Slike strani
PDF
ePub

its desire to conciliate the good will of the state authorities, it has conceded more than they could have reasonably demanded.

A curious coincidence too, will be found in the circumstances of those states, whose political leaders have been loudest in their complaints at the supposed infringement of their privileges, which may contribute to enlighten the public mind as to the motive of their discontent. The vehemence of their zeal in behalf of state rights, seems to have depended upon the magnitude of their territorial claims; and to have borne an exact proportion to the reluctance felt to yielding those claims to the just demands of the confederacy. Whether this zeal for those peculiar doctrines, is not merely a wish for individual, or local aggrandizement, at the expence of the general welfare; how far unfounded complaints may tend to bring the real rights of the states into disrepute; what effect these domestic wranglings may have upon the national character, and in detracting from the moral force of our institutions: are questions well worthy the consideration of all men intrusted with the direction of public affairs.

The opinions here expressed may not be in exact unison with your own; but as one of the representatives of a state which was foremost in removing the obstacles to the American union, and not behind any in a confiding and ardent attachment to the general government; I beg leave to inscribe this volume to you, as a testimony of my sincere respect for your private worth, and the disinterested spirit by which you have been actuated in your public ca

reer.

I am, sir, with great respect,

Your obedient servant,
J. BLUNT.

CHAPTER I.

Foundation of the European claims to America.-Papal Grants.-Actual Possession.-First Discovery.

THE manner in which the European powers occupied the American continent, and the principles upon which this occupation was justified, and lines of division marked out between their transatlantic possessions, offer a most interesting subject for the investigation of the historian. Among the various titles to this continent derived from papal grants; first discovery; prior occupation; or actual possession; it is not easy to fix upon all the eras, when each of these different claims was first set up, nor when it was generally admitted to be valid. In most instances the opposing parties have proceeded upon different principles; until they have been brought into hostile contact, when their conflicting pretensions to American territory have been decided by an appeal to the sword.

The oldest title of the European nations is not involved in so much doubt. It was founded upon papal grants. This continent was discovered at a time when none dared to call in question the right of the vicegerent of Christ, to dispose of the countries inhabited by the heathen, according to his sovereign pleasure. The bigotted feeling, which had justified the invasion of Palestine, and the destruction

of the followers of Mahomet; though rendered less active and adventurous by the severe checks received by the catholic princes in their romantic expeditions, was still the dominant spirit of the age; and Europeans implicitly believed, that the divine origin of their religion gave to its professors the same right to all countries possessed by unbelievers, that the Israelites had to the promised Canaan, and that the Pope was authorized to distribute, in the fulness of his apostolic power, those countries, with their pagan inhabitants, among the faithful servants of the catholic church.

A striking illustration of the state of feeling prevalent in christendom, prior to the discovery of America, is to be found in the conduct of Prince Henry of Portugal, at the time he was pursuing those voyages of discovery towards the cape of Good Hope, which he had set on foot and patronized. To prevent any of the other powers from participating in the advantages which he expected to secure to Portugal, he procured at different times from Eugene IV., then on the papal throne, bulls granting to that crown all the countries which should be discovered by the Portuguese from Cape Non to the continent of India, together with the inhabitants, whom he authorized them to enslave.*

This donation was then considered so valid, that Edward IV. of England caused John Tintam and William Fabian, subjects of his, who contemplated an expedition to Guinea, to relinquish it; because the country fell within the bounds of the grant to Portugal ;† and all Christian princes, influenced by their zeal for religion, were deterred from intruding into those countries which the Portuguese had dis

* Robertson's America, Book I. § 33.

Hakluyt, Pt. 2. p. 2.

covered. Their voyages, however, were confined to the coast of the eastern continent; and about the time that they were turning the cape of Good Hope, Columbus discovered the Antilles, by steering a western course from Europe. The existence of islands and a continent beyond the Atlantic had not before that time been suspected; and when Spain applied to the pope for a bull confirming its title to these dissoveries, Alexander VI. granted one, giving to Spain all the countries west of a north and south line one hundred leagues west of the Azores; thus leaving to Portugal an undisturbed title to all the discoveries on the eastern continent south of Cape Non; which was, as Alexander VI. construed it, all that Eugene had intended to grant,

Portugal, however, did not acquiesce in this construction; but claimed the islands discovered by Columbus in his first voyage, immediately upon his return to Spain, as within the limits of the grant by Eugene IV.; and it appears, from a memoir addressed by Robert Thorne to the English ambassador at the court of Spain, in 1527, that the Spanish crown offered to relinquish these discoveries to Portugal, as within that grant; provided the latter would restore to Spain the goods of the Spanish Jews, that had taken refuge in Portugal, according to the treaty between the two powers, by which they had' mutually agreed to restore fugitive subjects with their goods.*

This agreement Portugal found it difficult to comply with; or, perhaps, the new discoveries were not then considered as worth the sum she would have been obliged to raise; and she accordingly entered into a treaty with Spain, concluded June 6, 1484, by which the line of demarcation between their possessions was fixed at 370 leagues west

* Hakluyt, Vol. I. p. 217.

of Cape de Verd, instead of the one prescribed in the bull of Alexander VI.*

At that early period, the title to newly discovered countries appears to have been derived from the apostolic power' of the pope. Every Christian prince, indeed, considered himself entitled to those countries, independent of any papal grant, from the religious obligation by which they all felt bound to convert the heathen; or to drive them from the possessions they so unworthily held and the discovery of the countries inhabited by infidels gave them the privilege of first exerting their arms for the propagation of Christianity, and also a strong claim upon the considerate bounty of the father of the church; but still, to him they looked for a confirmation of their claims, and for a distribution of the territories discovered.

This is the foundation of the European title to the American continent. The right derived from the labour and expense of discovery is a subsequent improvement, which we owe to the doctrines of the reformation and the diminu tion of the papal power. Had not those great changes in the religious belief of Christendom taken place, the whole of the American continent, except Brazil, which fell to Portugal under the treaty of 1494, would probably to this day have been claimed and held by the Spanish crown. The expressions in the commissions given by Ferdinand and Isabella to Columbus, by Henry VII. to Cabot, and the voyages of discovery ordered by Francis I. do not refute the proposition, that this right originated in a papal grant. The first commission authorized Columbus "to discover and conquer islands in the ocean." It was, in fact, a permission to make war upon infidels in unknown parts, plainly beyond the limits intended to be assigned to the Portu

* Muno's New World.

† Hazard's State Papers, p. 1.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »