A School History of the United States Part 17

Battles of Brandywine and Germantown.

Philadelphia captured by the British.

1777-1778. Americans winter at Valley Forge.

1778. Alliance with France.

Fleet and army sent from France.

Clinton leaves Philadelphia and hurries to New York.

Washington follows him from Valley Forge.

Battle of Monmouth.

Washington on the Hudson.

CAMPAIGNS CHIEFLY IN THE SOUTH, 1778-1781.

1778. The South invaded.

Savannah captured and Georgia overrun.

1779. Clinton ravages Connecticut to draw Washington away from the Hudson.

Wayne captures Stony Point.

Lincoln attacks Savannah.

1780. Clinton captures Charleston.

Campaign of Gates in South Carolina.

Battles of Camden and Kings Mountain.

Treason of Arnold.

1781. Greene in command in the South.

Battle of the Cowpens.

March of Cornwallis from Charleston.

Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

Cornwallis goes to Wilmington and Greene to South Carolina.

Cornwallis goes to Yorktown.

Washington hurries from New York.

Surrender of Cornwallis.

1782-1783. Peace negotiations at Paris.

1783. Evacuation of New York.

THE STRUGGLE FOR A GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER XII

UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

%163. How the Colonies became States.%--When the Continental Congress met at Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, a letter was received from Ma.s.sachusetts, where the people had penned up the governor in Boston and had taken the government into their own hands, asking what they should do. Congress replied that no obedience was due to the Ma.s.sachusetts Regulating Act or to the governor, and advised the people to make a temporary government to last till the King should restore the old charter. Similar advice was given the same year to New Hampshire and South Carolina, for it was not then supposed that the quarrel with the mother country would end in separation. But by the spring of 1776 all the governors of the thirteen colonies had either fled or been thrown into prison. This put an end to colonial government, and Congress, seeing that reconciliation was impossible, (May 15, 1776) advised all the colonies to form governments for themselves (p. 132). Thereupon they adopted const.i.tutions, and by doing so turned themselves from British colonies into sovereign and independent states.[1]

[Footnote 1: All but two made new const.i.tutions; but Connecticut and Rhode Island used their old charters, the one till 1818, the other till 1842. Vermont also formed a const.i.tution, but she was not admitted to the Congress (p. 243).]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UNITED STATES WHEN PEACE WAS DECLARED in 1783 SHOWING THE STATE CLAIMS]

%164. Articles of Confederation.%--While the colonies were thus gradually turning themselves into the states, the Continental Congress was trying to bind them into a union by means of a sort of general const.i.tution called "Articles of Confederation." By order of Congress, Articles had been prepared and presented by a committee in July, 1776, but it was not till November 17, 1777, that they were sent out to the states for adoption. Now it must be remembered that six states, Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, claimed that their "from sea to sea" charters gave them lands between the mountains and the Mississippi River, and that one, New York, had bought the Indian t.i.tle to land in the Ohio valley. It must also be remembered that the other six states did not have "from sea to sea" charters, and so had no claims to western lands.

As three of them, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, held that the claims of their sister states were invalid, they now refused to adopt the Articles unless the land so claimed was given to Congress to be used to pay for the cost of the Revolution. For this action they gave four reasons:

1. The Mississippi valley had been discovered, explored, settled, and owned by France.

2. England had never owned any land there till France ceded the country in 1763.

3. When at last England had got it, in 1763, the King drew the "proclamation line," turned the Mississippi valley into the Indian country, and so cut off any claim of the colonies in consequence of English ownership.

4. The western lands were therefore the property of the King, and now that the states were in arms against him, his lands ought to be seized by Congress and used for the benefit of all the states.

For three years the land-claiming states refused to be convinced by these arguments. But at length, finding that Maryland was determined not to adopt the Articles till her demands were complied with, they began to yield. In February, 1780, New York ceded her claims to Congress, and in January, 1781, Virginia gave up her claim to the country north of the Ohio River. Maryland had now carried her point, and on March 1, 1781, her delegates signed the Articles of Confederation. As all the other states had ratified the Articles, this act on the part of Maryland made them law, and March 2, 1781, Congress met for the first time under a form of government the states were pledged to obey.

%165. Government under the Articles of Confederation.%--The form of government that went into effect on that day was bad from beginning to end. There was no one officer to carry out the laws, no court or judge to settle disputed points of law, and only a very feeble legislature.

