text:
Full text of "June Meeting, 1907. Bust of Robert C. Winthrop; Cotton's Farewell Sermon; Carl Schurz and W. H. Seward; Letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Savage; Separation of Maine from Massachusetts"
See other formats
STOP Early Journal Content on JSTOR, Free to Anyone in the World This article is one of nearly 500,000 scholarly works digitized and made freely available to everyone in the world byJSTOR. Known as the Early Journal Content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other writings published in more than 200 of the oldest leading academic journals. The works date from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. We encourage people to read and share the Early Journal Content openly and to tell others that this resource exists. People may post this content online or redistribute in any way for non-commercial purposes. Read more about Early Journal Content at http://about.istor.org/participate-istor/individuals/early- journal-content . JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com. 1907.J ADOPTION OP AMENDMENTS TO THE BY-LAWS. 95 JUNE MEETING, 1907, The stated meeting was held on Thursday, the 13th instant, at 12 o'clock M., the President in the chair. In the absence of the Recording Secretary, who was out of the State, Mr. Charles C. Smith was appointed Secretary fro tem. The record of the May meeting was read and approved. The Li- brarian, the Corresponding Secretary, and the Cabinet-Keeper submitted the customary reports. Among the gifts were an enlarged photographic portrait of the late Recording Secre- tary, Rev. Dr. Edward J. Young, given by his sons, and a large lithographic portrait of the late Rev. Dr. John T. Kirkland, for many years a member of the Society. Mr. William V. Kellen, of Boston, was elected a Resident Member, and M. J. J. Jusserand, Ambassador from France to the United States, was elected a Corresponding Member. It was Voted, That the stated meetings for July, August, and Sep- tember be omitted, the President and Recording Secretary to have authority to call a special meeting if necessary. The President announced that Mr. Charles C. Smith had re-signed his office as editor of the Society's publications, and said that the Council would take the proper action thereon. The President reported back from the Council the amend- ments to the By-Laws which had been introduced at the last meeting, briefly explaining their purpose. The amendments were then adopted in the form printed on the notification for this meeting. An additional article is proposed in relation to the Treas- urer, to be numbered Article 1, Chapter VII., in the following form: Art. I. The Treasurer shall give bond to such amount as the Council shall from time to time prescribe for the proper performance of his duties, and to secure the Society from possible loss in connec- tion with the same. The cost of such bonding shall be paid by the 96 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, Society. The Council shall further make such provision as may be reasonable and proper for payment of a book-keeper or accountant to aid the Treasurer and the Auditing Committee in the performance of his and their duties. The articles now numbered 1 of Chapter VII., and 2 of Chapter VII., shall then be respectively numbered Articles 2 and 3. Articles 5 and 6 of Chapter I. of the present By-Laws read as follows : Art. 5. Each Resident Member shall pay twenty-five dollars at the time of his admission, and ten dollars each first of January afterward, into the treasury of the Society, for its general purposes ; but any member shall be exempted from the annual payment if, at any time after his admission, he shall pay into the treasury one hundred and fifty dollars in addition to what he may before have paid ; and all commutation fees shall be funded by the Treasurer, and the interest only used for the current expenses of the Society. Each Resident Member shall be entitled to receive a copy of all the regular publica- tions of the Society, issued after his election, without charge; and all members who have paid the commutation fee shall be entitled to the privilege of the Library, and to copies of the publications, for life, even should their membership cease by removal from the State or by resignation. Art. 6. If any person elected as a Resident Member shall neglect, for one year after being notified of his election, to pay his admission fee, his election shall be void ; and if any Resident Member shall neglect to pay his annual assessment for two years after it shall have become due and his attention shall have been called to this article in the By-Laws, he shall cease to be a member ; provided, however, it shall be in the power of the Treasurer, with the consent of the Presi- dent, to dispense (sub silentio) with the payment of the assessment, whenever, in any special instance, they may think it advisable to do so. Each person who shall be elected a Resident Member shall, when noti- fied of it, be furnished by the Corresponding Secretary with a copy of this Article and the preceding one. In view of the present financial condition of the Society, it is proposed to revoke both of these articles, substituting therefor the following : Art. 5. No entrance fee or annual payment shall be required of members, whether Resident, Corresponding, or Honorary, except such 1907.] BUST OF EOBBET C. WINTHEOP. 97 as may from time to time be imposed upou Resident Members by spe- cial vote of the Society. Art. 6. Each member shall be entitled to receive a copy of all the regular publications of the Society issued after his election without charge. On motion of Mr. Thomas L. Livebmoee it was Voted, That, in view of the foregoing votes, the Council be directed and instructed to effect an equitable adjustment with such of the Society as have paid the commutation fee, repay- ing to said members from the General F'und a proportional amount of the sums received from them, they being credited with annual interest and being debited with the regular annual fee from the date when the Commutation fees were severally paid. Voted, That the Treasurer be authorized to make payment and settlement as above. The Peesident then read the following paper ; and at the proper point in his remarks a beautifully executed bust of Mr. Winthrop was unveiled. As the members of the Society then present will doubtless remember, fourteen months ago yesterday, and in presence of a somewhat notable assemblage composed of both sexes, the bust of James Savage, now before you, was unveiled. In the address then made, you will also remember, I spoke of two former Presidents of the Society, James Savage and Robert C. Winthrop, as standing out so prominently among those who had held the position that they constituted a class by them- selves. Their united occupation of this chair covered, in the first place, no less than two fifths of the Society's whole ex- istence ; for, beginning in 1841, it extended to 1885. Although last year's occasion was more especially devoted to a memorial of Mr. Savage, contributed by his daughter and only surviv- ing child, I then said that, while the years covered by the joint term of service of Mr. Savage and Mr. Winthrop constituted "our golden period," it was in Mr.Winthrop's time and through his efficient action that the great and memorable change in the Society took place. Our Annual Meeting of April last was the fiftj'-second since the presidency of Mr. Winthrop began ; and while in the 13 98 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, original Dowse room the two portraits, that of Mr. Everett, bj' Stuart, and that of Mr. Dowse himself, with the Chantrey bust of Sir Walter Scott, made up the sum total of works of art, whetlier on canvas or in marble, it would unquestionably have been in accordance with the feelings of Mr. Dowse, that marble presentations of Mr. Savage and Mr. Winthrop should hold their places respectively on his either hand at the head of the chamber which bears his name. For obvious reasons, such an arrangement is, so far as concerns the Society, emi- nently fit and proper. Accordingly, it was a year ago so ordered. Nevertheless, I well remember, when the unveiling took place, and the two works of art were then brought into unavoidable comparison, how impressed I instantly felt with the superiority of the Savage bust over that of Mr. Winthrop. It is only proper to say that the Winthrop bust, the only one of him in the marble the Society then possessed, was never satisfactory to Mr. Winthrop himself. So much was it the reverse of satisfactory that it was well understood it had always been kept somewhere in the Tremont Street building where it was least likely to meet his view. Weak in design and execution, its failure both as a work of art and as respects portraiture was now made more apparent by contrast. There is about the Savage something distinctly classic — suggestive of the Roman. It is a head in enduring marble which one might naturally expect to come across at any moment while loitering in the great collections at the Vatican or in Naples. Strong, individual, and artistic, it gives the idea of both force and intellect in the original. With the bust of Mr. Win- throp it was otherwise; and yet, in the marble, we had no other. This did not satisfy; for to the members of the Council it seemed in every way proper as well as desirable that Mr. Win- throp also should be before us in this our room of meeting, not only in the stone, but in such form as to do justice to him, recalling to those of his time who still remain his living pres- ence. We felt we owed that to him ; for, a year ago, as I have already said, I referred to the term of Mr. Winthrop's presidency as the " golden period " in the records of the So- ciety. But in doing so I did but quote the exact words of my predecessor in this chair. Dr. Ellis, uttered on that day in April, 1885, when he himself took the seat Mr. Winthrop had 1907.] BUST OP ROBERT C. WINTHEOP. 99 then just vacated.^ It is not too much to say that during those Winthrop years this Society was revolutionized ; it entered upon a new phase of existence. Prior to the election of Mr. Winthrop its membership was limited to sixty. The attendance at its meetings was small and indifferent ; their surroundings, severely simple, were also unattractive. Those present found themselves in a small apartment, sitting upon settees arranged in ranks in front of the armchair — not this in which I now am — occupied by the President. My father had then for years been a member of the Society, and it was his wont to make a diary entry after each meeting he attended. Politically he was at the time bitterly opposed to Mr. Winthrop and to the great body of those composing the Society. His entries bear evident marks of the fact. He was of the dissatisfied. Nevertheless, after the May meeting of 1857, when Mr. Win- throp's long occupancy of the chair had hardly more than begun, I find the following frank admission : — " The impulse given to this institution by the events of last year is quite surprising. The attendance is always large, and the positive energy much more developed." The two memorable events marking this influence of Mr. Winthrop's individuality were the increase in the charter number of members, at the time by no means unopposed, from sixty to one hundred, and the gift to the Society of this Dowse room, in which its members could meet in suitable state. Both could be distinctly traced to Mr. Winthrop ; and this fact was recognized by the Com- mittee which, twenty-two years ago, nominated my immediate predecessor, and the successor to Mr. Winthrop. In its report for that year the Committee referred to said emphatically that to Mr. Winthrop's " devoted effort and untiring zeal more than to any other or to all causes combined is owing the growth of the Society in usefulness and in reputation. During the thirty years of his presidency it may truly be said that Mr. Winthrop has ever carried the Society with him both at home and abioad, and it is needless to add that nowhere has it failed to be adequately represented." ^ It was, moreover, during Mr. Winthrop's presidency, and in fact coeval with its commencement, that the publication of our Proceedings was* begun as a record of what took place at our meetings, distinct from the body of the Society's Collections. On the day when 1 2 Proceedings, vol. ii. p. 84. 2 lud. 100 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, Mr. Winthrop resigned, the twenty-first volume in that series was placed upon the table and distributed among the mem- bers. During Mr. Winthrop's period seventeen volumes were added to our printed body of Collections. On the day of his withdrawal from this chair, Mr. Winthrop observed that, of those who were members when he entered upon the presi- dency, ten only were among the living when he left it. During those thirty years the Society had been almost wholly renewed. He also then referred to the striking fact, to which I alluded myself fourteen months ago, that it was during his presidency that the roll of the Society shone with its most distinguished names. I then specified nearly a score of those then members of it, illustrative of the remarkable fecundity of the Winthrop period in historical literature as well as research. Three busts of Mr. Winthrop are known to have been taken. The first, and of the younger period, is that which heretofore has occupied the pedestal opposite that surmounted by the bust of Savage. The second was by Powers, taken in the year 1868, which is in the Harvard College library. The third, that now before us, is reproduced from a cast, probably also by Powers, which stood in the library of the late Charles Deane, and was given to the Society by his family when this building was opened for use. I have as yet been unable to ascertain the place of the original, if, indeed, it was put into stone. Nevertheless, its strength and resemblance are, as compared with the bust which preceded it, at once apparent. Taken altogether, it is not unworthy of him it represents, and bears comparison with the companion presentment of Mr. Savage. It is not pleasant to reflect how few of those now here are able from their own memories to bear witness to this fact. I have said that, at the close of the thirty years of Mr. Win- throp's presidency, the names of but ten of those who were members when he was first chosen remained upon our roll. Over a score of years have since run out ; and of the hundred names on the roll in April, 1855, twenty-two only remain on it still. In other words, probably not one in five of those here present remember Mr. Winthrop as he sat in this chair and presided at our meetings. It is, therefore, eminently proper that the testimony of these survivors should appear upon the 1907.] cotton's faeeweli, sermon. 101 record, that the bust now about to be unveiled fitly represents to coming generations and in the everlasting marble one to whom the Society owes so much, and upon whose history and development he placed a mark at once deep, legible, lasting and beneficent. Mr. Edwin D. Mead, having been called on, read the fol- lowing paper : John Cotton's Farewell Seemon to Winthuop's Company AT Southampton. The First Church in Boston contains many tablets in mem- ory of men, both of the old time and the new, associated with its great history. Among those of the colonial days thus hon- ored are Sir Henry Vane, Anne Hutchinson, Simon and Anne Bradstreet, Governor Endecott, and Governor Leverett. The statue of Winthrop, when recently removed from Scollay Square, was fittingly placed beside the First Church. Within the church has just been placed the most beautiful and most important of its monuments, the recumbent marble statue of John Cotton, by Bela L. Pratt. In its pedestal of masonry, not yet completed, will be set a stone from the old St. Botolph's Church at Boston, in Lincolnshire, secured through the courtesy of the present vicar by the President of our Massachusetts Historical Society, who has altogether taken so important a part in the erection of this noteworthy memo- rial. The inscription which will be graved over it is from Mr. Adams's hand, and is as follows : JOHN COTTON Ordained immediately on his arrival He ministered to his death as Teacher of the Boston Church Bom in Derbyshire, England 4 December 1585 He died in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay 23 December 1662 Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge 1607 Vicar of the Church of Saint Botolph Boston, Lincolnshire 1612-1633 Regardless of Preferment and Conspicuous as a Puritan Divine He became the object of Prelatical Persecution *' Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain " He then sought refuge in New England 1633-1652 - Scholar — Theologian — Preacher — Publicist - He gave form and inspiration to The Ecclesiastical Policy known as " The New England Way " Preceptor and Friend of Vane From him Cromwell sought counsel Living, he was revered as ** That Apostle of his Age " Dead, he is remembered as "Patriarch of the Massachusetts Theocracy** His Descendants in the Seventh and Eighth Generations Have erected this Memorial 1907 102 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, This gives in simple and impressive words the outlines of John Cotton's life. The erection of this beautiful memorial is a matter of public moment, and for it Boston is grateful. Half a century ago, a chapel in old St. Botolph's Church was restored by citizens of our Boston in memory of John Cotton, the inscription upon the memorial brass tablet being from the hand of Edward Everett. Phillips Brooks, a descendant of John Cotton, preached more than once in St. Botolph's pul- pit; and in the cloisters of our own Trinity Church there was placed, almost complete, the upper portion of the stone tracery of one of the old windows of St. Botolph's. It is intimated that when the new Episcopal cathedral is erected here, it may be a copy of the famous church from which John Cotton came to the First Church in Boston. All these things bring closer together the old Boston and the new. Several years ago, in 1894, 1 reprinted among the Old South Leaflets the farewell sermon which John Cotton preached to Winthrop's company at Southampton in 1630, on the eve of their sailing for New England. The circumstances of that farewell, and even the very existence of the sermon, have been strangely overlooked, and to most persons are unknown ; and our President has asked me to share with you the i-esults of studies concerning the sermon, which to me have been so in- teresting. The placing of the memorial to John Cotton in the First Church makes this certainly a fitting time to consider an address of such cardinal importance by him, to the found- ers of Massachusetts, on as memorable an occasion. "God's Promise to his Plantation" is the title under which the sermon was published, the text, always so significant in the old Puritan sermons, being from 2 Samuel, vii, 10 : "I will appoint a place for my people in Israel, and I will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more." The sermon was published in London the same year. " Printed by William Jones for John Bellamy, and are to be sold at the three Golden Lyons by the Royal Exchange, 1630" — such is the imprint on the first edition. Another edition was printed in London in 1634 ; and this was " Re- printed at Boston in New England, by Samuell Green ; and are to be sold by John Usher. Anno 1686." Like most of Cotton's other works, so precious to his generation in New England and so commanding in their influence, it then re- 1907.] cotton's farewell seemok. 