sicians, the major part of the lawyers, nearly all the clergy, except those of the Episcopal faith, and a large number of young men eager for fortune and distinction in war. "Liberty Men" and "Sons of Liberty" belonged to this party. The whigs who engaged actively in the war for independence were called "patriots." Of the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies a majority were whigs. They were probably in the minority in some states, while in others they about equaled the tories. At the beginning of the war this party began to assume control of the civil and military affairs of the colonies, and throughout the struggle it directed the Continental Congress and the government of the states. The whigs contended for a cause as righteous as any that ever arrayed men in battle, and by their bravery and determination they broke the yoke of colonial vassalage and gained for the nations of the earth much of that which they gained for themselves. The whigs were a unit on resistance to England, but from the moment they came into full concert there appeared new elements of political dissension. (1) The smaller states were jealous of the larger, and, for the sake of harmony, compelled Massachusetts and Virginia to various sacrifices. (2) There was a rivalry between the New England states and the states south of Pennsylvania on the ground that the interests of one section were commercial and manufacturing, while those of the other were agricultural, being devoted to raising great staples for a foreign market. (3) Inclination to British tastes and a disposition to pattern after England was against a sympathy for France and the new French school of philosophy. (4) One portion of the inhabitants favored sovereignty in the colony or state, another portion favored it in the central government, union, or confederacy. These causes of divisions. are the germs of national political parties in America. In subsequent pages it will be seen that the latter element operated more powerfully than the others. (Plate VI.) THE TORY PARTY. The colonists who adhered to the crown during the Revolutionary War constituted the tory party. They were the antagonists of the whigs, and opposed them in halls of debate before the war began, and afterwards in the field of battle. Among the tories were royal officials, some eminent attorneys, numerous physicians, dependents of royal landholders, some who were conservative or neutral at the opening of hostilities, and those who, fearing the strength of Great Britain, believed that a "successful resistance to her power was impossible." The tories, or royalists, comprised a considerable number of the force employed to suppress the rebellion of the colonies. It is probable that more than twenty-five thousand royalists enlisted in the military service of England, and arrayed themselves against the patriots. The whig populace awed and punished the tories in various ways. Some were tarred and feathered; some were smoked, waylaid, mobbed, and insulted, while others were deprived of office and driven from home. Against them the assemblies of the states, according to the offense committed, enacted laws inflicting such penalties as death, exile, imprisonment, confiscation of property, loss of personal liberty for a limited period, disqualification from office, and transportation to a British possession. These laws were in force at the treaty of 1783, which made no provision for the royalists; they were neglected by those they had aided, and banished by those they had opposed. When the English troops withdrew from America, the royalists abandoned the United States, and became the founders of Upper Canada and New Brunswick. The exiles appealed to Parliament for relief, and after several years of delay, received fifteen and one-half millions of dollars. In addition to this, many of them obtained "annuities, half pay as military officers, large grants of land, and shared Those with other subjects in the patronage of the crown.” royalists whose opposition to the patriots had not been great were allowed to remain in the United States. The issue on which their party was based died with the Revolution, and the tory party ceased to exist in 1783. (Plate VI.) REFERENCES. Royalists of the American Revolution.. Life and writings of Washington........ Principles and Acts of the Revolutionary War......... Rise of the Republic of the United States................ Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams... History of the United States..... History of the United States......................... History of the United States.................. Mass. Hist. Society Collections. (Fifth series.) Life of Jefferson ... Life of Madison Historical View of the Revolution... History of Virginia........... History of the Revolution......... Life of Washington............................ History of the Constitution.... .Sabine. ...Sparks. Bancroft. Bancroft. Frothingham. ... Wells. .Schouler. ...Grahame. .Hamilton. Randall. .Rivers. ...Greene. Marshall. ...Curtis. Commentaries......... Public Journals of Congress (to March 3, 1789.) Secret Journals of Congress (domestic affairs 1774-88.) War between the States....... Lost Cause....... Other authorities on the constitution. Story. .....Stephens. ..Pollard. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776. THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such a government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations, till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature—a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large, for their exercise, the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; For imposing taxes on us without our consent; For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury; For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses; For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its |