A Brief History of the United States Part 23

[12] While these things were happening in the South, a French army of 6000 men under Rochambeau arrived at Newport (1780), from which the British had withdrawn in 1779. There, for a while, the French fleet was blockaded by the British, and the troops remained to aid the fleet in case of necessity. The next year, however, this army marched across Connecticut and joined Washington's forces (July, 1781), and preparations were begun for an attack on New York.

[13] When Clinton realized that Washington was on the way to Yorktown, he sent Arnold on a raid into Connecticut, in hope of forcing Washington to return. Early in September Arnold attacked New London, carried one of its forts by storm, and set tire to the town, but was driven off by the minutemen.

[14] Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin (our minister in France), John Adams (in Holland), John Jay (in Spain), Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Laurens to negotiate the treaty. Jefferson's appointment came too late for him to serve; the other four signed the treaty of 1782, and Franklin, Adams, and Jay signed the treaty of 1783.

[15] After the surrender of Cornwallis, Washington returned with his army to the Hudson and made his headquarters at Newburgh. In April, 1783, a cessation of war on land and sea was formally proclaimed, and the British prepared to leave New York. Charleston and Savannah were evacuated in 1782, but November 25, 1783, came before the last British soldier left New York. When the troops under Washington entered New York city, they found a British flag nailed to the staff, the halyards gone, and the staff soaped.

A sailor climbed the pole by nailing on cleats, pulled down the British flag, and reeved new halyards. The stars and stripes were then raised and saluted with thirteen guns.

[16] Washington refused to be paid for his services. Actual expenses during the war were all he would take, and these amounted to about $70,000.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UNITED STATES ABOUT 1783 SHOWING STATE CLAIMS TO WESTERN LANDS]

CHAPTER XVI

AFTER THE WAR

OUR BOUNDARIES.--By the treaty of 1783 our country was bounded on the north by a line (very much as at present) from the mouth of the St. Croix River in Maine to the Lake of the Woods; on the west by the Mississippi River; and on the south by the parallel of 31 north lat.i.tude from the Mississippi to the Apalachicola, and then by the present south boundary of Georgia to the sea. [1]

But our flag did not as yet wave over every part of the country within these bounds. Great Britain, claiming that certain provisions in the treaty had been violated, held the forts from Lake Champlain to Lake Michigan and would not withdraw her troops. [2] Spain, having received the Floridas back from Great Britain by a treaty of 1783, held the forts at Memphis, Baton Rouge, and Vicksburg, and much of what is now Alabama and Mississippi. [3]

A CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.--From 1775 to 1781 the states were governed, so far as they had any general government, by the Continental Congress. During these years there was no written doc.u.ment fixing the powers of Congress and limiting the powers of the states. While the war was going on, Congress submitted a plan for a general government, called Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union; but nearly four years pa.s.sed before all the states accepted it. The delay was caused by the refusal of Maryland to approve the Articles unless the states having sea-to-sea charters would give to Congress, for the public good, the lands they claimed beyond the mountains. [4]

Congress therefore appealed to the states to cede their Western lands. If they would do this, Congress promised to sell the lands, use the money to pay the debts of the United States, and cut the region into states and admit them into the Union at the proper time. New York, Connecticut, and Virginia at last agreed to give up their lands northwest of the Ohio River, and on March 1, 1781, the Maryland delegates signed the Articles and by so doing put them in force. [5]

THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.--In the government set up by the Articles of Confederation there was no President of the United States, no Supreme Court, no Senate. Congress consisted of a single body to which each state sent at least two delegates, and might send any number up to seven. The members were elected annually, were paid by the states they represented, could not serve more than three years in six, and might be recalled at any time. Each state cast one vote, and nine affirmative votes were necessary to carry any important measure. Congress could make war and peace, enter into treaties with foreign powers, coin money, contract debts in the name of the United States, and call upon each state for its share of the general expenses.

