doing much, that would be wanting where the proceeds
of the entire community were to be shared in common;
and, on the knowledge of this simple and obvious truth
did our young legislator found his theory of government.
Protect all in their rights equally, but, that done,
let every man pursue his road to happiness in his
own way; conceding no more of his natural rights than
were necessary to the great ends of peace, security,
and law. Such was Mark’s theory. As
for the modern crotchet that men yielded
no
natural right to government, but were to receive all
and return nothing, the governor, in plain language,
was not fool enough to believe it. He was perfectly
aware that when a man gives authority to society to
compel him to attend court as a witness, for instance,
he yields just so much of his natural rights to society,
as might be necessary to empower him to stay away,
if he saw fit; and, so on, through the whole of the
very long catalogue of the claims which the most indulgent
communities make upon the services of their citizens.
Mark understood the great desideratum to be, not the
setting up of theories to which every attendant fact
gives the lie, but the ascertaining, as near as human
infirmity will allow, the precise point at which concession
to government ought to terminate, and that of uncontrolled
individual freedom commence. He was not visionary
enough to suppose that he was to be the first to make
this great discovery; but he was conscious of entering
on the task with the purest intentions. Our governor
had no relish for power for power’s sake, but
only wielded it for the general good. By nature,
he was more disposed to seek happiness in a very small
circle, and would have been just as well satisfied
to let another govern, as to rule himself, had there
been another suited to such a station. But there
was not. His own early habits of command, the
peculiar circumstances which had first put him in
possession of the territory, as if it were a special
gift of Providence to himself, his past agency in
bringing about the actual state of things, and his
property, which amounted to more than that of all
the rest of the colony put together, contributed to
give him a title and authority to rule, which would
have set the claims of any rival at defiance, had
such a person existed. But there was no rival;
not a being present desiring to see another in his
place.
The first step of the governor was to appoint his
brother, Abraham Woolston, the secretary of the colony.
In that age America had very different notions of
office, and of its dignity, of the respect due to
authority, and of the men who wielded it, from what
prevail at the present time. The colonists, coming
as they did from America, brought with them the notions
of the times, and treated their superiors accordingly.
In the last century a governor was “the
governor,” and not “our governor,”
and a secretary “the secretary,”
and not “our secretary,” men now
taking more liberties with what they fancy their own,
than was their wont with what they believed had been
set over them for their good. Mr. Secretary Woolston
soon became a personage, accordingly, as did all the
other considerable functionaries appointed by the
governor.