VI. CHAP. administered according to former usage. The assembly declared itself satisfied with the language.' But, 1659. that there might be no reason to question the existing usage, the governor was summoned to come to the house; where he appeared in person, deliberately acknowledged the supreme power of electing officers to be, by the present laws, resident in the assembly, and pledged himself to join in addressing the new protector for special confirmation of all existing privileges. The reason for this extraordinary proceeding is assigned; " that what was their privilege now, might be the privilege of their posterity." The frame of the Virginia government was deemed worthy of being transmitted to remote generations. 1660. Mar. 2 On the death of Matthews, the Virginians were without a chief magistrate, just at the time when the resignation of Richard had left England without a government. The burgesses, who were immediately convened, resolving to become the arbiters of the fate of the colony, enacted, "that the supreme power of the government of this country shall be resident in the assembly; and all writs shall issue in its name, until there shall arrive from England a commission, which the assembly itself shall adjudge to be lawful." This being done, Sir William Berkeley was elected governor; and, acknowledging the validity of the acts of the burgesses, whom, it was expressly agreed, he could in no event dissolve, he accepted the office, and recognized, without a scruple, the authority to which he owed his elevation. "I am," said he, "but a servant of the assembly."5 4 1 Hening, i. 511. 3 Ibid. 530, Act 1. Mar. 1660. Virginia did not lay claim 4 Ibid. 530,531, and 5. 5 Smith's New York. 27. VIRGINIA AND ITS INHABITANTS. 229 VI. to absolute independence, but, awaiting the settlement CHAP of affairs in England, hoped for the Restoration of the Stuarts.1 The legislation of the colony had taken its character from the condition of the people, who were essentially agricultural in their pursuits; and it is the interest of society in that state to discountenance contract ing debts. Severe laws for the benefit of the creditor are the fruits of commercial society; Virginia possessed not one considerable town, and her statutes favored the independence of the planter, rather than the security of trade. The representatives of colonial landholders voted "the total ejection of mercenary attornies." By a special act, emigrants were safe against suits designed to enforce engagements that had been made in Europe; and colonial obligations might be easily satisfied by a surrender of property.* Tobacco was generally used instead of coin. Theft was hardly known, and the spirit of the criminal law was mild. The highest judicial tribunal was the assembly, which was convened once a year, or oftener.5 Already large landed proprietors were frequent; and plantations of two thousand acres were not unknown. 2 3 During the suspension of the royal government in England, Virginia attained unlimited liberty of commerce, which she regulated by independent laws. The ordinance of 1650 was rendered void by the act of capitulation; the navigation act of Cromwell was not designed for her oppression, and was not enforced within her borders. If an occasional confiscation took 1 Hening's note, i. 526–529. 2 Hening, i. 275. 302. 313. 349. 419. 482. 495; and Preface, 18. 3 Ibid. 256, 257. 4 Ibid. 294. 5 Hammond, 13. Sad State, 21. 6 Virginia's Cure, 2 and 8. Sad State, 9. 7 The commerce between the Dutch and Virginia was hardly interrupted. 1660 CHAP. place, it was done by the authority of the colonia. VI. assembly. The war between England and Holland did not wholly interrupt the intercourse of the Dutch with the English colonies; and if, after the treaty of peace, the trade was considered contraband, the English restrictions were entirely disregarded. A 1656. remonstrance, addressed to Cromwell, demanded an unlimited liberty; and we may suppose that it was 1658. not refused; for, some months before Cromwell's death, Mar. the Virginians "invited the Dutch and all foreigners" to trade with them, on payment of no higher duty than that which was levied on such English vessels as were bound for a foreign port.3 Proposals of peace and commerce between New Netherlands and Virginia were discussed without scruple by the respective colo1660 nial governments; and at last a special statute of Virginia extended to every Christian nation, in amity with England, a promise of liberty to trade and equal justice. At the restoration, Virginia enjoyed freedom of commerce with the whole world. 4 Religious liberty advanced under the influence of independent domestic legislation. No churches had been erected except in the heart of the colony; and there were so few ministers, that a bounty was offered 1 Hening, i. 382, 383. 6 still more in the very rare little 2 Thurloe, v. 80. Hazard, i. volume by L. G. "Public Good 599-602. without Private Interest, or a Com- 5 Smith, 27. Hening, i. 450. VIRGINIA AND ITS INHABITANTS. 231 VI. for their importation.' Conformity had, in the reign of CHAP Charles, been enforced by measures of disfranchisement and exile. By the people under the commonwealth, though they were attached to the church of their fathers, all things respecting parishes and parishioners 1658 were referred to their own ordering; and religious liberty would have been perfect, but for an act of intolerance, by which all Quakers were banished, and their return regarded as a felony.* Mar. 1. Virginia was the first state in the world, composed of separate boroughs, diffused over an extensive surface, where the government was organized on the principle of universal suffrage. All freemen, without exception, were entitled to vote. An attempt was 1655 once made to limit the right to house-keepers; but the public voice reproved the restriction; the very next year, it was decided to be "hard, and unagreea- 1656 ble to reason, that any person shall pay equal taxes, and yet have no votes in elections ;" and the electoral franchise was restored to all freemen." Servants, when the time of their bondage was completed, at once became electors, and might be chosen burgesses." Thus Virginia established upon her soil the supremacy of the popular branch, the freedom of trade, the independence of religious societies, the security from foreign taxation, and the universal elective franchise. If, in following years, she departed from either of these principles, and yielded a reluctant consent to change, it was from the influence of foreign 1 Hening, i. 418. 5 Ibid. Preface, 19, 20, and 412, 2 Ibid. i. 123. 144. 149. 155. 180. Act 7. March, 1655. 240. 268, 269. 277. 3 Ibid. 433, Act 1. 1658. + Ibid. i. 532, 533. 6 Ibid. i. 403, Act 16. 7 Virginia's Cure, p. 18. Sad State, p. 4. VI. 4 CHAP. authority. Virginia had herself, almost unconsciously, established a nearly independent democracy; and already preferred her own sons for places of authority.' The country felt itself honored by those who were "Virginians born; "2 and emigrants never again desired to live in England.3 Prosperity advanced with freedom; dreams of new staples and infinite wealth were indulged; while the population of Virginia, at the epoch of the restoration, may have been about thirty thousand. Many of the recent emigrants had been royalists in England, good officers in the war, men of education, of property, and of condition. The revolution had not subdued their characters; but the waters of the Atlantic divided them from the political strifes of Europe; their industry was employed in making the best advantage of their plantations; the interests and liberties of Virginia, the land which they adopted as their country, were dearer to them than the monarchical principles which they had espoused in England; and therefore no bitterness could exist between the firmest partisans of the Stuarts and the friends of republican liberty. Virginia had long been the home of its inhabitants. "Among many other blessings," said their statute-book, "God Almighty hath vouchsafed increase of children to this colony; who are now multiplied to a considerable number;" and the huts in the wilderness were as full as the birds-nests of the woods. 5 6 1 Hammond's Leah and Rachel, 466, 467. Walsh's Appeal, p. 31. p. 15. 2 Thurloe, ii. 274. 3 Hammond, 8. 4 E. Williams, Virginia, and Virginia's Discovery of Silk-worms, 1650. 5 Clarendon, b. xiii. v. iii. p. 6 Hening, i. 336. "A very numerous generation of Christian children born in Virginia, who naturally are of beautiful and comely persons, and generally of more ingenious spirits than those of England." Virginia's Cure, 5. |
