Massachusetts Historical Society

“ It is most fitting that the members of the Historical Society of Massachusetts should add their tribute to those which have been already offered by all sects, parties, and associations to the name and fame of their late associate. ”

“ The Society having been incorporated in Rhode Island, its headquarters must necessarily be there, and it is fitting that the centre of the work of this Society should be somewhere in New England. Massachusetts and Rhode Island have many historical and antiquarian societies, and nowhere in the whole United States is the spirit of historical research and pride of ancestry more strongly developed than in these two states. ”

“ Within the State House is the Memorial Hall, containing the battle-flags of Massachusetts regiments and other historical relics. Portraits, busts and statues of the great men of Massachusetts adorn the interior rooms. From the lantern surmounting the dome is the finest view of Boston, with the mass of estuaries penetrating the land on all sides, the harbor and islands, and over the neighboring country for many miles. In the Representatives' Chamber hangs, high on the wall, one of the precious relics of the Old Bay State, the noted carved codfish, typifying a great industry. ”

“ After all, financial sympathy is what is needed to encourage any enterprise. Next in importance is the contribution of articles calculated to interest, primarily, the good citizens of this Commonwealth.
And one feature will be to develop the Romance in Massachusetts Colonial and State History. Articles of this character are specially desired. In the meanwhile, the publishers invite contributions of works upon local history, with view to a fair equivalent in exchange. New England town histories and historical pamphlets will be very readily accepted at a fair valuation. ”

“ In intellectual tastes, as in all else, the Union showed well-marked divisions between New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and the Southern States. New England was itself divided between two intel­lectual centres,—Boston and New Haven. The Mas­sachusetts and Connecticut schools were as old as the colonial existence; and in 1800 both were still alive, if not flourishing.
Society in Massachusetts was sharply divided by politics. In 1800 one half the population, repre­sented under property qualifications by only some twenty thousand voters, was Republican. ”

“ Not for a full century had the old Puritan prejudice shown itself in a form so unreasoning and unreasonable; but although nearly one half the people held aloof and wondered at the madness of their own society, the whole history of Massachusetts, a succession of half-forgotten disputes and rebellions, seemed to concentrate itself for the last time in a burst of expiring passions, mingled with hatred of Virginia and loathing for Jefferson, until the rest of America, perplexed at paroxysms so eccentric, wondered whether the spirit of Massachusetts liberty could ever have been sane. ”

“ Education was fostered from the beginning. Harvard College was founded in 1630, and in 1642 a system of public schools was organized. Having no charter to occasion disputes, Plymouth Colony prospered peacefully and monotonously, and its history is unmarred by records of religious narrowness; but Massachusetts Bay was in turmoil from the first, owing to its theocratic government and the stern and arbitrary conduct of the magistrates. It was the desire to escape from the yoke of the Massachusetts theocracy that led to the settlement of Rhode Island and Connecticut. ”

“ This density gives her 221.78 persons to a square mile, a far greater ratio than any state except Rhode Island. This neighborly proximity has its social tendencies, which may account in part for the hospitable amenities which are a rightful part of Massachusetts' well known loyalty to a higher regard for the purest type of home, a comparative statement of the density of population of a few states.
As inseparable as night is from day, so also are the ills of life from life itself. Massachusetts is no exception to the inexorable law which defines the conditions [pg 445] of human society ”

“ Law and medical schools are maintained in Boston and Harvard universities.
Public Institutions.—Massachusetts was in 1903, in proportion to the population, more richly provided with public collections of books than any other state: in that year she had nearly a seventh of all books in public, society and school libraries in the country, and a much larger supply of books per capita (2.56) than any other state. The rate for New York, the only state having a larger number of books in such libraries, being only 1.19. ”

“ Few nations have had a perfect history. Valuable history can be derived only from the continued record of the transactions of a people. Wherever governments have existed in fact before they have existed in form, or wherever the proceedings of a government have not been matters of record, there can be no trustworthy history. In these respects Massachusetts has been fortunate. Her government is older than her existence as colonies, and from the first a faithful record of her proceedings has been made. The foundations of New Plymouth and Massachusetts were laid more than two centuries ago ”

“ In October, 1774, the General Court resolved itself into a Provincial Congress and proceeded to erect an independent State government. The organization of a militia and the storing of supplies led to Lexington and Concord. (For military operations during the Revolution, see United States.) In the war Massachusetts took the leading part, though her population was by no means united in the cause of the Revolution. Among the Loyalists who were banished or who voluntarily abandoned their homes were many of the most prominent and wealthy families. ”

“ Because this influence is invisible, and, except on rare occasions like this, voiceless, the public seldom gives the herald of the Gospel the credit which his worth deserves.
Historians do not hide the fact, however, that it was the religious conviction of the people, expressed by the minister (which means servant) , the parson (which means chief person) , which settled America. The Puritans made Massachusetts a religious colony, spreading westward over other states and gave impulse and character to American civilization for all time. ”

