V. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
The Revolution.
American Loyalty.
The Revolution was long in brewing. The discontent of the colonies at their treatment by the mother country was gradual in its growth. At first it seemed rather to inspire fitful protests and expostulations, than a desire to foster a deliberate quarrel. Even New England, settled by Pilgrims who had no strong reason for evincing loyalty and affection for the land whence they had been driven for opinion's sake, seemed to have become more or less reconciled to the dominion of British governors. There can be no doubt that the colonists, even down to within a brief period of the Declaration of Independence, hoped to retain their connection with Great Britain. Congress declared, even after armies had been raised to resist the red-coats, that this was not with the design of separation or independence. Even the mobs cried "God save the king!" Washington said that until the moment of collision he had abhorred the idea of separation: and Jefferson declared that, up to the 19th of April, 1775 (the date of the battle of Lexington), "he had never heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain."
Effect of the Stamp Act.
The Stamp Act, and the similar acts which followed it, united the colonies in a spirit of resistance. They inspired Patrick Henry's eloquence in Virginia; they gave rise to the "tea-party" in Boston; they produced the Boston massacre; they led to the burning of the Gaspee in Narragansett Bay; they finally developed, no longer rioting, but open and flagrant rebellion at Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. The colonies did not refuse to be taxed. They recognized the right of Great Britain to tax them. But they claimed that this right had its condition—that the taxed people should be represented in the body which held the taxing power. Had the colonies been permitted to send members to the British Parliament, and to have a voice in the deliberations of the government, the Revolution might never have taken place. But King George and his Tory ministers were obstinate to folly. They met protest with repression; in order to subjugate the colonies, they added tyranny to tyranny. The warnings of Townshend and Chatham were lost upon them, and at last the colonies, utterly despairing of a settlement with a power so deaf and so inconsiderate, launched into the storm of revolution.
Independence Hall.
Trumbull's Picture.
Every American who pays a visit to Philadelphia should visit the plain, old-fashioned, sombre room known as "Independence Hall." Its dinginess is venerable; its relics are illustrious. In this hall have resounded the voices of Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hancock, Randolph,—the whole circle of Revolutionary statesmen. On that table, which is pointed out to you, the famous Declaration was signed. From the walls historic faces gaze down upon you. Every relic has its record and its hint. In the square below, you see the place where the Philadelphians of 1776 listened to the reading of the Declaration from the Court House steps. No one can visit this hall without conjuring up in his fancy the memorable scene of the first of our "Fourths of July"; and, happily, a great painter, who knew many of the actors in it, has preserved its features on canvas. It is not difficult, standing in Independence Hall, and retaining Trumbull's picture in memory, to imagine very nearly the scene it presented.
Signers of the Declaration.
There were the long rows of plain uncushioned benches, extending up and down the sides, filled with men of all ages, some with wigs, some with powdered hair, some with unpowdered hair, all dressed in small-clothes, breeches, knee-buckles, long stockings, and buckled shoes; coats of blue, gray, and snuff color; venerable men like Franklin and Stephen Hopkins, men in the full vigor of middle life, like Samuel Adams and Roger Sherman, young men in the ardor and flush of lusty patriotism, like Thomas Jefferson, and Francis Hopkinson, and Robert Livingston, and John Hancock—the younger evidently predominating, alike in numbers and activity. The faces were solemn and grave, no doubt, though Dr. Franklin would have his genial joke about the necessity of their all hanging together, lest they should all hang, separately; deep silence prevailed, followed now and then by an excited stir among the benches.
President Hancock.
The Continental Army.
Then there was the President's table, a little aside from one end of the hall, with papers strewed over it, and by its side President Hancock, attired with dainty and aristocratic precision, his sword by his side, his wig perfectly dressed, his face earnest yet serene and bright. We can fancy, too, the commotion which arose, the leaning forward, the holding of the breath, then the dead silence, when the committee appointed to draw the Declaration advanced to the President's table. It was the moment of crossing the Rubicon. It was the burning of the ships behind them. From this moment there was to be no possibility of retreating. Independence declared, it still remained to conquer it. British troops burdened the soil; shiploads of them were at that moment crossing the Atlantic. The Continental army was but an armed rabble, with patriotism for their strongest weapon. And would the colonies, one and all, adhere, and "hang together"; or would the Declaration strike terror to timid hearts, and destroy its purpose by its very audacity?
Thomas Jefferson.
Franklin.