103 mained long out of print ; and during the two centuries it so completely disappeared that only in rare historical col- lections are old copies to be found. The circumstances under which the sermon was delivered even became lost sight of by the historians, although they were so interesting. For this sermon by John Cotton holds the same place in relation to the Massachusetts colony which John Robinson's famous sermon at Delftshaven holds in relation to the Plymouth colony. It ■was the farewell sermon to Winthrop's company, as Robinson's sermon was the farewell to the Pilgrim Fathers. Yet the great historical significance of this sermon has been strangely over- looked. Robinson's words have become classic. They are quoted at every Forefathers' Day dinner. The theologians hold controversy as to what they meant ; the historians specu- late as to precisely how and when they were spoken ; and painters venture to conjure the scene. The sermon itself is not in our hands. Bradford even preserved no record of it for us. We simply have Edward Winslow's reminiscence of it, written down twenty-five years after it was delivered. Yet the address is famous, while Cotton's sermon is practically unknown. Cotton was in his day a far more famous and in- fluential man than Robinson. The departure of the Massa- chusetts colony from Southampton was an event which caused a sensation in England, whereas the Mayflower company was an obscure company whose sailing attracted slight attention. John Cotton, perhaps the leading Puritan minister in England at the time, went all the way from Old Boston to Southamp- ton to bid his friends godspeed and to preach this farewell sermon. Tlie sermon was at once printed, was printed again and yet again, and lies in the libraries. Yet almost no man reads it, and even the historians seem to have forgotten that it was ever preached. Winslow's account of Robinson's sermon at Delftshaven is given ill a communication which he addressed to the Earl of Warwick and the Commissioners of the Plantations, and which he printed in 1646, under the title of " Hypocrisie Unmasked," in reply to charges which Samuel Gorton had made against the colonies. He does not pretend to give the whole address, nor even the exact language. There is one point in Robinson's address which should be especially noted in connection with Cotton's advice to the 104 MASSACHOSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, Massachusetts people at Southampton. Said Robinson : " There will be no difference between the unconformable [Nonconform- ist] Ministers and you, when they come to the practise of the Ordinances out of the Kingdome : And so advised us by all meanes to endeavour to close with the godly party of the Kingdome of England, and rather to study union than divi- sion." This point is emphasized by Winslow, whose purpose in his whole plea, written " at the request of some well-willers to the peace and good agreement of the godly, so distracted at present about the settling of Church-government in the Kingdom of England," is to show both sides " what this poor despised Church of Christ now at New Plymouth in New England, but formerly at Leyden in Holland, was and is, how far they were and still are from separation from the Churches of Christ, especially those that are Reformed." Cotton, in his farewell sermon, said nothing about the relation of Noncon- formists, such as those whom he addressed were, to Separa- tists, such as the Plymouth people were popularly reputed to be ; but in another connection at Southampton he seems to have made this the subject of express counsel. This we learn from the letter of Samuel Fuller of the Plymouth colony to Bradford in 1630, preserved in Bradford's History at the proper place (see page 279), and also in completer form in Bradford's Letter-book (see Mass. Hist. Collections, iii. 75). Fuller was at that time visiting Winthrop's people, who had just arrived ; and, speaking of the entrance of Winthrop and others into church covenant, he says: " Here is a gentleman, one Mr. Cottington [Coddington], a Boston man, who told me that Mr. Cotton's charge at Hampton was, that they should take advice of them at Plymouth and should do nothing to offend them." He adds assurances of the warm feeling of the Massachusetts men toward those of Plymouth ; and Bradford, seeing ia all a witness to the growing influence of the Plymouth principles, comments : "Thus out of smalle beginnings greater things have been prodused by his hand y* made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are ; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so y" light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sorte to our whole nation ; let y® glorious name of Jehova have all y* praise." And it is surely a notable thing that the followers of Winthrop, leaving England with the warmest protestations of love for the Church 1907.] cotton's fabewbll seemon. 105 of England as their mother, had hardly landed in New Eng- land before they separated themselves from the Church of England quite as completely as they of Plymouth ; and that John Cotton, whose farewell charge was that they should fellowship the Plymouth people, as Robinson's farewell charge was that these should study union with the Nonconformists, became in a few years the most eminent champion of Congre- gationalism in New England. John Cotton's position among the New England ministers and people during the twenty years (1633-1652) that he was teacher of the First Church in Boston was supreme. Professor Moses Coit Tyler, the most thorough student in our time of Cotton's life and work, has spoken of his ascendency as " more sovereign, probably, than any other Amarican clergyman has ever reached." " He was the unmitred pope of a pope-hating commonwealth." He had held a most brilliant position in England before he came to share the hardships of this wilder- ness. He had had the highest reputation as a Cambridge scholar; and as rector of the famous St. Botolph's Church in Old Boston, had become renowned as one of the leading Puritan preachers in England. He was the revered friend and counsellor of Winthrop, Johnson, and many of the founders of the colony, not a few of whom had been his parishioners. The persecution which he suffered when Laud became primate in 1633 gave him new honor in the eyes of the Massachusetts people ; and his arrival in Boston in the autumn of that j^ear, and his immediate installation in the principal pulpit of the little town, was a notable event in the history of the colony. Some of the old writers say — perhaps without warrant — that Boston had been named Boston as a compliment and perhaps an invitation to him : " with respect to Mr. Cotton," are Hub- bard's words, where he tells of the naming of the town. From the hour of his coming till his death, "he wielded with strong and brilliant mastership the fierce theocracy of New England. Laymen and clergymen alike recognized his supremacy, and reJ9iced in it." " I hold myself not worthy to wipe his slip- pers," said Nathaniel Ward. Roger Williams wrote that some people in Massachusetts " could hardly believe that God would suffer Mr. Cotton to err." Hubbard says that whatever John Cotton " delivered in the pulpit was soon put into an order of court, or set up as a practice in the church." When he died, 14 106 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, he was given, Mather tells us, " the most grievous and solemn funeral that was ever known perhaps upon the American strand " ; and it was commonly believed that the heavens themselves took note of the event. " About the time of his sickness," says Nathaniel Morton, " there appeared in the heavens over New England a comet giving a dim light, and so waxed dimmer and dimmer until it became quite extinct and went out ; which time of its being extinct was soon after the time of the period of his life : it being a very signal testi- mony that God had then removed a bright star, a burning and a shining light out of the heaven of his church here, unto celestial glory above." I do not propose here to speak in general of Cotton's life. Its significant chapters — his brilliant university career, the long ministry at Old Boston, the persecution, the flight, the powerful influence here as preacher and as author, the Roger Williams controversy, the Anne Hutchinson controversy — are well known. His life was written by his friend, Samuel Whit- ing, the minister of Lynn, by Cotton Mather, his grandson, and by John Norton, his successor, and has been written by more modern men, although we have not to-day any adequate biography or critical study of the man and his writings and his unique influence in New England. He has almost never been the subject of articles in the magazines and reviews. Francis Parkman wrote upon him in the North American Review for 1834; but the article is not an important one. Far more important is the article by Rev. George E. Ellis, in the International Review for 1880, on " John Cotton in Church and State." The lecture on Cotton, given by Rev. John Cot- ton Brooks, in the Old South course on the Founders of New England, in 1894, was published in the New England Maga- zine, with many illustrations, constituting probably the best popular account of the life and work of the great minister of Boston. Cotton was a voluminous writer, the author, it is said, of nearly fifty books, all of which were sent to London for pub- lication. A list of his principal works may be seen in Rev. William Emerson's " History of the First Church in Boston," page 85, in the Prince Library Catalogue, prepared by Justin Winsor, and in the valuable chapter on Cotton in Professor Tyler's " History of American Literature." Cotton Mather 1907.] cotton's tarewell sermon. 107 saj-s that he " was indeed a most universal scholar, and a liv- ing sjstem of the liberal arts, and a walking library " ; and this is sufficiently apparent from the range of his published works. His " Way of the Churches of Christ in New Eng- land" is one of the ablest seventeenth-century expositions of Congregationalism ; the influence of its cardinal ideas upon Vane, who during his stay in Boston lived for a time under Cotton's roof, and upon the men of Cromwell's army, is brought out in such books as Borgeaud's " Rise of Modern Democracy in England and New England." His " Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven " expounds his theocratic ideas of government. His " Milk for Babes, drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments, chiefly for the Spiritual Nourishment of Boston Babes in either England, but may be of use for any Children," was a famous catechism in its day, and was translated for the Indians. His " Bloody Tenent Washed and Made White in the Blood of the Lamb " is his principal work in opposition to Roger Williams. It is extraordinary that such a man, held in such esteem, should have preached such a sermon as that which we here consider, on such an occasion, going fi-om Boston to South- ampton to do it, and that the fact should have passed unno- ticed by his biographers and by all the chroniclers of his much writing and bewritten generation, and should have remained unnoticed in all the later popular histories, finding mention simply in two or three obscure antiquarian notes. Whiting, Mather, Norton, and McClure, Cotton's biographers, do not even mention this farewell visit to the Massachusetts company at Southampton. Mather was aware of the sermon's existence, but he merely names it in his list of Cotton's published works : " There are also of his abroad sermons on the thirteenth of the Revelations, and on the vials, and on Bev. xx, 5, 6, and 2 Sam. vii., last in quarto." McClure even assigns the sermon to the period of Cotton's residence in Boston. The reading of the sermon itself should have prevented such a mistake, as its character is apparent. McClure was doubtless misled by the date, 1634, of the London edition from which the American edition was reprinted. But this was not the first London edition. There is a copy of the 1630 edition in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, as there are doubtless copies in other collections. Johnson, Hubbard, Neal, Hutchinson, Barry, Palfrey — in 108 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, none of these historians of Massachusetts do we fiad Cotton's farewell sermon noticed ; nor in Bancroft and the general his- tories of the United States. Palfrey, in his glance at Cotton's earlier career, at the point where he notices his arrival in Bos- ton, observes that " at the departure of Winthrop's colony, he made a journey to take leave of them at Southampton " ; and in a note he refers, as his authority for the statement, to Scot- tow, with whose " Narrative " Barry also shows himself ac- quainted. But nowhere do the farewell sermon and the memorable occasion of its delivery, of which Scottow gives explicit information, receive any attention. We naturally turn to Winthrop's Journal as the contempo- rary writing in which we should chiefly expect mention of Cotton's visit to Southampton and the farewell sermon. But when the Journal opens, " Anno Domini, 1630, March 29, Easter Monday," the Governor is already "riding at the Cowes, near the Isle of Wight, in the Arbella " ; and the sermon had probably been preached at Southampton just before that date, before the embarkation. If it was preached after the em- barkation, it is still possible, of course, that it might not have found mention, as the famous farewell address to their breth- ren of the Church of England, drawn up by the company, a week or more after that, wiiile anchored at Yarmouth, does not find mention ; but undoubtedly the sermon was preached before the Journal opens. In Winthrop's letters from South- ampton, however, we should certainly expect reference to this matter. Cotton was Winthrop's friend, and there was probably no other minister in England whom he held in such reverence. Cotton had probably paid a visit to the Groton home only four months before. On November 24, 1629, Winthrop writes from London to his wife : " It may be Mr. Cotton of Boston will come see thee on thursdaye or fridaye. Gett him to stay a night if thou canst." No person in England could have come to Southampton to bid him and his company godspeed whose coming would have meant more. Yet there is. no reference whatever to it in any word of Winthrop's which has come down to us. This strange omission is remarked upon by Robert C. Win- throp in his life of the Governor. " In neither of the letters from Southampton," he says, " is there any allusion to the presence of John Cotton, or to the sermon which he is said 1907.] cotton's farewell sermon. 109 to have preached there ; but such an omission is by no means conclusive evidence that Winthrop was not among the edified listeners to that memorable discourse. His letters from there are very brief; and he says, as an excuse for not writing more fully, ' Here I meet with so much company and business, as I am forced to borrow of my sleep for this.' And so we will still trust that his heart was encouraged by hearing the faith- ful minister of Old Boston, who was so soon to become his companion and pastor in New Boston, deliver 'God's Prom- ise to his Plantation,' and follow it with his prayers and benedictions." Referring to Scottow's " Narrative " as the principal author- ity for the statement that the sermon was delivered before the Massachusetts company at Southampton, Mr. Winthrop calls attention to the contemporaneous testimony, which so far as I know has been noticed by him alone, found in the following passage from the Diary of John Rous, a Suffolk man, under date of 1630 : " Some little while since, the Company went to New England under Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Cotton, of Boston in Lincolnshire, went to their departure about Gravesend, & preached to them, as we heare, out of 2 Samuel, vii, 10. It is said that he is prohibited fro preaching any more in England than until June 24 next now coming." ' With reference to this mention of Gravesend as the place where the sermon was preached, it is to be said that the ships for the expedition were fitted out at London, and probably lay for some time in the Thames. Many of the company may have congregated there and embarked before the vessels pro- ceeded to Southampton, where Winthrop and others went on board. It would have been quite possible, therefore, for all we know to the contrary, that such a sermon should have been preached to a gathering of the colonists at Gravesend. But Fuller's reference to " Mr. Cotton's charge at Hampton " con- firms Scottow's statement that it was at Southampton that Cotton parted from the company and preached his farewell sermon. The citation from Rous's Diary does have some value as indicating that Cotton was already under close watch, and that there maj' have been reasons why there should not have been much said about his sermon at that time in England ; 1 Diary of John Kous, Camden Society's Publications, No. 66, pp 53, 54. 110 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [JcNE, although in view of what we know of him during the next two years, and the fact of the immediate publication of this sermon in London, we cannot attach great significance to this. Mr. Winthrop and Charles Deane are the only ones of our historical writers whom I have found making any considerable reference to Cotton's sermon, both drawing upon Scottow's " Narrative," although Mr. Deane, when he published his first critical note upon the sermon, had evidently not observed Scottow's own exact woids upon the subject, but discovered them after his note was printed. His two notes were pub- lished in the New England Historical and Genealogical Regis- ter, vol. ii., April and July, 1848, pp. 151 and 318, under the title of " God's Promise to his Plantation." I give them both here, as being the only critical discussions of this notable address which I have been able to find : I. " The first printed works relatiog to the settlement of the Massa- chusetts Colony appeared in 1630.' Among them are the ' Planter's Plea,' ' New England Plantation,' and ' God's Promise to his Planta- tion.' The first is supposed to have been written by Rev. John White of Dorchester, England, who early manifested a great interest in the settlement of this colony. It is interesting and valuable, as it gives a minute account of the first commencement of the plantation. It is supposed to have been printed soon after the sailing of Winthrop's fleet. The second is a letter written from Salem to his friends in England, by Rev. Francis Higginson, who arrived here in June, 1629, with Mr. Skelton. It gives his experience of the country after a resi- dence of about three months. There were three editions printed in 1630, the first of which is supposed to have appeared before the sailing of Winthrop's fleet. The last-named publication, which tells its own story in the title-page we have given above, is interesting, not as a historical document, but for the associations with which it is connected. It was preached shortly before the departure of Winthrop's company ;* and perhaps in the celebrated St. Botolph's Church, of which he was rector for many years.' Some of his parishioners were about leaving him for a distant and almost unknown colony ; but his heart was with them and their enterprise. No undertaking was attempted in those days without ' proving it by the touchstone of God's word.' And 1 " There is a slight allusion, however, to this colony in Smith's Virginia, ed. 1629. 2 " Tliomson's History of Boston, England." ' " It is uncertai^i whether this sermon was preached at Boston or at South- ampton. We know he did preach a farewell sermon at the latter place." — Scottow's Narrative, Prince's Annals. 1907.] cotton's farewell sermon. Ill Cotton here draws largely from the Old Testament (from which our fathers drew the most of their theology as well as jurisprudence), in order to show what God has promised to his faithful people. / will appoint a place for my people Israel, etc. The preface to this discourse, ' To the Christian Reader,' was written by another hand, with initials I. H., and in our own copy we find the following query penned some few years since : ' May it not have been John Humphry, who was one of the six original patentees from the council of Plymouth?' Humphrey was chosen deputy governor with the view of coming over this year, but being prevented, Mr. Dudley was elected in his place. The writer of the preface says, ' Now because many may either not know, or doe not consider upon how full a ground and warrant out of the word of God that undertaking (which was the occasion of this ser- mon) hath hitherto proceeded, I thought good (courteous Reader), leave being witji some difficulty obtained of the Reverend Author, to present unto thy view and consideration that which may in part give thee satisfaction in this particular. Ere long (if God will) thou shalt see a longer declaration of the first rise & ends of this enterprise, & so cleare & full a justification of this designe, and also in respect of any other ground and circumstance of weight,' &c. This discourse is worthy of note as being the first printed work of which we have any record, of one who bore so prominent a part in the early period of the Massachusetts settlement. When we reflect that Cotton transferred his labors from Boston in Old England to Boston in New England, and that the latter was named in honor of him and his associates and friends who came from the former, and consider also the occasion on which this sermon was delivered, it will appear by no means insignificant or uninteresting. Its contents are by no means remarkable. As we said above, it possesses nothing historical. But it does contain some most excellent advice and exhibits the true principles which animated our Puritan Fathers. We give below a few extracts from it — to introduce which we have trespassed thus far." [Here follow extracts from the sermon.] II. " Since writing the notice of this sermon in the last number of the Register, I have met with the following MS. notes of Prince, the chronologist, in his own copy of this discourse now before me : ' By several passages in the sermon, it seems to be preached in England to a number of people about to remove to New England, and considering the history of his life,^ and that he went to the Isle of Wight in Eng- 1 " ' Here is a gentleman, one Mr. Cottington [Coddington] a Boston man : who told me that Mr. Cotton's charge at Hampton was that they should take advice of them at Pli/moulh and should do nothing to offend them.' " ' By this only passage in Govr. Bradford's MS. History, we find tliat the Bevd. and Famous Mr. Cotton went from Boston in Lincolnshire, to take his 112 MASSACHCrSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, land, in the spring of 1630, to see Govr. Winslow [he means Win- throp], -Mr. Wilson and company, and take his farewell of them, as they were then bound for New England, it seems highly likely that he then preached this sermon to them. '"After I had wrote the above,' he continues, 'I found in Joshua Scottoway Esq.'s narrative, that Mr. Cotton preached this sermon to Govr. Winthrop and company at the Isle of Wight, as they were pre- paring to sail for New England.' " I give below the passages from Scottow referred to. Prince, how- ever, should have put Southampton for the Isle of Wight. "'Some of their choice friends, as the Reverend Mr. Cotton and others, went along with them from Boston in Lincolnshire to South- ampton, where they parted and he preached his farewell sermon. " ' Not long after this, Mr. Cotton's farewell sermon (above men- tioned) was printed at London, and since reprinted at Boston, entituled, God's Promise to his Plantation, wherein he exhorted them to remem- ber England, their mother, and that they should not be like those un- grateful birds, who when they had swum over a stream or river, forgot the wing that had hatcht them.' " If Scottow is to be relied on, — and we have no reason to question his authority, as he was for a long period contemporary with many of Winthrop's company, and dedicates his book, referred to, to Bradstreet, then living, who also came over with Winthrop, — then the question would seem to be settled as to the place where this sermon was preached, namely, at Southampton." Scottow's " Narrative " thus appears to be the sole distinct original authority concerning the delivery of Cotton's farewell sermon at Southampton. Joshua Scottow was an old man when he published his dolorous Jeremiad in 1694 ; but it is a clear and vigorous document, and there is no ground for questioning any of its statements of fact. Of the " Narra- tive " as a whole it is impossible to speak here ; but it might well form a theme for special treatment, as it is so little known, and as it mentions incidentally many matters of his- torical interest besides Cotton's farewell sermon. Incidentally, I saj', for Scottow's primary purpose was not to write history, but to wail. He felt, after the fashion of gray-haired men from the beginning who have looked back mournfully to the " good old times," that New England was going to perdition ; and he contrasts the time of the saintly Cotton and the rest with the leave of his departing friends at South Hampton.' " — Prince's Annals, vol. i. p. 245. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. iii. p. 76. 1907.] cotton's farewell sbemon. 113 ungodly present, for the sake of prophesying a still more dis- astrous decline. The title-page of his pamphlet indicates so well the character of his work that I give its contents : " A Narrative of the Planting of the Massachusetts Colony Anno 1628. With the Lord's Signal Presence the First Thirty Years. Also a Caution from New England's Apostle, the great Cotton, how to Escape the Calamity, which might befall them or their Posterity. And Confirmed by the Evangelist Norton. With Prognosticks from the famous Dr. Owen, concerning the Fate of these Churches, and Ani- madversions upon the Anger of God, in sending of Evil Angels among us. Published by Old Planters, the Authors of the Old Men's Tears. Psalm 78, 2, 3, 4. / will utter darh sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our Fathers have told us, Sfc. Jer. 6, 16. Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, Sf walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls ; but they said, we will not walk herein. Boston Printed and sold by Benjamin Harris, at the sign of the Bible over against the Blew- Anchor: 1694." The entire work was reprinted in the Massachusetts His- torical Society's Collections, fourth series, vol. iv., 1858. In the fourth volume of the second series, 1816, there is a brief memoir of Scottow — I think bj' James Savage. " The first mention of Joshua Scottow, traced by my inquiries," says the biographer, " is in the records of the Old Church, in the tenth page of which it is noted that, ' Thomas Scottowe and Joshua Scottowe, the sonnes of our sister Thomasine Scottowe,' were admitted members on the 19th of the third mouth, 1639. . . . He was probably the younger son, and brought from England by his mother, a widow, admitted of the same church, 21 Sep- tember, 1634. He was well entitled, therefore, sixty years after, to call himself an Old Planter." He became a merchant "of much respectability," whose name frequently occurs in the affairs of the town. In 1691, three years before the pub- lication of the " Narrative," he published another pamphlet, which like its successor was a lament over the degeneracy of the times. It was entitled : " Old Men's Tears for their own Declension, mixed with Fears of their and Posterities further falling off from New England's Primitive Constitution." Cotton's sermon as published in London was prefixed by au address "to the Christian Reader," signed by " I. H." — prob- ably meaning, says Prince, John Humphrey. Humphrey, of 15 114 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, [June, whom Winthrop speaks as "a gentleman of special parts, of learning and activity, and a godly man," was one of the leading men in the Massachusetts enterprise, but found it necessary to postpone his coming. The purpose of his ad- dress, as explained by Mr. Deane, was to bespeak kind con- sideration in England for the new plantation, to which Cotton's sermon related. The sermon itself is a typical Puritan sermon, well worth reading again after these two centuries and a half simply as such. The sermon bristles with texts. There are three on the title-page, besides the main text from Samuel; and every statement from beginning to end is fortified by appeal to Ezekiel xx. 6, or some clinching Scripture. The sermon be- gins with David's purpose to build God a house, and the bless- ings promised. The transition is easy to the blessings upon a plantation established by God's people. A consideration of the three ways in which God makes room for a people leads to some words on the rights of the natives of the soil to be occupied. Then proper reasons for emigration are discussed, — the gaining of knowledge, lawful commerce, the "liberty of the Ordinances," a better chance elsewhere. " Nature teacheth Bees to doe so, when as the hive is too full, they seeke abroad for new dwellings: So when the hive of the Common wealth is so full, that tradesmen cannot live one by another, but eate up one another, in this case it is lawful! to remove." So it is to escape certain evils, which are duly enumerated, or to carry on some work pointed out by God's providence. The latter part of the sermon is a charge to keep the plantation godly. He exhorts the departing colonists to " take rooting in the Ordinances," to be " not unmindful of our Jerusalem at home," to "offend not the poor natives," to " looke well to the plants that spring from you." " Goe forth," exclaims the preacher, in the finest passage in the sermon, " every man that goeth, with a publick spirit, looking not on your owne things onely, but also on the things of others. This care of universall helpfuUnesse was the prosperity of the first Plantation of the Primitive church. Acts, 4, 32." The text referred to is that which declares that "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul : neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own ; but they had all things common." We cannot for- 1907.] CABL SOHUEZ AND W. H. SEWAED. 115 get here that declaration of the Plymouth Company : " We doe holde ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good, and of ye whole by every one and so mutually " ; and Robinson's charge to the little band : " With your conimone employments joyrie commone affections truly bente upon ye generall good, avoyding as a deadly plague of your both com- mone and spetiall comfort all retiredness of minde for proper advantage . . . ; let every man represe in himself, and ye whol body in each person, as so many rebels against ye com- mone good, all private respects of men's selves, not sorting with ye generall convenience." The true communal spirit was with the fathers of New England at the beginning. Cotton's farewell sermon was not a great prophetic utterance, like Robinson's at Delftshaven ; but it was a notable sermon, preached by a great man on a memorable occasion. It is re- markable that the sermon should have been so completely for- gotten, and it is important to have attention recalled to it. The President read the following memorandum : At the last meeting of the Society our associate Mr. Long read an interesting paper suggested to him by a recent instal- ment of the forthcoming Memoirs of Mr. Schurz, in McClure's Magazine. It related to Mr. Schurz's recollections of cer- tain incidents connected with his appointment to the Spanish mission, in the early days of Lincoln's administration. After Mr. Long had closed, it will be remembered, I gave certain recollections of my own, connected with the same incident, quite at variance with the narrative of Mr. Schurz. I spoke of having myself been in Washington at the time, and re- membering the incident referred to. My recollection was that Mr. Schurz had applied for the Prussian mission ; that his appointment had, for manifest reasons, been wholly out of the question ; that Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, had been placed in an embarrassing position in regard to it ; and that the mat- ter had been subsequently arranged, not altogether satisfac- torily to Mr. Schurz, by his appointment to Madrid. The information came from my father, then holding extremely confidential relations with Secretary Seward ; was contempo- raneous with the incident ; and my recollection of the facts was distinct and vivid. I also said that I thought it not im- 116 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, possible some reference to the incident would be found in the diary of my father, who was then a member of Congress. Curious on the subject, I have since examined the diary cov- ering the time referred to. My so doing supplies another illus- tration of the utter worthlessness of memory, as a basis of history, when dealing with incidents long past. It recalls vividly the valuable as well as curious and entertaining paper once read here by our late associate Mr, Edward L. Pierce on this subject, and also my own subsequent comments on that paper, both now forming a part of our Proceedings.^ Recurring, however, to the diary of my father, I find the following entry, under date of Sunday, 10th March, 1861. He begins his record by mentioning a call paid the morning x)f that day on an elderly female relative, long a resident of Washington. He goes on to say that he found her " full of the gossip of the town about Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, who are doing multitudes of strange things, in the midst of a popula- tion little disposed to favor. Mr. Sumner came to dine with us. He gives curious accounts of the errors on a larger scale. The diflSculty with Mr. Lincoln is that he has no conception of his situation ; and, having no system in his composition, he has undertaken to manage the whole thing as if he knew all about it. The first evidence of this is to be found in his direct interference in the removal of clerks in the Department ; the second, in his nomination of persons suggested by domestic influence. " In the evening we had visits from Governor Seward and his son and daughter, and from Mr. Eliot. Governor Seward asked a private conversation, in which he communicated to me the leading events in his relations with the President. He explained his own views of the policy to be adopted in foreign affairs, and the utter absence of any acquaintance with the subject in the chief. And as to men, he was more blind and unsettled than as to measures. The nomination of Mr. Judd, and a German named Kreischman for his secretary, to Berlin, were made without consultation, merely in fulfilment of a promise to give the former a cabinet appointment, from which he had been compelled to give way. As to the mission to England, Mr. Seward had pointed out the necessity now ex- isting to give it a high character, and had named me as a fit- 1 2 Proceedings, vol. x. pp. 473-490 ; vol. xiii. pp. 177-197 ; vol. xvii. pp. 440-448. 1907.] LETTER FEOM LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SAVAGE. 117 ting person; but he delicately gave me to understand that it was received with no favor. On the other hand, Mr. Schurz had pi-essed the President so hard to go to Sardinia that he had been obliged freely to state the objections to his nomina- tion ; and, greatly to his surprise, early the next morning Mr. Schurz called upon him, and soon let him know that he had been made the master of his most confidential communications. This had compelled him to a frank and decided conversation with Mr. Schurz, which ended with his consent to withdraw himself. And the President declared himself greatly relieved at this interference of his Secretary." On the 15th Mr. Adams left Washington for Boston. On the 18th his nomination to the English mission was sent to the Senate. It thus appears I was entirely wrong in my recollections as to Mr. Schurz's desire at that time to get an appointment to Berlin, though in other respects my I'ecollection was substan- tially correct. It will further be observed that my father's record is much more creditable to both Mr. Schurz and to Mr. Seward than that supplied by Mr. Schurz from memory in his printed Memoirs. It also gives a somewhat vivid idea of the utter confusion and lack of system which prevailed in Wash- ington during the first month of the Lincoln administration. The President communicated by title a copy of a private letter from Lieutenant-Colonel James Savage to his father, the Hon. James Savage : This letter was written by James Savage, Jr., to his father, Hon. James Savage, formerly President of this Society. It is from a copy of the original made by Mrs. W. B. Rogers, the sister of the writer and the only surviving daughter of Mr. Savage. There is a Life of James Savage, Jr., by Mrs. Rogers in the Harvard Memorial Biographies (vol. i. p. 305). The operations described in the letter relate to the part borne by the Second Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry during the campaign conducted by the Confederate General " Stonewall " Jackson against the Union Army commanded by Major-General N. P. Banks, in the Valley of the Shenan- doah, during the months of May and June, 1862. A fuller and more critical narrative of this famous campaign as a 118 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, whole will be found in Lieutenant-Colonel G. P. R. Hender- son's Life of " Stonewall " Jackson (vol. i. pp. 304-356). The special part played in it by the Second Massachusetts Infantry has also been described by General George H. Gordon, the first colonel of the regiment, in his volume entitled " Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain " (pp. 175-261), and also in his "Third Paper" on the History of the Second Massachusetts Infantry. Other correspondence relating to the same events will be found in the Letters of C. F. Morse, also of the Sec- ond Massachusetts, and subsequently its commanding officer (Privately Printed, 1898), and in the "Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight" (Boston, 1891), who was Major of the regiment at the time in question, and a little later on, Sep- tember 17, 1862, was mortally wounded at Antietam, holding then the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The writer of the letter, James Savage, Jr., was, at the time of writing. Captain of Com- pany D ; he was, as Major, severely wounded in the battle at Cedar Mountain, August 9, 1862, and died at Charlottesville, Virginia, October 22 following. He then held the rank ot Lieutenant-Colonel in succession to Dwight. WiLLiAMSPOET, Md., May 28th, 1862. Mt dear Father, — At midnight on Friday in our camp at Stras- burg, we were roused from sleep and lay waiting marching orders until eight o'clock the next morning, when we got rumors of the attack at Front Royal and of the defeat of Kenly's Maryland regiment. The fighting force of our brigade was 2100 men, that of Donnelly's rather less. Our brigade was composed of the 2nd Mass., the 3rd Wisconsin, the 29th Penn. and the 27 Ind. Donnelly's brigade contained the 5th Conn., 28th N. Y. and 46th Penn. ; on the march from Strasburg Don- nelly's brigade led, and of ours the 27th Ind. had the rear. I think it was near Middletown that the enemy first made an attempt to cut off part of our column, and they harassed us occasionally firing shell until we had passed through Newtown. Just beyond this place a halt was made and the 2nd ordered to the rear to relieve the 27th Ind. Our en- deavor was to gain time for the purpose of saving our immense wagon train, which consisted not only of the Division and brigade trains, and those of the several Regiments, but also of the Hospital. It was rain- ing in the morning when we started, but towards noon the pike be- came excessively dusty, owing in great measure to the droves of beef cattle and of condemned horses which were driven every now and then through our column, making much confusion in the ranks. When the 1907.] LBTTEK FROM LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SAVAGE. 119 2nd was ordered to the rear, we were deployed as a battalion of skir- mishers, and in that order marched back through the street of Newtown with supports of sections of Best's and Hampton's batteries on either side the town. My command was the reserve of three or four com- panies which advanced through the main street until the enemy's shell opened on us, when Col. Andrews^ ordered us to break to the right and follow up through the gardens, sheltering ourselves as much as possible behind the houses. There was considerable spattering of fragments ot shell for the next ten minutes, as we clashed through broad fences and palings of the yards, and then finding that the attention of the enemy's guns was diverted to our batteries and that we could not keep at the proper distance from the skirmishers, we came out again on the main street, and passed along the sidewalk, getting what shelter we could from the house fronts. We held Newtown for nearly two hours, keep- ing the enemy in check beyond the town. It was getting quite dark when, returning to the column, we reached the field where we had de- posited our knapsacks, for we had marched to the rear, and here our regiment again made a stand, and were attacked by a considerable force of the enemy. While my company with I. and G. were slinging their knapsacks, the firing was quite heavy, and was principally sus- tained by Go's A. and C, one platoon of each being deployed in the fields on each side of the road, and the two remaining platoons acting as reserve on the road ; these were under command of our gallant Major,^ and behaved splendidly. The skirmishers had constantly to rally to resist charges of cavalry, and just after my men joined them with their knapsacks there was a close and heavy clattering of hoofs ' George L. Andrews was born in Bridgewater August 31, 1828, studied in the schools of his native town, and afterward at West Point, where he graduated in 1851 at the head of his class. He was afterward engaged in the military ser- vice, and for two years as a civil engineer. In May, 1861, he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of tlie Second Massachusetts Volunteers. At the time ot the retreat of Banks in the Shenandoah Valley, he was in command of the regiment- He was made a Brigadier-General in November, 186"2, and was brevatted Major- General in March, 1865. See Quint's Record of the Second Massachusetts In- fantry, pp. 476, 477 ; Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol. i. p. 75. — Eds. " Wilder Dwight was born in Springfield April 23, 1833; his early education was partly at Pliillips Exeter Academy and partly at a private military school at West Point. .He graduated witli high rank at Harvard College in 1853, and at tlie Law School two years afterward. In 1856 he was admitted to the bar, and soon became a partner of the late Chief Justice Gray. In May, 1861, he was appointed Major of the Second Massachusetts Volunteers. He was taken prisoner at Winchester May 25, 1862 ; and in the following month was made Lieutenant- Colonel. He was mortally wounded near Sharpsburg, Maryland, September 17, 1862, and died two days later at Boonesborough. See Harvard Memorial Biogra- phies, vol. i. pp. 271-293 ; Brown's Harvard University in the War, p. 65. — Eds. 120 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, heard in our rear, and down the hill they came upon us. The platoon on either side the road formed square suddenly, and also the re- maining platoons of A. and C. in the road, and together gave them a concentrated volley at ahout sixty yards distance, which effectually prevented them from trying that again during the night. Then came a sharp fire of muskets in which perhaps a dozen of our men fell killed and wounded and which was returned with effect. I was here ordered to throw out my company right and left of the road as flankers, and just as my first platoon, which was with me on the right side of the road, had climbed the fence the enemy threw in a volley which would have done harm to the platoon had we not struck upon a friendly stone wall behind which my men lay. The N. Y. cavalry, which was with us, thereupon went off at a gallop and reporting the 2nd cut to pieces was not seen by us again that night. From that time, just after dark, until twelve o'clock, I, with my first platoon as flankers, marched through the fields a hundred paces to the right of the column. During this time there was no firing. We kept as nearly opposite the centre of the column as we could guess. We passed mostly through wheat fields, the wheat growing stout and up to our waists and full of water ; it was so high that we could not see where we were stepping. I was near being disabled by striking my knee against a concealed stump and at one time several of us fell flat into a ditch. The reserve, which kept well in front, broke gaps in the fences to let us through. About mid- night the column halted at a house to find means of forwarding our wounded. We lost about an hour here, and the enemy coming up with us and pouring in a sharp fire compelled us to retreat double quick, leaving our Surgeon, Dr. Leland,^ and the wounded in the house. In about three quarters of an hour we bivouacked just in the outskirts of Winchester, where we stacked arms, and I sat awake and shivered till daylight, having lost my servant who had my blankets and overcoat. The sun was just rising when our pickets were driven in and the ene- my's artillery opened on us from the high ridge back of Winchester. We were called to arms, and I, without food the day before except a cracker and none that morning, headed the column of the 2d, which advanced across the fields and up the hillside till we were halted and ordered to lie down under a stone wall. I with my right company was thus brought to the crest of the hill, and was at once ordered to deploy 1 Francis Leland, M.D., was born in Sherborn, Massachusetts, December 24, 1817, graduated at Brown University in 1838, and from the Harvard Medical Scliool in 1842. He was appointed surgeon of tlie Second Massachusetts Volun- teers in October, 1861, and having been wounded in the service at Cedar Mountain resigned on account of impaired health in October, 1862. He died at Somerville October 6, 1867. Quint's Record of the Second Massachusetts In- fantry, pp. 478, 479, Historical Catalogue of Brown University, p. 177. — Eds. 1907.] LETTER FROM LIE^JTE^f ANT-COLONEL SAVAGE. 