190

ARISTOCRACY IN VIRGINIA.

CHAP. and it continued so for more than a century—by facXIV. tors of foreign merchants. Thus the influence of

wealth, under the modern form of stocks and accumulations of money, was always inconsiderable; and men were so widely scattered-like hermits among the heathen-that far the smallest number were within reach of the direct influence of the established church

or of government. In Virginia, except in matters that related to foreign commerce, a man's own will went far towards being his law.

Yet the germs of an aristocracy existed; and there was already a tendency towards obtaining for it the sanction of colonial legislation. Unlike Massachusetts, Virginia was a continuation of English society. The first colonists were not fugitives from persecution; they came, rather, under the auspices of the nobility, the church, and the mercantile interests of England; they brought with them an attachment to monarchy; a deep reverence for the Anglican church; a love for England and English institutions. Their minds had never been disciplined into an antipathy to feudalism; their creed had never been shaken by the progress of skepticism; no new ideas of natural rights had as yet inclined them to "faction." The Anglican church was, therefore, without repugnance, sanctioned as the religion of the state; and a religion established by law always favors aristocracy; for it seeks support, not in conviction only, but in vested rights. The rise of the plebeian sects, which swarmed in England, was, for the present at least, prevented, and unity of worship, with few exceptions, continued for about a century from the settlement of Jamestown. The aristocracy of Virginia was, from its origin, exclusively a landed aristocracy; its germ lay in the manner in which rights to the soil had

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been obtained. For every person whom a planter CHAF. should, at his own charge, transport into Virginia, he could claim fifty acres of land; and thus a body of large proprietors had existed from the infancy of the settlement.1 These vast possessions, often an inheritance for the eldest born, awakened the feelings of family pride.

The power of the rising aristocracy was still further increased by the deplorable want of the means of education in Virginia. The great mass of the rising generation could receive little literary culture; the higher degrees of cultivated intelligence in the colony were confined to a small number of favored emigrants. Many of the royalists who came over after the death of Charles I., brought to the colony the culture and education that belonged to the English gentry of that day; and the direction of affairs necessarily fell into their hands. The instinct of liberty may create popular institutions; they cannot be preserved in their integrity except by the conscious intelligence of the people.

But the distinctions in society were rendered more marked by the character of the plebeian population of Virginia. Many of them had reached the shores of Virginia as servants; doomed, according to the severe laws of that age, to a temporary bondage. Some of them, even, were convicts; but it must be remembered, the crimes of which they were convicted were chiefly political. The number transported to Virginia for social crimes was never considerable; scarcely enough to sustain the sentiment of pride in its scorn of the laboring population; certainly not enough to affect its character. Yet the division of society into two classes was strongly marked, in a degree une

1 Virginia's Cure, by R. G. 1662, p. 8

192

XIV.

SERVANTS AND SLAVES IN VIRGINIA.

CHAP. qualled in any northern colony, and unmitigated by public care for education. The system of common schools was unknown. "Every man," said Sir William Berkeley in 1671, "instructs his children according to his ability;" a method which left the children of the ignorant to hopeless ignorance. The instinct of aristocracy dreaded the general diffusion of intelligence, and even the enfranchising influence of the preaching of the ministers. "The ministers," continued Sir William, in the spirit of the aristocracy of the Tudors, "should pray oftener and preach less. But, I thank God, there are no free schools, nor printing; and I hope we shall not have, these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both." Thus, in addition to the difficulties which the degraded caste of servants encountered in their endeavors to lift themselves into distinction, the power of the government was exerted to depress whole classes of society. We rightly abhor the envy which delights in debasing excellence; it is a still greater crime against humanity, to combine against the masses in their struggle for intellectual and social advancement.

Still servants were emancipated, when their years of servitude were ended; and the law was designed to secure and to hasten their enfranchisement. The insurrection, which was plotted by a number of servants in 1663, had its origin in impatience of

1 "Their almost general want of schooles, for the education of their children, is of most sad consideration, most of all bewailed of the parents there, and therefore

the arguments drawn from thence. most likely to prevail with thein chearfully to embrace the Remedy." Virginia's Cure, p. 5.

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servitude and oppression. A few bondmen, soldiers CHAP. of Cromwell, and probably Roundheads, were excited by their own sufferings, and by the nature of life in the wilderness, to indulge once more in vague desires for a purer church and a happier condition. From the character of the times, their passions were sustained by political fanaticism; but no definite plan of revolution was devised; nor did the conspiracy extend beyond a scheme of indented servants to anticipate the period of their freedom. The effort was the work of ignorant men, and was easily suppressed. The facility of escape compelled humane treatment of white

servants.

Towards the negro the laws were less tolerant. The statute which declares who are slaves, followed the old idea, long prevalent through Christendom, "All servants, not being Christians, imported into this 1670. country by shipping, shall be slaves." Yet it was added, "conversion to the Christian faith doth not 1682 make free." The early Anglo-Saxon rule, interpreting every doubtful question in favor of liberty, declared the children of freemen to be free. Virginia was humane towards men of the white race; was severe towards the negro. Doubts arose, if the offspring of an Englishman by a negro woman should be bond or free; and the rule of the Roman law prevailed over 1662. the Anglo-Saxon. The offspring followed the condition of its mother. Enfranchisement of the colored population was not encouraged; the female slave was not subject to taxation; the emancipated negress was 1668 "a tithable." "The death of a slave from extremity

of correction, was not accounted felony; since it

1 Hening, ii. 510. Beverley. MS. of the General Court of Vir Letter from N. P. Howard, clerk ginia.

194

AMBITION OF THE ARISTOCRACY.

CHAP. cannot be presumed"-such is the language of the XIV. statute-" that prepensed malice, which alone makes 1669. murther felony, should induce any man to destroy his

own estate." The legislature did not understand human passion; no such opinion now prevails. Finally, 1672. it was made lawful for "persons, pursuing fugitive colored slaves, to wound, or even to kill them." The master was absolute lord over the negro. The slave, and the slave's posterity, were bondmen; though afterwards, when the question was raised, the devise of negro children in posse, the future increase of a bondwoman, was void. As property in Virginia consisted almost exclusively of land and laborers, the increase of negro slaves was grateful to the pride and to the interests of the large landed proprietors. After a long series of years, the institution of slavery renewed a landed aristocracy, closely resembling the feudal nobility; the culminating point was the period 1705, when slaves were declared to be real estate, and might 1727. be constituted by the owner adscripts to the soil.'

The aristocracy which was thus confirmed in its influence by the extent of its domains, by its superior intelligence, and by the character of a large part of the laboring class, naturally aspired to the government of the country; from among them the council was selected; many of them were returned as members of the legislature; and in the organization of the militia, they also held commissions. The entire absence of local municipal governments necessarily led to an extension, unparalleled in the United States, of the power of the magistrates. The justices of the peace for each county fixed the amount of county taxes,

1 Hening, ii. 283, 490, 491, 170, Virginia Practice, i. 527. Hening, 267, 270, 299. Conway Robinson's iv. 222. Compare v. 432.