All this must have passed through the mind of each deputy as the illustrious committee of five stood before Hancock, at the President's desk. Foremost among them was Thomas Jefferson, the tallest, youngest, and ablest of the five; their chairman, and the author of the great document which he held in his hand. In his thirty-fourth year, Jefferson was then a fine specimen of the Virginian gentry, his tall form clad loosely in the small-clothes of the period, his bright red hair, unpowdered, gathered carelessly behind with a ribbon, his light blue eyes clear and calm, and his lips parted in a placid and confident smile. Next to him, side by side, stood Franklin and John Adams, sons of Massachusetts—the one risen from the printer's case, the other a prosperous country lawyer, descended from the good Puritan stock of John Alden. Franklin was already beyond three score and ten; his gray hair hung in long locks to his shoulders; his snuff-colored coat reached to his knees; his large, pleasant face must have encouraged the others on that fateful day, so did it shine with trust in the cause and confidence in its success.
Roger Sherman.
Pugnacity and determination were revealed in the short thick-set figure of John Adams; the round bald head, the firm mouth, the set eyes of the Braintree patriot, gave the idea that he was grimly and terribly in earnest. Square-headed old Roger Sherman was another figure well worth studying; a man, like the others, with the air of being rather resolved on, than resigned to, the step which was being made, and seriously prepared to take all consequences. And, to complete the group, there was the polished and scholarly Livingston of New York, almost a fop in dress and toilet, a model of elegance and fine courtesy, who, though serving as one of the committee, was absent when the Declaration was signed. The signing did not take place for several weeks after its adoption.
The Declaration proclaimed.
British exasperation.
Jefferson read the Declaration to the Congress, and it was accepted, with a few alterations, by the votes of the deputies of twelve of the colonies. New York alone abstained from voting. The bell of the State House rang out the tidings; the Declaration was read to a surging, excited crowd in the square; it was sent off in all directions by fleet messengers, and read at the head of each brigade of the Continental army; and the colonies now knew that the fight was to go on to the bitter end. Thenceforth there was no thought of patching a compromise with the mother country, or of returning to the old allegiance to the British crown. On the side of England, national pride and royal obstinacy urged forward every preparation to continue the struggle; and the voices of Chatham, Burke, and Fox were drowned amid the storm of exasperation which the Declaration had caused. A price was set upon the heads of Hancock and Samuel Adams, and Hessians were purchased to fill the insufficient corps of the red-coats.
Consequences of the Declaration.
Now the colonies were the United States, with a flag common to all, the symbol of a united nationality. Seldom has a written paper so moved the world. In our own history, the only document that can compare with it, in its momentous results, was the emancipation charter of Abraham Lincoln. Both required a courage that was nothing less than heroic: but the proclaimers of the Declaration of Independence risked life, family, property; engaged in an irreconcilable conflict against enormous odds; defied the greatest naval power in the world, and the richest nation, in pursuit, not of the material gain to be derived from the abrogation of a tax, but of national liberties which they were determined to secure at every hazard. The Declaration, indeed, was needed to combine the action of the patriots, and to give them a definite and certain purpose. It was the bond that pledged them to harmony, and which confined them to the alternative of "liberty or death."
VI. SOCIETY IN 1776.
American Society.
Despite the numerous biographies, histories, narratives, diaries, and volumes of correspondence concerning the revolutionary epoch, which fill many shelves of our larger libraries, it is not easy to reproduce in imagination the state of American society as it was a hundred years ago. In order to do so we must exclude from the mind many objects and ideas which have been familiar to us all our lives. We must subtract all of material improvements, of changes in the method of doing things, of new directions and wide divergencies in the current of thought and knowledge that have come about in the interval. We must strip the modern home, for instance, of appliances without which it is difficult to conjure up a picture of comfort, much less of luxury. We must forget railways, and the telegraph, and every other use of that still mysterious agent, electricity. We must put out of our minds all notion of great cities, of long lines of elegant shops, blocks of noble residences, spacious parks adorned by every refinement of the gardening art, public buildings capped with stately dome and graceful turret and sculptured front; all notion of the later growth of recreation, the theatre and the concert hall, the lecture platform, the brilliant holiday festival, the sea excursion, the gay and attractive summer resort with its big hotels and its countless luxuries. We must return in imagination, in short, to a social condition but few remnants of which are still to be found in remote corners of the country; the relics of which still visible to the eye are rare and precious, and dwindling away day by day; and the life and spirit of which have ceased with the broadened, gift-laden civilization which has replaced the old primitive simplicity, and made a powerful, teeming, and restless nation out of scattered villages and colonies struggling to exist.
Old-time Mansions.
Still, there was a very distinct advance in culture, elegance, comfort, and luxury, beyond the condition of the colonies in the previous century. Those who remember the stately Hancock House, on the top of Beacon Hill in Boston, and compare its exterior and interior with still extant edifices which were residences of the wealthier colonists of two hundred years ago, may gather some idea of the far more lavish adornment and elegance of the period in which Hancock lived. We may well believe that when Washington drove through the streets of Philadelphia in a state coach, "of which the body was in the shape of a hemisphere, cream-colored, bordered with flowers round the panels, and ornamented with figures representing cupids, and supporting festoons," he presented a very different appearance from that of the early Puritan governors and Virginian squires; and could we have peeped into the square, solid drawing-room in which, as President, he held his receptions, aided by the matronly grace and dignity of Mrs. Washington, the scene would be far gayer and more imposing than William Penn's house would have displayed, or the company of the richest Dutch "patroon" of New York could have presented in the seventeenth century.
