13 - History of the United States, Vol. I by Charles Austin Beard, Mary Ritter Beard

Charles Austin Beard stands as one of the most pivotal American historians of the early 20th century, having penned hundreds of influential monographs, textbooks, and interpretive studies in history and political science. A proud graduate of DePauw University in 1898, he met and later married Mary Ritter Beard, a trailblazer in womens rights and one of the founders of Kappa Alpha Theta. Many of their works were collaborative efforts, reflecting their shared passions for feminism and labor movements, as seen in her notable book, *Woman as a Force in History* (1946). In 1921, the Beards released their groundbreaking *History of the United States*, which was praised for its innovative approach, treating topics thematically rather than chronologically. This method allowed for an exploration of movements, background contexts, and the interconnectedness of social, economic, and political forces. Their goal was to empower students to grasp the essence of American society and its place within global civilization. The books clarity and engaging style have established it as a top-tier resource for both students and the general public.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. History of the United States by
Charles A. Beard and Mary Ridderbeard, Part one, Part twelve.
Colonial relations with the British Government. It was neither the

(00:22):
Indian Wars nor the French Wars that finally brought forth
American nationality. That was the product of the long strife
with a mother country, which culminated in union for the
War of Independence. The forces that created this nation did
not operate in the colonies alone. The character of the
English sovereigns, the course of events in English domestic politics,

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and English measures of control over the colonies, executive, legislative,
and judicial, must all be taken into account. The last
of the Stuarts, the struggles between Charles the First sixteen
twenty five forty nine and the Parliamentary Party in the
turmoil of the Puritan regime sixteen forty nine to sixty

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so engrossed the attention of Englishmen at home that they
had little time to think of colonial policies or to
interfere with colonial affairs. The restoration of the monarchy in
sixteen sixty, accompanied by internal peace in the increasing power
of the mrcantile classes in the House of Commons changed
all that. In the reign of Charles the Second sixteen

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sixty to eighty five, himself an easy going person, the
policy of regulating trade by active parliament was developed into
a closely knit system, and powerful agencies to supervise the
colonies were created. At the same time, a system of
stricter control over the dominions was ushered in by the
annulment of the Old Charter of Massachusetts, which conferred so

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much self government on the Puritans. Charles's successor, James the Second,
a man of sterner stuff and jealous of his authority
in the colonies as well as at home, continued the
polony thus inaugurated and enlarged upon it. If he could
have kept his throne, he would have bent the Americans
under a harsh rule, or brought on in his dominions

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a revolution like that which he precipitated at home. In
sixteen eighty eight, he determined to unite the northern colonies
and introduce some more efficient administration based on the pattern
of the Royal provinces. He made a martinette. Sir Edmund Andros,
governor of all New England, New York, and New Jersey.
The charter of Massachusetts annulled in the last days of

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his brother's reign, he continued to ignore, and that of
Connecticut would have been seized if it had not been
spirited away and hidden, according to tradition, in a hollow oak.
For several months, Andros gave the northern colonies a taste
of ill tempered despotism. He run quit rents from landowners.
Not accustomed to feudal dues, he abrogated titles to land where,

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in his opinion, they were unlawful. He forced the Episcopal
service upon the Old South Church in Boston, and he
denied the rid of Habeas corpus to a preacher who
denounced taxation without representation. In the middle of his arbitrary course, however,
his hand was stayed. The news came that King James
had been dethroned by his angry subjects, and the people

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of Boston, kindling a fire on Beacon Hill, summoned the
countryside to dispose of Andros. The response was prompt and hearty.
The hated governor was arrested in prison and sent back
across the sea under guard. The overthrow of James, followed
by the accession of William and Mary, and assured by
parliamentary supremacy, had an immediate effect. In the colonies. The

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new order was greeted with thanksgiving. Massachusetts was given another charter, which,
though not so liberal as the first, restored the spirit,
if not the entire letter, of self government. In the
other colonies where Andros had been operating, the old course
of affairs was resumed the indifference of the two Georges.
On the death in seventeen fourteen of Queen Ane, the

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successor of King William, the throne passed to a Hanoverian
prince who, though grateful for English honors and revenues, was
more interested in Hanover than in England. George the First
and George the Second, whose combined reigns extended from seventeen
fourteen to seventeen sixty, never even learned to speak the
English language, at least without an accent. The necessity of

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taking thought about colonial affairs bored both of them, so
that the stoutest defender of popular privileges in Boston or
Charleston had no ground to complain of the exercise of
personal prerogatives by the king. Moreover, during a large part
of this period, the direction of affairs was in the
hands of an astute leader, Sir Robert Walpole, who betrayed

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his somewhat cynical view of politics by adopting as his motto,
let sleeping dogs lie. He revealed his appreciation of popular
sentiment by exclaiming, I will not be the minister to
enforce taxes at the expense of blood. Such kings and
such ministers were not likely to arouse the slumbering resistance
of the thirteen colonies across the sea. Control of the

