VI. THE INFLUENCE OF THE SCOTCH-IRISH PEOPLE UPON THE FORMATION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

THE science of government is a study full of interest from every standpoint of investigation. The nature and genius of a government cannot be correctly understood without a clear apprehension of the several elements which enter into the formation of the governmental structure. There are always antecedents of a marked and pronounced character which lead up to every great historical epoch, and these great events of human history must be carefully studied in the light of these antecedents, if they are to be properly understood.

The formation of the Government of the United States is the grandest and most distinguished achievement of human history. It has no parallel in any age or century. It is the outgrowth of principles which had to work their way through long periods of suffering and conflict. The logical and regulative structure of the principles of our government into an instrument, which we call our constitution, was the result of but a few months' labor; the principles themselves, however, had been struggling through martyrdom and blood for many generations.

To understand the government of the United States, the genius and character of the people who settled the several colonies must be carefully studied. Its most distinguishing feature is, that it is a government framed by the people for the people. It is their own conception of the best form of government to secure personal right and liberty.

In the present paper we propose to review the influence which the Scotch-Irish people exerted in various ways in the formation of our government. The inhabitants of the colonies up to 1776 were almost entirely an English-speaking people, coming from England, Scotland, and Ireland. The French Huguenot was not a large element in the settlement of the country, but it was a most important one. There was also a noble

body of settlers from Holland. These different classes of people all have an honorable part, worthy of themselves, in forming the government of our country.

When the government of the United States came into existence, as the voice of the people speaking through thirteen sovereign States, the world stood amazed at the daring and brilliant conception. Tyranny and oppression received a fatal blow in that glorious day, and human liberty found a permanent home in the hearts of three millions of American citizens. Many were the prophecies of its speedy downfall, but with the first century of its history it has taken the first place among the nations of the world. The principles of this government are no longer a matter of experiment, but, as a distinguished writer has said, "they are believed to disclose and display the type of institutions toward which, as by a law of fate, the rest of civilized mankind are forced to move, some with swifter, others with slower, but all with unhesitating feet."1

The causes which led to the formation of the American Government were foreign to the people of the colonies. They did not willingly break allegiance with the mother country. It was the oppressive measures of the British Crown which forced them. to declare their independence and construct a new government, if they would be freemen. But the birthday of constitutional liberty had come. A mysterious Providence had prepared a people, through long years of suffering and trial, for the glorious heritage, and had held in reserve a magnificent continent for their abiding place. The era of 1776 was not within the range of human conceptions or forecast, but there was above and behind it all a Divine Mind, bringing forward the day with all its stupendous revelations.

In considering the history of any people, it is a serious defect to leave out of view their religious conceptions, as expressed in their formulas of faith. Religion of necessity is the most powerful factor in the direction of human life. Mr. Carlyle has well said, "a man's religion is the chief fact with regard to him." In 1 Brice's American Commonwealth, Vol. I., p. 1.

2 Carlyle's Heroes, p. 4.

a Christian land, with an open Bible, this is preeminently true. With the American colonies, religious liberty was a question of not less vital importance than that of civil liberty. Their religious faith had a most powerful influence in forming their character, and they intended to be untrammelled in its exercise. From New Hampshire to Georgia they were Calvinists of the most pronounced type. Calvinism was their religious creed, and out of it sprung their political principles. This had been the creed of their ancestors from the days of the Reformation. It had stood the test of fire and sword for more than two hundred years. The principles of that wonderful system had permeated their whole being. It gave them intellectual strength and vigor. It intensified to the highest degree their individuality. It developed that integrity and force of character which no blandishments or persecutions could break down. He who puts a light estimate upon Calvinism knows little of its principles, and he knows little of the struggles which brave Calvinists have made in many lands for freedom. Motley speaks correctly when he says, "Holland, England and America owe their liberties to Calvinists." Ranke, the great German historian, as well as D'Aubigne, says, "Calvin was the true founder of the American government." Hume, Macaulay, Buckle, Froude, and Leckey, all affirm that it was the stern, unflinching courage of the Calvinistic Puritan that won the priceless heritage of English liberty. Scotland can never estimate what she owes to John Knox, the fearless embodiment of Calvinism in church and state. Mr. Bancroft makes the statement conspicuous, that it was the Calvinistic faith of the American colonies, which prompted them to resist the oppressions of the British Crown, and maintain the desperate struggle with unfaltering courage until the glorious victory was achieved.

