The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-06-09
POLITICAL.

American writers give various ex-
plantations of the source of democracy
in the United States.
The opinion of Mr.. George Bancroft
in regard to the agreement signed in
the cabin of the Mag9OoUer is thus given
in his history:
"This was the birth of popular con-
stitutional liberty. The Middle Age
had been familiar with charters and
constitutions; but they had been merely
compacts for immunities, partial en-
Embellishments, patents of nobility,
concessions of municipal privileges, or
limitations of the sovereign power In
favor of feudal institutions. In the
cabin of the MoU1OoUer humanity re-
covered it's rights, and instituted gov
eminent on the basis of equal laws
for the general good"
I may be permitted to observe, I
hope without disrespect, that the "hu-
manity" which thus recovered its
rights" consisted of but a hundred per-
sons; that the Plymouth Pilgrims,
whose contract began by a profession
of loyalty in good form, did not dream
Of founding a State; that, fugitives for
the sake of religion, their sole object
was to find, even though at the end of
the world, an asylum, a home for them
selves, where they could practice their
own form of religious worship in peace,
without being exposed, as in Europe,
to persecution or to exile among a
foreign people.
The American writers, however, are
far from unanimously agreeing with
this panegyric of Mr.. Bancroft. Con-
necticut claims the honor of having
been the first to formulate democratic
ideas in a written constitution, voted
by the people themselves. Neverthe-
less the colony of New Haven was an
absolute ~theocracy. The same may be
said of the colony of Massachusetts
Bay. There the intolerant rule of this
theocracy aroused rebellion. The first
rebel was Roger Williams, who was
banished "for having taught and
spread various new and dangerous
theories destructive of the authority
of the magistrates" He removed to
Providence and became the founder of
Rhode Island, which is claimed by its
citizens to have been the cradle of
American democracy.
Mr.. Brooks Adams, in a work pub
lished some years ago, undertook to
show that the royal charters granted
in the Middle Ages to corporations of
merchants, and later to the great col
onial companies, are the origin of the
written constitutions on which was
founded the American Republic.
The part that COngressionalism
played in the formation of the national
institutions has been dwelt upon in the
United States by some %publicists. A
school, which numbers among it's rep
resentatives. some distinguished his
torians claims that American demOc-
racy has descended in direct line from
German institutions. The township,
says this school, is the basis of our
State. Our township democracy was
the origin of our national democracy.
Now, the township, they proceed to
say, comes from the Germans. Our
town meeting or primary assembly of
the citizens, which is the organ of the
township, and, in some sense, its living
incarnation, is nothing else than the
Scandinavian Thing, and the Saxon
TungemOt. One of the most recent
works advocating the German "
theory is by Mr.. G. E. Howard, can
Introduction to the Local Constitu-
tional History Of the United States"
Mr.. Howard, obliged to admit that the
emigrants did not initiate the township
institutions of the mother country in
the condition they were when the emf
grants crossed the ocean, explains in
this fashion the appearance of the
town meeting:
1.-THE Colonists went back a thou
sand years, and began anew; or, to
speak more exactly, customs which,
although they were falling into desue-
tude in the old English home were
not yet entirely dead, received a new
life. And that is perfectly natural. 1t
is a case of an awakening of organs
and functions in consequence of a re-
turn to the primitive environment. :"
This explanation, borrowed from the
Darwinian theory, is ingenious. But
one is tempted to ask why the "awak-
ening of organs and functions" occur
red in New England only, while the
g primitive environment was equally
present with the other cOlOnies2