Old Furniture.
Yet, had we gone over the mansion, in how many things would we, used to the minute refinements of this later age, have judged it wanting! Instead of gas, there would be candles, and not of the best quality, everywhere. Instead of stoves and furnaces with coal, we should have been fain to comfort ourselves with the cheerful blaze and genial glow, but scant and capricious warmth, of the wood logs, burning in the big open fireplaces. Lace curtains and moquette carpets would be nowhere apparent. The furniture, though here and there richly carved and bountifully upholstered, would be wanting in variety and the luxurious ease of that which we now enjoy.
The Tables of 1776.
At table we should have missed the thousand refinements and inventions of French and native cooking which now lend variety to our sustenance. The food would have been substantial and heavy and little various; the English simplicity, probably, of barons of beef and shoulders of mutton, and cold bread, and big plum puddings, with a relish of fruits. Were we in fancy to journey from New York to Philadelphia or Boston, we should be forced to rumble slowly over bad roads, through interminable forests and by desert sea-coasts, in heavy and rudely jolting vehicles, and be several days upon the trip.
Travelling in the Olden Time.
The Wealthier Classes.
It is a striking fact that people in the days of Washington travelled not a whit more rapidly than people in the days of Moses or of Homer. The chariot-rider of the Olympic games attained a speed which was, perhaps, never equalled in Europe or America until the first railway-train sped between Liverpool and Manchester, in 1830. In 1776, the Americans were still mainly confined to the original occupations of the early colonists, farming, trade, hunting, and fishing. Manufactories there were not as yet; Lawrence and Lowell. Pittsburg, and the great industrial New York towns, were still in the womb of the future. In almost every household throughout the land the old-fashioned spinning-wheel was humming under the pressure of matronly and maidenly feet, by which the homespun garments of the time were made. While the less well-to-do and laboring classes were content with clothing spun and knitted at their own firesides, the wealthier people arrayed themselves with far more ostentation than they do at this day. Silks and satins came hither by ship-loads from France to supply the luxury of costume which was then in vogue. The difference between the costumes of that day and of this was especially marked in the attire of gentlemen. Now there is much greater plainness and uniformity. When Washington held his levees, he was generally dressed "in black velvet, with white or pearl-colored waistcoat, yellow gloves, and silver knee and shoe-buckles." "His hair was powdered and gathered in a silk bag behind. He carried a cocked hat in his hand, and wore a long sword with a scabbard of polished white leather." The display of dress was not less marked in other officials, and in men of high social rank. The judges of the Supreme Court wore scarlet robes faced with velvet. "If a gentleman went abroad, he appeared in his wig, white stock, white satin embroidered vest, black satin small-clothes, with white silk stockings, and a fine broadcloth or velvet coat; if at home, a velvet cap, sometimes with a fine linen one under it, took the place of the wig; while a gown, frequently of colored damask lined with silk, was substituted for the coat, and the feet were covered with leather slippers of some fancy color." All men shaved their beards clean; a man who appeared in the streets wearing hair on any part of his face was stared at, and very likely laughed at.
Old-time Attire.
Wigs and Queues.
All the great gentlemen wore wigs; most of the country farmers contented themselves with tying their hair in a queue behind, sprinkling it with powder when they went to church on a Sunday. As for the ladies, those in the best society were even more elaborate in their toilets than those of to-day. On the dressing of the hair, especially, much time and money were spent. It was raised high upon the head and powdered thick; "the hair dressers," says Higginson, "were kept so busy on the day of any fashionable entertainment, that ladies sometimes had to employ their services at four or five in the morning, and had to sit upright all the rest of the day, in order to avoid disturbing the head-dress."
Amusements.
Although our ancestors did not possess the variety of amusements which now exists, their life was far from a humdrum one. Theatres were tabooed, but were beginning to hold their ground here and there, though not, we may be sure, in New England. There were, however, private theatricals and charades, which became at one period very much in vogue in the aristocratic houses of New York and Philadelphia. Concerts were often held, and in the country many old-time English festivals, such as May Day, were kept up. The most frequent and fashionable amusements of that time were balls and parties. We hear of the gentlemen and dames going to "routs" in their sedan chairs, much as they did in the old country: arriving at eight—they kept better hours than our modern fashionable people—they would dance the staid and stately minuet and the gayer contra-dance, to the music mainly of fiddles, till midnight, and then separate, horrified at the lateness of the hour.
Imitations of the English.
