universities were endowed with land grants by Virginia and by her own Legislature. But the first serious effort at the education of the people by the establishment of elementary common schools was the creation of a literary fund in 1821. Into this fund was to go one half the net profits of the Bank of the Commonwealth. But in less than five years the Legislature diverted the money to other purposes, and no good came of the attempt.

Of Tennessee her historian says, with absolute truth, "The history of the common school is the history of her public lands, and the history of her public lands is the history of confusion." * Until 1829 no attempt was made to establish them, and that attempt was for many years a failure. Of colleges and universities there was no lack throughout the Union. Sixty-two were in full operation. But the common school, the school for the children of the people, was still to become a great American institution.

* History of Tennessee, James Phelan, p. 233.

1775.

FROM COLONIES TO STATES.

373

CHAPTER L.

POLITICAL IDEAS IN THE FIRST HALF CENTURY.

WHEN our forefathers threw off their allegiance to Great Britain, and founded the republic of the United States, they announced to the world certain political ideas, all of which they firmly believed, but very few of which they ventured to put in practice. They declared that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that government is constituted among men for the sole purpose of securing these rights; that it derives its just powers from the consent of the governed; and that, failing to accomplish the high purpose for which it is established, it becomes the duty of the people to alter or destroy it. Had they attempted to apply these new truths generally, the whole social fabric would have gone to pieces. Happily, they were not so applied. They were ideals to be held up and attained to gradually, and the very men whose lips were constantly heard demanding the rights of man, the inalienable rights of man, went on and set up State governments in which these rights were very little regarded.

Nor could it have been otherwise. In the confusion which followed the outbreak of the war for independence the colonial governments were swept away, and the people, taking authority into their own hands, established others of their own making. As the dispute was not supposed to be of long duration, the new governments were regarded as makeshifts, to serve till the question with the mother-country was settled. They were, therefore, of the simplest kind, and consisted of Provincial Congresses, Provincial Conventions, and Committees of Safety or Committees of Correspondence. In

every case the Provincial Congress exercised all legislative authority, and consisted of one house, to which came delegates elected by the people, or chosen at a mass meeting of citizens, or appointed by the municipal authorities of cities or towns. The Committees of Safety were composed of men elected by the Provincial Congresses, and were intrusted with the duties of governors.

These bodies, however, had scarcely been set up when colony after colony was forced to consider the expediency of adopting a more regular and permanent form. Naturally enough, the first to feel this need was Massachusetts, and from her came a letter to the second Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia on the tenth of May, 1775, describing the trouble the people labored under for want of " a regular form of government," and asking for "explicit advice respecting the taking up and exercising the powers of civil government." To this appeal answer was made that no obedience was due to the act of Parliament changing the charter of Massachusetts, nor to the Governor and LieutenantGovernor who endeavored to subvert the charter; that these men should be considered as absent and their offices vacant; that the Provincial Convention should call on the people to elect assemblymen; that the assembly so chosen should elect a council; and that the assembly and council should rule till it pleased his Majesty to appoint a governor who would govern in accordance with the charter.

New Hampshire was next to apply "for the advice and direction of Congress with respect to a method of administering justice and regulating our civil police." She was told to set up such a form of government as "will best produce the happiness of the people "; and before 1775 ended, the very same advice in the very same words was given to South Carolina and Virginia. By May of 1776 all idea of submission had disappeared, and Congress, declaring it necessary suppress every kind of authority under the Crown," urged the colonies to take up civil government.*

to

Acting accordingly, all save two made constitutions of

* May 15, 1776.

1776.

EARLY POLITICAL IDEAS.

375

government.* Connecticut and Rhode Island went on under their old charters, the one till 1818, and the other till 1842. The instruments thus framed in the course of the war consisted in general of a preamble, a bill or declaration of rights, and the Constitution proper. In the preambles were set forth the principles of popular government, the purposes for which each particular government was constituted, and the reasons which induced the people to establish it at the time they did. The bills or declarations of rights consisted in every case of a summary of what were understood to be the inalienable rights of man. They declared that all men are born free and equal; that they have certain natural, inherent, and inalienable rights, among which are to be reckoned life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that for the protection of these it is necessary that there should be freedom of conscience, liberty of speech and of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus, no cruel punishments, no excessive fines, no ex-post facto legislation; that the military should be subordinate to the civil power; that no soldiers should be quartered on the people in time of peace; that the right to bear arms, the right to petition for the redress of grievances, the right to be secure from unreasonable search or seizure of papers or person should not be abridged, nor property taken without due compensation.

The Constitution proper provided in each State a government composed of three branches-the executive, the legislative, and judicial. The legislative branch passed by different names in different States: in some it was the General Court; in others, the Legislature; in yet others, the Assembly or the General Assembly; but in all save Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Vermont, there were two houses. No principle of popular government was more frequently and positively asserted than that taxation and representation go hand in hand. It is not surprising, therefore, that an examination

* 1776, July 2d, New Jersey; July 5th, Virginia; July 15th, Pennsylvania; August 14th, Maryland; September 10th, Delaware; December 18th, North Carolina. 1777, February 5th, Georgia; April 20th, New York. 1778, March 19th, South Carolina. 1780, March 2d, Massachusetts. 1783, October 31st, New Hampshire.

of these early constitutions reveals the fact that proportional representation in the Legislature based on population did not exist; that the number of men who sat in any House or Senate depended not on how many human beings resided in the State, but on how many taxpayers, or how many freeholders, or how many electors lived in the counties, or the cities, or the towns from which the delegates came. The Massachusetts Senate consisted of forty men apportioned among the counties according to the amount of taxes each paid. The more taxes the more senators. The same rule applied in New Hampshire, where the Senate numbered twelve. In New York representation was according to electors.* In Pennsylvania there was no Senate. In New Jersey, in Delaware, in North Carolina, population was utterly ignored, and each county, no matter what the number of its inhabitants, had an equal representation in the State Senate.

Nor did the people receive any more consideration in the lower branches of the Legislatures. In Connecticut each town, and in six other States each county, whether large or small, populous or thinly settled, sent exactly the same number of representatives. Four others + restricted representation to property owners, and apportioned the delegates among the towns or counties according to taxable polls.

No principle, again, of popular government had been more loudly proclaimed than the great truth that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the

The counties were arranged in four great senatorial districts, to one of which nine, to another three, and to each of two others six senators were apportioned. But it was also ordered that seven years after the close of the war for independence a census should be taken; that if it should then appear that the number was not justly apportioned, the Legislature should “adjust the proportion as near as may be to the number of qualified" voters in each district; and that when the number of voters in any district had increased by one twenty-fourth of that returned by the census, one more senator should be given to the district.

+ Connecticut, two from each town; New Jersey, three from each county; Delaware, seven from each county; Maryland, four from each county and two from Baltimore and two from Annapolis; Virginia, two from each county; North Carolina, two from each county; Georgia, ten from each county, save Liberty, which had fourteen, the port and town of Savannah had four, and that of Sunbury, two.

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania.