BOASTFUL NEW ENGLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 357, 20 February 1880, Page 15

BOASTFUL NEW ENGLAND.

A PERSON who should derive his knowledge of American history from the speeches made at the annual New England dinners, says the Keiv York Herald in a critical mood, would get the impression that the Massachusetts Puritan 3 were the source of all that is valuable in our institutions, and that the greatness of our country is wholly due to them. New England has, indeed, done her part, but her sons go further than facts will warrant in setting up for the Puritans a pretentious and preposterous claim to a primacy in intellect over the rest of the country. The customary exaggerations having just been rehearsed in this city, it may not be out of place to inquire whether the other parts of the country have not something which may be put into the opposite scale to redress the balance. We will not disparage the Puritans ; their virtues have our sincercst admiration. They were a sturdy, morally heroic, God-fearing, but morose and narrowminded people, who never flinched. They did their duty according to the lights given them, and left nightly gasconading and other worldly vanities to their descendants. The claim that New England stands to the country in the relation of the head to the rest of the body is a later invention, for which the robust and genuine old Puritans cannot be held responsible. It is. not true that New England has done the chief part in shaping our institutions and making our history. Among the highest names in our annals, New England can claim but one — that of Franklin. But no great American was more free from the Puritan spirit than the naturally sceptical Franklin. He emancipated himself from Puritanism in boyhood, and took an evident pleasure in telling, in his charming autobiography, the story of his asking his father to say grace over the barrel of pork instead of repeating it at each meal. Though born in Boston, he emigrated from that city in early youth. The influences by which his character was formed did not come from the Puritans. He had a native largeness of mind which revolted against the narrowness of that sect, and, though intensely pati iotic, his mode of thinking was cosmopolitan. "With the exception of Franklin, all our first-class men have been born out of New England — meaning by first-class men those who have left a great mark on events. The highest of our great names— that of Washington — was borne by a Virginian. The declaiation of independence expressed the general determination of the country, but it was drafted by Jefferson. The greatest event of our history, the formation of the federal constitution, was not of New England origin. The minds which gave inspiration and impetus to that most important movement were supplied by New York and Virginia. In the framing and advocacy of the constitution New England has no names which can be ranked with those of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay. The government was set in operation, and it's practical methods shaped by statesmen among whom New England had no distinguished representative. Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison, were the controlling minds during the critical period when the new government was set in operation and tested. Chief Justice Marshall, the greatest of our jurists, laid the foundation stones, and reared the structure of our federal jurisprudence. The vast additions to our territory, by which our country was expanded to imperial dimensions, were made by Jefferson against the resolute opposition of New England. Descending to later periods, we find that the great names and the great things have not been of New England paternity. New England opposed the second war with Great Britain, which brought a great harvest of national renown, and opposed the war with Mexico, which enlarged our national area. Kcithcr Gen. bicott nor Gen. Taylor, the heroes of the Mexican war, any more than Gen. Jackson, the hero of the second war with England, were New Englandcrs. The New Englanders have been great schoolmasters, but not great men of affairs. The most illustrious names of our civil war tell the same story. President Lincoln was neither a Yankee nor a Puritan. The great generals of the recent war were not furnished by New England. In other departments of exertion New England has been equally eclipsed. Who of her sons can be named with De Witt Clinton or Robert Fulton 1 She has given us great orators, but none who equalled Patrick Henry in native genius, and f©r spoken, as distinguished from wiitten, eloquence, Clay was esteemed by his contemporaries a more effective speaker than Webster. We have not space to pursue this line of illustration, but trust we have said enough to prove that the New England boasts arc not supported by history.