Indeed, we are able to see in the habits of the American upper classes a distinct imitation of London fashions, despite the quarrel with the British. The whole etiquette of patrician society was based upon that of the English court, just as the law administered in the courts was borrowed from that dispensed at Westminster. It is interesting to note that "gentlemen took snuff in those days almost universally: and a great deal of expense and variety were often lavished upon a snuff-box. To take snuff with one another was as much a matter of courtesy as the lifting of the hat."
Wine and Profanity.
The days of prevalent cigar-smoking and tobacco-chewing had not come. The use of wine and ardent spirits was regarded with less reprobation in the old society than in the new; profanity, too, was indulged in much more freely by men of standing and moral profession than now. Thus we can recognize, in these and in many other things, a progress in morals, and in greater refinement both of thought, manners, and language, as well as in the material enginery of civilization.
VII. THE REVOLUTION.
Washington as Commander-in-chief.
George Washington had been assigned to the command-in-chief of the colonial troops, just before the Battle of Bunker Hill. Thus, at the very start, wisdom ruled the counsels and Providence guided the action of our forefathers. The military abilities and lofty patriotism of Washington could scarcely have been foreseen at the first in all their breadth and scope; yet he was already known as a soldier of tried courage and of prudent conduct, and as a Virginia gentleman of conspicuous social and private virtues.
Continental Generals.
Washington assumed the chief direction of the Continental forces, under the famous old elm which still stands, but a few steps from Harvard College, in Old Cambridge, on the third day of July, 1775. At the same time of his appointment, four major-generals—Artemus Ward, Israel Putnam, Philip Schuyler, and Charles Lee—were designated. The principal troops of the colonies were at this time gathered in an irregular cordon around Boston. Their position was almost unchanged from that which they had occupied before the Battle of Bunker Hill; for the British were unable to follow up the success which they had achieved on that occasion.
The Continental Forces.
The general-in-chief, on inspecting his forces, saw how ill disciplined and ill supplied they were. They had but little clothing, a scant supply of arms, and still less ammunition. Washington's first task was by no means the least difficult of those which lay before him. It was to create an army out of a brave but heterogeneous multitude of patriots. It was to collect arms and supplies; to keep vigilant watch on the British in Boston; to fortify and defend the surrounding circle; and prepare to meet and drive out the pent-up foe.
At last, after preparations extending through nearly eight months, Boston was attacked by batteries from Dorchester Heights, and on the 17th of March, 1776, Howe evacuated the town, and the first decisive struggle of the seven years' contest had been decided in favor of the Americans.
First Campaign.
The scene is now transferred further south. Charleston had, it is true, already been attacked, but without favorable results to the English; on the other hand, Arnold and Montgomery had vainly essayed to assail British power in the Canadas. New York was the objective point of those who had now come to be regarded as the invaders of our soil. Its splendid harbor and its central position afforded a good standpoint. The concentration of the troops of Howe, which had evacuated Boston, the war ships commanded by his brother, Lord Howe, and the forces under Clinton, which had been occupied in futile operations in the South, enabled the British to force Washington out of New York, and to occupy it themselves.
Numerical Force of the Contestants.
The whole British force engaged in this enterprise was scarcely less than twenty-five thousand men; the American force did not exceed twelve thousand; and the contrast in discipline and equipment still further increased this inequality of strength. Then came the retreat across New Jersey, succeeded by one of the most brilliant strokes of the war. This was the midnight and midwinter crossing of the Delaware by the American general and his troops, the forced march upon Trenton through the snow and cold, and the surprise and utter defeat of the Hessians at that place on Christmas morning.
Valley Forge.
But the colonists, though waxing in strength, were not yet able to cope in a prolonged and active campaign with the royal army. Philadelphia, like New York, had to be given up. The terrible winter months spent at Valley Forge formed one of the saddest and most heroic romances of the Revolution. The army lived in huts, which, as Lafayette exclaimed, "were no gayer than dungeons." Bread and clothing were sadly wanting. The cold was intense, and almost unremitting. The Pilgrims during their first winter at Plymouth were scarcely more comfortless.
Bennington.
It was early in the following year (1777) that General Burgoyne made an offensive movement southward from Canada, by way of Lake Champlain and Fort Ticonderoga. A portion of his troops were sent to Bennington to capture some stores collected there by the Vermont patriots. A vigorous defence of these stores by the intrepid Stark resulted in the repulse, first of the British, then of the Hessian troops. The next scene in the drama was what may be called the second decisive action of the war. Burgoyne, with his whole force of five thousand men, encamped at Saratoga. There he was confronted by General Horatio Gates, who engaged him in two battles, which, however uncertain their immediate issue, were followed by a retreat on Burgoyne's part. The Americans succeeded in turning his flank, and hemming him in; and then came the surrender of Burgoyne and his entire force.
Surrender of Burgoyne.