THE STATES CEDE LANDS.--Although three states had tendered their Western lands when Maryland signed the Articles, the conditions of cession were not at once accepted by Congress, and some time pa.s.sed before the deeds were delivered. By the year 1786, however, the claims northwest of the Ohio had been ceded by New York, Virginia, [6] Ma.s.sachusetts, and Connecticut. [7] South of the Ohio, what is now West Virginia and Kentucky still belonged to Virginia. North Carolina offered what is now Tennessee to Congress in 1784, [8] but the conditions were not then accepted, and that territory was not turned over to Congress till 1790. The long, narrow strip of western land owned by South Carolina was ceded to Congress in 1787. South of this was a strip owned by Georgia, and farther south lands long in dispute between Georgia and Spain and Congress. Georgia did not accept her present western limits till 1802.

MIGRATION WESTWARD.--Into the country west of the mountains the people were moving in three great streams. One from New England was pushing out along the Mohawk valley into central New York; another from Pennsylvania and Virginia was pouring its population into Kentucky; the third from North Carolina was overrunning Tennessee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SETTLER'S LOG CABIN.]

For this movement the hard times which followed the Revolution were largely the cause. Compared with our time, the means of making a livelihood were few and far less remunerative. Great mills and factories each employing thousands of persons had no existence. The imports from Great Britain far surpa.s.sed in value our exports; the difference was settled in specie (coin) taken from the country. The people were poor, and as land in the West was cheap, they left the East and went westward.

ROUTES TO THE OHIO VALLEY.--New England people bound to the Ohio valley went through Connecticut to Kingston, New York, on across New Jersey to Easton, Pennsylvania, and thence to Bedford, where they struck the road cut years before by the troops of General Forbes, and by it went to Pittsburg (p. 194). Settlers from Maryland and Virginia went generally to Fort c.u.mberland in Maryland, and then on by Brad dock's Road to Pittsburg, or turned off and reached the Monongahela at Redstone, or the Ohio at Wheeling (map, p. 201).

Such was the rush to the Ohio valley that each spring and summer hundreds of boats and arks left Pittsburg and Wheeling or Redstone, and floated down the Ohio to Maysville, Louisville, and other places in Kentucky. [9]

The flatboat was usually twelve feet wide and forty feet long, with high sides and a flat or slightly arched top, and was steered, and when necessary was rowed, by long oars or sweeps. Some were arranged to carry cattle as well as household goods.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OHIO RIVER FLATBOAT OF ABOUT 1840. The boat is like those used in earlier times.]

THE OHIO COMPANY OF a.s.sOCIATES.--Meanwhile, some old soldiers of New England and New Jersey who had claims for bounty lands, [10] organized the Ohio Company of a.s.sociates, and in 1787 sent an agent (Mana.s.seh Cutler) to New York, where Congress was sitting, and bade him buy a great tract of land northwest of the Ohio, on which they might settle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.]

THE ORDINANCE OF 1787.--When Cutler reached New York, he found Congress debating a measure of great importance. This was an ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory, including the whole region from the Lakes to the Ohio, and from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi. When pa.s.sed, this famous Ordinance of 1787 provided--

1. That until five thousand free white males lived in the territory, the governing body should be a governor and three judges appointed by Congress.

2. That when there were five thousand free white men in the territory, they might elect a legislature and send a delegate to Congress.

3. That slavery should not be permitted in the territory, but that fugitive slaves should be returned.

4. That the territory should in time be cut up into not more than five, or less than three, states.

5. That when the population of each division numbered sixty thousand, it should be admitted into the Union on the same footing as the original states.

OHIO SETTLED.--After the ordinance was pa.s.sed, Cutler bought five million acres of land north of the Ohio River, and in the winter of 1787-88 a party of young men sent out by the Ohio Company made their way from New England to a branch of the Monongahela River. There they built a great boat, and when the ice broke up, floated down the Ohio to the lands of the Ohio Company, where they erected a few log huts and a fort of hewn timber which they called Campus Martius. The little settlement was called Marietta. [11]

Farther down the Ohio, on land owned by John Cleve Symmes and a.s.sociates, Columbia and Losantiville, afterward called Cincinnati, were founded in 1788.

STATE BOUNDARIES.--The old charters which led to the conflicting claims to land in the West, caused like disputes in the East. Ma.s.sachusetts claimed a strip of country embracing western New York, and did not settle the dispute till 1786. [12] A similar dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania was settled in 1782. [13] New York claimed all Vermont as having once been part of New Netherland; but Vermont was really an independent republic. [14] In Kentucky the people were insisting that their country be separated from Virginia and made a state.

