Island, the Asylum from persecution at Warwick,
the romantic legends of Mount Hope and Narragansett,
as they do the Plantations of Providence. Whether they

ADDRESS. 363
are ever fully accomplished, will depend on the efforts
which the members of this Society put forth, and upon the
sympathy and aid which we receive from our feUow-cIti-
zens throughout the State. We invite, therefore, the co
operation of aU, in carrying forward the work which we
have begun, and of which so much remains to be accom
plished. The State is the common parent of us all, and
her fame should be dear to us all. That fame, which two
hundred years have established, has at length been com
mitted to us, to guard and to perpetuate. Let us be faith
ful to the trust ; and in the temple which literary genius
may rear to American History, let us erect an humble
shrine, and dedicate it to Rhode Island, and adorn it with
her stainless escutcheon of Religious Freedom.

ADDRESS
AT A PUBLIC MEETING OP THE CITIZENS OP PROVIDENCE
JUNE 7, 1856, CALLED TO CONSIDER THE ASSAULT UPON
THE HONORABLE CHARLES SUMNER, IN THE SENATE-
CHAMBER AT WASHINGTON.
Mr. President — Your appearance in the chair of this
meeting, this gi-eetlng with which you are welcomed by
your fellow-citizens on your return after a long absence,
again to take your place among us, as weU as your own
distinct avowal, proclaim that it is no common and no
party object which has caUed us together to-night. Had
any such purpose dictated the meeting, neither you nor
I might have participated in Its proceedings.
There are those among us to whom our whole heavens
seem to be hung in black, and our whole horizon is low
ering with portentous clouds. But as you have so clearly
stated, we are now assembled to consider a single occur
rence which stands forth most conspicuous among the
occasions of public excitements, and which has fiUed all
our minds with abhorrence and dismay. The country
has been dishonored In Its high places, and Its good name
has been Injured throughout the civilized world. A Sen
ator of the United States has been struck down by the
hand of brutal violence in his seat In the Senate — - a Sen
ator who represents an ancient and illustrious Common
wealth, one of the most honored In the sisterhood of the
States, whose history furnished some of the proudest
chapters in our national annals. The circumstances and
the place too, in which this deed was perpetrated, impart

ADDRESS. 365
to it an ominous and fearful import, and make it a mat
ter of national concern. It was done in no moment of
excited debate, in no impulse of sudden passion, but it
was deliberate and cold-blooded, plotted and consulted be
forehand, and meditated for two days and nights. Or
rather, as the evidence has fully shown. It was a con
spiracy, not alone against the safety and life of a single
citizen or a single Senator, but against free speech and
free legislation in the Capitol of the nation. Look at that
single scene In the gate-house of the Capitol grounds, on
the morning of the day which witnessed this unparalleled
outrage, and see the perpetrator plotting with his accom
plice, and consulting how he may best accomplish his
cowardly purpose, and strike his victim when most unpre
pared and defenseless. These men, thus stealthily lurk
ing at the gates of the Capitol, are members of the House
of Representatives ; but if they were not, how should we
characterize them but as a highwayman and his accom
plice lying In wait for their prey ?
The outrage, too, borrows a stUl darker atrocity from
the place in which It was at length committed. There is
a peculiar sanctity attached to the Senate House of this
Republic. It was long ago described as the " sanctuary
of the Constitution, — the citadel of Order, Liberty, and
Law." It is the place where the representatives of sov
ereign States meet on the basis of perfect equality, where
the smallest and weakest members of the Union are raised
to the rank of the largest and the most powerful, — where
Delaware and Rhode Island take counsel as equals with
New York and Pennsylvania, with Ohio and Virginia.
It was in that most sacred chamber of the government
that the assassin entered and waited his opportunity, and
at length dealt his bludgeon blows upon the head of the
defenseless Senator, tiU he fell prostrate and bleeding
upon the floor

366 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
This is the dastardly outrage, this the humiliating,
shameful spectacle, which we have come together to-night
to consider. Those blows fell not alone on the manly
brow of the Senator from Massachusetts. They fell on
the head of this Republic. They descended on the honor
and dignity, the peace and security, of the American peo
ple, on you and on me, feUow-citizens. We to-night con
fess the humiliation and suffering they have inflicted,
and demand their redress and the utmost and Immediate
punishment of their author. We claim it for the dignity
and purity of the government under which we Uve, and
with millions around us we claim it for ourselves, our
honor and our good name as a people. But, Mr. Presi
dent, it is asked what redress can be had and what pun
ishment can be inflicted on the perpetrator of a deed that
has thus disgraced the American name, and dishonored
and outraged the American people. This Is a question
which certainly claims the thoughtful consideration of
every citizen. Let us consider it as its gravity and im
portance demand. In speaking of it, I have no redress
and no punishment to suggest which is at variance with
the Constitution and laws of the land, or with the com
mon obligations which rest upon us, whether as citizens
or as States. I stiU believe in and reverence the Con
stitution of the United States, and stIU regard it, when
administered in its true spirit, as containing or aUowing
abundant remedy for every national wrong. "V^Tiat, then,
ought to be done in the case we are now considering?
First of aU then, sir, we can and we do demand that
this man and his accomplice be punished by the House
of Representatives to which they belong, to the full ex
tent of its power. The question is now pending in that
House, and no graver question wUl receive its considera
tion while its session lasts. Its committee has reported
by Its majority and by its minority, and it must choose

