of the English had on the British colonies. New England was as English as Canada was French, and the southern colonies were more so than Mexico was Spanish. In Pennsylvania, upper New Jersey, and New York only could this characteristic be said to be modified in any great degree, and everywhere the Scotch and Irish were in such harmony with the English population around them, and were in such constant process of assimilation, that the general condition of homogeneity remained intact. The whole population, north and south, presented an unbroken appearance of anglican civilization, and the governments, if not struck from the same die, were unmistakably products of the same mint.

No great cities appear. There is Boston in the far north, New York at the mouth of the Hudson, and Philadelphia, the largest of the three, on the Delaware.1 Flourishing as these are, they cannot be called great; south of Philadelphia, there is no city whatever. There is no such thing anywhere as a common capital, and, to explain the lack of so impressive a feature, we must turn from the map and betake ourselves to a consideration of the political constitution of the colonies.

1 As late as 1790, when the first census was taken, Philadelphia, then the largest and by far the most important city in the Union, had 42,520 inhabitants only; New York had 33,131; Boston had 18,038; and Baltimore, 13,503 souls. These were the most populous cities, and they are taken in order of numbers. Between Baltimore and Providence, in this list, are no other towns or cities, and yet Providence had 6,380 people only.

CHAPTER III.

POLITICAL SEPARATENESS OF THE BRITISH COLONIES.

Causes of segregation — Lack of the sentiment of union - What was a British colony ? - Political nature of a colony, and the relations of a colonist to the crown and to his colony - Political corporations - Allegiance - Social and economical effects of separateness; its advantages and disadvantages - Extremities to which spirit of exclusion reached — Colonial individuality — Colonial development due to self-government: colonies were creatures of growth and development - Separateness due to natural causes.

POLITICAL separateness is the most striking characteristic that greets the observer. Though the colonies are contiguous, and, in New England, homogeneous, they are disunited: they have no common constitution. This condition of segregation is attributable to several causes: 1. They were planted at different times, from different motives, with different objects, under different circumstances, and by settlers of different characteristics. 2. Diverse topographical and climatic conditions were unfavorable to consolidation, or to anything like oneness among them all. 3. Race instinct, as well as reasons of convenience and prudence, imposed limitations upon aggregations which might become unwieldy, which might jeopardize the enjoyment of self-government, or compel too great a sacrifice of individual freedom to the exactions of the community. To establish the verity of this proposition, it needs the mention only of the hundred, the parish, the township, the

shire, and the county, as illustrating natural race precincts. Were anything wanting to exemplify other motives for segregation, the migrations from Massachusetts to Connecticut and from the Carolinas to Tennessee would fully set forth the fact that sense of restraint, restlessness, jealousy, or fear of absorption by encroaching neighborhoods, clashing doctrines, adverse legislation, in a word, the thousand personal influences to which independent men are subject, have proved quite as effective in restricting social aggregation and causing disjunction, as have motives of mere convenience and social order. Historical, social, political, topographical, and personal reasons, then, explain the diversity that appears in the components of this assemblage, as well as the political separateness of the colonies, and to climatic influences, difference of soil, and qualification of homogeneity, must be ascribed the contrast of social constitution, whereby concentration distinguishes population in the north, and dispersion population in the south.

4. To these reasons must be added another, that it was not to the interest of the home government, or central power, to suffer consolidation of separate communities upon their own motion, in a distant land, where the conditions were exceedingly favorable to the development and expansion of power. These colonies were regarded as dependencies, but consolidation or even union, by revealing strength, is more suggestive of independence than it is conducive to the maintenance of dependence. While, then, united effort of several colonies might be tolerated for special and temporary purposes, such tolerance was purely an act of grace or necessity and not the concession of a right.

UNION WAS OF SLOW GROWTH.

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As for consolidation on the motion of the colonies themselves, it was out of the question; the interest of the crown then manifestly lay in maintaining the disjunction of these dependencies.1

So deeply impressed upon colonial life was this condition of separateness, that, for generations after the occupation of the Atlantic coast by the British, no effort was made towards a permanent union of the colonies, nor of any considerable part of them.2 There was coöperation, but never union. Such combinations as occurred were provoked by considerations other than those of social development, and were not political and voluntary, but were physical and compulsory; such as defence against the aborigines, attack of the French, and the like. These operations were of a temporary nature, were accomplished under the spur of impending destruction, and ceased as soon as the necessity was removed. For instance, the combination of the New England colonies for military purposes was dissolved by the reduction of the hostile tribes of Indians, and, at a later day, the coöperation of New York and New England came to an end with the retirement of the French from the border. There is no instance of a general union of the colonies in arms until the Revolution, nor is there an instance of general and spontaneous union for any purpose before the Stamp Act. Supplies of men and money granted

1 "The British government, not choosing to permit the union of the colonies as proposed at Albany, and to trust that union with their defense, lest they should thereby grow too military and feel their own strength," etc. Works of Franklin (Bigelow), i, 249; ii, 343 et seq. See, also, Life and Works of John Adams, ix, 591, 592.

2 To this the confederation of the New England colonies in the seventeenth century may be considered a qualified exception. It certainly did not contemplate political union.

upon requisition of the king are not significant of union, nor were they spontaneous and general; spontaneous assuredly they were not, as they were occasioned by the requisition of a superior, nor can that be called general and united which was not imposed upon all the colonies, nor complied with by all, and which, when discharged, was the particular contribution of each individual colony. No action of all the colonies collectively, either of their own motion or of that of the home government, ever occurred. The sentiment of union was entirely wanting for four generations,1 and it is difficult to see how such a sentiment could develop under the colonial system; for a common ground of their own was needful to union, and this the colonies did not possess; and reciprocal ties were requisite to bind men together in unity, but of these there could be none so long as the only ties permissible were those that attached dependents to their superior. In fact, there was nothing political in common between a colonist of New Hampshire and a colonist of Georgia; the allegiance that they swore to one and the same person made them subjects of the same lord, but nothing more. It was not until subversion of the liberties each colony possessed was threatened by the spirit which prompted the Stamp Act legislation, that there was any general and spontaneous action. Then, for the first time, a common sentiment pervaded the land; for the first time a common interest was awakened; and, for the first time, what was

1 "It is a significant and curious fact," says Bigelow, speaking of the Albany Conference of 1754, "that, with the exception of those from Massachusetts, none of the delegates had any instructions to discuss the question of a union of the colonies for mutual defence, or for any other purpose." Works of Franklin, ii, 344.