EARLY ATTEMPTS AT UNION AND THE

UNION DE FACTO

FOURTH LECTURE

Delivered at Stanford University, April 2, 1894

I desire to call your attention first to some of the efforts that were made to effect a union of the English colonies in America, upon the basis of a continued allegiance to the British crown.

The first American confederation was of certain of the New England colonies, and took form in 1643. At that time New York, a Dutch province, intervened between New England and the middle and southern English colonies, while Canada, a French possession on the north, was a special menace to New England. Serious disputes as to settlements and boundaries had arisen with the Dutch; and the purpose of the French to restrict, if not to subdue, the English colonies, was not concealed. The Indians, especially the Narragansetts, a near and strong tribe, had become unfriendly and were threatening the settlements. The dangers were

common and imminent, and the conditions out of which they grew lasting. Not one campaign, but many; not the foreseen, but the unforeseen also, must be provided for. England was wasted by civil war; and the king was thinking of his crown, not of his provinces. His military resources were overtaxed in the defense of his prerogative at home and of his life. Neither English money nor English troops, neither English direction nor leadership was available to the New England colonies. The federation was as natural and reasonable as a block house in a frontier village. The articles of union were subscribed by the representatives of Massachusetts, New Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven. Rhode Island, with Connecticut and New Haven, had three years before united in a joint letter to the general court of Massachusetts, suggesting a confederation; but poor little Rhode Island, upon the spiteful objection of Massachusetts, was not allowed to enter the confederation that was formed. These articles of union are of great interest; but we have time to notice only a few of their most important provisions. A common name was assumed: "The United Colonies of New England." The things that are not said in these articles are quite as noticeable as the things that are said. No reference whatever is made to the crown, save by this recital in the preamble:

"And seeing by these sad distractions in England,

which they have heard of, and by which they know we are hindered from that humble way of seeking advice or reaping those comfortable fruits of protection which at other times we might well expect.”

Neither the taking effect of the articles nor the continuance of the confederation is made dependent upon the consent of the king. The confederation was not limited to the exigency described in the preamble, but was expressly declared to be perpetual. It was "for mutual help and strength in all our future concernments." The league was described as "a firm and perpetual" one; and, in the twelfth and last article, it is called "this perpetual confederation." It was instituted for "offense and defense, mutual advice and succor, upon all just occasions; both for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospel, and for their own mutual safety and welfare." If any one of the colonies should be invaded "by any enemy whomsoever" the other members of the confederation were required forthwith to send aid to the "confederate in danger." The expenses of the confederation were apportioned. Its affairs were to be managed by two commissioners from each colony, who were to bring from their respective general courts full power "to hear, examine, weigh and determine all affairs of our war or peace, leagues, aids, charges and numbers of men for war, division and spoils and whatsoever is gotten by conquest, receiving of more

confederates for plantations into combination with any of the confederates, and all things of like nature which are the proper concomitants of consequence of such a confederation, for amity, offense and defense." There was to be no intermeddling with the government of any of the jurisdictions, which by the third article is preserved entirely to themselves. Six of the eight commissioners were empowered to determine any matter presented; but if six did not agree, then the matter was to be referred to the general courts of the confederated colonies. The commissioners were to meet once every year; provision was made for extraordinary sessions and the places of meeting designated. No colony was allowed to declare or undertake a war, except upon sudden exigency, without the consent of the commissioners or of six of them.

But the purposes of the confederation were not, as I have said, limited by the occasion which suggested it, viz., the unfriendly and hostile attitude of their neighbors. The commission was required by the eighth article "to frame and establish agreements and orders in general cases of a civil nature wherein all the plantations are interested for preserving peace among themselves and preventing as much as may be all occasions of war or difference with others, as about the free and speedy passage of justice in every jurisdiction, to all the confederates equally as their own, receiving those that re

move from one plantation to another without due certificates." Provision was also made for the rendition of servants and of prisoners fleeing from one jurisdiction into another. The annexation, by royal decree, of New Haven to Connecticut extinguished one of the parties to this compact of government; but the agreement was revised and continued as a league of three colonies, with occasional meetings of the commissioners, until 1684, when the charter of Massachusetts was annulled. The united colonies, through the commissioners, exercised the sovereign power of war and peace, conducted negotiations with the Indians, the French and the Dutch, adjusted a boundary dispute between New Haven and New Netherland, and exercised the highest powers of government; and by this early experiment confirmed the opinion of the necessity and usefulness of a union of the colonies. The powers of the commissioners under this confederation were quite similar to the powers of the congress under the later confederation of the thirteen colonies. Both were leagues of friendship instituted for the general welfare and defense. The provision that no colony should engage in war, without the consent of the others, except upon an exigency, was quite like the article of the later confederation upon the same subject. The New England league has a suggestion also of the provision of the federal constitution that the citizens of each