ADDRESS. 367
between the two. Those reports are before the country,
and are at this moment receiving the verdict of millions
of the people. The former, I think. Is all that could be
desired to indicate the insulted dignity both of the House
and the Senate. It recites, as we all know, the disgust
ing story of this wrong, and gives the testimony of those
who witnessed It. It declares the privileges which the
Constitution assigns to the legislators of this Republic to
have been shamefully and wantonly violated, and closes
with the unquaUfied resolves that the principal offender
in this great outrage be expelled from the House, and
that his accessories be censured by solemn vote. Let that
be done, and the House may again challenge the respect
of the country. The latter of these reports presents an
opposite view, very different in its spirit and In the con
clusion to which it comes. It declares that no privilege
has been violated, that no offense has been committed,
and that nothing need be done. It covers the whole trans
action with palliations and special pleadings, and thus
seeks to hide from public view the Intolerable wrong
which It involves. It is signed by two names, one of them
hitherto a name of distinction and honor; but I trust
that no authoiity which It thus acquires can save it from
the reprobation which It deserves. It cites the prece
dents it employs from the parliamentary history of Eng
land, to show that the House has no power in a case like
this. But It passes by at least one most conspicuous in
stance Iu our own history, in the early and palmy days
of the American Senate, which is exceedingly pertinent
and appropriate, and which many gentlemen around me
will readily recall. In the summer of 1797, a few months
after the close of the second administration of President
Washington, and while the shadow of his unsullied
dignity and his great character still rested upon the gov
ernment he had so lately left, the Senate, with but one

368 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
dissenting voice, expelled WiUiam Blount, a Senator
from Tennessee, then but lately admitted to the Union.
He had violated no privilege of either House of Congress ;
he had committed no crime at the seat of the government ;
nor had he been condemned, nor even Indicted, before any
judicial tribunal In the country. As a land speculator
and a political adventurer, he had headed a combination,
for mere money-making and selfish ends, to transfer the
territory beyond the Mississippi from the jurisdiction of
Spain to that of England, and had thus violated the trea
ties and compromised the neutrality of the government.
To make the precedent still more striking, the offense
had been committed while he was acting as governor
of the territory which now, as a sovereign State, he was
representing iu the Senate. Charges were preferred to
that grave and reverend body by the action of the House
below, and Blount was expelled from his seat because
his conduct In a public position had dishonored the coun
try, and' was incompatible with the duties and office of a
Senator. Let that precedent be now followed ; and if
there be no other on record, the perpetrator of this recent
outrage will be driven from his seat In the House of
Representatives by the indignant vote of every member.
Unless this be done, a stain of dishonor wUl stiU rest
upon the body. A sense of foul and unforgotten wrong
will still rankle like iron in the heart of the nation, and
ruffianism will be instaUed at the Capitol.
But, sir, this man has also violated the laws which are
provided for the common security of us all. Apart from
the privileges of rank and station, I hope it is stIU a crime
in the District of Columbia to waylay and assault, and
beat to unconsciousness and almost to death, an American
citizen, even the humblest that approaches the seat of gov
ernment. If It be not, it is a matter which It concerns us
all to know. We have a right, then, to expect that this

ADDRESS. 369
man, whatever he may be in other respects, will be tried
and punished as a criminal under the laws which Congress
has enacted, and before the tribunals which Congress has
established for the District of Columbia. Let that be
done and another Item Is added to the redress which this
outrage demands, and all will be done which constituted
authorities and law can do.
But, Mr. President, it will be said that even that Is but
an Imperfect redress for a crime like this. I admit it, sir,
and I think there yet remains another and a severer pun
ishment than any which courts of law can impose. Their
heaviest inflictions are endured and are soon at an end.
But there exists in the moral nature of man, and In the
tone of civUized society, an Instrument of retribution
whose agency cannot be escaped, whose power continues
while Ufe lasts, or memory and name endure. This in
strument is the scorn and abhorrence of high-minded men.
TeU me not of prisons and gibbets, as if these were the
punishment of final resort. There Is a direr and more
fearful retribution in the loss of an honorable standing,
in the blight of a reputation, in the anathema of a proud
name. In desertion, neglect, and contempt from respecta
ble men. We are not without signal examples of pun
ishment like this that may well now be recalled. That
traitor general of the Revolution who surrendered West
Point to the enemy, and theu led an expedition against
the Inhabitants of the hills and hamlets where his own
infancy had been nursed, — look at him as, years after
wards, when the Revolution was ended, and with the price
of his treachery in his hands, he is introduced as a private
man upon the floor of the British House of Commons,
and see him quail and wither before the scorn with which
a member then speaking folds his arms and declares, " I
will not speak while the air of this House is tainted with
the presence of a traitor." Think you he did not then

370 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
wish that he had fallen In battle, or even been captured
and hanged In the place of that youthful officer whom his
betrayed commander was obliged to sacrifice in his stead ?
Or take another example of a similar retribution. It is
now some fifty years since a man who had been honored
with his country's favor. Inflamed by curious and venge
ful passions, challenged and shot in mortal combat the
foremost statesman of the age. He was visited with no
punishment by the laws of the land. But his deed had
outraged the moral sentiments of a great civilized com
munity, and through the thirty years of his remaining life
he lived a wretched and blighted man. Forsaken almost
of heaven and earth, childless and solitary, he lingered to
old age in the midst of a great metropolis, neglected,
avoided, hated and despised. This Is the heaviest punish
ment which man can inflict for great wrongs to justice,
freedom, and to humanity. So, fellow-citizens, let it be
with him who lays the parricidal hand of violence upon
the embodied majesty of the Republic. Let all men avoid
him and turn away from him, in the haUs of the legisla^
ture, In the marts of business, and In the circles of society.
Let an anathema, like that of the ancient Church, rest
upon him so long as he lives, and let his name be coupled
only with oblivion or contempt. W^hen aU this has been
done the redress Is complete, and the justice of the earth
is satisfied.I know not, sir, what existing organizations wIU favor
demands like these. It may be that none wUl do it. I
remember to have read a treatise written by an eminent
Christian statesman, still living on the continent of Eu
rope, on what he styled " the Church of the Future."
Wearied with the divisions and distractions of Christen
dom, disheartened with its want of union. Its want of
energy, and its want of action, he meditated In rapturous
vision, and wrote with fervid eloquence, upon the future

