|
The Scotch-Irish in
America: Especially in South Western Pennsylvania.
Their settlements Institutions, traits and influences.
For two hundred years and
more, the Scotch-Irish race has been a very potential and beneficent
factor in the development of the American Republic. All things considered,
it seems probable that the people of this race have cut deeper into the
history of the United States than have the people of any other race though
they have not been by any means the most numerous or boastful. This is not
an extravagant statement. It can be verified by irrefragable proofs. Until
recent years the Scotch-Irish have been mostly silent about their
achievements. They have been content to do the work given them to do and
let others take the glory. Less than twenty years ago, at Columbia, Tenn.,
the Scotch-Irish Society of America was organized, with the late Robert
Bonner of New York, as President, the late Dr. John Hall of the same city,
as Vice-President; and others as officers, together with a long list of
members, many of them distinguished in various walks of life. The writer
of this book was one of its original members, and for several years one of
its executive committee, and hence had good opportunities of coming into
contact with thousands of the people of the race. Branch societies were
organized in many of the states from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and
great interest was awakened among the people of this blood all over the
country. The Society has published eight volumes of carefully prepared
papers, historical and biographical, setting forth some of the
achievements of this race in this land. These volumes set up claims which
on first thought may be deemed extravagant, presumptuous, and even absurd,
but which are incontestably established by ample proofs. At one of the
meetings of the Congress of the Society, a prominent gentleman, himself
one of the race, remarked, "Well, if the Scotch-Irish have done all these
things with which they are credited, I wonder what in the world all the
rest of mankind have been doing meanwhile." These papers however, are not
bombast; very far from it. Many of them were written by men of large
reputation as historical students. They are simply a recital of the
indubitable facts of our history, and of the part men and women of this
blood had in them. The sober fact is, that judged by the criterion of
valuable and enduring work done along every line of useful life, no other
race has had equal influence on the course of American history during the
last two-hundred years; not even excepting the descendants of the
Pilgrims. Let any one scrutinize the list of names distinguished in our
annals; names of men eminent in public life from Presidents down; men
distinguished in the Church, in the Army, in the Navy, at the Bar, on the
Bench, in Medicine and Surgery, in education, trade, commerce, invention,
discovery — in any and all the arts which add to the freedom,
enlightenment and wealth of the world, and to the convenience and comfort
of mankind; names which have won lustre in every honorable calling, — let
him scrutinize the list and see for himself how large a proportion of
these names represent men who have this blood in their veins. The
proportion of men of this race who, in Great Britain and America have
reached great distinction, is certainly very remarkable. Somehow the North
of Ireland has been the breeding-place of great men and great influences
in the old world and the new. Many of the greatest soldiers and naval
heroes of England, Prime Ministers, Lords-Chancellor, Archbishops, and
others eminent in the history of that land for several hundred years, have
been of this race. Those sections of the world where these people have
settled in large numbers and where their influence has been strongly felt,
have, without exception, shown a distinctly marked type of industrial,
commercial, social, political, intellectual, and most of all, religious
life: and such communities have invariably been centres of enterprise,
thrift, prosperity, and magazines of beneficent force to the entire
surrounding country. We may challenge the world to show us a single
example of a community where these people predominated, and yet where
ignorance, poverty, crime, superstition, or any form of human debasement
prevailed. Without exception, the nesting places of the Scotch-Irish have
been breeding-places of free and forceful men and of the far-reaching and
uplifting influences. These people have been much more given to making
history than they have been to writing it, and hence their achievements
have not been heralded abroad as they deserve to be.
Now, who were, and who are
the Scotch-Irish? The common notion is that they are a mongrel breed,
partly Scotch and partly Irish; that is, the progeny of a cross between
the ancient Scot and the ancient Celt or Kelt. This is an entire mistake.