TROUBLE WITH SPAIN.--Congress had trouble in trying to secure from foreign nations fair treatment for our commerce, and was involved in a dispute over the navigation of the Mississippi. Spain owned both banks at the mouth of the river, and denied the right of Americans to go in or out without her consent. The Spanish minister who came over in 1785 was ready to make a commercial treaty if the river was closed to navigation for twenty-five years, and the Eastern states were quite ready to agree to it.

But the people of Kentucky and Tennessee threatened to leave the Union if cut off from the sea, and no treaty was made with Spain till 1795.

THE WEAKNESS OF THE CONFEDERATION.--The question of trade and commerce with foreign powers and between the states was very serious, and the weakness of Congress in this and other matters soon wrecked the Confederation.

1. In the first place, the Articles of Confederation gave Congress no power to levy taxes of any kind. Money, therefore, could not be obtained to pay the debts of the United States, or the annual cost of government.

[15]

2. Congress had no power to regulate the foreign trade. As there were few articles manufactured in the country, china, gla.s.s, cutlery, edged tools, hardware, woolen, linen, and many other articles of daily use were imported from Great Britain. As Great Britain took little from us, these goods were largely paid for in specie, which grew scarcer and scarcer each year. Great Britain, moreover, hurt our trade by shutting our vessels out of her West Indies, and by heavy duties on American goods coming to her ports in American ships. [16] Congress, having no power to regulate trade, could not retaliate by treating British ships in the same way.

3. Congress had no power to regulate trade between the states. As a consequence, some of the states laid heavy duties on goods imported from other states. Retaliation followed, and the safety of the Union was endangered.

4. Congress did not have sole power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. There were, therefore, nearly as many kinds of paper money as there were states, and the money issued by each state pa.s.sed in others at all sorts of value, or not at all. This hindered interstate trade.

5. Congress could not enforce treaties. It could make treaties with other countries, but only the states could compel the people to observe them, and the states did not choose to do so.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW HAMPSHIRE COLONIAL PAPER MONEY. Similar bills were issued by the states before 1789.]

CONGRESS ASKS FOR MORE POWER.--Of the defects in the Articles of Confederation Congress was fully aware, and it asked the states to amend the Articles and give it more authority. [17] To do this required the a.s.sent of all the states, and as the consent of thirteen states could not be obtained, the additional powers were not given to Congress.

This soon brought matters to a crisis. With no regulation of trade, the purchase of more and more goods from British merchants made money so scarce that the states were forced to print and issue large amounts of paper bills. In Ma.s.sachusetts, when the legislature refused to issue such currency, the debtors rose and, led by a Revolutionary officer named Daniel Shays, prevented the courts from trying suits for the recovery of debts. The governor called out troops, and several encounters took place before a bitter winter dispersed the insurgents. [18]

THE ANNAPOLIS TRADE CONVENTION.--In this condition of affairs, Virginia invited her sister states to send delegates to a convention at Annapolis in 1786. They were to "take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States." Five states sent delegates, but the convention could do nothing, because less than half the states were present, and because the powers of the delegates were too limited. A request was therefore made by it that Congress call a convention of the states to meet at Philadelphia and "take into consideration the situation of the United States."

THE CONSt.i.tUTIONAL CONVENTION.--Congress issued the call early in 1787, and delegates from twelve states [19] met at Philadelphia and framed the Const.i.tution of the United States. Washington was made president of the convention, and among the members were many of the ablest men of the time.

[20]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INVITATION SENT BY WASHINGTON, AS PRESIDENT OF THE CONVENTION. In the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.]

THE COMPROMISES.--In the course of the debates in the convention great difference of opinion arose on several matters.

The small states wanted a Congress of one house, and equality of state representation. The great states wanted Historical a Congress of two houses, with representation in proportion to population. This difference of opinion was so serious that a compromise was necessary, and it was agreed that in one branch (House of Representatives) the people should be represented, and in the other (Senate) the states.