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THE religious sentiments
of the emigrants having been given, as Calvinistic and Presbyterian, for
the holding of which they had suffered, and were ready to stiffer again,
we will glance at their political principles, which had no small
influence in their emigration and location, and after life,—forming one
of the three grand motives to cross the waters,—Religion, Politics, and
Property.
I. In the truest sense of
the word they were loyal. They, and their ancestors, were well convinced
of the importance of a regular and firm government; and were true to
their promises and their allegiance. James I. chose the Scotch for the
colonizing Ireland, for two reasons: first, from their habits they were
more likely to overcome the difficulties of a settlement; and second,
from their principles of allegiance, most likely to make Ireland what he
wished it—pacific and prosperous. In the first he was not disappointed;
and his hopes of the second were crossed only as he and his successors
failed to extend to the emigrants that protection he had promised, and
was well able to give. They always maintained the conceded authority of
the king, as supreme ruler according to the Solemn League and Covenant,
by which they held themselves bound from the time it was taken in 1644,
till they left Ireland about a century afterward; and some of their
posterity in America profess to feel its binding power in some respects
to this day. They opposed those violent measures, in parliament and out,
which led to, or hastened, the king's death. They desired a reform of
abuses, and a fulfilment of the Solemn League, on the part of the king,
and designed a fulfilment of their own promises, and had not been found
deficient in any emergency. They expected the king to lbe honest while
they were loyal.
Their views of the
parliamentary authority, after the king's death, are well expressed by
one of their ministers, on examination before the military authority of
the Parliament, at Carrickfergus, in 1650. Being required to take the
Oath, or Engagement of submission to Parliament, which was to be in
place of the Solemn League of obedience to the king; the parliament
having, by enactment, made it high treason to acknowledge a government
by King, Lords, and Commons:—"We must be convinced," said this minister
in the name of the rest, "that the power which now rules England is the
lawful parliamentary authority of that kingdom." Col. Venable replied:
"They call themselves so!" The minister replied: "It seems to us a
strange assertion that they are a parliament because they say so; or are
a power because they place power in themselves. Kings and other
magistrates are called by the ordinance of man, because they are put in
their office by men. Men are called to the magistracy by the suffrage of
the people, whom they govern; and for men to assume unto themselves
power, is mere tyranny and unjust usurpation."
They would rather be
governed by a lawful king than an usurping or doubtful parliament; by
one they chose, even though he might be a tyrant in disposition, than by
a company they had not elected, though they might do some things well.
They frilly believed that the liberties of the subject might consist
with the regal authority; that the privileges they asked were no
infringement of the necessary rights of the crown, and that their
enjoyment would render the government more stable, entrenching it in the
hearts of the people, in whose affections all governments rest at last.
II. They claimed, and
persisted in claiming, the privilege of choosing their own ministers, or
religious instructors, as an inherent right that could not be given up,
and any civil or religious liberty be preserved. Here was the ground of
all the difficulty of the Presbyterians in Ireland; they would choose
their own ministers,—and with the choice of ministers was of course
connected the forms of religious worship, and the articles of their
religious creed; a difficulty that was removed only by first emigrating
to America, and then toiling through the Revolution. They desired in
Ireland what the Scotch are now asking in Scotland, the liberty of
choosing their own ministry. The Irish conceded what the Scotch concede
now, that the king might prescribe the way the minister should be
supported; they were willing to be taxed in large or small parishes, but
insisted on the liberty of choosing their own teachers, and deciding on
the forms with which they would worship God. They yielded to the civil
authority all honor and service and money, and demanded protection for
their persons in the enjoyment of their property and religion. Their
folly, if folly it might be called, in their circumstances, was, to
expect that freedom in religion, under a monarchy, which never had been
found; and which never has existed under any government except in these
United States. These people had advanced far in the knowledge of human
rights; were in the high road to republicanism, without, perhaps, being
aware of the lengths they had already advanced; that, judging from their
answer to the parliamentary committee—that men are called to the
magistracy by the suffrage of the people—they were already republicans.
Perhaps they did not fully understand liberty of conscience; or if they
did, as there is some reason to believe, they had not room or
opportunity for its exercise; hemmed in to choose one form of religion
as the paramount one, they of course chose their own for the religion of
the whole. How they would have acted had the power of the State been at
their command, it is in vain perhaps to conjecture.
They also demanded that
their ministers should be ordained by Presbyteries, and not by prelatic
bishops; the apparent yielding of some things under the influence of
Archbishop Usher, soon being turned to uncompromising sternness, by the
exercise of arbitrary power to compel them to conform. The principle of
the house of Stuart was, "no Prelate, no King;" that of the Presbyterian
Irish was, "the king without Prelates; all sufferings at home rather
than Prelates; exile rather than Prelates."
