Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/311

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The fact first to be noticed is that of all the British colonies Virginia was the most English. In blood the Virginians were not more English than the Puritans; but they held to the English forms and methods, social, political and religious, whereas the New Englanders attempted to set up a theocracy which should realize the ideals of the Puritans of old England and of the Covenanters of Scotland. In Virginia institutions were as English as the people.

The Puritan was, from the beginning, a malcontent, a rebel; not so much, however, for political as for religious reasons. Colonial Virginia, upon the contrary, was, except during the short-lived insurrection known as Bacon's Rebellion, constantly upon the most amicable terms with the home country and government.

The Puritan repudiated, as a thing abominable, the Church of England; the Virginians established the church and persecuted dissenters. The Puritan embraced the Commonwealth, and made haste to banish the royal Governor; the Virginian was steadfastly loyal to the Stuarts, invited the banished king to plant his sceptre anew in the virgin soil of his faithful colony, and refused to recognize the Commonwealth until Cromwell's war ships trained their cannon upon his capital.

To the superficial observer, Massachusetts and Virginia may appear to have been essentially unlike. In reality the unlikeness was superficial and beneath it was a likeness which was essential. Their people were of the same race, and had the same conception of liberty and the same love of liberty. In the end,