ADDRESS. 371
Church which was yet to arise to embody the spirit of Him
who spake as never man spake, to present the lineaments
of our holy religion, and to unite the faithful of every
land in carrying blessings to all the world. So, sir, it
may be, we must wait for some party of the future to en
shrine In itself the spirit of the Constitution, to unite all
"good men and true," from every State, and to hold
forth to the world the fair form of American freedom and
American civilization. But If the vision should be too
long delayed, if violence and barbarism shaU continue to
encroach unresisted, we, sir, are still to stand fast in the
liberty wherewith we have been made free. DweUIng on
the soil that was purchased with our fathers' blood, we are
never to yield, but stUl to show that the same blood is not
yet exhausted in our veins. Thus, and thus alone, can
we, as citizens of the Republic, be true to ourselves, to
our country, and to God.

ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE RHODE
ISLAND HOSPITAL, OCTOBER 1, 1868.
Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen :
We have come together to-day to celebrate the opening
of the Rhode Island Hospital ; to cong^attdate each other
on the completion of this noble structure, and in devout
gratitude and humble faith to consecrate it to the benefi
cent work for which It has been erected. It bears the
name of the State ; it has been aided by personal contri
butions from every part of the State ; and in the compre
hensive and catholic spirit of the State, it is designed to
be an asylum for aU who may need Its healing care. We
gather to it, therefore, with the liveliest interest and the
fondest hope, and hail it as the grandest and most benef
icent work which Rhode Island charity has thus far
achieved. We gaze with delight upon the graceful pro
portions of its weU-chosen architecture. We survey with
the fullest satisfaction its airy pavilions, its spacious and
sun-lighted wards, and their admirable appointments for
the convenience and comfort of those who are to be its
inmates. We contemplate with pleasure the rare salubrity
of Its situation, and the ample grounds which environ It,
with their capacities for lawn, and garden, and park, yet
to be developed. We recall with gratitude the generous
spirits who first conceived it, the earnest and self-denying
men who solicited Its funds, and the faithful and laborious
guardians who have given to it their daily care, and who
now present It to us as their completed work, — their dele
gated trust, most judiciously and honorably fulfilled. As

ADDRESS. 373
fellow-laborers and sharers together in the ennobling en
terprise, we enter with them Into the rare felicities of this
occasion ; and as citizens of the community which it Is
designed to bless, we behold with joy and pride these
doors thrown open to-day for aU who may need the com
fort and care, the tender nursing and the skillful healing,
which are here to be dispensed In all future time.
A hospital for the treatment of the Infirm and the sick
may well be selected as the most genuine and appropriate
manifestation of the Christian civilization which we have
inherited. No other charity is so strictly of Christian
origin, or IUustrates so conspicuously that new spirit of
universal benevolence which Christianity first breathed
into the world. The splendid paganisms of antiquity
have left their characteristic monuments of genius and
sklU, of wealth and power. Majestic structures whose
ruins now lie along the track of time, proclaim the great
ideas and the heroic endeavors of those ages on which
Christianity had not dawned. But In all their magnifi
cence they bore no fruit like this. Humane maxims were
not wanting in their literature and philosophy, kindly
sentiments were not unknown in their domestic or their
civil life. But neither India nor Egypt, neither Greece
nor Italy, could point to a single spot In their storied soil
which was consecrated to the care of the Injured and the
healing of the sick, — the relief of human suffering and
the saving of human life. Their civilizations, it is true,
recognized, in some imperfect degree, the value of the hu
man being to society as a producer of happiness to others,
as a defender of the state, and a laborer for the common
weal. But they were wholly indifferent to his transcen
dent value to himself as a creature of God, with a proba
tion on earth and an immortal life to come. They called
Into exercise no sentiments of comprehensive charity, and
made no recognition of anything like brotherhood among

374 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
men. They utterly faUed, as every mere material civili
zation must fail, in developing that larger and higher hu
manity which overleaps the barriers of country and race,
which rises above distinctions of caste and condition,
which gathers to Its embrace the outcast and forsaken,
and bestows Its nursing and care, its costly medicines and
its healing skill, on the sick and the insane, on the maimed
and the injured, who would otherwise perish in penury
and neglect. Man leamed his true relations to his brother
man only from the Divine Redeemer. The grand reci
procities and charities of human life were so constantly
reiterated In his teachings, so sublimely generalized and
exemplified in his career, that the practice of them be
came Inseparable from Christianity. It was of charity to
the sick, the destitute, and the imprisoned, — those from
whom others tumed away with Indifference or contempt,
— that He uttered the words which wUl not cease to be re
peated through aU the ages of history : " Inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me." It is this broader and higher
benevolence which was thus taught to men — this feeling
that whoever is forsaken or in want, whoever is stricken
with Injury or disease. Is our neighbor and our brother, —
it Is this that has prompted the great charities of modern
civilization and has distinguished this civilization from aU
which preceded it.
But more than this Is true. The peculiar charity which
is here Illustrated is that which is most conspicuously char
acteristic of Christianity. The feeding of the hungry had
been already recognized both as a virtue and a necessity.
It had been made an Institution of the State, and In all
the great nations of antiquity whole classes of the popula
tion received their daily bread either from public or from
private bounty. Christianity did not fail to commend a
charity which became so necessary amidst the miseries of