121 it back across the ridge to disturb a battery and parts of two regiments of infantry which had the shelter of a stone wall on the ridge about 150 yards distant. A section of one of our batteries had meantime begun to fire on them from a prominence 100 yds. back of me. The excite- ment teas splendid and the chances for a good shot from our rifles capital at that distance. Twice we compelled the battery to seek shel- ter below the ridge, and some six or eight horses were sent dashing away riderless. For a time they threw canister at us, but with little effect, and finding they met with no success in dislodging us, they turned their attention principally on the battery behind us, occasionally giving us a shell or so as a reminder. After about half an hour of this, in which my only casualties were two men very slightly wounded, I was reinforced by Co, G., Capt. Cary,^ and ordered to cross the field in front and get the shelter of a stone wall beyond. It seemed a fearful thing, but as it was done at the double quick and the men were deployed and not in closed ranks, 1 believe no man was struck. Of course it was but the work of a moment, and we found ourselves with a better shelter, a good stone wall. Here we began to get an idea of what was in store for us. In our last position we had seen and reported to the Col. a force of Infantry and Cavalry on a hill a mile to our right stealing round us, and here over our wall of square blocks of limestone we found three regiments of Infantry coming close upon our right flank. As they crept round the slope below us, our marksmen did what they could to check them. Sergeant Crocker struck down the colors of one regi- ment and Sergeant Miller knocked over a color corporal of the same. Having reported this approach, I was told to harass them as much as possible and to hold out as long as I could. The battery in front find- ing canister of no avail against our shelter now threw a few solid. shot at the wall ; one struck it near the top fortunately, but scattering the fragments of stone violently, taking nearly the whole of one poor fel- low's head off", wounding another in the ankle, and allowing Capt. Cary and Sergeant Parker to escape almost by a miracle. Soon after we were ordered to fall back on the regiment, which we did in good time. We now saw the Penn. and Indiana regiments coming up the hill in two columns marching by the flank. They had scarcely readied the summit when the rebels were on the hill and close upon them. They opened their fire at close quarters upon each other, 1 Richard Cary was the youngest child of Hon. Thomas G. Cary, and was born in Boston June 27, 1825. He was educated at the Boston Latin School, but did not enter college. Having decided to pursue a mercantile life, he spent some time at the South. On the breaking out of the war he returned to the North, and in May, 1861, was commissioned Captain in the Second Massachusetts Volun- teers. He was mortally wounded at Cedar Mountain, August 9, 1862, and died on the following day. See Quint's Record of the Second Massachusetts Infantry, p. 485. — Eds. 16 122 MASSACHUSETTS HISTOEICAL SOCIETY. [June, though what the rebel force was then and there I could not say. I only know that the enemy fled down back of the hill in the utmost confusion. They were immediately reinforced and returned up the hill, and either the Indiana and Penn. regiments broke or a retreat was ordered, for they passed us aiid went down the front slope towards the town double quick. This brought the enemy on our right flank, which meant Co. D. The order was given "by companies right wheel." I wheeled my men to the front and dressed them. They stood as on parade. The inten- tion was to advance upon the enemy by column of companies, in which case Co. D. would have been first annihilated. It was then seen that not a moment was to be lost if the regiment was to escape being made prisoners. The order was, retreat. We turned amid a storm as of sheets of bullets and retired without firing a gun down the hill. Be- sides the three regiments in our rear, there were lines advancing both on our left and right flanks. Five minutes later and we should have been lost. Most of my missing men must have fallen coming down the hill. The fire was terrible. The enemy covered the slopes and hill- side for about a mile left and right of us, yelling like fiends. They did not follow us closely into town, but kept up their fire and we halted and formed in good order in the first street, and then began our long march of 35 miles to Williamsport. You have heard of the dispropor- tion of forces ; 28 of their regiments were counted, there may have been others. Gordon^ had information the night before that there were 25,000 or 30,000 of them, and the number of regiments counted would have given them 22,000. High up on the hill fell Lakin, a private of mine, shot dead through the body, his brother, stopping to learn how much he was injured, has not since been seen. Private Orne I think did not get down the hill safely. What others fell before entering the town, I cannot say. On the hillside Private Peterson was struck in the neck by a shot which came out in front. It was tied up and he marched the whole way, and is now doing well in the hospital at Fred- erick. Sergeant Crocker was struck by a minie ball in the calf of his 1 George Henry Gordon was born in Charlestown July 19, 1825, and graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1846. He immediately afterward entered the array, and served with distinction in the war with Mexico. He re- signed from the army in 1854, and graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1856. In the following year he opened a law office in Boston. On the breaking out of the Civil War he was appointed Colonel of the Second Massachusetts Volunteers. In June, 1862, he was made a Brigadier-General, and in April, 1865, a Major-General, having been actively engaged in service throughout the war. After the close of the war he returned to Boston, and resumed the prac- tice of the law. He died in Framingliam August 30, 1886. At the time of the retreat from the Shenandoah Valley he was in command of a brigade. See Appleton's Cyclopoedia of American Biography, vol. ii. p. 685 ; Brown's Harvard University in the War, p. 832. — Ens. 1907.] LETTER FROM LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SAVAGE. 123 right leg, making a long, bad looking wound, but not hurting the bone. Cap. Mudge ^ and Lieut Crowninshield * were struck in the leg at nearly the same time. Mudge I helped along a little way as best I could, and the order coming " double quick " we were separated, he running along until some one got him a horse. Crowninshield and my Sergeant Crocker were both helped into an ambulance, and had their lives saved by it, by young Mclenan, surgeon in the Fifth Conn. The same splen- did fellow also gave his horse to my Lieut. Abbott,' when he was walk- ing along, tired out in Winchester, or he would have been among the missing. Over and through the fence as we emerged from town came the deadly gusts of bullets, and again and again the order was " double quick." I have no doubt many of us longed to be shot that we might rest, and as we dragged our weary limbs along nothing but the thought of the bayonets of a relentless foe kept us on our feet. When the com- mand came " double quick," and we had been gasping for breath while walking, and I saw the column move on quickly, I followed, I know not how. By the station house Sergeant Parker stopped, and laying off his equipments sat down, unable to move farther. I think he was not wounded and am hoping to hear of him as a prisoner. He was a noble 1 Charles R. Mudge was the son of Enoch R. Mudge, and was born in the city of New York October 22, 1839. fie was fitted for college at the private school of Mr. Thomas G. Bradford, in Boston, and entered Harvard College in the summer of 1856, graduating with his Class in 1860. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts Volunteers in May, 1861 ; promoted Captain in July ; Major in November, 1862 ; Lieutenant-Colonel in June, 1863 ; killed at Gettysburg July 3, 1863. See Harvard Memorial Biographies, vol. ii. pp. 161-162 ; Brown's Harvard University in the War, p. 144. — Eds. 2 Francis W. Crowninshield was the son of Edward A. Crowninshield. He was born in Boston May 12, 1843, and died in Albano, Italy, May 21, 1866, of disease contracted in tlie service. His school life at the Boston Latin School was interrupted by an absence of a year or two in Europe with his father. He entered Harvard College in July, 1860, but left in the following year, and in December was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts Vol- unteers. He was wounded at Winchester, and again at Antietam, and was pro- moted to a captaincy in March, 1863. At Gettysburg he was severely wounded, and in May, 1864, he was shot in the leg by a guerilla in Tennessee. But he participated in Slierman's march from Atlanta to the sea, and was not mustered out until July, 1865. See Harvard Memorial Biographies, vol. ii. pp. 456-460; Brown's Harvard University in the War, p. 205. — Eds. 8 Edward Gardiner Abbott was the eldest son of Hon. Josiah 6. Abbott, and was born in Lowell September 29, 1840. He was fitted for college at the Lowell High School, aud graduated at Harvard College in 1860. Immediately on graduating he began the study of the law with great zeal and industry and with high promise of success. He was commissioned a captain in the Second Massachusetts Volunteers May 24, 1861. After a brief service with distinction he was killed in the battle of Cedar Mountain August 9, 1862. See Harvard Memorial Biographies, vol. ii. pp. 82-96; Brown's Harvard University in the War, p. 134. — Eds. 124 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, fellow and has done good work for me. The pursuit of infantry ceased soon after leaving town, and, except a few shells thrown at random and an occasional shot from the skirts of woods on our flanks, we were let alone. My mouth was dry like a sponge ; and ahout three miles out, I met Stephen Perkins ' in a house by the road side over a bowl of pickled beets, the vinegar of which went to my soul. I did not learn of my Lieut. 's fate till late in the day, and thought him lost till I saw him jog- ging along in a horse cart he had pressed by the way. It was a small one and then contained six beside guns and equipments. Our brave Major was missing, but we hear to-day (Monday 2nd) that he is safe, a prisoner in Winchester. My Sergeant Thurston I fear was wounded and taken. Corporals Woodward, Cleves and Anderson and 10 pri- vates are still among the missing. Private Colvin was shot through the bowels, but lived until he reached Williamsport, and had only been de^d ten minutes when I saw him. He is buried in the graveyard here. My company from its position suffered more than the others on Sunday. I myself did not get into our place of bivouac on Sunday night till half past ten, and then I crawled under a friendly blanket, and with an old boot for a pillow slept until we were called just before dawn, to cross the river. No food nor sleep the night before and a march of 25 miles, then a disastrous battle and a flight of 35 miles, and you see me pretty well used up. Now I am as well as ever after a week's rest, and we are all longing to enter Winchester again with fair chances allowed us. We are encamped in a beautiful oak grove not far from the river and have a most lovely country all about us. The weather grows warm to-day and we have had constant thunder the last day or two, suggestive of Lunenburg. '^ From your son James. In the absence of Mr. Edward Stakwood, Mr. Smith com- municated for him by title the following paper: 1 Stephen G. Perkins, eon of Stephen H. Perkins, was born in Boston Sep- tember 18, 1885, and received a careful preparatory education. He entered Har- vard College with the Class of 1855, but was obliged to leave it on account of the weakness of his eyes, and graduated with the Class of 1856. After graduating he spent a year in the Law School, and subsequently joined the Lawrence Scien- tific School. In July, 1861, he was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts Volunteers, and in the following month was promoted First Lieutenant. He was killed shortly afterward in the battle of Cedar Moun- tain, August 9, 1862. See Harvard Memorial Biographies, vol. i. pp. 373-381 ; Brown's Harvard University in the War, p. 97. — Eds. 2 During the latter years of his life Hon. James Savage spent his summers at Lunenburg. See 2 Proceedings, vol. xvi pp. 142, 143; vol. xx. pp. 240, 241. — Eds. 1907.] SEPAEATION OP MAINE FKOM MASSACHUSETTS. 126 The Separation of Maine from Massachusetts. The claim of Massachusetts to jurisdiction over the terri- tory now constituting the State of Maine dates from the mid- dle of the seventeenth century. The long and not always peaceable controversy between the Massachusetts Colony and Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of the famous lord-proprietor Sir Ferdinando Gorges, which extended over the years from 1652 to 1677, was ended by the sale of the patent and all the rights appei-taining thereto for £1250. Gorges's patent cov- ered the whole of the territory of Maine. King Charles II. was displeased by the transfer, and some writers who have been more inclined to score a point in subsequent controversies between Maine and Massachusetts than to adhere to histori- cal fact have misrepresented the transaction ; but William- son, in his History of Maine, says that " the purchase was fair and open — made at the desire of the provincials them- selves, when they were driven to extremities by an Indian war, and when nearly all the assistance and protection they were receiving proceeded from Massachusetts." It is impossible to ascertain when the movement origi- nated for a separation of Maine from Massachusetts. No evidence has ever been presented, so far as I am aware, that a sentiment in favor of separation existed before the close of the Revolutionary War. It may be taken as prob- able that during that great struggle a suggestion of divis- ion would have found few people in Maine to support it. But a movement began and attained formidable proportions one year after the Treaty of Peace in 1783. The separation was not accomplished until thirty-six years later, in 1820. It is a singular fact that no full account of this movement, so important to two States of the Union, has ever been prepared. A brief account of the agitation which began in 1784 and came to an end in 1787, or later, is contained in a paper by Daniel Davis ^ in the fourth volume of the first series of the Collections of this Society. Mr. Davis was a member of the second convention in Portland, held in September, 1786. There was a revival of this movement in 1792, of which, I think, no account whatever has been published. For many 1 Mr. Davis was a native of the District of Maine, bom in 1762, died in 183& He was elected a member of tliis Society in 1792. 126 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [JuNE, years after that time nothing was heard of a separation, but the agitation was renewed in 1815 and continued active until, by the wish of the Maine people, the consent of Massa- chusetts, and the act of Congress, the new State was organ- ized and admitted to the Union. Many partial accounts of the unsuccessful campaign of 1816 have been prepared, but none of the successful movement in 1819. Moreover, while as to- these several attempts some writers have under- taken to represent the situation as it regards the senti- ments of the inhabitants of Maine, thej' have usuallj'^ done so from a partisan point of view, and have not seen much below the surface. No one, so far as I can discover, has ever considered the question from the Massachusetts end, or taken pains to inquire how the people of this part of the State regarded the matter. It is with a purpose to study these two questions, the motives of the people of Maine, and the attitude of the people of the Common- wealth proper, that I have prepared this paper. In so doing it seems proper to present a connected history of the whole movement, although some of the matter is familiar, and a large part of it is to be found in published essays which are not accessible to the general reader. Beginning some time in the latter part of 1784, numerous addresses and communications appeared in the Falmouth (now Portland) " Gazette " upon the subject of a separation of "the three Eastern counties" of York, Cumberland, and Lincoln, comprising the entire territory of the District of Maine, from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The discussion was temperate. The advocates of separation in- dulged sparingly if at all in ci'iticism or complaint of the treatment the District received from Massachusetts. They maintained that the District was naturally separated geo- graphically from Massachusetts, and that many hardships naturally resulted from the distance of the community from the capital. They were convinced that economy and con- venience demanded a separate government, which they felt competent to organize and to support. It was about a year after this agitation began when the first active step was taken to make it effective. The Fal- mouth " Gazette " of the 17th September and 1st October, 1785, printed the following notice: 1907.] SEPARATION OF MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 127 " Agreeably to a request made and signed by a large and respectable number of persons to the printer of this ' Gazette,' the inhabitants of the three Counties of York, Cumberland, and Lincoln are hereby noti- fied that so many of them as are inclined or can conveniently attend, are requested to meet at the Meeting House of the Revd. Messrs. Smith and Deane in Falmouth on Wednesday, the fifth day of October next, to join in a conference then and there to be held on the proposal of having the said counties erected into a separate government; and, if it should be thought best, to form some plan for collecting the sentiments of the people on the subject and pursue some orderly and regular method of carrying the same into effect." In accordance with this notice thirty-three gentlemen as- sembled at the time and place mentioned, in numbers almost equally divided between the three counties. They organized by the choice of William Gorham as President and Stephen Longfellow as secretary. After the occasion which had called them together had been discussed and the movement justi- fied, it was voted that a committee of seven, of which Peleg Wadsworth was chairman, " should apply to the several towns and plantations in said counties, requesting them to send delegates to meet " at Falmouth on the first Wednesday in January, 1786, for the purpose of considering the expedi- ency of the separation proposed. This movement attracted the attention of the government of Massachusetts. By advice of the Council Governor James Bowdoin brought it to the notice of the General Court in his address on October 20, 1785. " There is another matter, gentlemen," he said, " essentially important to the well-being of the Commonwealth which claims your most serious atten- tion, and which, by the unanimous advice of the Council, I now lay before you. It refers to a design against the Common- wealth of very evil tendency, being calculated for the purpose o£ effecting the dismemberment of it. That design has been for some months evident by a great number of publications in the Falmouth ' Gazette ' calling upon the people of the Coun- ties of York, Cumberland, and Lincoln to assemble together for the purpose of separating themselves from the government of this Commonwealth and of withdrawing from the duty and allegiance they owe to it. In consequence of these calls about thirty persons, as I am informed, assembled on the 5th instant at the Meeting House in Falmouth, and voted to choose a com- 128 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [JuNE, mittee to draft a circular letter to the several towns and plan- tations in those three counties, requesting them to meet in convention by their delegates on the first Wednesday of January next to consider the expediency of the said counties being formed into a separate State. The duty I owe to the Commonwealth in general and to the people of those counties in particular, indispensably obliges me to lay this matter before you, that you may take such measures regarding it as your regard for the collective body of the Commonwealth shall dictate." The reply of the General Court was, as usual, an echo of the address. It declared " that attempts by individuals, or bodies of men, to dismember the State are fraught with improprie- ties and danger." The matter was not allowed to rest there, for the journal of the House of Representatives for November 11 mentions a report of the committee to which the above passage from the governor's address was referred, presented by Mr. Baker of Worcester, recommending " that a committee of both Houses be appointed to bring in a bill declaratory of the allegiance which all the inhabitants of the territory of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts owe to the government of the same agreeably to the Constitution, and descriptive of those (particulars)! [acts and proceedings] which shall amount to a renunciation of allegiance, and so constructed as most effec- tively to secure the Commonwealth against the ill consequences of any (dismemberment whatever) [attempts to dismember the same]." The report was amended and adopted. The Senate members of the committee appointed in accordance with the recommendation were John Sprague and John Lowell. The journals of the two Houses do not make it appear that the committee ever reported. Notwithstanding executive and legislative disapproval, the convention was held on January 4, 1786. A committee of nine members was appointed to prepare a statement of the evils and grievances under which the people of the District labored, and an estimate of the cost of a separate government as compared with the amount the people of Maine paid to Massachusetts. The grievances reported by the committee were nine in number : (1) that the interests of the two com- munities were different, and that Massachusetts did not under- ' Original report in parentliesis, amendments in brackets. 