The distinguishing feature of Calvinism as a theology is its representative character, holding that sin and guilt are the result of representation in Adam, and that redemption is the result of representation in Christ. The logical outworking of such a theology is a representative government, both in church and state. Calvinism is the chief corner-stone of the American republic.

It was the religious faith of the colonies that made them what

they were, and no adequate conception of their resistance to oppression, or their struggle for freedom, can be had, if this fact is left out of view. The settlers of the American colonies were worthy sons of noble sires. Their ancestors in the plantations of Ulster, in Scotland, in England, in Holland, and in France, had learned from their Calvinistic faith that resistance to tyranny was service to God. Calvinism is sometimes looked upon as a stern and severe religious faith; still, it is the faith that has produced the grandest men and women the world has ever known. This is the faith which breasted for centuries the most terrible conflicts and trials and sufferings, to secure for us the glorious heritage of constitutional liberty. Of these heroes, Mr. Froude has well said: "They were splintered and torn, but they ever bore an inflexible front to illusion and mendacity, and preferred rather to be ground to powder like flint than to bend before violence, or melt before enervating temptation."

In the memorable revolution of 1776, when the American colonies combined to form a government of their own, the ScotchIrish people, who formed a large part of the settlers of the central and southern colonies, bore a conspicuous part. In speaking of the Scotch-Irish people as transplanted from Ulster, in Ireland, to America, we have found it impossible to separate the Scotch and the Scotch-Irish. They are really one people. During the persecutions in Ireland, thousands of the people were forced to return to Scotland, and at a later date many of them emigrated to America. Often parts of the same families in Scotland and Ireland would join each other in the colonies. This is true of the Livingstons, the Hamiltons, the Wilsons, the Witherspoons, the Randolphs, the Grahams, and others. There is still another mixture in the veins of the Scotch-Irish people; many of them are known to be of Huguenot ancestry. The Caldwells, the Dunlaps, the Brysons, the Duffields, the Pickens, the Sumpters, and others, came from France to Scotland, thence to Ireland, and thence to America.

In estimating the influence of the Scotch-Irish in the formation of the government of the United States, two questions may be

'Aberdeen Address.

asked, "What was their religious creed, and what were their political ideas?" Their religious faith was Calvinism. In church government they were Presbyterians; in state government they were Republicans. These three ideas make Scotch-Irish men what they are. Always and everywhere they are the fearless and unflinching advocates of liberty, the determined and unfaltering foes of oppression. They are by nature a bold, courageous, and aggressive people.

At the time of the American Revolution the Scotch-Irish people must have formed near one-third of the entire population of the colonies. The tide of emigration became strong in the early part of the eighteenth century. As early as 1725 a large body of this people had settled in almost every colony. From this time onward, for a period of more than forty years, the steady flow of this people to the American colonies was something amazing. For many years there were never less than 12,000 landed annually at the different ports of the country; and for the two years after the Antrim evictions it is estimated the numbers ran up to 30,000 or more. They settled generally in the central and southern colonies. Some 20,000 or more, however, settled along the coast from Boston to the mouth of the Kennebec This distribution of the Scotch-Irish over the whole country made it possible for them to exert a most powerful influence, when the occasion should arise. So soon as they were settled down in their new homes, they organized themselves into churches and presbyteries, (for they were Presbyterians), and in 1717 a general synod was formed. By 1770 this delegated synod was the most powerful religious organization in the country. Indeed, it was the only organization which embraced all the colonies. The ministry were an able body of men, graduates of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Many of the elders were graduates of these institutions. This General Synod, with delegates coming from almost every colony, met every year under a written constitution, which they had adopted. This compact organization of able men, coming together annually as delegates from the territory of the several colonies, for a period of more than fifty years, was certainly a most powerful agency in preparing the way for a congress