Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/143

 Everywhere the men of this class, enjoying as landowners the right to vote, furnished the numerical majority of the popular party that resisted the pretensions of the English government and its American agents. If the merchants and riotous mechanics of the towns unwittingly started the war which led to independence, it was the farmers who supplied the drive that carried it through and who shed most of the blood spilled in the contest. If a Virginia gentleman of high position commanded the army, it was yeomen fresh from the plow who filled the ranks and carried the muskets. They were to be heard from in the days which followed the overthrow of British dominion in America, protesting against the rule of native merchants, financiers, and planters.

The third layer of the social order was composed of free artisans and laborers. Within the boundaries of each city was a body of independent workmen large enough, as we have seen, to give occasional alarms to timid merchants and to foreshadow troubles ahead, but the growth of this class in numbers and power was slow. Only those who managed to accumulate a little property were allowed to vote; and everywhere the brand of inferiority was stamped upon them. When the son of a Boston bricklayer was elevated to the office of justice of the peace in 1759, his right to the office was attacked on the ground of his low social origins; and his defense was not the dignity of his calling but a reply that the charge was false. "A poor man," lamented a colonial democrat of Philadelphia in the spring of 1776, "has rarely the honor of speaking to a gentleman on any terms and never with any familiarity but for a few weeks before the election. How many poor men, common men, and mechanics have been made happy within this fortnight by a shake of the hand, a pleasing smile, and little familiar chat with gentlemen who have not for these seven years past condescended to look at them. Blessed state which brings all so nearly on a level. Be freemen then and you will be companions for gentlemen annually."