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Are All Men Equal ?
In this text the author traces the social evolution in the U. S . from the colonial hierarchical (½²µÈ¼¶µÄ) society; to the origin of the idea of equality among the frontiersmen. Read on to learn more about this great social change , which followed the emergence of individualism in early 19th century America.
Today in the United States if your rich neighbor buys a Cadillac and you want to do the same , there is nothing to stop you --- if you have the money. But in colonial America you might have liked the gold and silver girdle your neighbor wore, or his colorful hatband, or his embroidered cap; you might have saved and saved until finally you had enough money to buy one or all of these things --- but you dared not wear them --- unless you belonged to the right class. In Massachusetts in 1653 two women were arrested for wearing silk hoods and scarfs, but because their husbands were worth two hundred pounds ( $ l ,000) each they were allowed to go free. But woe betide the luckless poor person who dared to wear silk !
Throughout all the colonies you did or did not have certain rights according to your rank or the amount of property you owned. You did or did not do certain things according to your rank or the amount of property you owned. Rank and wealth. These had some bearing on almost everything you did at any time.
If you went to Harvard College you didn't just take any seat in the classrooms. Nor were you placed according to where your name appeared in the alphabet. Oh no. Not in colonial America. A seat was assigned you according to your rank or property.
Even In church the same arrangement was made. Seats were given out on the usual basis, best seats for those with most money, next best seats for those with some money, and poorest seats for those with little or no money. Occasionally, some of the best seats were separated from the others by a neat handmade balustrade so there would be no contact with the vulgar.
Were two persons found guilty of stealing something together? Then you would expect that both would be publicly whipped,
since that was the usual punishment. Well, they might or might not be, depending upon what their rank was. Thus "in 1631 ,
when Mr. Josias Plaistowe was convicted of stealing corn from the Indians, the court merely imposed a fine and directed that thenceforth he should be called by the name of Josias, and not Mr. as formerly! On the other hand, his servants who had assisted in the theft were severely whipped. "
Today, you have the right to vote if you are a citizen with the proper age qualification. In colonial America, however, you had to be white, you had to be a man, in many communities you had to belong to a certain religious group, and you had to own so much property or have so much land. For a long time in many of the settlements there were many more people who were not allowed to vote than who were. And of course to be elected to any office in the government, to help make the laws or see that they were carried out, you had to own even more property than you needed in order to vote.
At one time in the Massachusetts Bay settlement the people who made the laws thought that workmen's wages were too high. So they passed a law fixing a certain amount which was to be the highest any employer might pay his workmen. If an employer paid more than this fixed sum or a workman took more than this fixed sum, both were to be fined five shillings. Fair enough. But the next year the court changed the law so that only the workman who took more was to be fined, the employer who paid more received no punishment.
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