ADDRESS. 375
the world. But Its highest sanctions and its divinest bene
dictions were reserved for that other benevolence which
carries relief to the sufferings and healing to the diseases
with which man is everywhere so grievously afflicted. It
has been well remarked that there were but two occasions
on which our Lord exerted his miraculous power to feed the
hungry multitudes who so often thronged his path ; while
the occasions were innumerable on which He stretched
forth his hand to restore the maimed and to heal the sick.
He wrought no miracle that set aside the law which makes
subsistence dependent on Industry and prudence. He fed
the multitudes only when far from home and in a desert
place, and because, having come to hear his teachings,
they were apparently dependent on his hospitality and
care. Not so, however, with his miraculous healing. The
lame walked, the blind saw, the lepers were cleansed,
those who were smitten with any disease that visits the
human frame were made whole, whenever they sought his
marvelous interposition. In city and In village. In the
market place and in the temple. In the house and by the
wayside, his mysterious power was ever ready to arrest
the wasting of disease and to avert the sufferings It pro
duced. And when He separated his chosen apostles and
endued them with divine gifts like his own. He bade them
go forth on two grand errands of mercy to men ; the one
to preach the kingdom of God, the other to heal all man
ner of diseases. To do these two, the latter as truly as
the former, became the distinguishing characteristic of
the new religion, and wherever it was received among
men the practice of an exalted charity was as unfailing
among Christians as their belief in the kingdom of God.
The new society which received these grand ideas and
enshrined this universal charity was unlike any other that
had existed In the world, and from It have sprung the
most cherished social institutions of our modern life. It

376 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
everywhere wrought a social transformation which no his
tory has described and no imagination has fully conceived.
It extended Itself into aU countries and among all races ;
and yet, even amidst the iron separations of ancient ranks,
to be a Christian, of whatever kindred or clime. In aU the
early years of the Church, was a passport to every Chris
tian home in the world. At a later period. In all the
chief centres of the ever-widening Christendom, the hos
pitality which every believer had extended to aU his breth
ren was Intrusted to a few who acted for the others, and
at length It was concentrated at certain weU-known places,
and freely dispensed to aU who sought it there. The
hospital thus arose as a necessity of the times, to do for
Christians In sickness or in distress, when far from home,
what could no longer be done by private hospitality. It
was at first denounced as a reproach and a proof of de
clining benevolence, but it met a great and growing want,
and the princes and ecclesiastics of Christendom gave it
their favor and bestowed upon it their munificence. It
became connected with every monastery that was estab
lished, and the blessings which it thus dispensed consti
tute perhaps the humanest service which the monastic
orders of the Middle Age rendered to mankind. And
when in later times the cross, once so humble and de
spised, became the badge of empire and was blazoned on
the banners of armies, even crusading knighthood did not
forget the care and nursing of the sick, which, more than
all things else, emblemed the religion It sought to propa
gate. But an institution for the healing of the sick and the
care of the injured must be an expression of something
more than Christian benevolence alone. It must also be
the embodiment of every device and arrangement which
science has discovered or art has contrived for the alleria-
tlon of suffering and the restoration of health. Christian

ADDRESS. 377
philanthropy prompts the enterprise, but it is science that
presides over its accomplishment and fits It for its high
ends. Civilization must lavish upon It its choicest treas
ures, both of humanity and of knowledge, iu making it aU
that it ought to be. The earliest hospital of Western
Europe is said to have been founded by the Empress
Helena, — a native of Britain and the mother of Constan-
tine. But In all save the motive that prompted it, how
different must it have been from any one of those hospitals
which another British lady, in our own time, established
for her countrymen at Scutari, with a zeal so enlightened
and a success so beneficent that her woman's name shines,
above that of any general or any statesman, as the most
heroic and famous In the annals of the Crimean War ! In
the cloistered hall which the Benedictine monks set apart,
iu every monastery which they buUt, for the stranger and
the invalid who should seek their hospitality and require
their care, we recognize the same benevolence which Chris
tianity always inspires in Its votaries. They toiled as
faithfully, they sacrificed as generously, as philanthropists
in any later age. But how often were their pious pur
poses whoUy thwarted and their toilsome phUanthropy
well nigh wasted for the want of knowledge of the work
in which they were engaged ! The same Is true of those
representatives of the Church who accompanied the cru
sading armies In order to restore the sick and care for the
wounded. They bore the spirit of humanity into the
scenes of Moslem war, and made care for human suffer
ing a knightly and chivalrous distinction. Beyond this,
however, and the services which it involved, they were
unable to go ; and the armies they accompanied wasted
away on the plains of Palestine, as If poisoned by the
very air they breathed. Now It is only when we compare
the apartment of the sick in some Benedictine monastery
with a structure like this In which we are to-day assembled,