Congress consisted of one house, presided over by a president elected each year by the members from among their own number. The delegates to Congress could not be more than seven, nor less than two from each state, were elected yearly, could not serve for more than three years out of six, and might be recalled at any time by the states that sent them. Once a.s.sembled on the floor of Congress, the delegates became members of a secret body. The doors were shut; no spectators were allowed to hear what was said; no reports of the debates were taken down; but under a strict injunction to secrecy the members went on deliberating day after day. All voting was done by states, each casting but one vote, no matter how many delegates it had. The affirmative votes of nine states were necessary to pa.s.s any important act, or, as it was called, "ordinance."

To this body the Articles gave but few powers. Congress could declare war, make peace, issue money, keep up an army and a navy, contract debts, enter into treaties of commerce, and settle disputes between states. But it could not enforce a treaty or a law when made, nor lay any tax for any purpose.

%166. Origin of the Public Domain%.--In 1784 Ma.s.sachusetts ceded her strip of land in the west, following the example set by New York (1780), and Virginia (1781).

As three states claiming western territory had thus by 1784 given their land to Congress, that body came into possession of the greater part of the vast domain stretching from the Lakes to the Ohio and from the Mississippi to Pennsylvania.[1] Now this public domain, as it was called, was given on certain conditions:

1. That it should be cut up into states.

2. That these states should be admitted into the Union (when they had a certain population) on the same footing as the thirteen original states.

3. That the land should be sold and the money used to pay the debts of the United States.

[Footnote 1: The strip owned by Connecticut had been offered to Congress in October, 1789, but not accepted. It still belonged to Connecticut in 1785. In 1786 it was again ceded, with certain reservations, and accepted.]

Congress, therefore, as soon as it had received the deeds to the tracts ceded, trusting that the other land-owning states would cede their western territory in time, pa.s.sed a law (in 1785) to prepare the land for sale by surveying it and marking it out into sections, townships, and ranges, and fixed the price per acre.

%167. Virginia and Connecticut Reserves.%--When Virginia made her cession in 1781, she expressly reserved two tracts of land north of the Ohio. One, called the Military Lands, lay between the Scioto and Miami rivers, and was held to pay bounties promised to the Virginia Revolutionary soldiers. The other (in the present state of Indiana) was given to General George Rogers Clark and his soldiers. A third piece was reserved by Connecticut when she ceded her strip in 1786. This, called the Western Reserve of Connecticut, stretched along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie (map, p. 175). In 1800 Connecticut gave up her jurisdiction, or right of government, over this reserve in return for the confirmation of land t.i.tles she had granted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TERRITORY OF THE %UNITED STATES% NORTHWEST OF THE OHIO RIVER %1787%]

%168. Ordinance of 1787; Origin of the Territories.%--Hardly had Congress provided for the sale of the land, when a number of Revolutionary soldiers formed the Ohio Land Company, and sent an agent to New York, where Congress was in session, and offered to buy 5,000,000 acres on the Ohio River: 1,500,000 acres were for themselves, and 3,500,000 for another company called the Scioto Company. The land was gladly sold, and as the purchasers were really going to send out settlers, it became necessary to establish some kind of government for them. On the 13th of July, 1787, therefore, Congress pa.s.sed another very famous law, called the Ordinance of 1787, which ordered:

1. That the whole region from the Lakes to the Ohio, and from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, should be called "The Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio."

2. That it should be cut up into not less than three nor more than five states, each of which might be admitted into the Union when it had 60,000 free inhabitants.

3. That within it there was to be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except in punishment for crime.

4. That until such time as there were 5000 free male inhabitants twenty-one years old in the territory, it was to be governed by a governor and three judges. They could not make laws, but might adopt such as they pleased from among the laws in force in the states. After there were 5000 free male inhabitants in the territory the people were to elect a house of representatives, which in its turn was to elect ten men from whom Congress was to select five to form a council. The house and the council were then to elect a territorial delegate to sit in Congress with the right of debating, not of voting. The governor, the judges, and the secretary were to be elected by Congress. The council and house of representatives could make laws, but must send them to Congress for approval.

Thus were created two more American inst.i.tutions, the territory and the state formed out of the public domain. The ordinance was but a few months old when South Carolina ceded (1787) her little strip of country west of the mountains (see map on p. 157) with the express condition that it _should_ be slave soil. In 1789 North Carolina ceded what is now Tennessee on the same condition. Congress accepted both and out of them made the "Territory southwest of the Ohio River." In that slavery was allowed.[1]

[Footnote 1: The only remaining land-holding state, Georgia, ceded her claim in 1802 (p. 246).]