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"Shew Yourselves to be Freemen"

Herman Husband, An Impartial Relation of the First and Causes of the Recent Differences in Public Affairs Etc (Newbern? N.C., 1770), pp. 64–68.

Original source available from History Matters.

Notes

Herman Husband

Herman Husband was a successful farmer near present-day Siler City in Chatham County. A Quaker from Annapolis, Maryland, he had moved there because he believed the backcountry to be a kind of paradise of free men. Although he owned more than 8,000 acres, he supported the Regulators’ principles.

Husband’s personal magnetism and skilled speaking made him an early leader in the Regulator movement. Husband began the Sandy Creek Association, the first organization of Regulators, in 1766. He was one of the men arrested in April 1768 and then freed by the mob.

In 1770 he was elected to the colonial assembly, but was expelled for having been “a promotor of the late Riots and seditions.” As a pacifist, he tried to negotiate a compromise between Governor Tryon and the Regulators before the Battle of Alamance in the spring of 1771, but failed. Husband, who had a price on his head, fled North Carolina for Pennsylvania.

In this pamphlet, Husband argued against violence. Instead of blaming government officials, the people should blame themselves, because after all, they have the vote! Husband asks backcountry farmers to elect representatives who would serve the farmers’ interest and not the interests of lawyers. The pamphlet is likely based on one or more speeches Husband gave in the backcountry.

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To the inhabitants of the Province of North-Carolina.

Dear Brethren,

Nothing is more common than for Persons who look upon themselves to be injured than to resent and complain. These are sounded aloud, and plain in Proportion to the Apprehension of it. Our Fearfulness too, frequently augment our real as well as apparent Dangers. Let us adjust our Complaints or Resentments to the Reality as well as the Nature of the Injury received.

Excess in any Matter breeds Contempt; whereas strict Propriety obtains the Suffrage of every Class. The Oppression of inferior Individuals must only demand Tutelage of Superiors; and in civil Matters our Cries should reach the authorative Ear, when the Weight that crusheth from the higher Powers. ———But when imposed by the Populace, to the Populace our Complaints must extend. ———When therefore the Cry of any City, Province or Nation is general, it must be generally directed to the Source from whence the Cry is caused…

The Exorbitant, not to say unlawful Fees, required and assumed by Officers, ———the unnecessary, not to say destructive Abridgement of a Court’s Jurisdiction, — the enormous Encrease of the provincial Tax unnecessary; these are Evils of which no Person can be insensible, and which I doubt not has been lamented by each of you. It must have obliged you to examine from what Quarter Relief might be found against these sad Calamities ——— In vain will you search for a Remedy until you find out the Disease.

Many are accusing the Legislative Body as the Source of all those woeful Calamities. ———These, it must be confessed, are the instrumental Cause; they can, yea do impose some of these heavy Burdens. ———But whence received they- this Power? Is not their Power delegated from the Populace? The original principal Cause is our own blind stupid Conduct.

If it be queried, How doth our Conduct contribute to this? Answer presents itself——We have chosen Persons to represent us to make Laws, &c. whose former Conduct and Circumstance might have given us the highest Reason to expect they would sacrifice the true Interest of their Country to Avarice, or Ambition, or both.

I need not inform you, that a Majority of our Assembly is composed of Lawyers, Clerks, and others in Connection with them, while by our own Voice we have excluded the Planter.… Are not such Persons utterly disqualified for supporting our Rights and Properties? ———Is it not high Time to seek an Antidote against such deadly Poison, before it utterly destroys us?

But you will say, what is the Remedy against this malignant Disease?