Whatever blood may be in the veins of the genuine Scotch-Irishman, one
thing is certain, and that is that there is not mingled with it one drop
of the blood of the old Irish or Kelt. From time immemorial these two
races have been hostile, and much of the time bitterly so. True enough, if
you run down the Highland Scot and the old Irish to their deepest root,
you will come to a common taproot in the ancient Celt or Kelt, one of the
main stems of the great Aryan race which, ages ago, migrated into Europe
from Asia. The Erse, the Gael, the Cymri, and the Manx were all originally
of this stock, and their descendants survive today in the old Irish, the
Highland Scotch, the Welsh, and the people of the Isle of Man. The Lowland
Scotch, however, were of a quite different stock. They were of Teutonic or
Anglo-Saxon origin, and were separated from their neighbors on either side
by race, language, religion, and personal traits. In the very early ages
they came into the lowlands of Scotland, and there their descendants live
today. They were for a long time a rude, semi-barbarous, and fierce
people. They were much given to frequent predatory forays into the north
of England for the purpose of plundering the sheep-folds and cattle-yards
of their neighbors south of the Tweed. Once in a public address in San
Francisco, I caused some comment by confessing that my forefathers used to
make raids into England every autumn, and filch from the people there all
the supplies they needed for the coming winter, and then unless they
looked sharp, the Highlanders would pounce down upon them and rob them of
what they had taken from the English. Their conversion to Christianity,
and especially their re-conversion in the time of Knox, wrought a radical
and revolutionary transformation of these people. It left them with their
native vigor and masculine force unimpaired, while it tamed their
ferocity; and put into them a strong sentiment of justice and brotherhood.
Now the Scotch-Irishman is a lowland Scotchman who moved over into the
north of Ireland and there lived for a generation or more, or lives there
still. Meanwhile, the change of residence brought certain decided changes
in him, in his type and temperament. During the latter half of the
seventeenth century and the first quarter of the eighteenth, the lowland
Scotch in large numbers crossed over into Ireland, and there settled,
chiefly in the Province of Ulster. This migration was due to several
causes; some of them industrial, some political, and most of them
religious. The lowland Scotch almost to a man embraced the doctrines of
the Reformation. They were the stalwart and steadfast principles of John
Knox, and as a consequence soon began to be sorely harried by the
persecutions then rife in Scotland. Large numbers of people who believed
the gospel of our Lord, and who hated tyranny whether of priest or prince,
passed over into Ulster where, at that time, there was promise of larger
liberty of conscience and worship. They were Calvinists and Presbyterians
almost to a man, and to the marrow; the spiritual children of Knox and his
successors; people who hated tyrants with invincible hatred, whether they
wore the cowl or the crown; people whose fathers had suffered for their
faith, and who themselves had been cruelly persecuted in that behalf. It
is not strange at all that they carried with them much of the bitter and
resentful spirit which persecution always breeds in its victims. Did they
hate Rome and all that pertained to it? Why should they not? Had not Rome
robbed, tortured and burnt their forefathers? And had not the Church of
England, but half reformed, done the like to them? Of course, they carried
bitterness in their hearts and sternness in their visage towards those who
were bent on strangling them for their faith. We must not blame them
overmuch for this. If they were intolerant, it was because they learned
the lesson from those who had done their utmost to burn them. How can we
expect one to tolerate the man who is trying to assassinate him? It is too
much to ask of one who is in a death grapple with a burglar that he shall
treat him gently; that he shall wear the smirk of a dancing-master. The
man who is in mortal struggle for his liberty or his life, must be
resolute and stern, or meanly die like a coward or a slave. Our fathers
were neither cowards nor slaves; they did not meanly die, whatever else
they did.
