The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
Читать онлайн книгу.
away. They who stand upon the shore see it fade in the dim distance. The last tie that bound them to their old home is severed. While the vessel remained, they had the means of returning; but now their destiny is fixed. Well for the world that it is so. Such heroic souls as they are not afraid of destiny, no matter what it may be — prosperity or privation, success or failure, life or death. They may die, but Truth and Liberty are eternal; for these they will live, or, if God so will it, die.
Death takes them one by one. On the very day that the Mayflower sails, their beloved governor. Carver, is seized with sudden sickness, which ends in death. It is a sore stroke, for he was wise and prudent in council, brave of heart, and a righteous man.
Though the governor is dead, the State lives. "The people are the only legitimate source of power." George Buchanan wrote it. The people elected John Carver, and the same people — those that are left — elect his successor, William Bradford — he who was baptized in the little old stone church in Austerfield. So the new State perpetuates its life. The State cannot die, A new truth dawns upon the world. As long as there is an individual, there will be a State.
At last, after ages of persecution and suffering. Liberty has found her home. The seed-corn of a great empire has been planted — an empire in which the lowest shall be equal with the highest; where he alone shall be king who does kingly deeds.
The contest is not yet ended between royal authority and the rights of men, between priestly prerogative and the consciences of individuals. King James will still persecute them; King George will attempt to exercise arbitrary authority; there will be persecutions, imprisonments, and banishments for conscience' sake: men cannot at once be emancipated from the ideas of the ages. The intolerance and bigotry of the Old World, like noxius weeds, will take root in the New, and many years must go by before men can be wholly free.
The little company — there are only fifty of them now — have no code of laws. In the Old World, kings, barons, nobles, archbishops, and bishops have made the laws; but these untitled, unlettered men assemble in town meeting and make their laws — each man voting. No edict from king James could add to the validity of their statues; no archbishop or noble could frame laws more wise and just; no high constable of the kingdom could make them more effective, as John Billington finds out. He speaks words disrespectful of the new governor, and the citizens condemn him to be tied neck and heels, and fed on bread and water till he begs pardon.
The new State, composed of fifty individuals, elects its governor, frames its laws, and enforces them. Can a king do more? So the subject becomes king, ruling himself in his own God-given right. From the beginning of time kings have assumed the right to rule; but in the wilderness of the Western world the exiles from Scrooby and Austerfield take the sceptre into their own hands, and inaugurate a new era in human affairs.
Liberty is in her new home. Strong hands will subdue the wilderness, and brave hearts will establish an empire extending from the frozen regions of the North to the sunny climes of the South, from the stormy Atlantic to the peaceful Pacific. Through hardship, suffering, and sacrifice the great republic of the Western world shall rise to become a peer among the nations. Its starry flag shall be the emblem of the world's best hope; for to it the oppressed of all the earth shall turn with longing eyes, and beneath it there shall be peace and plenty, and the recognition of the rights of men.
Old Times in the Colonies
Chapter I Discovery of San Salvador
Chapter II Forces of Civilization
Chapter IV The Wise Fool of England and His Times
Chapter V The Beginning of Two Civilizations
Chapter VI How Beaver-skins and Tobacco Helped on Civilization
Chapter VIII First Years at Plymouth
Chapter IX Settlement of New Hampshire, New York, and Canada
Chapter X The Puritan Beginning
Chapter XI The Puritans Take Possession of New England
Chapter XII Rhode Island and New Hampshire
Chapter XIII Affairs at Manhattan
Chapter XIV The Struggle for Liberty in England, and Hot It Affected America
Chapter XVI The End of Dutch Rule in America
Chapter XVII The Times of Charles II
Chapter XVIII King Philip's War
Chapter XIX Louis Frontenac in Canada
Chapter XX Governor Berkeley and the Virginians
Chapter XXI How the King Took Away the Charters of the Colonies
Chapter XXII King William's War
Chapter XXIII New Jersey and Maryland
Chapter XXIV Settlement of Pennsylvania
Chapter XXVI The Legacy of Blood
Chapter XXVII Maine and New Hampshire