378 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
or place the kindly services of the knights of St. John In
the Crusades beside the manifold ministries of the United
States Sanitary Commission in our Civil War, that we are
able to appreciate how much the advancement of human
knowledge, and the Improvements which have been made
In every science and every art, have enabled Christian
benevolence to achieve for the relief of suffering and the
healing of disease. Comparisons such as these fuUy jus
tify the claim we make for a great hospital, as, In our own
day, the truest and most comprehensive exponent that can
be named, alike of the humanity and the piety, the science
and the art, which constitute the glory of Christian civili
zation. No other institution that exists proclaims so fuUy
the progress which society has made, both In knowledge of
Nature and in sympathy for man.
Let it not be thought, however, that a hospital for the
sick and the injured is a mere gratuitous benefaction to
those whom it may receive as patients. Like every other
judicious social charity. It reacts with manifold blessings
on its authors and on the whole community. The spirit
in which It has its origin, and in which it must be sus
tained, is essential to the well-being and progress of society.
Who would wish to live where it does not exist ? AU that
makes up the higher life of man springs from the sympa
thy which he feels for his fellow-man. It is what we do
for others that ennobles and hallows what we do for our
selves. Even the wealth for which we strive so earnestly,
and to which we cling so fondly, is made up of something
more than mere material gains. It is the result of a thou
sand dependencies and relationships without which it could
not exist. It grows only under the protection of law. It
dwells securely only in the midst of Intelligence and vir
tue. It puts forth Its energies and spreads its agencies,
on the right hand and on the left, only where justice and
humanity and religious faith have fijced their abode. For

ADDRESS. 379
the presence of these, the highest attributes of manhood
and of society, no greed of gain, no tireless industry, no
sagacious forethought, can long be a substitute. They
must be secured and maintained, or high prosperity will
take Its departure. This is a part of that " Moral Law
of Accumulation " which a great Teacher amons our-
selves used so often to expound to us. It underlies aU
that we call Political Economy, and Is as truly a condi
tion of social wealth as Is the labor from which it seems
to spring. Adam Smith designed his great work on the
Wealth of Nations to be a supplement to that which he
had already written on the Moral Sentiments ; and the
liberal science of which he is the founder, in Its essential
doctrines, is but an expansion of the law. Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself.
It is of generous sentiments and comprehensive consid
erations like these that a charity such as we have here
established should be the fuU and perfect expression. It
springs from cultivated Christian humanity, but it gathers
to itself, and concentrates upon its construction and ap
pointments, all the fruits both of scientific knowledge and
of mechanical and professional skill. Its efficiency and
success as a place for the treatment of disease must de
pend on the careful observance of a multitude of delicate
but Indispensable laws. Everything that can affect, how
ever remotely, the sources of human health, or the vigor
of human life, Is to be thought of In the selection of its
site, in the planning of Its architecture, and in the final
construction of its buildings. The exposure to the rays
of the sun, the underlying soil, the surrounding air, the
adjacent water, the material to be used in the formation of
its several parts both within and without, its division into
apartments and their dimensions and relations to each
other, Its capacity for the amplest ventilation, Its adapta
tion for interior salubrity, and all its arrangements for

380 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
easy, quiet, and most efficient administration, are but
specimens and illustrations of the elements that enter into
a problem which social philanthropy, after the lapse of
many ages, has even now but imperfectly solved. Let
errors be made in any of these conditions of success, and
a hospital will not fail to disclose glaring defects, such as
have rendered perhaps one half of all that now exist com
paratively inadequate to the ends for which they were
designed. Indeed, it is only within the past thirty or forty
years that the healing virtues of sunlight and air have
been fully understood, and It is probably a much shorter
period since any mechanical arrangements for employing
them as curative agents were devised. Since this has
been done, sanitary rules have undergone the greatest of
revolutions. The Idea has been wholly abandoned that
any large building that Is tolerably accessible wUl answer
the purposes of a hospital. We have bidden fareweU to
isolated chambers with here and there a curtained window,
and In their place have been substituted lofty pavilions,
whose sides present an almost unbroken surface of glass to
the rays alike of the morning and the evening sun ; and long
wards or continuous chambers, adjusted to a temperature
sufficiently uniform, and ventilated with unfailing currents
of atmospheric air that will continuaUy replace all that
is consumed by the patients and their attendants within.
The languishing victim of injury or disease Is thus kept
under the immediate Influence of Nature's own most po
tent medicaments, while he also receives all the aid that
the highest professional science and the most practiced
professional skill are able to render.
Such has been the endeavor in the work whose external
completion we celebrate to-day. It Is a most important
step In the social progress of the State, but It has not
been taken until its necessity had long been acknow
ledged, or until most of the States around us had set us

ADDRESS. 381
the example. Indeed, our history shows that our works
of public beneficence have scarcely kept pace either with
our social needs or with our Increase In wealth. For three
quarters of a century the University stood alone, — the
solitary public institution which Rhode Island wealth had
mainly endowed. The Butler Hospital for the Insane
was not begun till Its necessity had been so clearly de
monstrated that none presumed to question it. Other
charities, more strictly local in their character and Influ
ence, have since arisen to illustrate and to promote the
growing liberality of the community, until the way was at
length prepared for this far greater and more comprehen
sive undertaking which has now been so UberaUy accom
plished. The need of a general hospital for the sick and the
Injured, In the midst of a population so largely employed
In the mechanic arts, was first urged upon public atten
tion in this city by the gentlemen of the medical profes
sion, who, better than any others, knew how much suffer
ing was occasioned, and how much life was lost, because
there was no such Institution here. In October, 1851, the
Providence Medical Association appointed a committee
of their fraternity to consider the subject, and to report
a mode in which it might most effectually be brought to
the consideration of the public. This was done at the in
stance of their President, Dr. Usher Parsons, our vener
able friend, who to-day beholds the full accomplishment
of all his benevolent plans. With the approval of the
Association, they addressed a circular letter to every citi
zen of Providence who was assessed with a tax of one
hundred dollars or more. It bore the well-known names
of Usher Parsons, J. Mauran, Lewis L. Miller, Richmond
Brownell, George Capron, S. A. Arnold, and C. W. Fa-
byan. The letter, however, was so far in advance of any
general interest In Its object, that It met with no effectual