1907.] SEPAEATION OF MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 129 stand, and therefore could not promote, those of Maine ; (2 and 3) the distance of the seat of government, and the consequent inconveniences ; (4) the expense of obtaining justice, since all the records of the Supreme Court were kept in Boston ; (5) the unjust and unequal operation of the regulations of trade, which depressed the price of lumber, the chief industry of Maine ; (6) the denial of representation in the House of Rep- resentatives to " a great part of the inhabitants in these coun- ties ; ^ (7, 8, and 9) an unjust system of taxation of polls and estates, an undue burden by reason of the excise and import acts, and the unequal incidence of the tax on deeds, on account of the smaller value of land conveyed and its more frequent convej'ance. No definite estimate and comparison of the expense of a separate government seemed possible to the committee. The convention ordered the report, signed by the president, to be sent to every town and plantation in the District, ap- pointed another convention to be held on the first Wednesday in September, and sent a request to each town to choose delegates to the convention at the March meetings. The first convention having adjourned until September, and the second convention consisting of delegates chosen in March, met at the same time, and as many of the persons were members of both, they coalesced, and chose the same officers as the January convention. But they humbei-ed only thirty- one in all. Four towns in York, eight in Cumberland, and ten in Lincoln were represented in this convention. The number of towns and plantations authorized to send delegates was more than ninety. It was resolved by the convention that the people were suffering from the grievances enumerated by the former con- vention, except the fifth, relating to the operation of ti-ade regulations. The phrasing of some of the paragraphs was slightly changed by a committee to which the subject was referred, with a request that any other grievances that oc- curred to them should be mentioned. As to the latter part of the duty the committee reported that there were such grievances, but they could not at that time " undertake to 1 No town having less than 150 ratable polls could send a representatiTe, save that any town incorporated before 1780 might elect a member. A large part of the population were in plantations and districts not organized. 17 130 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [JuNE, enumerate the multiplicity of them." A committee was ap- pointed to prepare a memorial to the General Court asking for separation, and an address to the towns on the subject, requesting them to take a vote on the question and to return the numbers for and against the proposition. In order to secure a large vote it was resolved that the towns be informed that if they did not vote " they will be considered as ac- quiescing in the Doings of their brethren." The convention then adjourned until the last Wednesday in January, 1787. Williamson says ^ that " the language of the address was courteous and well expressed." A copy of the address is among the broadsides preserved by this Society, and unfor- tunately neither does its wording coincide with the version given by Williamson, nor is his description of its language quite accurate. The following are sentences extracted from the document, which is addressed " Friends and Brethren " : " The expediency of this measure has engaged the attention of the Public for a long time — it has been considered, as it undoubtedly ought to be, a subject of great importance. Two conventions have had it before them, and have carefully attended to the arguments which have been offered on both sides of the question. . . . You feel yourselves distressed, and your distresses will increase until you legislate for your- selves. In this there is no great difficulty. Government is a very simple, easy thing. Mysteries in politicks are mere absurdities — invented intirely to gratify the ambition of princes and designing men — to aggrandize those who govern at the expense of those who are governed." The petition was really a calm and moderate statement of the position of the advocates of separation.^ They call attention to the fact that on the adoption of the present constitution " they either approved of, or submitted to, the same, and have paid due obedience to the laws thereof." Having concisely set forth the reasons for desiring a separa- tion, they say: " And while they are taking this peaceful measure to obtain a redress of their great political evils, by asking a separation from the other part of the Commonwealth, they do not entertain an idea of throwing oflf the 1 History of Maine, vol. ii. p. 526. ' In this case also Williamson has modified the language of the original document materially. 1907.] SEPARATION OF MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 131 weight of the publick debt, at this time laying on the Commonwealth at large, or to prevent the other part of the Commonwealth from having their just proportion of the unappropriated lands ; but, like friends and brethren, most ardently wish to have all matters adjusted upon the broadest basis of equity and fair dealing." A question arose whether the petition should be presented at once to the General Court then in session. It was first voted " that as there has been a number of respectable towns in the Counties of York, Cumberland, and Lincoln that have not yet certified to this convention their determination of a separate State, and as the Commonwealth in general is at this time in a perplexed state, and this convention being unwilling to do anything that shall seem to lay a greater burthen on the General Court, therefore it is the opinion of this convention to postpone petitioning for a sep- aration at present." Subsequently a long and acrimonious debate took place upon a motion to reconsider this vote, which was finally carried by 15 to 13, and a vote was passed to leave the petition with the committee, to be pre- sented or not at its discretion. The committee exercised that discretion by withholding the petition until 1788, more than two years. It was offered in 1788 and referred to a com- mittee which reported verbally on January 22, 1789, recom- mending that it lie on the table. A vote to that effect was adopted by the House of Representatives. The action of the convention by a narrow majority is a rev- elation of the temper of those who were most urgent for the separation. It cannot be fully understood without a consider- ation of the origin and growth of the movement as a popular movement. All accounts agree that at the beginning separation was a project that appealed to the fancy of the people rather as one that would add to the prominence, importance, and inde- pendence of the community than as an escape from oppression and other evils. When the agitation started, in 1784, we have the authority of Davis for saying — and he was a member of the September convention of 1786 and was acquainted with all the actors in the movement — that "clergymen, physicians, lawyers, and farmers seemed engaged in accelerating the event " and in pointing out the benefits that would ensue from separa- tion. Apparently there was little opposition, or that which 132 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, existed did not make itself evident. But when the conventions were held, we have the same authority for the statement that " there was also a respectable number of opposers of the meas- ure." They were men in trade who feared that the change would be detrimental to their business, and particularly those who held office under Massachusetts who apprehended that they would lose their positions. Davis admits frankly that self-interest controlled the members of both factions. He does not intimate on which side of the question he should be ranged. My best conjecture is that at that time he favored separation, but that he was for a conservative course. At all events, he was evidently glad at the time he prepared his paper (1795) that the movement failed. The year 1786 was the year of Shays's Rebellion. At the very time the second convention was held the General Court of Massachusetts was in session, summoned by Governor Bowdoin, to take steps to overcome the rising rebellion in the western counties. The causes of disorder were real, and the grievances were genuine, although it was beyond the power of the government to afford relief without injustice. It could transfer but not remove the evils of the day. The people of Maine were suffering as greatly from the hard circumstances of the time as those who rose in insurrection. They were in a sullen mood. The impulse to adopt any remedy for evils which they felt, and which, as commonly happens, they ascribed to the government under which they lived, had possession of them. " They would," says Davis, " have thrown off the yoke of any government without remorse." In the debate on the presentation of the petition some of them employed " the lan- guage of genuine insurgents." Like the more active insurgents in the western counties, they wished for paper money, and for tender acts to relieve the scarcity of money. While, therefore, the conservatives urged forbearance toward the Common- wealth at a time when it was about to cope with armed enemies, the radicals urged action, on the theory that in the state of civil war already begun Massachusetts would not dare to refuse the demand for separation. It is not improbable, as is ingeniously suggested by Davis, that the success of the radicals saved Massachusetts from a second insurrection. He thinks that the hope of the conces- sion which the convention demanded satisfied the malcontents. 1907.] SEPARATION OP MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 133 They could not ask respectfully for a dismissal, and begin to fight for it before there had been time to act on the request. Massachusetts was too busy with Shays to attend to the desires of Maine, even if the petition had been presented ; and before the next session of the General Court began the rebellion had been suppressed and the opportunity to frighten the Common- wealth into a concession of its own dismemberment had passed. It is interesting at this point to speculate upon what would have been the status of Maine if an act of separation had been passed at that time. The States were under the Articles of Confederation, but each of them was an independent, sovereign State. Massachusetts -could have consented to the separation of Maine, and the act would have required no confirmation by any other power. But could the new State have demanded admission into the confederation? The articles provided that Canada might be admitted as of right, but no other colony without the vote of nine States. It is a nice question whether as a former part of the confederation it would have been en- titled to admission as of right, or would have come under the rule of being another " colony." But in any event it would have been in the power of Maine to assert its absolute inde- pendence, and to repudiate all control by Congress. The convention, having adopted the address to the people and the petition to the General Court, adjourned until the last Wednesday of January, 1787. At that time it met again and received the votes of the towns on the question of separation. There were then ninety-three towns and plantations. Thirty- two only made returns of votes, which aggregated 618 for separation, 352 against it. Another adjournment was had to the <5th of September, when it was again resolved to "collect the sentiments " of the people, but no action in that direction was taken. There were five or six other adjournments, but the later meetings were attended by a steadily decreasing number of delegates. At the last meeting there were but three persons present, all from Portland. One of them was chosen president pro tempore, another as secretary, and the third moved that the convention adjourn. There was no one to second the motion, and so, says Davis, " the convention ex- pired, not only without a groan, but without a single mourner to weep over its remains.'" 134 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, It was in September, 1788, that the convention came to its inglorious end. Meantime the agitation for separation had re- sulted in considerable benefits to the people of the District. The General Court exempted wild lands froth taxation for ten years ; modified the fee act so as to make it less onerous ; or- dered the construction of two roads which made a continuous thoroughfare from the head of the tide on the Kennebec River to Passamaquoddy Bay ; granted to every squatter on the public lands prior to 1784 one hundred acres of land on the payment of five dollars ; established a term of the Supreme Court, for the first time, at Pownalborough, now Wiscasset ; and incorporated Bowdoin College. " By which conciliatory measures," says Williamson, from whose account of them I have made this summary, " the subject of Separation was rocked into a slumber from which it was not aroused for several years." It is strange that neither Williamson nor any other writer upon the separation movement whose account is extant, makes even a remote reference to a revival of the agitation less than three years after the convention came to an end. Yet the re- suscitated project led to direct action by the General Court in the direction desired by the advocates of separation, which was not the case with the original movement. An address to the people of Maine by " A Numbet of your Representatives" was published in March, 1791. It appears from the Journal of the House of Representatives that on February 19, 1791, Mr. Gardiner of Pownalborough " was charged with a message to the Senate to send down the pe- tition from sundry towns in the Province of Maine to be set off as a separate State." At the same sitting " the Hon. T. Dawes came down and said that the petition . . . was not on the files of the Senate." The subsequent history of the movement at that session of the General Court is given in the Address just mentioned : " The time draweth nigh, when ye must be, as the god of nature intended ye should be, a FREE, SOVEREIGN and INDEPENDENT State." It then recites that on the ^■2d of February the senators and representatives of the District met and voted " near four to one " that the sense of the District ought now to be taken on the propriety of separation, and agreed that the chairman, John Gardiner of Pownalborough, should on the next day move to take from 1907.] SEPARATION OF MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 135 the files the petition of 1786, and that the towns should be insti'ucted to take a vote of the inhabitants on the question. Mr. Gardiner made the motion, but opposition developed, chiefly on the part of Boston, " whose united force was collected to oppose the wished-for notification." The ground of opposi- tion, as the address puts it, was " that to agree to the present motion and order such notification would be as absurd as it would be for a man wantonly and deliberately to cut off a limb from his own bod}'." The debate continued until the close of the morning sitting. In the afternoon other business intervened and prevented action. Whereupon the Maine representatives " concluded that it was better, perhaps, to let the matter rest until your sentiments could be had in another way ; although they had no doubt from the known candour, justice, and equity of the House but they should finally prevail in the motion if they should perse- vere." Accordingly, after briefly stating reasons for separation, they advise that an article be put into the warrant for the next town meeting in each town that the sense of the inhab- itants be taken, and that the number for and against be carefully noted and sent to Boston. The matter was not further mentioned at that session of the General Court, but the following is an entry in the Journal of the House of Representatives for June 14, 1791 : "A motion was made by John Gardiner, Esq., member from Pownalborough that the petition from a convention held at Portland for the separation of the eastern part of this Commonwealth be taken up, and the prayer thereof granted, which motion being recorded, the said petition was read. " Voted, That Mr. Gardiner have leave to file his instructions on the same subject from the inhabitants of Pownalborough with the said petition. " Ordered, That the further consideration of the said petition be referred to the next session of the General Court." The advocates of separation were persistent. There is no way of ascertaining what response was made to the request for votes by towns, contained in the address of March, 1791. Probably it was disappointing, for there is no record of any town or popular petitions. Some of the representatives from the District took up the matter and drafted and signed 136 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [JaNE, a petition. I quote again from the journal of the House of Representatives : February 1, 1792. "A petition from the Senators and Representa- tives from the Counties of York, Cumberland, Lincoln, Hancock, and Washington,^ praying that the sense of the inhabitants of the District of Maine as to the separation of the said District from this Common- wealth. Bead and committed to Mr. Jarvis, Mr. Heushaw, Mr. Jones of Boston, Mr. Bigelow and Mr. Foster." February 10. The House took up the report, as to the purport of which there is no record save that it is charac- terized in the index as " favorable," and postponed it to the next day. February 1 2. " The House proceeded to the further consideration of the report of the Committee on the petition of the senators and rep- resentatives of the District of Maine, and on motion whether a notifica- tion should issue to the District of Maine for ascertaining the sense of the, inhabitants relative to a separation should be the first question, it was ordered accordingly, and after debate the further consideration was postponed till Monday." February 13. " The House proceeded to the further consideration of the question . . . and after debate it was determined in the aiBrma- tive. Number of votes 111, 81 in favor." The action of the legislature took the form of a resolve. The only entry in the Senate journal respecting it is in the proceedings of March 6, and it consists merely of the title of the resolve, and the words " Read and concurred." The preamble of the resolve is as follows: " Whereas it has been represented to the legislature in a memorial signed by the Hon. Nath : Wales, Esq., and others. Senators and Rep- resentatives of the District of Maine, that the inhabitants of the Counties of York, Cumberland, Lincoln, Hancock and Washington contemplate the formation of a separate government, to consist of the counties aforesaid, with the consent of this Commonwealth, In order that the real sense of said inhabitants may be known on this important subject," 1 Hancock and Washington counties were established in 1789 by a division of Lincoln County. 1907.] SEPARATION OF MAINE PEOM MASSACHUSETTS. 