Samuell Gorton: A Forgotten Founder of our Liberties. First Settler of Warwick, R. I. by Lewis G. Janes

Author:Lewis G. Janes [Janes, Lewis G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-06T22:00:00+00:00

IX

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, what shall we say were the peculiar and distinctive contributions of Samuell Gorton to the Commonwealth which he helped to found, and the life of our later day? I answer, first, to him more than to any other we are indebted for the recognition and establishment of the principle that English law and the rights of English citizenship are coextensive with English supremacy; and that to secure these rights in the Colonies, together with the privileges of local administration, a charter from the Home Government was necessary. This principle had been ignored or denied by Roger Williams, [79] and violated by the governments of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. Samuell Gorton affirmed it in season and out of season; in its defence suffered imprisonment and stripes, and did not rest until by the aid of Roger Williams at last convinced by his insistency and by the stern logic of events, it was accepted by the Commonwealth, affirmed in its Charter, and embodied in its legislation.

So firmly was this principle subsequently engrafted on our Colonial system, that it became our strongest defence against the encroachments of the Mother Country during the Revolutionary struggle and gave us an effective pou sto for the Declaration of Independence. Nor did the severing of the relations with the government of England rupture this thread of law and equity which bound us to our historic past. Ours became the heritage of English Common Law: ours as well as England’s those historic rights and privileges of citizenship handed down from Magna Charta.

I answer, secondly, to Samuell Gorton more than to any other, all generations of Americans will owe the insistent affirmation and consistent illustration of the principle of religious individualism which is the logical outcome of the Protestant idea—the principle which strips off the conventional reliance on ritual and organization, and places the individual soul face to face with the problems of life and duty. In our own generation, Ralph Waldo Emerson has been the clearest exponent of this principle. Gorton was the premature John the Baptist of New England Transcendentalism.

No portrait, or adequate description of this forgotten Founder of our Liberties has been handed down to our time. The writer of his brief biography tells us that “His bearing was courteous, his feelings lively, his mind vigorous and well-informed.” [80] From such hints as we may obtain from various sources we may picture him as a man of tall stature, marked features and gentlemanly address; blue-eyed—a typical Saxon; of an earnest and sympathetic nature; persuasive of speech in conversation and exhortation, and freely emphasizing his thoughts with appropriate gestures, quick to resent injustice, and bold in his denunciation of wrong-doers, [81] —more eloquent and effective in his spontaneous utterances and unstudied efforts than in the formal and labored style of his written treatises.

Of his domestic life we know but little. From his kindly mention of his wife and children in the final disposal of his property, we have a right to infer that his family relations were harmonious.

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