382 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
response. In the foUowing year the Association, stIU
more deeply impressed with the Importance of the enter
prise, addressed a petition to the City Council, to which
they also obtained the signatures of many leading citizens
not connected with the profession. The petition prayed
that the Tockwotten estate, then as now the seat of the
Reform School, should be appropriated to the uses of a
hospital to be supported entirely at private expense, when
subscriptions should be obtained to the amount of fifty
thousand dollars. The members of the Association also
offered their own gratuitous services as physicians and
surgeons. In furtherance of the benevolent object they
sought to accomplish. The liberal-minded gentleman ^
who then presided over our municipal affairs commended,
in his annual address, the need of a hospital to the special
consideration of the CouncU. The proposal received from
them a respectful attention, and a committee was ap
pointed to confer with the representatives of the Medical
Association. The movement, however, proved to be pre
mature. The fifty thousand dollars were not subscribed ;
the committee of the Council did not agree in opinion as to
the propriety of diverting the Tockwotten estate from the
purpose to which it had already been devoted ; and the pro
ject of a general hospital passed from the consideration of
the City Government, though it was stiU cherished in the
thoughts of many a benevolent mind in the community.
The real origin, however, of the institution as it is now
established, is associated with the benevolent designs of a
late eminent citizen ^ who had already impressed his sound
judgment, his large public spirit, and his thoughtful gen
erosity upon nearly every social interest of his native
^ Hon. James Y. Smith, then Mayor of Providence.
^ Moses Brown Ives, who died August 7, 1857. In his will he
constituted his brother, Robert Hale Ives, and his son, Thomas Poyn-
ton Ives, trustees of the bequest here mentioned.

ADDRESS. 383
State, and who, in the closing days of his useful and
honored life, bequeathed to his trustees the sum of fifty
thousand doUars, to be devoted to such objects of public
beneficence as they should select. A portion of this
liberal bequest had been expended for other charities
which claimed its aid, and forty thousand dollars re
mained for future appropriation. It was In the spring
of 1863 that the two gentlemen who had been charged
with this benevolent trust, believing that the time had
now come for the realization of hopes which had long
been cherished, decided to set apart the remainder of this
bequest for the purpose with which It is now inseparably
identified. It was by them that the enterprise, which had
failed before, was now revived on a broader scale and
with a more comprehensive design, and it was at their
instance that the Rhode Island Hospital was called into
existence. The eminent physicians who, twelve years be
fore, had set forth the need of such an Institution and
made so earnest an appeal for Its establishment, were
happily all living, and, with five others added to their
number, they were now invited to seek a legislative act
of incorporation. They readily accepted the invitation,
and Immediately organized themselves for the purpose.
A charter was prepared and enacted by the legislature
in March, 1863, and the Rhode Island Hospital became
a corporate institution of the State. Its corporators, all
of whom were at first physicians, immediately directed
their attention to this beautiful and salubrious site, which
for three quarters of a century had been used by the peo
ple of Providence for hospital purposes. They addressed
a memorial to the City Council, praying that so much of
this land as was then public property might be conveyed
to this corporation, to be used forever for the purposes
of the new institution. The land was readily granted on
the condition that the corporation should first of all secure

384 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
a subscription to the amount of at least seventy-five thou
sand dollars. The two gentlemen, who had given the first
impulse to the movement, now. In their capacity as trus
tees, subscribed the sum of forty thousand dollars, and as
individuals they added for themselves, one twenty-five
thousand dollars, and the other ten thousand dollars more.
The conditions were fulfilled, and the land was immedi
ately conveyed. A grant like this was liberal and honor
able, and worthy of the city in whose name it was made;
and the act of private munificence which fulfUled its con
ditions secured at once, as the site of this noble charity,
a spot whose salubrity of situation, whose readiness of
access, and whose obvious advantages of every kind, aU
combine to render it the most eligible that could have
been chosen.
But even with this auspicious beginning, a vast labor
still remained to be performed. The grand idea that
animated the movement was to have a hospital of the
very highest order. It had also been agreed that, out of
the subscriptions, there should be set apart at least one
hundred thousand dollars as a fund to aid In maintaining
it. Beyond this, the whole enterprise was thus far only
a benevolent purpose In a comparatively few minds for
meeting a long existing social want. The design was to
be elaborated and matured, and wrought into proportions
that should insure its practical success. Information was
to be obtained and diffused in the community, public in
terest was to be awakened In its behalf, and, most impor
tant of aU, a sum of money, larger than had ever before
been contributed for any one, I may almost say for aU,
of the charitable Institutions in the State, was to be so
licited and obtained from the bounty of our citizens. The
time, too, was one of unequaled public peril and alarm.
The Civil War was at the height of its grim and desolat
ing fury, and on the day ou which the books were opened.