The consequences of this event were of far greater moment than the elimination from the contest of an able British general and five thousand well drilled British and mercenary soldiers. It silenced the complaints which were growing loud against the inactivity of Washington. It once more harmonized the colonial counsels, which were becoming seriously discordant. It inspired new effort throughout the colonies. And it decided France to make open cause with the struggling patriots. To the masterly diplomacy of Franklin we owe it that the great European rival of England threw the weight of her sympathy and material assistance on our side.
Charleston Taken.
Capture of Stony Point.
From the moment of Burgoyne's surrender, the tide of the war was fitful, but on the whole, towards American success. There were still vicissitudes, now and then an apparent back-sliding; Charleston was taken by Clinton; massacres by Indians took place in Pennsylvania; the progress of the cause at times seemed grievously slow. On the other hand, "mad" Anthony Wayne assaulted and took Stony Point, on the Hudson; Paul Jones made vigorous havoc with the British war-ships, conquering the Serapis and carried terror to the English by approaching close to their coast with his doughty Bonhomme Richard; Marion and Sumter kept up constant hostilities with the British in South Carolina; and the vexatious character of the war was evidently wearying the patience, and wearing upon the determination, of the royal government.
Surrender of Cornwallis.
The final scene of the war, at least that which most obtrusively stands forth in its panorama, was the siege and capture of Yorktown, in Virginia, and the surrender of General Lord Cornwallis with seven thousand troops. On this occasion the Americans had the aid of a corps of French troops under Count Rochambeau, while the French Admiral de Grasse guarded York River. The siege was so vigorous that in ten days Lord Cornwallis found himself unable to hold the town. But for a propitious rain-storm, he might yet have saved his army, and thus protracted the war. His attempt to leave Yorktown under cover of night was, however, frustrated by the outburst of a tempest; and he was forced to send word to Washington that he would surrender.
Peace.
This he did, with all the customary formalities of war, on the 19th of October, 1781. By this act seven thousand British troops, the largest force left on American soil, were withdrawn from the conflict. It was the death-blow to British hopes. The war dragged on, however, for two years more. The royalist troops held New York, Charleston, and Savannah, but did not venture upon aggressive projects. At last, a treaty was made at Paris, on the 3d of September, 1783, by the conditions of which Great Britain grudgingly acknowledged the independence of the United States of America.
The Revolutionary Heroes.
There would be no justice in presenting even an outline of the American Revolution, without referring to its triumphs of statesmanship and diplomacy, as well as its triumphs of military achievement. Washington, Greene, Stark, Putnam, Wayne, Lafayette, De Kalb, Steuben, Schuyler, and their fellow-soldiers, performed a great part, and that which was the most brilliant and conspicuous, in accomplishing our liberties. But in the Congress were patriots quite as devoted, and not less efficient; while Franklin, during his sojourn abroad, exercised with great skill the delicate and subtle generalship of diplomacy. It would have been easy for the statesmen of the Revolution to render all of Washington's efforts vain and futile. The triumph of unworthy ambitions in the colonial counsels might well have brought wreck and ruin upon the cause.
Revolutionary Statesmanship.
Had the revolutionary statesmen lacked capacity or courage, they would have loaded the army with a burden which it probably could not have supported. The marvel of the period was the almost undisturbed unity, readiness, and practical energy of every branch of the public service; the devotion of each one in his own sphere to the common end; the general co-operation in the means by which that end was to be reached; the remarkable rarity of treason, even of self-seeking; the steadfast exercise, amid the comfortlessness of camps and the temptations of the council-hall of the highest and worthiest public virtues.
VIII. THE CONFEDERATION AND CONSTITUTION.
The Confederation.
Bond of the States.
The Confederation was designed as a temporary civil machine, with which to conduct a war common to the colonies. The Constitution was the later and permanent bond, combining the States under a single government. Without the confederation, there would have been chaos in the revolution; without the constitution, there would have remained the weakness arising from the division and rivalry of States. It is most interesting to observe the gradual manner in which our civil government crystallized out of the original elements offered by the colonies; and it is wonderful to see with what wise deliberation and patriotic earnestness States differing so widely in manners, in religion, in colonial system, and even in blood and race, were brought together in harmonious coalition, bound with a bond which the greatest civil war of modern times failed to sever, and which it seems only to have confirmed and strengthened.
Early Confederations.
There were, indeed, local confederations before those which, in 1774, enabled a congress to meet at Philadelphia, and which, in 1777, established articles for a more regular, though still a temporary, civil enginery with which to bring the war to a successful conclusion. More than a century before the first meeting of the Continental Congress, the idea of a confederation had been agitated among the New England colonies. In 1643 a confederation of those colonies was agreed upon at Boston, with twelve organic articles, for the common protection and defence. Here was the very beginning of American unions; and in its features may be discovered traces of the democratic principles of the Pilgrims.