137 The resolve provided that the selectmen or other officers of towns, plantations, and districts were authorized and em- powered to call meetings and allow the people to vote on the question, on the first Monday of May. The officers were to make returns to the Secretary of the Common- wealth by the second Wednesday in June. The resolve was so drawn, it will be seen, as to give an opportunity for all citizens of the District to vote, even those who lived in little settlements that had not been organized as plantations. They evidently had that opportunity in fact, for returns were sent in from such communities as "the goar adjoining Lewiston," the " district adjoining Winslow," and the " West ponds district west of Sidney." In all eighty-nine returns were sent to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, but it does not appear that they were ever transmitted to the General Court. Nor is there anything to show that the rude returns, now yellow with time, preserved in the archives at the State House were ever tabulated until I undertook that task, out of pure curiosity, for of course the matter is of the slightest possible importance. The result perhaps supplies the reason why the returns were neglected. A majority of those who voted were opposed to separation. The aggregate was 2084 in favor and 2438 opposed. Of course in the face of that vote the advocates of separation could make no headway with the members of the General Court from the other parts of the Commonwealth. They had been defeated by the opposition of the people of York County, which lies nearest to Massachusetts proper, who suffered less than any others from their distance from Bos- ton. There were eighty-nine returns in all. Eighty-three of them gave a majority of 273 for separation. Six towns in York — Kittery, Wells, Arundel, Lebanon, Berwick, and Sanford — gave but 12 votes in all for separation and 627 against it. It was a decisive defeat, yet the advocates of "independ- ence " were not completely discouraged. In October, 1793, they called a convention in support of the measure, which was held in December. Fifteen towns only were represented. The convention recommended the holding of another con- vention in June, 1794, at which time representatives of four- teen towns and three plantations met in Portland. Interest 18 138 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, in the movement was manifestly slight, and the conven- tion adjourned until October, when a resolution in favor of the creation of a new State was adopted ; but nothing came of it. Two or three petitions were presented to the General Court at its January session in 1797 and were I'eferred to a committee, which reported a resolve providing for a vote in the towns and plantations of Maine, on the second Monday in May, to ascer- tain the disposition of the people as to separation. The com- mittee expressed no opinion upon the subject. A day or two later, on February 27, the matter was taken up in the Senate, and, so far as appears from the journal and the newspapers of the day, the resolve was passed without opposition or debate. On the 28th the House of Representatives also passed the re- solve, apparently with unanimity, and Governor Sam Adams approved it on March 2. The result of the vote is reported to have been adverse to separation, but I have not been able to ascertain the numbers. Nevertheless there seems to have been an impression — I am almost inclined to think it was a hope — on the part of public men in Massachusetts proper, that the movement was to succeed. For in a debate upon a pending bill for a radical change in the judicial system of the Common- wealth, it was argued that the reform was premature, " as it was probable a separation of the District of Maine would take place." 1 In 1803 the inhabitants of sixty towns in Maine petitioned for separation, but no action was taken at that time. On February 12, 1807, Mr. Gannett of Gardiner, a member of the House of Representatives, presented by leave a resolve provid- ing for a vote on the first Monday in April, upon the question whether the senators and representatives of the District should be instructed to petition the General Court for separation. The resolve was taken up in the House on the 14th, and was passed by that body, as also by the Senate on the 19th, with- out discussion or opposition. So little interest did the move- ment excite in Maine that the Portland " Argus " did not chronicle the vote nor refer in any way to the subject until March 12, when a communication was printed urging the voters to support the cause of separation. But the people of Maine were that year too eager to defeat Governor Strong ' Independent Chronicle, March 2, 1797. 1907.] SEPARATION OP MAINE FBOM MASSACHUSETTS. 139 and elect James Sullivan in his place to be drawn into any side issues. Not a single return from any town on the question of separation appeared in the " Argus," nor was the subject again mentioned in that paper ; but there was an abundance of jubilation over the triumph of Governor Sullivan and the Jef- fersonian Republicans, which was accomplished by the vote of Maine. As a matter of fact the votes for separation numbered 3,370 ; against, 9,404. Apparently there was no revival of the agitation for separa- tion until after the War of 1812. That contest accentuated the differences and the discord between the two parts of the Com- monwealth. The people of Massachusetts proper were opposed to the war at the outset. Not to enter into any of the questions as to the attitude of the State authorities, of the public men, or of the people generally, during the progress of the war, it is enough to say that the attitude of the leaders and of the people of Maine was quite different. Maine suffered greatly during those years. Its coast was invaded and some of its marine towns were captured and occupied by the British. The people com- plained that the Commonwealth did not protect them and did not allow them to adopt means to protect themselves. In the Massachusetts House of Representatives, June 6, 1814, a com- mittee was appointed " to consider the expediency of adopting some mode of ascertaining the opinion of the people of this Commonwealth respecting the separation of the District of Maine from Massachusetts in order that the former may be constituted a distinct and separate State." It will be observed that the proposition involved a vote of the people in all parts of the Commonwealth, — the only instance in which a full vote was proposed.^ The committee reported on June 14 that the matter be referred to the next session. The war was raging fiercely, and later in the same year the Hartford Convention was called and held. In no other part of the Union, perhaps, did that famous convention call forth more exasperation than it did in Maine. That wide observer of events, Hezekiah Niles, reported the situation thus : '■^ " During the fever of rebellion that recently raged at Boston, and re- duced itself to the contempt it deserved in the famous meeting at Bart- 1 Except as a hostile amendment to the bill of 1819, under which the separa- tion was effected. 2 Niles's Register, March 18, 1815. 140 MASSACHUSETTS HISTOEIOAL SOCIETY. [June, ford, the citizens of Maine appeared prepared for the worst, and had determined that if 'Massachusetts proper' lifted an arm against the union, or took any measures to eflfect a separation of the states, they, also, would come forth, and by a convention establish a provisional government and support the union, and bring about a separation from Massachusetts." The reference is undoubtedly to a convention of delegates from the several towns in Oxford County, which was held on December 28, 1814, which adopted an address to the people of Maine, in which, among other things, it is said that " more than one third of the territory of the District of Maine is now in the undisturbed possession of the enemy." A series of ten resolu- tions was adopted, the first of which was to the effect " that it is expedient that the District of Maine constitute a part of the State of Massachusetts no longer than the State of Massachu- setts gives support to the Union." The address suggested a convention to take action in this sense, and the last resolution of the series declared for such a convention.' A similar con- vention of citizens of Kennebec and Somerset counties was held February 15, 1815, and adopted similar i-esolutions, but no general convention was held. But petitions for separation were sent to the General Court, and, together with a resolve for separation, introduced on February 6, 1815, by Albion K. Parris, senator from Oxford, were referred to a committee. The committee reported that it was " not expedient to pass said resolves," and the Senate accepted the report on the 25th of February, 1815, by a vote of 17 to 10.^ This refusal, the first and only one in the long history of this agitation, stirred the advocates of separation into in- tense activity, and the subject was publicly and privately discussed, and earnestly canvassed, in all parts of the Dis- trict during the rest of the year. From the first the di- vision of public sentiment corresponded generally to the line of party division. Practically all the Democrats were in favor of separation ; indeed, so far as can now be ascer- tained, they were unanimous. The Federalists were not so fully united. The reason for this situation is easily to be discovered. The government of Massachusetts was in the 1 Proceedings reported in the Portland " Argus " for January 15, 1815. ' Boston Daily Advertiser, February 28. 1907.] SEPARATION OF MAINE FEOM MASSACHUSETTS. 141 hands of the Federalists, but in Maine it had long been the case that the Democrats were usually a majority. Not always, for even in 1814 there were four Federalists elected to Congress from the District, to three Democrats. But in the election of governor and legislature the majority was steadily with the Democrats. Separation meant a Demo- cratic State government, with offices and spoils. Gn the other hand, the Federalists preferred the existing situation to a government by their political opponents. At the same time the idea of independence appealed to men in both parties, and overcame, in the case of some Federalists, their political objections. We shall soon have to consider the condition of popular sentiment in Massachusetts proper, but it may be well here to offer a conjecture as to the motive behind the rejection of Senator Parris's resolve in February, 1815. In the earlier years of the century Maine was growing in popula- tion more rapidly than old Massachusetts. There was not a little apprehension that Maine, with its strong Democratic majority, would soon dominate the government of the Com- monwealth. More than once the District had turned the scale against the Federalists. So long as this condition of things lasted political expediency dictated that the Feder- alists should consent eagerly to a dismemberment of the Commonwealth, as that would insure their ascendancy. But now they had recovered favor. Massachusetts was growing; Maine was not, but was rather losing population. The rea- son for giving consent had disappeared. State pride dictated the retention of the entire territory. Moreover, a natural resentment at the hostile attitude of the people of Maine, and an unwillingness to add a Democratic State to the Union, led the Federalists to oppose granting the request for sepa- ration. At all events the rejection of the resolve by the Senate in 1815 was by a party vote, and it is impossible not to see party politics in the attitude of the Massachusetts members. Not many newspapers were published in Maine at the time, but those that were in existence ranged themselves on the two sides of the separation question according to their political proclivities. The " Eastern Argus " of Port- land was the leading Democratic paper, and also the most 142 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, prominent advocate of separation. The Portland " Gazette," Federalist, led the opposition.^ The " Argus " began, November 8, 1815, a series of com- municated articles headed " The District of Maine," in which the whole question of separation was discussed. The subject was considered from every point, and the objections were also taken up and answered. The papers were twelve in number, and were published weekly. The tone was tem- perate and the treatment able. So much cannot be said of the writings of the editor and of other correspondents, who grew vehement and vituperative, as the amount of space given to the subject increased. The first editorial reference to the movement that I have been able to discover in any Boston paper was in the " Ad- vertiser." On the day before the January meeting of the General Court the editor remarked : " The leaders of the Democratic party in the District of Maine have been for some time exerting themselves to effect a separation of the District from this Commonwealth for the purpose of erect- ing it into a new State. We are not very fully informed of the state of public opinion on this subject ; but are in- clined to believe that except with the men who aspire to offices of profit and dignity in the new Commonwealth there is very little anxiety to accomplish the object." ^ Although the agitation did not to him seem formidable, the legisla- ture was quickly flooded with petitions for separation, and on the 17th of January a committee was appointed to con- sider the subject. On the 3d of February the committee reported in the Senate a resolve providing for a vote of the people of Maine on the 20th of May upon the question 1 The following extract from the " Carrier's Address " of the " Gazette " at New Year's, 1816, is a sarcastic reference to the moTement : " There is, it seems, in operation A scheme that causes agitation. Its object is to separate This District from its parent State ! And thus to add, by calculation^ A star to our bright constellation. Now should an eastern star thus honor Our valiant country's starry banner. Then will such furious joy abound As will unnumbered worlds confound." * Boston Daily Advertiser, January 16, 1818. 1907.] SEPARATION OF MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 143 " Shall the Legislature be requested to give its consent to the separation of the District of Maine from Massachusetts " and its formation into a separate and independent State. The matter was assigned for consideration on the 6th, and was passed by the Senate on that day. The only division was on an amendment proposed for the purpose of postpon- ing the vote of the people of Maine until a later time than May. The amendment was defeated by yeas 8, nays 24. In the minority appear the names of Josiah Quincy and Harrison Gray Otis. The leader of the separationists in the Senate was John Holmes, senator from York, who was prominent in the movement from 1814 until the separation was effected, and who was also the leading Democrat in the District. An amendment to the resolve requiring town officers to return the whole number of qualified voters as well as the numbers of votes given for and against separa- tion, was adopted, and the resolve was passed unanimously, so far as appears from the journal. The House of Repre- sentatives also passed the resolve without opposition on February 9. A motion was made in that body to postpone the vote until the third Monday in November. " Mr. Lincoln, /mm., one of the joint committee who prepared the resolve, stated that it was proposed to have a convention of delegates in Maine to form a skeleton of a constitution for the District : but this proposition was considered as going too far, and was unani- mously rejected by the committee. It was proposed to fix on March meetings, or the day for the choice of governor ; but such days were considered improper, as this subject might be mingled with electioneering: the 20th of May will be after the elections. The sooner the suspense and agitation of the citi- zens of Maine are over, the better : hence the impropriety of postponement till November. Different opinions were enter- tained, and different declarations had been made with regard to the sentiments of the District : some believing there is not a majority in favor of division, and others asserting that three fourths were anxious for such separation. Should there be a bare majority in favor of separation, the legislature will exercise its judgment in granting or denying the request : a commanding majority will be almost compulsory on the legislature." ^ 1 Boston Commercial Gazette, February 12, 1816. 144 MASSACHTTSBTTS HISTOEICAL SOCIETY. [June, After Mr. Lincoln's speech the motion to amend was nega- tived and the House concurred with the Senate. A day or two afterward both houses passed an order raising a committee to examine the petitions for separation to ascertain how exten- sive the movement was. The committee reported that forty- nine towns had petitioned, and that there were individual petitions from forty-three others ; that the population of the petitioning towns was 50,264 ; that the individual petitioners numbered 2,936 ; that the whole population of the District was 228,705, in 210 towns ; and that more than one-fifth of the population appeared to be asking for the change. There was great popular activity in Maine in the months of March, April, and May. County and neighborhood meetings were held by the advocates and opponents of separation. " An immense concourse of highly respectable citizens" assembled at Augusta on the 22d of April. Among those prominent in the gathering were William King, afterward the first governor of Maine, who was the Democratic candidate for lieutenant- governor on the ticket with Samuel Dexter, in 1814 ; John Neal ; John Chandler; Nathan Weston, Jr.; and Henry W. Puller, — all well-known Maine men who afterward filled im- portant places in the State government or in Washington. The convention adopted strong resolutions in favor of separa- tion, for reasons already so familiar that they need not be repeated. A sly hit was given at Massachusetts in the sug- gestion that, when separated, the new State " would enjoy equally with other States the protection of the federal govern- ment in defending it from foreign invasion and in suppressing domestic insurrection." It was unanimously " Resolved, therefore, as the sense of this meeting, that the period has arrived when the best interests of Maine will be promoted by a separa- tion from Massachusetts proper, and that we will individually use all fair and honorable means to effect these objects." The opponents were not less active than the advocates of separation. They also held great meetings at which the ob- jections to the change proposed were rehearsed : the expense of the new government ; the advantages of connection with the old Commonwealth ; and many others. They called at- tention to the attempts that were made to secure a large vote for separation in Kennebec County by the assurance that 1907.] SBPAKATION OF MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 145 Augusta would be the capital of the State, and in Cumberland County by a similar expectation that Portland would be the seat of government. They brought forward one really solid and serious objection based upon the then existing coasting law of the United States. It was first suggested at an anti- separation gathering at Warren, a coast town in Lincoln County. Attention was called to the fact that so long as Maine was a part of Massachusetts a Maine coasting vessel could trade between the two parts of the State with a coasting license. But if Maine were an independent State, it would be necessary under the law for such a vessel to enter and clear at the custom house on every trip, and to pay a fee for so doing. The explanation is that under the coasting law passed by the first Congress ^ a coasting vessel might trade, without entering and clearing, between any two ports in the same State, or with a port in the next adjoining State. This gave Maine coasting vessels the privilege of trading as far as Rhode Island with a coasting license. But if Maine were an independent State, its vessels could not go beyond the next adjoining State of New Hampshire without entering and clearing at the custom house. To this argument the advocates of separation replied that Congress would surely redress such a grievance, and they pointed to the fact that relief had been granted in one case. Congress had passed a law permitting coasting vessels to trade between Rhode Island and Long Island, across the sound.'' Undoubtedly the law which would diminish the rights of coasting vessels caused a loss of many hundred votes in the maritime counties, when the second vote was taken in Septem- ber. For the coasting trade formed one of the largest interests in those counties. But the significance of the law was not fully understood at the time of the vote in May. Before sep- aration was actually effected Congress passed a new coasting law 2 creating two great coasting districts divided by the mouth of the Perdido River, which separates Alabama from Florida. The coasting privilege was extended to all vessels to trade under a license between any two ports within each great dis- trict, without entering and clearing at the custom house. In striking contrast with the turmoil in Maine was the in- 1 Chapter XI, sec. 25. Approved September 1, 1789. » By a law of March 2, 1796. » 15th Cong. 2d Sess., Chap. XLVIU, approved March 2, 1819. 19 146 MASSACHUSETTS HISTOEICAIi SOCIETY, [June, difference manifested in Massachusetts proper. At least we may infer indifference from the absence of editorial com- ment on the question from the Boston newspapers, and from the fact that no reference was made in their news columns to the progress of the movement in the District. The only paragraph on the subject between the time of the passage of the resolve and the vote in Maine, so far as I can discover, was in the " Advertiser " of May 17. " To us in this part of the State," remarked Mr. Hale, " the question is of comparatively trifling importance. It could not, there- fore, be expected that we should be very strenuous advo- cates or opponents of separation." But he thought that on the whole the best interests of both would be served by their remaining one State. The indifference of the Boston papers, particularly those of its own political persuasion, moved the " Argus " to wrath. In the issue for May 7, 1816, it remarked that the Boston Republican newspapers were zealous enough in advocating separation " whenever they expect to effect some party pur- pose. But when the people of Maine engage in good earnest in establishing their independence, then, indeed, are we abandoned by our Boston Republicans — we no longer have their aid. . . . Their illiberal and selfish policy has been fully evinced during the present discussion of separation. The ' Patriot,' the ' Chronicle,' and the ' Yankee' have pur- sued the most studious silence — have cautiously avoided saying anything that would give us the least aid. In fact the ' Centinel ' has been the only paper in Boston that has treated the subject with any degree of candor or fairness.^ If our Republican brethren in Boston are opposed to separa- tion, let them come out openly. If they are in favor, let them advocate it manfully — anything, however, but this shuffling, double-dealing policy." We get from this extract not a little light on the real sentiments of the politicians of Massachusetts proper. So long as the District was a part of the State there was not a little political capital to be made by the Republicans — or I The "Centinel" did not relish commendation by the " Argus," for it re- ferred thus to the matter : " The praises of the Thing in Portland have ever received our contempt, — its aJusc is intitled to our acknowledgements" (May 18). The " Argus " the following week took back its compliment and tendered to the editor of the " Centinel " " the homage of our indignation and coutempt." 