“ The leading emigrants to Massachusetts were of that brotherhood of men who, by force of social consideration as well as of the intelligence and resolute patriotism, molded the public opinion and action of England in the first half of the seventeenth century. While the large part stayed at home to found, as it proved, the short-lived English republic, and to introduce elements into the English Constitution which had to wait another half-century for their secure reception, another part devoted themselves at once to the erection of free institutions in this distant wilderness. ”

“ Educational institutions were being constantly founded. Property was well diffused, though for half a century after 1690 the Colony suffered from a reckless financial policy, which flooded the country with paper money. In resistance to the arbitrary acts of the British Parliament, Massachusetts was the pioneer. ”

“ The custom of observing the anniversaries of the incorporation of towns and cities in New England has become well established. In Massachusetts there are a very few towns which have reached so important an epoch in their history, as the quarter millennial of their corporate existence. Several have celebrated their bi-centennials, while hardly a year passes without the observance of one or more centennial anniversaries. ”

“ Whenever human rights needed an advocate, the voice of Massachusetts resounded through the land. Whenever the cause education, enlightment, progress and virtue wanted a champion, Massachusetts pressed to the front. Everywhere within the vast bounderies of this great republic Massachusetts has planted colonies of her intelligence and learning. Whatever there can be in the past achievements to inspire a noble ambition, your State possesses it all. No people can have better reason to respect themselves than the people of this Commonwealth. ”

“ They seem to have been human enough—erring enough, if we take these records penned by themselves. However, for any such iconoclastic observation it is reassuring to have the judgment of so careful a historian as Charles Francis Adams. He says:
"That the earlier generations of Massachusetts were either more law-abiding or more self-restrained than the later is a proposition which accords neither with tradition nor with the reason of things. ”

“ The New England of 1700, though still orderly, patient and labour-loving, was no longer the Christian Sparta, merciless in its discipline, crushing the individual into subjection to the State, yet strengthening him in the process, at which the founders of Massachusetts had aimed, not without a measure of success. As the life of Boston becomes more and more a reproduction of decorous middle-class English life, so the literature of New England becomes more and more a con- ventional copy of contemporary English models. ”

“ During each year regular and special meetings of the society are held and pilgrimages are made to historic places. Thirty-one branches, known as chapters in Massachusetts, join in the work of the State Society and also carry on special work in their several localities, marking graves of Revolutionary soldiers, and giving to schools the best books on the" Revolutionary period and pictures of important events and persons connected with the early history of the republic. ”

“ President, I shall enter upon no encomium of Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain for ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia, and there they will lie forever. ”

“ The history of the institution we here celebrate reaches back more than one third of the way to the landing of the Mayflower—back to the day of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, who saw Prescott, Pomeroy, Stark, and Warren at Bunker Hill, who followed Washington and his generals from Dochester Heights to Yorktown, and saw the old Bay Colony become the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They had seen a nation in the making. They founded their government on the rights of the individual. ”

“ The Federalist preference for England over France was strong in Massachusetts, and her sentiment was against the war with England of 1812-15. New England’s discontent culminated in the Hartford Convention (Dec. 1814) , in which Massachusetts men predominated. The state, however, bore her full part in the war, and much of its naval success was due to her sailors.
During the interval till the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Massachusetts held a distinguished place in national life and politics. ”

“ Those sentiments of liberty and patriotism have penetrated the hearts of the whole population of that Commonwealth. Sir, in that State, every man, no matter what blood runs in his veins, or what may be the color of his skin, stands up before the law the peer of the proudest that treads her soil. This is the sentiment of the people of Massachusetts. ”

“ Neither revolution in England nor the stress of conflicting ideals in the colony turned the first generation of Massachusetts Bay leaders from the straight course which they had laid. Magistrates and clergy went steadily forward, emerging from Nonconformity into practical Separatism, as resistant to Parliamentary as to royal control, as cool toward Cromwell as toward Charles. During the quarter-century of their domination, Massachusetts maintained a virtual independence of the mother country and the effective leadership of Now England. ”

“ There is no room for domestic party issues here. The only question for consideration is whether the Government of this Commonwealth, legislative and executive, has rendered and will render prompt and efficient support for the national defence. Perhaps it would be enough to point out that Massachusetts troops were first at the Mexican border and first in France. But that is only part of the story.
Wars are waged now with far more than merely the troops in the field. Every resource of the people goes into the battle. It is a matter of organizing the entire fabric of society. ”

“ We have, at all events on this continent, many notable examples of distinguished honour being done to literary men, to men of science and to noted educationists. Any one who has visited the chief city of Massachusetts cannot fail to have seen, on the broad terrace in front of the capitol, a massive bronze statue to Horace Mann, the well-known Founder of the Public School system, not only of Massachusetts, but practically of the New England States. ”

“ Forts may be demolished by force, or betrayed by treason, but no combination of foreign power could tread out the institutions of this country, no considerable number of citizens be found faithless to the nation. Other people know this and do not ask for ramparts and armaments. Our own people know, and feel secure in the patriotic vigor of each and of all.
Massachusetts is a great country of villages, if, indeed, it would not be more correct to say, that nearly all of New England is a suburb of Boston. ”