III. Strict discipline in
morals, and full instruction of youth and children. These were connected
with the Presbyterian body in Scotland; were transplanted to Ireland,
there cherished, and were the foundation principles on which their
society was built; were taken to America by the emigrants, and have been
characteristic of the Scotch-Irish settlements throughout the land.
Children were early taught to read, and exercised in reading the Bible
every day; and became familiar with the word of God in the family, in
the school, and in the house devoted to the worship of the Almighty God.
Their moral principles were derived from the words of him who lives and
abides for ever; and the commands of God, and the awful retributions of
eternity, gave force to these principles, which became a living power,
and a controlling influence. The time has but just passed, when the
schoolmaster from Ireland taught the children of the Valley of Virginia,
and the upper part of the Carolinas, as they taught in the mother
country, —when the children and youth at school recited the Assembly's
shorter Catechism once a week, and read parts of the Bible every day.
The circle of their instruction was circumscribed; but the children were
,taught to speak the truth, and defend it,—to keep a conscience and fear
God,—the foundation of good citizens, and truly great men.
Wherever they settled in
America, besides the common schools, they turned their attention to high
schools or academies, and to colleges, to educate men for all the
departments of life, carrying in their emigration, the deep conviction,
that without sound and extensive education, there could be no permanence
in religious or civil institutions, or any pure and undebased enjoyments
of domestic life. The religious creed of the emigrants made part of
their politics, so far as to decide that no law of human government
ought to be tolerated in opposition to the expressed will of God. It was
on this ground, their fathers in Ireland resisted the arbitrary
exactions of the Charleses and the Jameses, whom they considered lawful
rulers, whom they had recognized in the solemn League, and whom they
were bound, and willing to obey in all things that did not involve
violation of conscience by sinning against God.
Whether they were aware
how far their principles actually led them, before they came to America,
is doubtful; they had acknowledged that the authority of human
government was from the same divine hand that made the world, fashioning
the fabric of human society to require the exercise of good and
wholesome laws for the promotion of the greatest good;—and had also
claimed the right of choosing those who should frame and execute these
laws;—contending that rulers, as well as the meanest subject, were bound
by law. These principles, modified by experience, and digested into
extended form, are the republican principles of the Scotch-Irish in
America. On matters of national policy, and the smaller concerns of
political organizations, they have differed in opinion and differ still,
and will probably differ for ever, from the nature of the human mind in
the independent exercise of thought. But on the great principles of
freedom of conscience in matters of religion—on the supremacy of the
laws—on the choice of rulers by the expressed will of a free people—and
the undisturbed enjoyment of life, limb and property, in submission to
constituted government—there never has been, and probably never will be,
any division of sentiment or feeling. In the blood shed on the Alamance,
and in the declaration of independence in Mecklenburg, a casual observer
must see, it was opposition to tyranny, and not the execution of the
laws of a just government, that urged the people on. A people educated
as they had been for generations, and placed in circumstances calculated
to provoke independence of action, could not have acted differently, and
retain their identity of character.
The siege of Derry was
undertaken and sustained with its innumerable and unmeasured sufferings,
in opposition to a king they had repudiated, and a hierarchy they
abhorred; and to defend the government from which they hoped for
freedom and quietness, and the exercise of their religious principles
and forms without tyrannical interference. It is not probable that these
men,—and some of the men of Derry emigrated to America, and laid their
bones south of the Potomac,—or their immediate descendants, who lived in
the days of the American Revolution (and there were many such), would
hold back their hearts and hands, and belie the great principles that
had done so much for Protestant England, and ultimately so much for
America. Tyrannical government of colonies of such people must produce a
revolution; and had Governor Martin studied the character and
circumstances of the people they marched to subdue, with any feelings of
justice and humanity, he would first have redressed their grievances,
and then bound to his government a willing, grateful people, and at,
least for a time stayed the progress of revolution in North Carolina,
and by the wholesome example, delayed, if not prevented it, throughout
the United Provinces.
The Presbyterians in
Carolina have ever been a law-loving, law-abiding people; differing
sometimes about time extent of powers to be granted to magistrates, all
unite in reverence for the laws enacted by the regular authorities under
the adopted Constitution. They have always felt it was better to endure
some evils than encounter the horrors of a revolutionary war; but they
have always felt it better to endure all the protracted miseries of a
revolutionary struggle than fail to enjoy liberty of person, property,
and conscience. Their ideas of religious liberty have given a coloring
to their political notions on all subjects; perhaps it is more just to
say, have been the foundation of their political creed. The Bible has
been their text-book on all subjects of importance; and the principles
of the Bible carried out will produce a course of action like the
emigration of the Scotch-Irish to America,—and their resistance to
tyranny, in the blood shed on the Alamance, and their Declaration of
Independence at Charlotte. |