ADDRESS. 385
and the two earliest and largest of the general subscrip
tions — of twenty thousand dollars each — were made, the
rebel army was entering Pennsylvania, and the bloody
tide of battle seemed to be rolling to the very borders of
New England. As the result however proved, It was one
of those moments in history that are most favorable to
every benevolent as weU as to every heroic enterprise.
Patriotism was kindled to its utmost fervor In behalf of
the distracted republic. Our brothers and our sons were
struggling and dying in our defense. Every breeze bore
to us some wail of suffering from battlefields now nearer
than ever before. Anxiety for the absent or sorrow for
the lost was in all our homes. It was a time when, if
ever, men are inspired with generous sentiments, and are
ready to acknowledge the high humanities and duties that
bind them to each other and to their race. It was among
the compensations of that dreadful period of national suf
fering, that it opened new fountains of benevolence in all
our hearts, and revealed to us resources which we had not
thought of before for doing good to others. In the true
spirit of such a time, the people of the State generously
responded to the appeal which was made to them in be
half of this long delayed and much needed charity. The
subscription was commenced early In July, 1863, and at
the end of sixty days it had reached an amount of more
than two hundred thousand doUars. This amount was
soon increased to three hundred thousand dollars, and at
the present time it has reached a total of three hundred
and eighty thousand dollars, which has been subscribed
in the cities of Providence and Newport, and in eighteen
of the towns of the State. There is, I believe, no class
of our citizens who have not acknowledged its claims, and
are not represented In the contributions which have been
made for its establishment. They have come not from
4L the rich alone, but from the benevolent in every grada-

386 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
tion of wealth ; and among them all there are none more
suggestive of the real character of this comprehensive
charity than those — however small In amount — which
were made by the laboring mechanics In several of our
Industrial establishments, and by ten of the churches of
Providence, in the names of their respective ministers, to
express their sympathy with this truly Christian enter
prise. In addition to the subscription thus nobly carried
forward, the site originaUy conveyed by the wise liberality
of the municipal authorities has been greatly enlarged by
the benevolent forethought of a few of the earUest friends
of the undertaking, and provision has also been made for
a still farther enlargement. In case the interests of the
hospital shall require it.
Nor, as we gather here to-day, can we fail to recall tliose
benefactors who have been numbered with the dead, be
fore its doors are opened or its work is begun. It had Its
origin, as has been said, in the munificent bequest of one
who In his life was a leader In every enterprise of public
Improvement, and whose benefactions and services to
Learning, Philanthropy, and Religion Illustrate alike the
best uses of wealth and the highest qualities of character.
Death came to him while he was yet In the glory and
strength of a vigorous manhood, but it did not thwart his
generous purposes for the good of the community with
which he was identified, and his dying legacy was de
signed for any great charity that should require its aid.
One ^ of the physicians who, seventeen years ago, first set
forth the pressing need of a hospital iu this city, and who
was afterwards one of the earliest members of this cor
poration, has passed "away ; and three ^ other physicians
^ Dr. Richmond Brownell, one of the original committee of the
Providence Medical Association.
'^ Dr. Ezekiel Fowler, Dr. Nathaniel Miller, and Dr. J. Davis Joues.
The books thus received number about eleven hundred volumes. To
these Dr. Usher Parsons has added two hundx-ed and fifty more.

ADDRESS. 387
of the State, two of them dying in the prime of their
career, have bequeathed their books to Its medical library
as an expression of their faith In its usefulness and its
destiny. We also gratefully reckon among Its leading
benefactors another,^ — himself long a trusted jjhyslcian
here, — who, from the day when this hospital was first
proposed to the day of his lamented death, devoted to it
an almost unceasing care, and who, as chairman of Its
Executive Committee for soliciting funds, brought to that
arduous work a tireless energy and zeal, and performed
in Its prosecution an amount of labor which no one, and
not all even of his associates, earnest though they were,
were able to equal or to approach. And there Is one
other ° whose memory now comes back to the thoughts of
us all, radiant with the lustre that belongs to heroic pa
triotism and pure philanthropy. The worthy son of an
honored sire, he was associated with the earliest begin
nings of this Institution, and as one of the trustees of his
father's will he placed at its foundation the corner-stone
on which It has been built. He added his own generous
gift of ten thousand dollars ; and having worn out his life
in the service of his country in her years of peril and trial,
he went abroad to seek for health which he did not find,
and died In a foreign land. But ere he left his Rhode
Island home he wrote In his will, along with other liberal
provisions for the public good, a bequest of fifty thousand
dollars for the noble charity which he had helped to
found, and of which he thus became by far the most
munificent benefactor.
1 will not attempt a delineation of this beautiful build
ing, in whose faultless architecture massive strength and
exquisite grace are so admirably blended in securing every
1 Samuel Boyd Tobey, M. D., who died June 23, 1867.
2 Thomas Poynton Ives, Volunteer Commander in the United
States Navy, who died at Havre, France, November 17, 1865.

388 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
arrangement for convenience, and in fulfilling every re
quirement of sanitary law. It wiU soon be officially
described by one ^ who assisted In forming Its plan, and
has watched over Its progress from the beginning, and
whose large acquaintance with the leading hospitals of
the world, aided by recent opportunities of Inspecting
them, gives authority to his deliberate conclusion that
our own Is not surpassed by any other that exists. It is
built In accordance with the most approved models, and,
so far as Is known, nothing has been omitted of all that
skill has thus far devised or experience has suggested in
providing for the best treatment of disease, and in guard
ing against every peril that may beset a hospital. There
is no more dangerous fallacy than that which lurks in the
suggestion that all this is not required for those who are
most likely to come here for medical treatment. Such
a view is sanctioned neither by humanity nor wisdom.
These provisions are not for the gratification of the lan
guid valetudinarian, but for the comfort and restoration
of the sick and the Injured. A human frame when thus
affiicted, be it that of beggar or of prince, requires sub
stantially the same healing agencies for its cure. Neither
medical nor surgical practice can vary much with the taste
of the patient. The same ample air must be provided
for all. The medicines of one must be as genuine and as
carefully prepared as those of another. The anaesthetics
and the stimulants which are prescribed must be equally
j)otent and equally costly, if pain Is to be assuaged, if
disease Is to be baffled, and if life Is to be saved. A hos
pital must take the lead In all medical improvements. Its
essential work should be thoroughly done, or it should not
be attempted. It has, heretofore, been the aspiration of
this corporation to have a hospital building that is fully
equal to the highest standard of the age, and as nearly
' Thomas P. Shepard, M. D.