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Crown over the colonies, while no English ruler from James
the Second to George the Third ventured to interfere with
colonial matters personally, constant control over the colonies was exercised
by royal officers acting under the authority of the Crown.
Systematic supervision began in sixteen sixty when there was created
by royal order a committee of the King's Council to

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meet on Mondays and thursdays of each week to consider petitions, memorials,
and addresses respecting the plantations. In sixteen ninety six, a
regular board was established, known as the Lores of Trade
and Plantations, which continued until the American Revolution, to scrutinize
closely colonial business. The chief duties of the board were

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to examine acts of colonial legislatures, to recommend measures to
those assemblies for adoption, and to hear memorials on petitions
from the colonies relation relative to their affairs. The methods
employed by this board were varied. All laws passed by
American legislatures came before it for review as a matter
of routine. If it found an act unsatisfactory, it recommended

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to the King the exercise of his veto power, known
as the royal disallowance. Any person who believed his personal
or property rights injured by a colonial law could be
heard by the Board in person or by attorney. In
such cases, it was the practice to hear at the
same time the agent of the colony so involved. The
royal veto power over colonial legislation was not therefore a

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formal affair, but was constantly employed on the suggestion of
a highly efficient agency of the Crown. All this was
in addition to the powers exercised by the governors in
the Royal provinces. Judicial control supplementing this administrative control over
the colonies was a constant supervision by the English courts

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of law. The King, by virtue of his inherent authority,
claimed and exercised high appellate powers over all judicial tribunals
in the Empire. The right of appeal from local courts,
expressly set forth in some chapters, was on the eve
of the Revolution, maintained in every colony. Any subject in
England or America, who, on the regular legal course was

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aggrieved by any act of a colonial legislature or any
decision of a colonial court, had the right, subject to
certain restrictions, to carry his case to the King and Council,
forcing his opponent to follow him across the sea. In
the exercise of appellate power, the King and Council, acting
as a court, could, and frequently did, declare acts of

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colonial legislatures duly enacted and approved null and void on
the ground that they were contrary to English law. Imperial
control in operation, day after day, week after week, year
after year, the machinery for political and judicial control over
colonial affairs was in operation. At one time, the British

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governors and the colonies were ordered ought to approve any
colonial law, imposing a duty on European goods imported in
English vessels. Again, when North Carolina laid attacks on pedlars,
the Council objected to it as restrictive upon the trade
and dispersion of English manufactures throughout the continent. At other times,
Indian trade was regulated in the interests of the whole Empire,

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or grants of land by a colonial legislature were set aside.
Virginia was forbidden to close reports to North Carolina lest
there should be retaliation. In short, foreign and intercolonial trade
were subjected to a control higher than that of the colony,
foreshadowing a day when the Constitution of the United States
was to commit to Congress the power to regulate interstate

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and foreign commerce and commerce, with the Indians a superior
judicial power towering above that of the colonies, as a
Supreme Court at Washington now towers above the States kept
the colonial legislatures within the meats and bounds of established law.
In the thousands of appeals, memorials to titians and complaints,
and the rulings and decisions upon them were written. The

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real history of British imperial control over the American colonies.
So great was the business before the lords of trade
that the colonies had to keep skilled agents in London
to protect their interests. As common grievances against the operation
of this machinery of control arose, there appeared in each
colony a considerable body of men, with the merchants in

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the lead, who chafed at the restraints imposed on their enterprise.
Only a powerful blow was needed to weld those bodies
into a common mass, nourishing the spirit of colonial nationalism.
When to the repeated minor irritations were added general and
sweeping measures of Parliament, applying to every colony, the rebound
came in the Revolution parliamentary control over colonial affairs. As

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soon as Parliament gained in power at the expense of
the king, it reached out to bring the American colonies
under its sway as well. Between the execution of Charles
the First and the accession of George the Third there
was enacted an immense body of legislation regulating the shipping,
trade and manufacturers of America, all of it based on
the mrcantile theory, then prevalent in all countries of Europe.

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Was designed to control the overseas plantations in such a
way as to foster the commercial and business interests of
the mother country, where merchants and men of finance had
got the upper hand. According to this theory, the colonies
of the British Empire should be confined to agriculture and
the production of raw materials, and forced to buy their
manufactured goods of England. The Navigation Acts in the first rank.