Declaration of Rights.
A general congress of all the colonies met at New York in 1690, for purposes of conference, when the Stamp Act was promulgated. Massachusetts invited the colonies to meet in a general congress, which assembled at New York in 1765, adopted a declaration of rights, asserted the sole right of taxation to rest in the colonies, and passed other important resolutions. Eleven years before this, commissioners from nearly all of the colonies had met at Albany, and before this body Benjamin Franklin submitted his famous "project of union." Other conferences and congresses were held between 1765 and 1774; but it was early in September of the latter year that the first formal Continental Congress met, at Philadelphia, mainly to concert measures for resisting the arbitrary acts of the mother country. The rules which guided its deliberations were few and simple; but even so early we find Patrick Henry arguing upon the great question of the rights of the States, which has been a bone of contention in this country from that time to this.
Articles of Confederation Adopted.
The first formal articles of confederation, after several ineffectual attempts, were adopted on the 15th of November, 1777, when the States were in the midst of the war of independence; but they were not formally ratified by all of the colonies until 1781, when Maryland at last agreed to them. These articles contained the germs of nationality, the crude material out of which the much broader and wiser constitution was afterwards framed. The second article provided for the complete "sovereignty, independence, and freedom," of the several States, in all powers not expressly delegated to Congress.
Restrictions on the States.
It was declared that the confederation was a mutual league for protection and defence; that each State should deliver fugitives from justice to the others, and accord full faith to the judicial records of the others; that each State should have the right to recall its delegates, and that no State should be represented in Congress by less than two nor more than seven delegates; that no State should send embassies to foreign powers, confer titles of nobility, lay imports inconsistent with treaties of the United States, keep vessels of war or military forces in time of peace without the consent of Congress, a certain quota of militia excepted, or engage in war except in certain specified exigencies.
These, with many minor regulations, were the organic rules under which our civil government was carried on from 1777 to 1788, when the constitution came into force. The confederation was supplied with an executive chosen by Congress, comprising secretaries of foreign affairs, war, and finance. It was evident, however, that this league, while it had well served a temporary purpose, was quite inadequate to the purpose of a permanent bond of union. "We are one nation to-day," said Washington, "and thirteen to-morrow; who will treat with us on these terms?"
Steps towards a Constitution.
The first formal step towards establishing a constitution was the meeting, in the autumn of 1786, of commissioners from Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, at Annapolis. They conferred together, and reported to Congress a recommendation that a body, comprising delegates from all the States, and empowered to frame an organic instrument, should be convened early in the following year. Congress adopted the scheme, and the constituent convention was called.
The Constituent Convention.
This famous assembly met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, and its deliberations continued until the middle of September. Among its members were many of the most eminent statesmen and soldiers of the Revolutionary period.
Members of the Convention.
George Washington, pre-eminent in war, and to be still pre-eminent in times of peace, presided over the convention, and was one of the guiding spirits of its labors. Of the thirty-eight delegates who signed the constitution, six—Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, James Wilson, and George Clymer—had previously signed the Declaration of Independence. It was in the constitutional convention that Alexander Hamilton's genius for statesmanship became conspicuous to the whole nation; while Madison, the future President, achieved therein a large reputation.
The Non-signers.
Among others, the two Pinckneys from South Carolina, John Dickinson, Jonathan Dayton, Rufus King, Gouverneur Morris, Jared Ingersoll, and John Rutledge, were eminent in various spheres of public life. Some of the members of the convention refused to, or for some reason did not, sign the constitution after it was completed and drafted. These were Elbridge Gerry and Caleb Strong of Massachusetts, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, John Lansing and Robert Yates of New York, William C. Houston of New Jersey, Luther Martin and John Francis Mercer of Maryland, George Mason, James McClung, Edmund Randolph, and George Wythe of Virginia, William R. Davis of North Carolina, William Houston and William Pierce of Georgia.
Issues in the Convention.
The discussions on the proposed constitution were long, earnest, sometimes heated, and revealed the presence of widely divergent opinions. Four plans, or projects, were submitted severally by Edmund Randolph, William Paterson, Charles Pinckney, and Alexander Hamilton, differing widely in the political systems recommended. Throughout, the struggle was between those who desired to preserve a large degree of independence to the States, and those who wished to make a strong national government; and the crisis of the struggle came upon the question whether the States should have equal votes in the Senate, or should be represented in that body, as in the House of Representatives, according to population.
This was warmly debated for several days, the venerable Roger Sherman and Hamilton sustaining the principle of State equality, and Madison and Rufus King as vigorously opposing it. At last the former party prevailed, after a report in favor of State equality in the Senate said to have been moved in committee by Dr. Franklin. Other phases of the same contention occurred in the discussion of the article specially defining the powers of Congress. It was the object of the "States' rights" party to limit these as much as possible, and of the nationalist party to give them a broad range.