ADDRESS. 389
perfect as can now be built. Other views may hereafter
prevail, and other methods may be adopted : but so long
as separate wings, connected by open arcades with one
central building, shaU be favorable to the classification
and the isolation of the sick, and to the administration in
cident to their treatment ; so long as the light of the sun
and the unadulterated air in ever-fresh supplies shaU
continue to be Nature's great restorers, these pavilions
and wards, and these varied appointments for cleanliness,
comfort, and care, can never be other than most suitable
for the humane objects to which they are consecrated.
Standing at this entrance of its opening career, we an
ticipate with delight the blessings which this new charity
will scatter along its path. They will develop and ex
pand in ever-growing proportions through aU the years of
its progress. The first and most immediate recipients of
these blessings will be the suffering patients who will re
pair to It for medical and surgical treatment. They will
come from every class of our population, for the benefits
of a hospital. In the present condition of society, are not
for the poor and the homeless alone. It concentrates In it
self medical and surgical skill, and appliances of care and
treatment, such as can seldom be combined in any private
practice, even at the homes of the most affluent. Many
will come from their own comfortable abodes to purchase
here a nursing and care, a skillful treatment and a con
stant watching, which elsewhere they may not be able to
secure. The apprentice who has been disabled by injury,
or the clerk who has been smitten with disease, will be
glad to leave his narrow lodgings in boarding-house or
hotel, and seek here the healing aid which would be there
beyond his reach. The laborer, stricken down in the
midst of his toil by some casualty on the railroad, some
accident at the mill or the wharf, will be brought here
without delay, to receive, if need be without money and

390 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
without price, those benefits which perhaps no money or
price could elsewhere purchase. This has been the his
tory of every hospital that has truly fulfilled Its benevo
lent design, and it cannot fail to be recorded of our own.
For some it will only smooth the bed of death ; but with
the blessing of Heaven resting upon its agencies. It will
restore health in long succession to multitudes of the sick,
and send joy and gladness to families in every part of
the State, that without Its benignant ministry would have
been clouded with the shadow of death.
Nor should we overlook the signal advantages which
must accrue from this institution to the members of the
medical profession, who have already evinced their inter
est In its founding, and pledged to it their continued co
operation and support. When the Massachusetts General
Hospital was first projected. In 1810, It was claimed by
those eminent physicians. Dr. James Jackson and Dr.
John C. Warren, that such an institution is essential to
high professional excellence. And the subsequent careers,
so lately closed, of those Illustrious practitioners and
teachers of medical and surgical science, fully illustrate
the advantages they derived from the noble hospital which
they helped to found, and of which, for fifty years, they
were the ornament and the strength. The hospitals of
Philadelphia, New York, and Boston have made those
cities centres of medical education for nearly the whole
country. And with the aid of the Rhode Island Hospital,
why may we not have a Rhode Island Medical School
again associated with our own University, as there used
to be some forty years ago ? Indeed, even without any
formal establishment for the purpose, the hospital will be
in itself a school of practical medicine of the greatest
importance to the profession. It will concentrate a know
ledge of every form of disease ; It will bring together the
results of varied experience ; It will stimulate ingenuity,

ADDRESS. 391
and suggest Improvements and discoveries. It was In our
oldest New England hospital that a surgical operation
was first rendered painless by the inhalation of sulphuric
ether, and It was in a hospital In Edinburgh that a similar
result was first secured by the use of chloroform. It is In
these institutions. In all modern ages, that science and
skill have won many of their most splendid triumphs in
the service of suffering humanity. Nor are such benefits
limited to the profession ; for who of us is not the gainer,
and that In large proportions, by every advantage that Is
afforded and every aid that Is given towards forming, for
the service of the community, the wise and good physi
cian, to be our confidant and counselor, our guide and
friend ?
And In addition to these, there are blessings Innumera
ble, both social and moral, that will flow to us all, and to
those who come after us, from a beneficent charity like this,
founded by our efforts, committed to our continual care,
and appealing to us through all generations for its sup
port. Its character and spirit are as broad as the suffer
ings it is designed to reUeve. Though planted In Provi
dence, and largely aided by the munificence of the city, it
is designed for the people of Rhode Island, and for the
wayfarer and the stranger who may seek Its asylum. Be
nevolent citizens in twenty of our cities and towns have
contributed to Its founding, and to these, and others like
them In every town, It must always look for Its continued
maintenance and efflclency. It rises here In serene beauty,
the fairest structure that meets the eye within our borders.
It towers above workshop and factory, above every mon
ument of our busy Industry, to remind us of that higher
humanity and that Christian civilization from which it has
sprung, and to which all our Industry and our thrift should
at last be tributary. It is not possessions but institutions,
and the manner in which they are maintained and admin-

392 PUBLIC ADDRESSES.
Istered, that proclaim the highest character of a people.
Let this hospital, then, be sustained in the spirit of that
large liberality in which It has been begun ; let its every
necessity be generously supplied as soon as it is known ;
let it live In the sympathies, the cooperation, and the ser
vices of the people of the State. Thus wIU it honor for
ever the name which it bears. Thus will it bring upon
all its benefactors the grateful benedictions of multitudes
ready to perish, whose sufferings have been lightened,
whose limbs have been restored, and whose lives have
been saved in these halls, which to-day we reverently con
secrate to the service of Him who on earth deUghted to
heal the sick and minister to the wretched.

YALE

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