1907.] SEPARATION OP MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 147 Democrats — in standing by their fellow partisans in Maine. But if there were any real chance for the success of the separationists, the result of that success would be to put them in a hopeless minority in State affairs. Under the unamended Constitution of Massachusetts the election of governor and senators was held on " the first Monday of April," but representatives were chosen on vari- ous days "in the month of May, ten days at least before the last Wednesday of the month." At both elections all political issues were disregarded and the question of separa- tion only was considered. A large majority of the senators and representatives chosen in the District were in favor of separation. On the 20th of May 17,075 votes were given on the important question, — 10,584 in favor, 6,491 opposed. The whole number of legal voters in the District was 37,938. Less than one-half of them, therefore, went to the polls, — a strange circumstance, considering the eager and even im- perative character of the canvass that preceded the election. A possible explanation may be found in the fact that the advocates of separation declared — although urging every man to vote — that those who did not vote should properly be reckoned as favoring the change, and that the opponents maintained that those who refrained from voting should be counted as opposed to it. The General Court met on the 29th of May. The Sen- ate consisted of 22 Federalists and 18 Democrats. The House had about 350 Federalists and 800 Democrats. Gov- ernor Brooks delivered his address on the 5th of June, but made no mention of the project of a division of the Com- monwealth. On the next day, the 6th, the subject was brought before the House, and a committee was elected by ballot to take the matter into consideration. The committee chosen consisted of Messrs. Gorham of Boston, Fay of Cam- bridge, Saltonstall of Salem, Lawrence of Groton, Hubbard of Boston, and Howard of Newburyport. These gentlemen had 157 votes out of about 300. " Several tickets were voted for," said the " Chronicle," " but the above was supported by the advocates of separation from [sio'] Maine." The Sen- ate members of the committee were Messrs. Harrison Gray Otis of Suffolk, Dudley L. Pickman of Essex, Timothy Fuller of Middlesex, John Pickering of Essex, and Thomas 148 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, Weston of Plymouth. It will be seen that the committee consisted entirely of senators and representatives of Massa- chusetts proper. The committee reported to the Senate, on June 13, a bill giving the consent of Massachusetts to the erection of the State, providing for the election of delegates to a conven- tion to form a constitution, and prescribing the terms of separation. Mr. Otis accompanied the bill with a long writ- ten report, which Mr. John Holmes immediately charac- terized as one of the ablest state papers he had ever heard. Mr. Otis suggested, in his report, that the returns of the May vote implied indifference, and if that alone were con- sidered the result would not justify any measures tending ever so remotely to exclude a great number from the gov- ernment which seemed to suit them. But the committee is satisfied " that no conclusion uniformly applicable to the sentiments and motives of the citizens who absented them- selves from the town meeting can be drawn from the mere fact of their absence." He gives the reasons for this opinion, and says that while the committee did not wish to encour- age separation, on the contrary hoped that it would not take place, they " cannot resist the persuasion that some other means for ascertaining the deliberate sense of the people in that district have become expedient." To do otherwise would probably excite a spirit of discontent and a sense of injustice, and cause bitterness that ought not to be aroused. On the other hand, a readiness manifested by Massachusetts to remove all obstacles to a fair result must be accepted as a pledge of her magnanimity and candor. Under the bill reported by the committee the people of Maine were to elect delegates to a convention which was to meet in Brunswick on the 26th of August. If a majority of the delegates should be in favor of separation, that fact was to be taken as proof that the people wished to dissolve their connection with Massachusetts, and the convention was to proceed to form a constitution. The conditions im- posed by Massachusetts concerned a great variety of matters, — the ownership of public property, the State debt, the relations of the two States to Bowdoin College, the division of the public lands in the District, and the question of the taxation of that part of the lands which would be owned 1907.] SBPAEATION OP MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 149 by Massachusetts, — these and other matters that need not be mentioned. The bill required that the conditions should be adopted by the convention and become ipso facto a part of the constitution of Maine. That phrase ipso facto was used sarcastically, with how much effect cannot be guessed, by the opponents of separation in the ensuing campaign as one of their arguments against the acceptance of the permission to create a new State. No doubt it did frighten some ignorant voters. The bill, reported to the Senate on June 13, was consid- ered on the 14th, when several amendments were adopted. One of these amendments in the end caused the failure of the movement. It was originally provided that " the said convention when organized as aforesaid shall have the au- thority to declare, by the majority of the delegates chosen, the assent of the people of said District to be formed into a separate and independent State." The amendment re- ferred to struck out this clause and others dependent on it, and provided that the people should vote again on the first Monday in September (the 2d) upon the direct question whether they wished to be formed into a new State; that they should at the same time choose delegates to a conven- tion to be held at Brunswick on the last Monday in Sep- tember (the 30th) ; that the convention after organizing should count the votes expressive of the people's wishes, " and if it shall appear to said convention that a majority of five to four at least of the votes returned are in favor of said District's becoming an independent State, then and not otherwise said convention shall proceed to form a con- stitution as provided in this act." It is a part of the singular history of this agitation that the foregoing amendment was offered in the Senate by the Hon. John Holmes.^ Mr. Holmes, who represented York County, was the foremost member of the Maine delegation in the legislature, and the leading Democrat in the District of Maine. He was elected a member of Congress that year, was transferred to the Senate in 1820 as one of the first senators from Maine, and served in that body, with an in- terval of a year, until 1833. In view of his authorship of the "five to four" clause his subsequent course in the Bruns- 1 See " Columbian Centinel," October 12, 1816. 150 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, wick convention, to be narrated presently, is an admirable illustration of the political ethics of the man — some would say of the party, some, even, of the time. The Senate passed the bill on the 15th of June by a vote of 35 to 1. The negative vote was given by the Hon. Josiah Quincy.^ The bill went to the House of Represen- tatives, where a determined effort was made to defeat it by a motion to postpone the bill until the next session. A long debate took place on this proposition, which is sum- marized in the " Centinel." The only passage which it is necessary to quote is this, from the argument of the separa- tionists : " that the bill as amended in the Senate was cal- culated to i-emove all remaining doubts as to the sentiments of the people of Maine on the subject " — as a vote was to be taken — " and if five-ninths of the votes are not in favor of the separation, then the subject and all measures respect- ing it are to sleep forever." The reference to five-ninths of the votes is explained hereafter. The motion to post- pone was rejected, 118 to 58. The next day the bill was passed to be engrossed by a vote of 107 to 51.^ Students of the history of parliamentary procedure will be interested in the fact that on June 19, after the bill had passed both branches in concurrence, the matter was taken up again in the Senate, when the bill was not before it ; two amend- ments were adopted and were sent by Mr. Otis, conveying the message, to the House, which also adopted them. The storm burst forth in Maine immediately upon the pas- sage of the act. The election upon which everything depended was to take place in eleven weeks, and although the people were already greatly excited they were stirred to even greater activity. The newspapers discussed the question with enlarg- ing headlines, and their pages became spotty with capital letters and italics. Mass meetings and conventions were called and held by both parties in all parts of the District. The advocates of separation had been so much more active in the past that they had little new to offer by way of argument. The oppo- nents, on the other hand, found several new reasons, — ■ some 1 " Josiah Quincy, who onceattempted in Congress to impeach Mr. Jefferson, was again in a minority of one on the Separation Question in the Massachusetts Senate." {" Boston Patriot.") 2 It will be remembered that the House consisted of 650 members. The Tote illustrates the system of absenteeism that preYailed. 1907.] SEPARATION OP MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 151 of them of not a little weight, others silly and frivolous. One opponent suggested that separation was " the offspring of British influence." Great Britain was soon again to make war on the United States, and if Maine were a separate State " she would be subjugated to the English crown aiid formed into a little kingdom. " That may be set down as one of the humors of the agitation. Rather more reasonable was the contention by the members of the legislature from Lincoln, Hancock, and Washington coun- ties — along the coast — who were opposed to separation, that the erection of a new State within the limits of another was forbidden by the Constitution of the United States. The clause reads, with the official punctuation : " New states may be admitted by the congress into this union ; but no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state ; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures concerned as well as of the congress." There is certainly good ground for maintaining that the three clauses are distinct, that the second is an absolute prohibition, and that the use of the plural " legislatures " limits to cases where two or more States are concerned the permission to form new States, and therefore excludes all cases where the consent of one legislature only is to be obtained. However, except in the discussion in Maine itself, this point was never raised. The argument of the opposition which had the most effect, except in the coast counties where the shipping question was chiefly discussed, was that the terms proposed by Massachu- setts were unsatisfactory. Objection was made to the division of State property, but particularly to a provision that the share of Massachusetts in the public lands in Maine should not be taxed so long as the Commonwealth retained the ownership. It was urged upon the voters that Massachusetts might lease the land for long terms of years and thus enable the tenants to avoid taxation. Only the most prejudiced persons could have believed that the Commonwealth would descend to such a measure, but the argument had its effect. How did the Boston newspapers, which undoubtedly repre- sented public opinion, regard the agitation ? Apparently they took but the slightest interest in it and did not interfere in any 152 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, way. There are only a few scattered references to the subject in any Boston newspaper of either party, from June to Sep- tember, 1816. The only important editorial expression in that time is an article in the Boston " Daily Advertiser " of July 26. " Nor do we think," Mr. Hale remarked, " that we in this part of the state are entirely without an interest in the decision; though the effects of this measure must be much less on us than on our brethren in the District. Their decision, however, will be made without any reference to our interests or wishes ; and we are not disposed to exercise any influence on them other than to state very briefly and as candidly as possible our views of the proposed measure." He then went on to give the rea- sons why he thought the separation to be inexpedient from the Maine point of view : (1) that there was uo necessity for it, no grievance, no real inconvenience in the existing situation ; (2) that a large State was better than a small one, and that, for example, Rhode Island would be better off if it were a part of Massachusetts ; (3) that the fact of remoteness from the cap- ital was an argument of little weight ; (4) that the expense of carrying on the new State would be burdensome. Evidently Mr. Hale did not enter into the feelings of the people of Maine. If the arguments he advanced had been the strongest that could be adduced, the vote for separation would have been little short of unanimous. The " Advertiser " did again refer to the agitation. Some separationists having preferred an absurd charge that the con- nection with Massachusetts had bankrupted the Maine banks, because the Massachusetts banks sent the bills of the Maine banks home for redemption, and compelled specie payment, the "Advertiser" on August 3 defended the practice, and showed that the discount on Maine bank bills was from one- quarter of one per cent to one per cent. On the 2d of September the contest came to an end between those who were hankering for oflBces which were not theirs, according to the anti-separationists, and the oflBce holders and those who were hoping for office, according to the sepa- rationists. The returns came in slowly. The group of towns first reported showed a majority of more than " five to four," but within a day or two the numbers were less favorable. When fifty-eight towns had been heard from, the Portland " Gazette " remarked, with exultant sarcasm, " it is greatly to 1907.] SEPARATION OF MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 153 be feared that we shall be under the necessity of continuing our ' vassalage ' to old Massachusetts. " The vote continued close to the end, but there was always a deficiency of the necessary majority. The final ofiicial vote was 11,969 yeas, 10,317 noes. Evidently this was not " five to four." Five- ninths of the total vote, 22,316, is 12,398; four-ninths is 9,918. Four hundred and twenty-nine men had voted the wrong way. But the separationists were not the men to give it up so. The convention was to meet anyway, they had elected a large majority of the delegates, and they had the able and ingenious John Holmes of Alfred for a leader. Some of the delegates were not disposed to attend the convention, as they thought there was nothing to do but to count the votes and adjourn. But the separationists. urged every man to be there, and the opponents had too much experience to be caught napping. The convention assembled in the meeting-house at Bruns- wick on the 30th of September. There was a contest in the election of a president, but the result, 97 votes for William King and 85 for Ezekiel Whitman, was not a test of the strength of the two parties. Inasmuch as the proceedings were abortive, and since they have been published and sum- marized many times, it is not worth while to repeat them here. The only exception must be the singular attempt on the part of the committee to which the returns of the popular vote were referred to make it appear that the condition of " a ma- jority of five to four at least " had been met. The state of the vote has already been given, — 11,969 yeas, 10,347 nays. The committee, of which John Holmes was chairman, — it will be remembered that he was the mover of the amendment in the Massachusetts Senate, — professed to find great difficulty in determining the interpretation of the phrase, but had no diffi- culty in interpreting it in different ways. The method which commended it to the committee was this : the aggregate ma- jority in the towns voting yes was 6,031 ; the aggregate adverse majority in the towns voting no was 4,409. Now, as five is to four, so is 6,031 to 4,829. Consequently the noes failed by 420 to cast the requisite number. This absurd report was accepted by the convention after protracted debate. If the separationists had had faith in their own interpreta- tion, they would have proceeded to form a constitution. Some 20 154 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [JuuB^ of them were in favor of so doing, but that policy was aban- doned. It is well known, and was asserted at the time without contradiction, that many of the separationists voted for the re- port, not because they accepted its remarkable arithmetic, but in the hope that the General Court, in consideration of the fact that a considerable majority had voted for separation, would instruct the convention to reassemble and proceed with its work. The report as it was originally drawn and adopted was much more aggressive than in its final form. The convention at first voted that if the legislature soon to be in session should, " as they undoubtedly will, confirm this construction " of the five to four clause, " much dispute would be prevented " ; but if, " contrary to all reasonable expectation, the decision should be unfavorable, we could, at an adjourned session, determine for ourselves, and carry the act into full effect agreeably to our own understanding of its provisions." All the foregoing was struck out of the report after a reconsideration of its adoption had been carried on motion of Mr. Holmes. Another pas- sage, which was also struck out, was as follows : " But should Massachusetts give an unfavorable interpretation of the act, or refuse to modify it as justice requires. Congress would decide whether we have not complied with the conditions upon which the consent of Massachusetts was obtained." The separationists and their opponents each adopted a me- morial to the legislature in which they argued their respective cases, and the convention adjourned, never to meet again. The attempt to override and disi'egard the condition im- posed by the General Court seems to have caused a revulsion of feeling in old Massachusetts. The people in that part of the State, as we have seen, had previously been conciliatory, had acceded to the frequent requests to test public sentiment in the District, and had refrained from all acts and words that would influence the result. But this performance of the sep- arationists was too much for them. The "Worcester Spy" ^ said, contemptuously, that Mr. Holmes's plea was " a mode of cal- culation which in a schoolboy would merit a flogging." The "Centinel"^ indignantly exclaimed, "Maine shall not be independent." The " Daily Advertiser " ^ said : " We have heard the report repeatedly spoken of by gentlemen of both 1 October ^6, 1816. " October 19. » October 17. 1907.] SEPAEATION OF MAINE PEOM MASSACHUSETTS. 