world; that was to free men not alone from the thraldom of the church, but was to liberate them from political slavery; that was to spread democratic institutions; for it was only when the power of the autocracy of the church and the oligarchy of an aristocratic political class was broken down that it became possible for democracy to take root. It is a striking contrast this, Massachusetts wedded to its theocracy, and Rhode Island, separated by no impassable natural or artificial barriers, under the very eyes of Massachusetts, peopled by her own people, inspiring liberty. America was wide enough to shelter all; there was room here for the narrow-minded and stern Endicott and the broad and benignant Williams; it was the forerunner of American liberality. It was an experiment scoffed at, and it was prophesied that a scheme so revolutionary would be of short duration. But it endured. Like every great movement that has influenced the course of civilization, it encountered the contempt and opposition of the adherents of older institutions. Those institutions absorb the highest talent, the greatest ability, all the power that comes from wealth and learning; and the cohesive strength of men leagued to maintain an existing state of society has a disciplinary effect on those who adhere to its conventions and who are contemptuous of the disorganized rabble which the new order at first attracts. There are in every such movement, three successive stages which 1 are common to all social revolutions: first, unrestrained enthusiasm, which is its strength; then more practical considerations prevail, and, finally, if the revolution is to accomplish its work, discipline is enforced and individual enthusiasm subordinates itself to social regulation. The theocracy of Massachusetts, the aristocratic institutions of Virginia, the alien customs of New York, have disappeared, but the gospel spread by Roger Williams lives. Rhode Island interests us not at all for any contribution it made to the constitutional struggle or the development of the spirit of constitutional government. It defied no proprietors nor royal governors. It did not threaten the authority of the King. It took no part in upholding the fundamental principle of English political liberty, that in the control of the purse is the real sovereignty of the people. It gave birth to no new social conditions as did Virginia and Maryland and the other southern colonies. It injected no new strain into the English character as did Puritan Massachusetts. But no survey of American psychology is complete without Rhode Island, where was laid the foundation of that liberty of conscience and religious freedom which have had so much to do in making the American character. CHAPTER XXI HOW THE DUTCH CAME AND WENT Or the thirteen original colonies we have thus far dealt with eight, each of which contributed a distinct element to the making of what was later to become the American nation and left its peculiar characteristics upon the psychology of the race, or laid that system of popular and democratic government that logically and irresistibly developed into the political system on which the American Republic rests. The five remaining colonies — New Hampshire, New Jersey, Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania — demand little attention at our hands at this stage of the inquiry. It is true that of those five colonies two were to become the most important and influential states of the Union and were in the second period of American politico-psychology what Massachusetts and Virginia were in the first; but while Virginia and Massachusetts were the mother who gave birth to a race of giants and suckled them, New York and Pennsylvania were father and tutor to teach them strength and how to walk fearlessly. It will perhaps appear remarkable to him who has read American history and ignored its psychology that this assertion should be made, but if we call the roll of those eight colonies whose establishment has formed the theme of the preceding pages, we shall see how essential they were to the first stage of American development, and how little influence New York and Pennsylvania exercised at that time. Let us briefly review what each contributed. Massachusetts gave Puritanism and its institutions, the spirit of which still lives; Virginia and Maryland and the other southern colonies, which were their offshoots, the institution of slavery and a social system that produced momentous political consequences which, modified by later economic and political causes, have influenced the American people and make the South to-day different in thought and manner from the North or the rest of the English-speaking world; Connecticut and Rhode Island, the seed of Massachusetts, nurtured more benignantly, were the beginnings of that great liberty of conscience which is the just pride of Americans. Now if we turn to New York, we find that it laid no foundation on which has been erected a diuturnal structure. The civilization of the Dutch succumbed before a more virile race, a race endowed with a peculiar genius to govern and leave its ineffaceable mark. All that the Dutch brought to America-language, customs, political principleshas been overlaid by the speech and institutions and political philosophy of the English, as Herculaneum withered under the scorching ashes of Vesuvius, and became merely a memory on which a newer and more lasting civilization was reared. Search as we may, we can find no trace of the Dutch strain or that the Dutch left any indesinent impress upon the American character or were able to modify a conquering race or impose upon it their own civilization. We have seen that the Indian stimulated certain qualities of the Englishman; the influence exercised by the negro on the character of the white man has been referred to and we shall make more detailed reference to it later; but the Dutch came and went like visitors in a household, whose little peculiarities are the only thing by which they are remembered, but from whom nothing has been learned. The early colonial history of Pennsylvania is no less barren of results, redeemed only by the romantic personality of Penn and the Quaker invasion. New York as a Dutch colony explains why Holland failed where England succeeded, and it elucidates how it became possible for England to secure the continent while France and Spain labored to no purpose. The English were colonizers as well as traders, the Dutch were traders only; they had no genius for over-sea empire-building. Where the English planted themselves there immediately was instituted a political system that begat a spirit of loyalty to English institutions and at the same time created an intense spirit of independence and pride in the work of their own hands and the colony which they had created. With the Dutch it |