I will venture to prescribe a sovereign one if duly applied; that is, as you have now a fit Opportunity, choose for your Representatives or Burgesses such Men as have given you the strongest Reason to believe they are truly honest: Such as are disinterested, publick spirited, who will not allow their private Advantage once to stand in Competition with the public Good.…

Are you not sensible, Brethren that we have too long groaned in Secret under the Weight of these crushing Mischiefs? How long will ye in this servile Manner subject yourselves to Slavery? Now shew yourselves to be Freemen, and for once assert your Liberty and maintain your Rights ———This, this Election let us exert our-selves, and show, that we will not through Fear, Favour or Affection, bow and subject ourselves to those who, under the Mask of Friendship, have long drawn Calamities upon us.

Should we now through Fear or Favour act as we have done, contrary to Duty and Interest; so far as we do this, we contribute to all the Mischief consequent upon it. ———Where then is that moving Principle Self-preservation? Will you, can you, voluntarily submit yourselves to Ignominy and Want? These will agrandize themselves and swim in Opulence.

Have they not monopolized your Properties; and what is wanting but Time to draw from you the last Farthing? Who that has the Spirit of a Man could endure this? Who that has the least Spark of Love to his Country or to himself would bear the Delusion?

In a special Manner then, let us, at this Election, rouse all our Powers to act like free publick spirited Men, knowing that he that betrays the Cause now betrays his Country, and must sink in the general Ruin.…

Comments

Suffrage

Suffrage here means approval or consent. (Today we use that term to refer to the vote, as in “women’s suffrage”).

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inferior Individuals

Inferior individuals are not people who are worth less than others, but people of a lower social class or rank.

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insensible

Unaware or indifferent.

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Quarter

Source or place.

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The original principal Cause is our own blind stupid Conduct.

Here Husband gets to his point: The people themselves are to blame for their problems, because they continued to elect representatives who didn’t do anything to help them.

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choose for your Representatives or Burgesses such Men as have given you the strongest Reason to believe they are truly honest: Such as are disinterested, publick spirited, who will not allow their private Advantage once to stand in Competition with the public Good.

In the eighteenth century, someone who was disinterested didn’t have any personal or private interest in an issue — that is, he wasn’t going to profit from it either way, and people could expect him to be fair and impartial. Political writing of this time period often contrasted the “public good” with the private interests of the few. The ideal citizen would consider the public good before his own interest, and the ideal legislator would vote for the public good over his own interest or the interests of his friends. Of course, just as today, different people had different ideas about just what was the “public good”!

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sensible

Aware.

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How long will ye in this servile Manner subject yourselves to Slavery? Now shew yourselves to be Freemen, and for once assert your Liberty and maintain your Rights

During the Revolution, American patriots talked a lot about slavery — not about the slaves they owned, but about themselves as slaves. This seems today like a crude exaggeration. In the eighteenth century, though, British and American writers tended to divide people into two groups: those who were free and those who were not. Free men (freemen) had all the rights guaranteed under the British constitution, especially the right to vote and the right to due process of law (that is, fair treatment by proper legal proceedings). Typically, a freeman was also someone who owned property and did not have to work for anyone else. If you worked for someone else, you might have to be servile — to act as that person’s servant and do whatever he asked. (And although writers of this time often said “men” when they meant all people, “freemen” really does mean only men.)

Husband is saying, essentially, that if farmers don’t use their right to vote, they might as well be slaves. If they don’t vote for representatives who will work to keep their rights and freedoms, then the government and its officials can do anything they like — tax them unfairly, take their property, imprison them without cause.

In a way, his message isn’t fundamentally different from what we often hear at election time today — that if you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the way you’re governed. Of course, in a society that practiced actual, literal slavery, calling free men slaves had an especially powerful impact. People knew what real slavery looked like, and they didn’t want to give any ground on the “slippery slope” from freedom to slavery.

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Should we now through Fear or Favour act as we have done, contrary to Duty and Interest;

Husband isn’t really saying anything new in this paragraph other than pointing out that voting for better representatives isn’t only farmers’ duty; it’s in their own self-interest.

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Who that has the Spirit of a Man could endure this?

In other words, stand up like men! Husband is appealing not only to their sense of duty and their love of liberty but to their manhood.

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