155 political parties, and by those who wish the separation to take place as well as by those opposed to it, and they uni- formly regard it as one of the most contemptibly absurd documents that ever received the sanction of a public body of men." The interest in the matter is shown — and also the feel- ing of some people in the Massachusetts community at least, on the general question of the connection — by the appearance of communications in the newspapers. One of these com- munications, which appeared in the "Advertiser" of Octo- ber 19, over the signature of "Cato," is so plain spoken that a considerable extract from it is given : " The truth is that the question of the separation of the District of Maine, though in terms acknowledged to be important, has not excited much interest in this part of the Commonwealth. It actually occa- sioned less discussion in the Legislature than a petty dispute about moving a half-toll turnpike gate. The District has been considered as a sort of nursling, whose support cost more than its services were worth. The peculiar situation of that country has been such as to give us a great deal of trouble, and to compel us in some instances to make general laws such as would never have been thought expe- dient or just had we legislated only for Massachusetts proper. It has been apprehended that there would be such an increase of the population of the District as that the question would be, according to the current phrase, not whether we should set oflF them, but whether they would set off us — and that possibly the seat of government might be removed to some place in the District. The Federalists have feared also for the ascendancy of their party, and that such a dead weight around our necks would soon drag us down to democracy. The citizens of this Commonwealth generally have felt a sort of pique occasioned by the clamor for separation in the District, and have said, ' if these people think they are oppressed, and are so anxious to get away from us, we can do very well without them, let them take their own course, run and be glorified.'" The writer then goes on in a calm and reasonable tone to argue that so great a change ought not to be made unless there was a strong majority in favor of it, that the terms were proposed at the instance of the separationists them- selves, and that justice to the minority required that, as the terms had not been met, the change should not be made. Another correspondent, in the issue of October 23, main- 156 MASSACHUSETTS HISTOEIOAL SOCIETY. [JuNB, tained that Massachusetts, by reason of the diverse sentiments of the people of the State proper and the District, had been deprived of its proper political weight, and he attributed the loss to the influence of the delegates from Maine ; " and that while Massachusetts exercised but a feeble, ineffectual moral and political authority over Maine, the latter was constantly weakening the respect for the government of Massachusetts, and gradually impairing the force and influ- ence of the laws by withdrawing from them their only real support in a free country, public opinion ; . . . that the un- principled majority in Maine, effecting a junction with their natural allies in Massachusetts proper, will finally endanger, if not overthrow, the literary, religious, and political institu- tions of the state." ^ This correspondent thought separation was inevitable, and he favored letting Maine go anyway, disregarding the actual state of the votes oij the question and " the insolent, unjust, and ridiculous ground assumed, by the convention at Brunswick. . . . Ph3'sically we still re- tain the people of Maine in a sort of subordination not much worse than that in which they have heretofore been held. For it is well known that for ten years past the laws have been regularly and unremittedly resisted in some of the barbarous parts of that semi-civilized District." All this was uncomplimentary enough to the people of the District. It is language that may usually be applied to the half-lawless condition of pioneer communities remote from the authority of courts. But it does give an explanation of the attitude toward separation of a considerable body of men in Boston. Nor is it difficult to detect in both of the com- munications cited a flavor of party politics — an apprehension on the part of Federalists that if Maine continued to be a part of the Commonwealth the power would soon pass to the Democrats. It is rather remarkable that neither the Boston "Chron- icle " nor the " Patriot " made any comment whatever upon the doings of the Brunswick convention for more than a month after its adjournment. The only reference to the 1 The remark last quoted explains tlie solicitude with which the General Court provided that in the constitution which was to be formed for Maine the charter of Bowdoin College was not to be amended without the consent of the legislatures of both States. 1907.] SEPAEATION OP MAINE FKOM MASSACHUSETTS. 157 affair was printed in the "Patriot" of November 16. That Democratic paper, speaking a good word for Holmes, said : " The writer of these remarks entirely differs from the fi-amers of that report in the interpretation of the law of June last." The General Court met on November 13. Governor Brooks, in his speech, referred to the subject of separation in a conciliatory tone. The two peoples were of the same origin, educated in the same principles, had fought side by side. " May no root of bitterness spring up to alienate their affections, whether united or separate. Judging from the ingenuous and dispassionate manner in which the subject has been hitherto discussed in your respective houses, we may confidently hope that wisdom will mark its future progress." The committee of the Brunswick convention deputed to bring the matter to the attention of the legisla- ture, consisting of Albion K. Parris, John Davis, W. P. Preble, and John Chandler, called upon Governor Brooks to express their thanks to him for the delicate and courteous tone of his speech. Moreover, in their memorial to the legislature the}' said, with reference to the movement for separation, " it has often been the subject of the delibera- tions of the legislature, and we owe it to the people of Massa- chusetts thus publicly to acknowledge that it has always received prompt attention, and that the course adopted with respect to it has been uniformly liberal and magnanimous." The foregoing account of the proceedings, covering a period of more than thirty years, shows that this acknowledgment was just and true. Yet Mr. Blaine, speaking in the Senate of the United States on January 22, 1878, when presenting to the government the statue of William King said that the movement " had been resisted in Massachusetts, always with firmness, often with offensive arrogance." It is a pity that Senators Dawes and Hoar were not provided with the facts that would have corrected this perversion of history. The memorial from the Brunswick convention and a great number of remonstrances against separation were referred to the same committee that reported the bill at the June session. The committee took an unusually long time to consider the matter and did not report until December 3. As before, Mr. Otis made the report. The committee had "no hesitation" in rejecting the construction of the act by 158 MASSACHUSETTS HISTOEICAL SOCIETY, [June, the convention. It argued in temperate language that the question ought not to be revived by that General Court. There seeined to be no evidence that the tide in favor of separation had been greatly if at all augmented, and in any event no time would be lost, as Congress would not be in session long enough to act upon the question of admitting the State. The committee reported two resolutions : " that the contingency upon which the consent of Massachusetts was to be given for the separation of Maine has not yet hap- pened, and that the powers of the Brunswick convention to take any measures tending to that event have ceased "; and " that it is not expedient for the present General Court to adopt any further measures in regard to the separation of the District of Maine." The report was accepted by the Senate, and the resolutions were adopted, on the next day, December 4, without debate; and the House concurred unanimously on the same day. That was the end of the movement in 1816. A few days later, December 11, the " Daily Advertiser " remarked that "the manner in which the question of separation was settled by the legislature seems to meet with general appro- bation. Indeed it was hardly opposed by the most strenuous separationists in the legislature, of whom a considerable num- ber were members of the Brunswick convention." No mention of the subject of separation occurs in the legislative journals for 1817-1818 or 1818-1819, save that a committee was appointed in 1817 to inquire into the expe- diency of paying the expenses of the Brunswick convention. The committee reported that it was inexpedient to take any action thereon, and the report was accepted. Nor for nearly two years was there any renewal of the agitation in Maine. In the spring of 1819 the movement was started again and quickly acquired great momentum. A committee of the Maine members of the legislature issued an address, April 19, to the people of the District, urging them, in the selection of representatives, to choose none but supporters of separation. They also urged that the towns petition for separation in their corporate capacity. At the annual elec- tions party differences were extinguished, and the sole issue was separation. Every senator elected from the District was in favor of separation, and of 127 representatives chosen 1907.] SEPARATION OP MAINE FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 159 by 89 towns, 114 were in favor of separation and only 13 opposed. Both these numbers were subsequently increased by later returns. A great number of towns voted to petition the General Court in their corporate capacity. The opposi- tion was successful in only a few cases. The petitions began to pour into the State House on May 27, 1819, only a day or two after the meeting of the General Court. No less than 94 such petitions were received by the Senate from the House of Representatives on the 31st. The committee to which the subject was referred con- sisted of Josiah Quincy of Suffolk, William King of Lincoln, William Moody of York, Jonathan H. Lyman of Hamp- shire, Leverett Saltonstall of Essex, and Benjamin Gorham of Suffolk, on the part of the Senate; and Messrs. Lewis of Gorham, Greenleaf of Quincy, Lawrence of Groton, Red- dington of Vassalborough, Moseley of Newburyport, Peabody of Boston, Leland of Roxbury, and Ames of Bath, on the part of the House. It will be seen that two of the six senators, and three of the eight representatives, were taken from the Maine delegation. A strong impression was made upon the community by the evident preponderance of the separation sentiment. On the 1st of June the " Daily Advertiser " remarked that the division of the State was the most important subject to be considered at that session ; that the disproportion between the number of petitioners and that of remonstrants " leaves little doubt that a very large proportion of the people of Maine are now in favor of separation " ; and that it was impossible for the legislature " to shut their eyes to these indications of the disposition of the people of Maine, or to refuse taking all proper measures for indulging them." Mr. Quincy brought in to the Senate the report of the committee on June 9. Although he was the reporter, it is quite evident, from his subsequent course, that he neither wrote the report nor assented to it. The report is a simple, moderate statement, — we may say an inevitable conclusion from the circumstances as they existed. The committee was convinced that nothing should be done by the legislature to hasten separation. On the contrary, they would gladly strengthen and promote the union that existed. The Com- monwealth was called upon to relinquish one-third of its 160 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [June, citizens and more than a half of its territory. " But your committee have not been deterred by these considerations from listening to the prayer of the petitioners, and from recommending such measures as they deem just and ex- pedient, however they regret the present application." They refer to" the opinion, "now almost universal," that the sep- aration must take place at a day not far distant. They found that there were 130 petitions for separation and only 5 against it. " They believe that to reject so many peti- tions, so far from having a tendency to allay the desire for a separation, would excite agitation and discontent." They regarded the present time as peculiarly favorable for ascertain- ing the real wishes of the people of Maine, as the situation was altogether tranquil and peaceful, and believed that there would never be a better time for submitting the matter to a test. The bill reported followed in general the lines of the act of 1816. The terms on which the consent of Massachusetts was to be given were slightly changed — the separationists in Maine declared that they were more favorable to the proposed new State than those in the earlier act; the oppo- nents asserted vehemently that they were even less favorable than those that had been rejected. In point of fact there were modifications in both directions, but not important either way. The process by which the new State was to come into being was nevertheless greatlj- changed. A general vote was to be taken on the fourth Mondaj' in July (26th), on the question whether it was expedient that Maine should be- come a separate and independent State. The votes were to be returned to the Secretary of the Commonwealth and counted by the Governor and Council, " and if the number of votes for the measure shall exceed the number of votes against it by fifteen hundred, then and not otherwise the people shall be deemed to have expressed their consent and agreement" to the separation. Then the governor was to proclaim the result, and thereupon an election was to take place on the third Monday in September (21st) of delegates to a convention to meet in Portland on the second Monday in October (12th), to adopt a name for the new State and to form a constitution. This having been done, the convention was to submit the constitution to popular vote, and if it were 1907.] SEPARATION OP MAINE FKOM MASSACHCTSETTS. 161 adopted by a majority of the people, it was to come into effect, Congress concurring, on the loth of March, 1820. If tlie constitution should be rejected, the constitution of Massa- chusetts, so far as it was applicable, would become the con- stitution of Maine, until changed in due form, but the name chosen for the State was to stand in any event. Pro- vision was made for the continuance in office of those who then occupied the offices until the legislature of Maine ordered otherwise, and for the holding of courts. The laws of Massachusetts were to be the laws of Maine until amended or repealed. The president of the convention was to act as governor until a governor should be chosen. The Senate began the consideration of the measure on June 11, when Mr. Quincy moved to recommit it to the committee with instructions to report a bill providing for a vote of all the people of the Commonwealth on the question " Is it expedient that the District of Maine should become a separate and independent state ? " He supported this motion in a speech which is summarized in the " Daily Advertiser." It was directed wholly to the constitutional question whether it was competent for the legislature to give its consent to the division of the State. He was supported in his argument by Mr. Bannister of Essex. The speakers on the other side were Senators Moodj'^ of York, King of Lin- coln, and Gorham of Suffolk. The motion was rejected, 12 to 24. In the affirmative were three Essex and three Worcester Senators, and one each from Suffolk, Middlesex, Plymouth, Hampshire, Norfolk, and Berksliire. The debate was contin- ued through the 12th and 14th (Monday). Amendments were proposed and rejected to require a two-thirds vote of the people of Maine in favor of separation, and a majority of 2,500 instead of 1,500. When the question came on pass- ing the bill to be engrossed, Mr. Quincy made a speech over two hours in length against the bill, which the " Daily Advertiser" characterized as " able, clear, and forcible," and Mr. Saltonstall one equally long in favor of the bill, which the same authority pronounced to be " ingenious and elo- quent." The bill was then passed by 26 votes to 11. All the nine senators from Maine were present and voted yes, but the bill had an ample majority without their votes. Politi- cally, the " Advertiser " says that the minority consisted of 21 162 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [JuNB, three Republicans and eight Federalists. Four senators who had supported Mr. Quincy's amendment to take a vote of all the people, voted for the passage of the bill. The House of Representatives began the consideration of the bill on the 16th. Mr. Rand of Boston proposed Mr. Quincy's amendment, but it was rejected, 83 to 168. On this vote, it is astonishing to record, there were 132 votes from Maine and only 119 from Massachusetts proper. The num- bers were : Yeas Nays Massachusetts proper 63 56 Maine 20 112 ~83 l68 On the next day, after a long debate, the bill was passed by a vote of 193 to 59. As the total number of votes given on the passage of the bill differed by one only from that on the amendment, it is probable that on this occasion also the Maine vote was the larger. But as the Maine opponents stood firm to the end, the majority of Massachusetts members in favor of the bill was greatly increased. Governor Brooks approved the act on June 19. If public sentiment in Massachusetts had been indifferent or mildly favorable to a division of the State prior to the final act and during the consideration of the bill by the legislature, it was aroused against it when opposition was too late. From the middle of June until the day in July when the vote was taken, the newspapers of Boston contained many communica- tions and editorial articles on tlie subject. It was universally recognized that the decision rested entirely with the people of Maine, and there was no attempt at or suggestion of bullying them. But they were appealed to strongly to remember the glories of the State which had been won by them in common with the citizens of Massachusetts proper, were assured of the good will of their old fellow citizens, were told that they had no real grievances, and were warned against taking a leap in the dark. Correspondents of the several newspapers argued against the constitutionality of the act consenting to the sep- aration. There were also communications reproaching the members of the legislature for their easy surrender to the pe- titioners from Maine ; and others lamenting the pitiable state into which the Commonwealth was about to fall and the low 1907.] SEPARATION OP MAINE PKOM MASSACHUSETTS. 163 rank which it was about to assume among the States of the Union. Almost all the references to the coming separation were of this character. So far as can be judged from them, the general feeling was one of regret at a decision which it had become too late to reverse. It would be diflBcult to sum- marize intelligibly the several utterances in the newspapers, which were most of them long and wordy ; still more diflBcult, without occupying too much space, to give quotations from them. In Maine the separationists entered upon their brief cam- paign with the certainty of approaching victory. Their oppo- nents showed more vigor than confidence, but they struggled bravely to the end. The Portland " Gazette " was, as before, the leader of the opposition, and its last issue before the vote was given was devoted almost entirely to the subject, in broad columns and display type. Squibs, anecdotes, argu- ments, appeals, covered its pages.^ Among serious and sound arguments were some silly suggestions, as that Massachu- setts wished to get rid of Maine, that the District was in- creasing in population so greatly that Boston was afraid that Maine would soon be in control, and that therefore it was for the interest of Maine to go slowly. It was evident, as soon as the earliest returns were received, that separation was triumphant. Every county in the Dis- trict gave a majority in favor of independence, ranging from 63 in Hancock to 3,809 in Kennebec. The proclama- tion of Governor Brooks announced the numbers as 17,091 in favor, and 7,132 opposed, — a majority of almost ten thou- sand, and much more than the two-thirds which had been proposed in a hostile amendment. The governor called upon the people to elect delegates on the third Monday in Sep- tember to meet in convention at Portland on the second Monday in October. 1 For example : " Separation must go," said a wag to his fellow, As quaffing they sat and had made themselves mellow. " Go where 1 " said a third as he rested from smoking, " Are you truly in earnest, or are you but joking ? " " I 'm as truly in earnest," he poutingly muttered, " As in any opinion that ever I uttered." " Why, then," said the other, " like you, I 'm a prophet, ' Separation must go,' I assure you, to Tophet ! " 164 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. [JuNE, As soon as the question was decided, the antagonisms that had existed while the controversy proceeded, were laid aside. Those who had been conspicuous in opposing the separation acquiesced graciously, and urged all to unite in laying deep and strong the foundations of the new State. The convention met on October 11. Daniel Cony of Augusta was the temporary chairman, and William King of Bath the permanent president. In accordance with the act he subsequently became acting governor, and was the first elected governor of Maine. There was a contest over the name of the new State. Columbus was suggested,^ and also Ligonia, but Maine was the preference of a great majority of the delegates. By a majority of six, 119 to 113, "State" was preferred to "Commonwealth," and on a re- consideration the majority was nearly forty. There were some earnest debates in the convention upon certain provis- ions of the constitution, but there was little or no acrimony in the discussion. The session lasted a little more than a fortnight. The constitution was adopted by a vote of 236 to 30, and was signed by the members; and the convention adjourned, October 29. The popular vote on the adaption of the constitution, as officially reported to the convention at its adjourned session, January 6, 1820, was 9,050 in favor and 796 against. More than a thousand votes, of which only 77 were against the adoption of the constitution, were not counted, on account of irregularities. The struggle in Con- gress over the admission of Maine as a separate State, and the complication of the question with that of the admission of Missouri, form no appropriate part of this narrative. Pres- ident Monroe signed the Maine bill on March 3, and on March 15, 1820, the separation from Massachusetts became complete. Attention was called to two serials of the Proceedings which were on the table for distribution, — the first covering the meetings for January, February, and March, and the second containing the record of the April and May meetings ; and it was stated that bound copies of the twentieth volume of the second series of the Proceedings would probably be ready for 1 Because the convention first met on the anniversary of the day when Columbus first discovered signs of land. 1907.] REMARKS BY MEMBERS. 165 distribution in July ; and it was hoped that Judge Chamber- lain's History of Chelsea would be ready for publication in October. Remarks were also made during the meeting by Eev. Dr. Edward E. Hale and by Messrs. Arthur Lord, Andrew MoF. Davis, and William R. Ltvbrmorb. After the adjournment the members and a small number of invited guests were entertained at luncheon by the President in the Ellis Hall.