American Institutions and Their Influence. Alexis de TocquevilleЧитать онлайн книгу.

17

Slavery was introduced about the year 1620, by a Dutch vessel, which landed twenty negroes on the banks of the river James. See Chalmer.

18

The states of New England are those situated to the east of the Hudson; they are now six in number: 1. Connecticut; 2. Rhode Island; 3. Massachusetts; 4. Vermont; 5. New Hampshire; 6. Maine.

19

"New England's Memorial," p. 13. Boston, 1826. See also "Hutchinson's History," vol. ii., p. 440

20

This rock is become an object of veneration in the United States. I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns of the Union. Does not this sufficiently show that all human power and greatness is in the soul of man? Here is a stone which the feet of a few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone becomes famous; it is treasured by a great nation, its very dust is shared as a relic; and what is become of the gateways of a thousand palaces?

21

"New England Memorial," p. 37.

22

The emigrants who founded the state of Rhode Island in 1638, those who landed at New Haven in 1637, the first settlers in Connecticut in 1639, and the founders of Providence in 1640, began in like manner by drawing up a social contract, which was submitted to the approval of all the interested parties. See "Pitkin's History," pp 42, 47.

23

This was the case in the state of New York.

24

Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, were in this situation. See Pitkin's History, vol. i., pp. 11-31.

25

See the work entitled, "Historical Collection of State Papers and other Authentic Documents intended as Materials for a History of the United States of America" by Ebenezer Hazard, Philadelphia, 1792, for a great number of documents relating to the commencement of the colonies, which are valuable from their contents and their authenticity; among them are the various charters granted by the king of England, and the first acts of the local governments.

See also the analysis of all these charters given by Mr. Story, judge of the supreme court of the United States, in the introduction to his Commentary on the Constitution of the United States. It results from these documents that the principles of representative government and the external forms of political liberty were introduced into all the colonies at their origin. These principles were more fully acted upon in the North than in the South, but they existed everywhere.

26

See Pitkin's History, p. 35. See the History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, by Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 9.

27

See Pitkin's History, pp. 42, 47.

28

The inhabitants of Massachusetts had deviated from the forms which are preserved in the criminal and civil procedure of England: in 1650 the decrees of justice were not yet headed by the royal style. See Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 452.

29

Code of 1650, p. 28. Hartford, 1830.

30

See also in Hutchinson's History, vol. i., pp. 435, 456, the analysis of the penal code adopted in 1648, by the colony of Massachusetts: this code is drawn up on the same principles as that of Connecticut.

31

Adultery was also punished with death by the law of Massachusetts; and Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 441, says that several persons actually suffered for this crime. He quotes a curious anecdote on this subject, which occurred in the year 1663. A married woman had had criminal intercourse with a young man; her husband died, and she married the lover. Several years had elapsed, when the public began to suspect the previous intercourse of this couple; they were thrown into prison, put upon trial, and very narrowly escaped capital punishment.

32

Code of 1650, p. 48. It seems sometimes to have happened that the judge superadded these punishments to each other, as is seen in a sentence pronounced in 1643 (New Haven Antiquities, p. 114), by which Margaret Bedford, convicted of loose conduct, was condemned to be whipped, and afterward to marry Nicolas Jemmings her accomplice.

33

New Haven Antiquities, p. 104. See also Hutchinson's History for several causes equally extraordinary.

34

Code of 1650, pp. 50, 57.

35

Ibid, p. 64.

36

Ibid, p. 44.

37

This was not peculiar to Connecticut. See for instance the law which, on the 13th of September, 1644, banished the ana-baptists from the state of Massachusetts. (Historical Collection of State Papers, vol. i., p. 538.) See also the law against the quakers, passed on the 14th of October, 1656. "Whereas," says the preamble, "an accursed race of heretics called quakers has sprung up," &c. The clauses of the statute inflict a heavy fine on all captains of ships who should import quakers into the country. The quakers who may be found there shall be whipped and imprisoned with hard labor. Those members of the sect who should defend their opinions shall be first fined, then imprisoned, and finally driven out of the province. (Historical Collection of State Papers, vol. i., p. 630.)

38

By the penal law of Massachusetts, any catholic priest who should set foot in the colony after having been once driven out of it, was liable to capital punishment.

39

Code of 1650, p. 96.

40

New England's Memorial, p. 316. See Appendix E.

41

Constitution of 1638, p. 17.

42

In 1641 the general assembly of Rhode Island unanimously declared that the government of the state was a democracy, and that the power was vested in the body of free citizens, who alone had the right to make the laws and to watch their execution. Code of 1650, p. 70.

43

Pitkin's History, p. 47.

44

Constitution of 1638, p. 12.

45

Code of 1650, p 80.

46

Code of 1650, p. 78.

47

Code of 1750, p. 94.

48

Ibid, p. 86.

49

See Hutchinson's History, vol. i. p. 455.

50

Ibid, p. 40.

51

Code of 1650, p. 90.

52

Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana, vol. ii., p. 13. This speech was made by Winthrop; he was accused of having committed arbitrary actions during his magistracy, but after having made the speech of which the above is a fragment, he was acquitted by acclamation, and from that time forward he was always re-elected governor of the state. See Marshall, vol. i., p. 166.

53

See Appendix F.

54

Crimes no doubt exist for which bail is inadmissible, but they are few in number.

55

See Blackstone; and Delolme, book i., chap. x.

56

The author is not quite accurate in this statement. A person accused of crime is, in the first instance, arrested by virtue of a warrant issued by the magistrate, upon a complaint granted upon proof of a crime having been committed by the person charged. He is then brought before the magistrate, the complainant examined in his presence, other evidence adduced, and he is heard in explanation or defence. If the magistrate is satisfied that a crime has been committed, and that the accused is guilty, the latter is, then, and then only, required to give security for his appearance at the proper court to take his trial, if an indictment shall be found against him by a Grand Jury of twenty-three of his fellow-citizens. In the event of his inability or refusal to give the security he is incarcerated, so as to secure his appearance at a trial.

In France, after the preliminary examination, the accused, unless absolutely discharged, is in all cases incarcerated, to secure his presence at the trial. It is the relaxation of this practice in England and the United States, in order