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Among these measures of British colonial policy must be placed
the Navigation Laws, framed for the purpose of building up
the British merchant, marine and navy arms so essential in
defending the colonies against the Spanish, Dutch and French. The
beginning of this type of legislation was made in sixteen
fifty one, and it was worked out into a system
early in the reign of Charles the second sixteen sixty

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to eighty five. The Navigation Acts in effect gave a
monopoly of colonial commerce to British ships. No trade could
be carried on between Great Britain and her Dominions save
in vessels built and manned by British subjects. No European
goods could be brought to America, save in the ships
of the country that produced them, or in English ships

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These laws, which were almost fatal to Dutch shipping in America,
fell with severity upon the colonists, compelling them to pay
higher freight rates. The adverse effect, however, was short lived,
for the measures stimulated shipbuilding in the colonies, where the
abundance of raw materials gave the master builders of America
an advantage over those of the mother country. Thus, the colonists,

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in the end profited from the restrictive policy written into
the Navigation Acts, the Axe against Manufacturers. The second group
of laws, was deliberately aimed to prevent colonial industry from
competing too sharply with those of England. Among the earliest
of these measures may be counted the Woolen Act of
sixteen ninety nine, forbidding the exportation of woolen goods from

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the colonies and even the woolen trade between towns and colonies.
When Parliament learned, as the result of an inquiry that
New England and New York were making thousands of hats
a year and sending large numbers annually to the southern
colonies and to Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, it enacted in
seventeen thirty two a law declaring that no hats or felts,

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dyed or undied, finished or unfinished, should be put upon
any vessel, or laden upon any horse or cart, with
intent to export to any place whatever. The effect of
this measure upon the hat industry was almost ruinous. A
few years later, a similar blow was given to the
iron industry by an Act of seventeen fifty. Pig and

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bar iron from the colonies were given free entry to
England to encourage the production of the raw material, but
at the same time the law provided that no mill
or other engine for slitting or rolling of iron, no
plating forged to work with a tilt hammer, and no
furnace for making steel should be built in the colonies.
As for those already built, they were declared public nuisances

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and ordered clothed. Thus, three important economic interests of the colonies,
the woolen, hat and iron industries, were laid under the
ban the trade laws. The third group of restrictive measures
passed by the British Parliament related to the sale of
colonial produce. An Act of sixteen sixty three required the

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colonies to export certain articles to Great Britain or to
her Dominions alone, while sugar, tobacco and ginger consigned from
the continent of Europe had to pass through a British port,
paying custom duties and through a British merchant's hands, paying
the usual commission. At first, tobacco was the only one
of the enumerated articles which seriously could concerned the American colonies,

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the rest coming mainly from the British West Indies. In
the course of time, however, other commodities were added to
the list of enumerated articles, until by seventeen sixty four
it embraced rice, naval stores, copper, furs, hides, iron lumber,
and pearl ashes. This was not all. The colonies were

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compelled to bring their European purchases back through English ports,
paying duties to the government and commissions to merchants. Again,
the Molasses Act, not content with laws enacted in the
interest of English merchants and manufacturers. Parliament sought to protect
the British West Indies against competition from their French and

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Dutch neighbors. New England merchants had long carried on a
lucrative trade with the French islands in the West Indies
and Dutch Guiana, where sugar and molasses could be obtained
in large quantities at low prices. Acting on the protests
of English planners in the Barbe Natos and Jamaica, Parliament
in seventeen thirty three passed the famous Molasses Act, imposing

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duties on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies from
foreign countries, rates which would have destroyed the American trade
with the French and Dutch if the law had been enforced.
The duties, however, were not collected. The molasses and sugar
trade with the foreigners went on merrily smuggling, taking the
place of lawful trade. Effects of the laws in America,

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as compared with the strict monopoly of her colonial trade
which Spain consistently sought to maintain, the policy of England
was both moderate and liberal. Furthermore, the restrictive laws were
supplemented by many measures intended to be favorable to colonial prosperity.
The Navigation Acts, for example, redounded to the advantage of

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American shipbuilders and the producers of hemp, tar, lumber, and
ship stores. In general, favors in British ports were granted
to colonial producers as against foreign competitors, and in some
instances bounties were paid by England to encourage colonial enterprise.
Taken all in all, there is much justification in the
argument advanced by some modern scholars to the effect that

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the colonists gained more than they lost by British trade
and industrial legislation. Certainly, after the establishment of independence, when
free from these old restrictions, the Americans found themselves handicapped
by being treated as foreigners rather than favored traders, and
the recipients of bounties in English markets. Be that as

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it may, it appears that the colonists felt little irritation
against the mother country on account of the trade and
navigation laws enacted previous to the close of the French
and Indian War. Relatively few were engaged in the hat
and iron industries as compared with those in farming and planning,
so that England's policy of restricting America to agriculture did
not conflict with the interests of the majority of the inhabitants.

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The woolen industry was largely in the hands of women
and carried on in connection with their domestic duties, so
that it was not the sole support of any considerable
number of people. As a matter of fact. Moreover, the
restrictive laws, especially those relating to trade, were not rigidly enforced.
Cargoes of tobacco were boldly sent to continental ports without

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even so much as a bow to the English government,
to which duties should have been paid. Sugar and molasses
from the French and Dutch colonies were shipped into New
England in spite of the law. Royal officers sometimes protested
against smuggling, and sometimes connived at it, but at no
time did they succeed in stopping it. Taken all in all,

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very little was heard of the galling restraints of trade
until after the French War, when the British government subtly
entered upon a new course. End of Section twelve