The Constitution a Compromise.
Powers of Congress.
Thus, after labors extending through nearly four months, the constitution issued from the hands of its framers with the marks of compromise and concession on almost every section. On the one hand, the States were to vote as equals in the second and upper branch of Congress, and reserved to themselves local self-government and all powers not expressly set forth in the instrument. On the other, Congress was clothed with authority to lay uniform taxes and imposts, to provide for the common defence, to borrow money on the credit of the nation, to regulate foreign commerce, to make naturalization and bankruptcy laws, to coin money, to establish post-offices and roads, to declare war and raise armies and a navy, to constitute courts, to organize and call out the militia, and to "execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrection, and repel invasions."
Animated, too, by the true republican spirit, the framers of the constitution inserted in it that no bill of attainder or ex-post-facto law should be passed; that the writ of habeas corpus should only be suspended in cases of extreme necessity; and that no title of nobility should either be granted by the government or accepted by a citizen of the United States.
Ratification of the Constitution.
As soon as the constitution was promulgated, a warm contest arose in all the States over its ratification. The instrument, upon being ratified by nine States, was to become the organic law of the land. Although it was strenuously opposed by many eminent men, among them Patrick Henry, a sufficient number of States assented in time to bring the constitution into operation the year after its submission to the people.
"The Federalist."
Although neither Hamilton nor Madison was entirely satisfied with the work of the convention, both sank their scruples in a loftier spirit of patriotism; and their defence of the constitution, in conjunction with John Jay in the Federalist, is likely to be read as long as the constitution lasts. How wisely the framers labored, and the great fruits of their labor, are far more clearly to be seen now that the great instrument has been so long and so severely tried, than was possible in their own generation. The constitution has stood well the strain of a progress far more rapid, and needs far more vast and pressing, than they could have foreseen. It protects the liberties of a nation many fold more extended and numerous than they could have anticipated would exist within the brief space of a century; nor does the promise of its endurance yet grow feeble.
IX. WASHINGTON'S PRESIDENCY.
"To have framed a constitution was showing only, without realizing, the general happiness. This great work remained to be done; and America, steadfast in her preference, with one will summoned her beloved Washington, unpractised as he was in the duties of civil administration, to execute this last act in the completion of the national felicity." Thus spoke Gen. Henry Lee, the funeral orator of Washington, and the father of a later and more famous Lee, who fought to destroy the national felicity of which his father spoke.
Test of the Constitution.
The test of the constitution had come; and it was indeed an experiment well calculated to arouse the liveliest anxieties of the infant nation. The passions of party ran yet more high in those days than in our own. Views the most antagonistic existed already, regarding the interrelation, as well as the probable success, of the organic instrument. But upon one point: all factions, however opposed, were agreed. The only possible first President of the United States was George Washington.
Election of Washington as President.
The new nation proceeded, in the autumn of 1788, to the choice of an executive. There being no contest as to the chief office, the struggle turned on the Vice-Presidency; but even in this case one candidate was conspicuous far above the others. If Virginia had the President it was right that Massachusetts should have the Vice-President; and as Washington was the pre-eminent Virginian, so John Adams was, beyond all dispute, the foremost New Englander. Ten States voted in the election, casting sixty-nine electoral ballots. Washington received the whole sixty-nine; and our government began with the happy augury of an unanimous choice for its head. For Vice-President, John Adams received thirty-four votes; John Jay nine; R.H. Harrison six; John Rutledge six; John Hancock four; and George Clinton three.
Washington takes the Oath of Office.
It was on the last day of April, 1789, that President Washington took the oath of office at New York, and in person delivered his inaugural address in the presence of the two branches of Congress. This masterly paper expressed the reluctance with which Washington had abandoned a retreat which he had chosen "as the asylum of my declining years"; his willingness to yield the prospect of repose to the call of country and duty; his faith in the constitution and in the future of the nation; and his devout reliance, in the burden he was taking upon himself, on "the benign Parent of the human race."
The First Cabinet.
A very able cabinet surrounded and strengthened the hands of our first President. Thomas Jefferson, who had written the Declaration of Independence, had been Governor of Virginia, and was the successor of Franklin at the Court of France, was made Secretary of State. At the head of the Treasury—then, as now, the most important branch of the executive—was placed the still young but conspicuously able Alexander Hamilton; the most forcible of revolutionary pamphleteers, the most efficient of staff-officers, and already an authority on finance. Major-General Henry Knox, the chief of the continental artillery service, who had presided over the war department during the confederation, became Secretary of War. Samuel Osgood of Massachusetts, experienced in civil affairs and a judicious counsellor, was assigned to the General Post-Office; and Edmund Randolph, who had recanted his hostility to the constitution, and was now a close ally of Jefferson, was appointed the first Attorney-General of the United States.
Washington's Difficulties.