People who suffer
persecution for the true faith of Christ are always the most valuable
element in the population of any country. Whenever such people have been
driven from their own land to seek asylum elsewhere, they have invariably
proved an invaluable blessing to the lands that gave them welcome. In all
history there is no exception to this rule. Theseelect of the High God,
that they were under His protection, that the meek should inherit the
earth, that the world and the fulness thereof belonged to their Divine
King, and hence to them, and they fearlessly proceeded to put that
conviction into execution. They believed that every acre of land on which
they set their foot belonged to the saints; that they were the saints, and
hence it belonged to them. The premise may not have warranted the
conclusion, but they deeply believed that it did, and so they acted. In
truth, these people have generally held this faith, and have not been slow
in showing it by their works. Hence they had no scruple about rooting out
the old Irish from Ulster. They probably felt towards these Irish somewhat
as the Hebrew felt towards the Philistines when he entered Canaan. The
land belonged to him; it was given him by the Lord; the Philistine was an
interloper, and must be ejected forthwith. However unwarranted and
misguided, that seems to have been the feeling of these people, and so
they proceeded to take the province for themselves. They must have room,
whoever should have to give way, and so it was not long until Ulster was
dominated by these people.
Meanwhile, other
Protestants, especially Presbyterians, from England, and Huguenots
persecuted out of France, came in large numbers to the same province, and
were gladly welcomed to fellowship. The Scotch-Irishman never turns a cold
shoulder to one who agrees with him. He is very hospitable to people of
like faith and people who settled in Ulster believed in their very souls
that they were the spirit. With these English and French Presbyterians
they freely intermingled and intermarried, but with the old Irish, their
relations were those of the Hebrew and the Canaanite; it was war to the
knife, and the knife to the hilt. Their feuds were constant, fierce and
deadly. Their blood never intermingled except on the battlefield. Hence it
turns out that the genuine Scotch-Irishman is at bottom a lowland Scot,
with an admixture of the bluff and sturdy qualities of the English
Puritan, and a dash of the genius, grace and humor of the French Huguenot.
This makes a remarkable combination of qualities, and we find them blended
and balanced in the typical Scotch-Irishman. There is in him the
steadfastness, not to say, stubbornness, of the Scot; the rugged strength
and aggressive force of the Saxon, with an infusion of the vivacity, ready
genius and sanguine temperament of the Frenchman. It is not claimed of
course, that every individual of the race exhibits this combination, but
it characterizes the type; it is an idiosyncrasy of the race as such.
The people had a passionate
love of liberty. They were fiercely intolerant alike of spiritual and
political despotism. A very powerful emotionalism ran through their
nature, but usually it was held in stern restraint. The fires of passion
were deep and hot, but they were rarely suffered to break out into
destructive conflagration. The truth revealed by the Lord, as they saw it,
they believed with all the strength of their powerful nature. They clung
to their Calvinism with a grip which death itself could not relax.
Industrious, frugal, sagacious, fearless, long-enduring, they were
admirably fitted for the work they were sent into the world to do.
The results of their thrift
and forcefulness soon began to appear in Ulster. That Province is
naturally the least fertile in Ireland, but under their management it soon
became by far the most prosperous. As fast as they got possession, they
drained out the bogs, cleared up and improved the land, and so changed the
aspect of the country that the traveller could at once see the difference
as he crossed the line into Ulster. It is so until this day. They soon
made their power felt in the great struggle then going on for civil and
religious liberty. In the decisive revolution of 1668, culminating in the
ever-memorable siege of Londonderry, and the notable battle of the Boyne,
which saved the liberties and the religion of the English-speaking race,
unquestionably in that tremendous crisis, the Scotch-Irish people of
Ulster were the forlorn hope of the Protestant cause. The heroism shown by
them, especially in the unparalleled siege of Derry, has never been
surpassed in the annals of mankind. Let any one read Lord Macaulay's story
of that great event if he would appreciate the inflexible resolution and
invincible stamina of this race. As already said, the number of men from
that small province who have reached great places of power and usefulness
in every honorable line of life in England, has been extraordinary. For
two hundred years or more, Ulster has been a power-house where forces have
been generated which have been strongly felt throughout the modern world. |
