Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/312

308 the two were to lead all the other colonies to the establishment of their common principles.

The Puritans were mainly of the English middle class, and so were the Virginians. It is true that the rich planters dominated Virginia, and that her institutions became, in a measure, aristocratic; but it is to be remembered that the love of liberty has never been confined to any class of Englishmen, and at all events the supply of plain people in Virginia was abundant.

Massachusetts was turbulent, Virginia placid; but when the time came Virginia was as quick as her Northern sister to declare for freedom. When Massachusetts defied England, it was George Washington of Virginia who declared that to aid her he was ready to raise and subsist a regiment at his own expense. If Massachusetts gave Otie, Hancock, Adams, to the good cause, Virginia gave Randolph, Marshall, Madison, Jefferson and Washington. Thus it appears that Virginia, the typical and dominant Southern colony, bore, in the struggle for independence, a part no less trying, no less important, no less honorable than Massachusetts.

John Fiske in an article published in Harper's Magazine some years ago declares that of the white population of Virginia at the time of the seven years' war all but two per cent, were English. In the second place, the Scotch-Irish were late comers. When they arrived the colony was already populous, and its institutions definitely and firm established. As non-conformists, they were by circumstances, as well as by their own inclination, kept apart, in some measure, from their neighbors, and thus possessed the influence which union and concentration always secure. But this could not prevent the natural results of incessant contact with the far more numerous English and practically they were, in the course of time, absorbed and assimilated.

If it had been otherwise, it would have made very little difference. While the Scotch-Irishman had one of the most divergent and complicated genealogies in Europe, he was principally Anglo-Saxon in blood, and had been for centuries under English influences. For nearly 200 years his people had been subjects of the English crown. And in this connection it may be further said that both the Scotch and Irish settlers of North