Antagonism of Parties.
Many difficulties surrounded the first President and his advisers at the outset. The nation was deeply in debt, and its currency was a paper one. The people, oppressed for so many years by the burdens of an unequal war, were irritated by the necessarily heavy taxes. The Indians on the borders of the settled States were troublesome. And, to add to the embarrassments of our statesmen, the relations of the United States with the European powers were strained, and at times alarming. The two parties which had struggled to fashion the constitution continued to agitate the country in a more bitter rivalry than has been seen since, with the exception of the party excitement of the period just before the Rebellion. Their antagonism became more pronounced during Washington's presidency, by reason of the great European war then going on, which divided the sympathies of our people and politicians between France and England.
The Republicans.
On the one hand, the party which called itself "Republican," and at the head of which were Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, James Madison, Edmund Randolph, and Patrick Henry, were zealous friends of the French Revolution. They regarded that great convulsion as a desperate attempt on the part of our recent allies to found a republic like that of the United States; and they were in favor of extending the French our aid and sympathy, while the more eager went so far as to advocate our active participation in the war on behalf of France. On the other hand, the "Federalists," chief among whom were Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, and Jay, deplored the excesses of the French Revolutionists; thought their example rather to be avoided than emulated; and, with a still lingering affection for England despite her tyrannies, leaned to her side in the conflict which was so fiercely raging.
State Rights and a Central Government.
The cabinet itself was divided between these two parties. Jefferson, the "Republican" leader, was Secretary of State; Hamilton, the "Federalist" leader, was at the head of the Treasury. On other than foreign subjects the antagonism of the two parties was distinctly defined. The Republicans were the stout defenders of what they called the rights of the States. The Federalists wished to make the central government as strong as possible. The Republicans favored strict economy, a democratic simplicity of manners and costumes, and opposed official ceremony and formality. The Federalists were the aristocratic party, elegant and patrician in their tastes, sticklers for etiquette and state. Hamilton and Washington were freely charged by the Republicans with being monarchists at heart.
Washington's State.
Political capital was made of the President's ostentatious style of living, of his cream-colored coach and six, and liveried lackeys, his velvet and gold apparel, his almost royal levees, and his well known desire that the title of "High Mightiness" should be conferred upon him. He was accused of imitating the state of the monarchs of the old world, and of wishing to gather a brilliant, ceremonious, and exclusive court about him. Thus before he had completed his two terms of office, Washington found himself confronted and opposed by a powerful democratic party. John Adams, his successor in policy as well as in office, was chosen President by only one majority in the electoral college; and when his term expired, the Republicans succeeded in placing Jefferson in the executive chair, and in holding power for a quarter of a century.
Washington's Policy.
Washington's administration, however, proved his capacity for statesmanship as well as for war, his wisdom and force of character, and his pure and lofty devotion to the interests of the whole country. His policy was at once vigorous and moderate. At first he preserved an almost impartial bearing towards the two parties, as indicated by his selection of their several chiefs for the highest seats in his cabinet. Towards the close of his term, however, the government became more distinctly Federalist. Hamilton's influence became paramount; and Jefferson retired from office to put himself at the head of a very earnest and aggressive opposition.
Relations with Foreign Powers.
The results of Washington's policy may be recognized, at this distance of time, as having been in the highest degree beneficial to the welfare of the young nation. He placed its finances on a sound basis. He maintained order, and put a term to the aggressions of the Indians. He compelled Algiers to prevent her pirates from preying upon our commerce. He made friendly treaties with England and Spain. With the French question he dealt in a manner most creditable to his wisdom, and in the only manner by which the United States could escape being involved once more in war. He issued a proclamation of absolute neutrality; and he saw that it was adhered to in the spirit and in the letter. Towards the close of his presidency, the arbitrary conduct of France towards this country was such that a conflict became imminent. Even an invasion by the French was threatened. This danger continued into the period of John Adams' term; but the firm and vigorous policy of Washington and his successor averted it, while the European, wars in which Napoleon soon became involved diverted the attention of France elsewhere.
States Added to the Union.
General Results of Washington's Administration.
Three States were added to the Union of thirteen during Washington's tenure of office. Vermont came within the circle in 1791; Kentucky followed in the next year; and her neighbor, Tennessee, became a state in 1796. What a contrast in national expenditure there was between Washington's administration and those of modern times may be judged when it is stated that the average annual expense of the government in Washington's time was something less than two millions of dollars. The population, according to the first census taken in 1790 was a little less than four millions. Now we number more than fifty millions. It may be said, generally, of Washington's presidency, that it gave the new government a good start on its career of growth, order, and prosperity. By his statesmanship, which was pure, solid, and vigorous, rather than brilliant, peace was preserved at home and abroad; and the result was that that general happiness which Henry Lee spoke of as promised only by the constitution had already at least begun to be realized.