Shaken," the bishop of London threw him into the tower, and declared he should die there, unless he would recant. The idea that kings had a divine right to the throne, and that the subject was bound passively to obey, without the least regard to the character or conduct of the sovereign, was the common sentiment of that day. Many years after the revolution which excluded the Stuart branch of the royal family from the throne, the kingdom was repeatedly convulsed by attempts to set aside the house of Hanover, because its kings were not "the Lord's anointed." Not all the weakness, amounting almost to imbecility, not all the corruption, and faithlessness, and ingratitude of that family, more or less obvious as they were, from its accession to its close, could abate in the minds of thousands the idolatrous notion of the inalienable sanctity of the race. Terms only applicable to the Creator, were unblushingly applied to very unworthy men, and "his most sacred majesty" was well known to be a very low, unprincipled sensualist.*

* "Debauched in mind and heart, adversity, usually the rugged nurse of virtue, made the selfish libertine but the more reckless in his profligacy." Bancroft, vol. 2, p. 48.

CHAPTER XI.

At the time Penn obtained the grant of Pennsylvania, a better day had dawned, and many saw its glory and rejoiced in its light. But national habits and modes of thinking are not easily changed. The world of mind, like the world of matter, must wait the gradual unfoldings of the day, and thousands of the most virtuous men of the seventeenth century, who had marked with solicitude the revolution of sentiment on the subject of government, did not live to see the sun of civil liberty fairly above the horizon. Penn had suffered very severely under the old dark system. He had seen thousands of his brethren and sisters, innocent men and women, dragged from their places of worship, from their homes and their firesides, from families of little children, and from the business which procured them bread, and immured in dark loathsome prisons, without any crime, or even the charge of a crime, but merely for a conscientious dissent from the dictates of an overbearing hierarchy. He had learned lessons of the highest wisdom in the school of adversity. He had seen human nature under its worst aspect. He had perceived to what fearful extremes of cruelty man may be driven by the love of power, when he has rejected the gentle voice of mercy, the authoritative language of justice, and the holy influence of truth and love in himself.

*In 1670, the recorder of the city of London, sitting in his judicial capacity, at the trial of Penn and Mead, publicly declared, that it certainly never would be well with them till something like the Spanish Inquisition should be established in England.

During the reign of Charles, fifteen thousand families had been ruined for their religious persuasion, and on the accession of James, twelve hundred Friends were at one time released from filthy prisons and noisome dungeons, in which five thousand persons had perished for conscience sake the victims of a profligate monarch, himself without religion, and regardless even of common morality.

Penn had not been an idle spectator of the scenes through which he had passed. His life had been spent in active exertion. He had boldly braved the force of arbitrary power, at a time when the whole court of the second Charles and his obsequious servants were striving to render the king wholly irresponsible to the law and to the people. While more timid men shrunk from the contest, he openly exposed the tyranny of the government. When the king himself was a pensioner of France; when the great charter of Engligh freedom was trampled under foot; when juries were brow-beaten, fined, and imprisoned, for rendering an honest conscientious verdict, Penn stood forth the champion of liberty and law; and by a successful opposition to the court, gave to tyranny and oppression a blow, from the effects of which they never wholly recovered.* On this occasion he boldly appeared in print, published a narrative of the oppressive proceedings against him, exposed the base means taken to crush him, and openly encouraged jurymen to maintain their ground against every attempt to intimidate them.† "Having been oppressed, he had reason to know how hateful the oppressor is, both to God and man;"‡ and now being called upon to form a system of government, he was prepared to bring into action all the powers of a strong and enlightened understanding, in framing a Constitution, effectually to protect his colonists in the enjoyment of civil and religious freedom.

"Any government," says Penn, "is free to the people under it, where the laws rule, and the people are a party to these laws." "To support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power; that the people

* See trial of Penn and Mead. Penn's select works, folio p. 161. † Penn's conduct, on this occasion, does not favour the suggestion, that he held the doctrine of "passive obedience," nor that he courted the favour of the king and duke of York, by professing a doctrine so degrading in its effects. The society of which he was a member abhorred it, as inconsistent with the first principles of the Christian religion, which teaches to "obey God rather than men.” Acts v. 28.

Barclay's address to King Charles II. Apology, preface.

may be free by their just obedience, and the magistrates honorable for their just administration, are the great ends of government. For liberty without obedience, is confusion, and obedience without liberty, is slavery." Time, and experience in the science of government, may have suggested to legislators some material improvements on Penn's model of a Constitution. But such improvements chiefly relate to the practical part, or the carrying out of the views and intentions of his system. Time and experience have both demonstrated the truth of Penn's theory. That "liberty without obedience is confusion," has been amply demonstrated, in more than one of the states, under our own excellent government; that obedience without liberty is slavery, is a sentiment that produced the American revolution. Penn, as a legislator, was more than a century in advance of his age. If any place, more than another, deserves to be called "the cradle of liberty," that place is Pennsylvania. There it was nursed, and there it attained athletic vigor, long before a revolution was contemplated, or a separation from the mother country had become an object of desire.

In his government, instituted in 1683, the legislature consisted of two houses, both elected by the freemen of the province. The upper house was composed of three members from each county, and was called the "Provincial Council." The lower house was composed of six members from each county, and was styled the "General Assembly." It was to be composed of "men of most note for their virtue, wisdom and ability." The executive authority was vested in the Governor and Council, who were charged with the execution of the laws, the care of the public. peace, the establishment and order of public schools, institution of courts of justice, &c., &c. Members of the legislature were chosen by ballot, and every freeman of the province was entitled to vote. All laws for the raising of revenue, and other purposes, were enacted by the representatives of the people. The estates of aliens were to descend to their legal representatives, in the same way as the estates of citizens, and all the

* Proud's Pennsylvania, vol. 1, p. 198, &c.

settlers were at liberty to fish, fowl, and hunt, without restriction, on their own lands, and all others not inclosed; the proprietor reserving no privileges as chief lord of the fee, or as governor. All persons acknowledging one Supreme Creator, and holding themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly, should in no ways be molested or prejudiced for their religious pursuasion; nor be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place, or ministry whatever.

Thus Penn faithfully redeemed the pledge, which, two years before, he had given to the inhabitants of his province, in a letter dated a short time after his grant from the king. "You shall be governed by laws of your own making, and live a free, and, if you will, a sober and industrious people. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution, and has given me his grace to keep it. In short, whatever sober and free men, can reasonably desire, for the security and improvement of their own happiness, I shall heartily comply with."