The Story of Our Country Part 12

I have spoken several times of the general government. No doubt you wish to know what this government was like. Well, it was made up of three bodies, one of which made laws for the people, the second considered if these laws agreed with the Const.i.tution, the third carried out these laws, or put them in force.

The body that made the laws was named the Congress of the United States.

It consisted of two sections. One was called the Senate, and was made up of two members from each state. As we have now more than forty-five states the Senate at present has more than ninety members. The other section was called the House of Representatives, and its members were voted for directly by the people. The members of the Senate were voted for by the legislatures of the states, who had been elected by the people.

All the laws were to be made by Congress, but not one of them could become a law until it was approved by the President. If he did not approve of a law, he vetoed it, that is, he returned it without being signed with his name, and then it could not be enforced as a law until voted for by two-thirds of the members of Congress.

It was the duty of the President to execute or carry out the laws. He took the place of the king in other countries. But he was not born to his position like a king, but had to be voted for by the people, and could stay in office for four years only. Then he, or some one else, had to be voted for again.

Next to the President was the Vice-President, who was to take his place if he should die or resign. While the President was in office the Vice-President had nothing to do except to act as presiding officer of the Senate. What we call the Cabinet are persons chosen by the President to help him in his work. You must understand that it takes a number of leading men and a great many men under these to do all the work needed to carry on our government.

The third body of our government was called the Supreme Court. This was made up of some of the ablest lawyers and judges of the country. They were not to be voted for, but to be chosen by the President and then approved by the Senate. The duty of the Supreme Court is to consider any law brought to its notice and decide if it agrees with the Const.i.tution.

If the Court decides that a law is not const.i.tutional, it ceases to be of any effect.

This is not so very hard to understand, is it? The President and Congress elected by the people; the Supreme Court and Cabinet selected by the President; the Const.i.tution the foundation of our government; and the laws pa.s.sed by Congress the building erected on the foundation.

Its great feature is that it is a republic--a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Ours is not the first republic.

There have been others. But it is the greatest. It is the only one that covers half a continent, and is made up of states many of which are larger than some of the kingdoms of Europe. For more than a hundred years the Const.i.tution made in 1787 has held good. Then it covered thirteen states and less than four million people; now it covers more than forty-five states and eighty million people. Then it was very poor, and had a hard struggle before it; now it is very rich and prosperous.

It has grown to be the richest country in the world and one of the greatest.

CHAPTER XVI

THE END OF A n.o.bLE LIFE

EVERY four years a great question arises in this country, and all the states and their people are disturbed until this question is settled.

Even business nearly stops still, for many persons can think of nothing but the answer to this question.

Who shall be President? That is the question which at the end of every four years troubles the minds of our people. This question was asked for the first time in 1789, after the Const.i.tution had been made and accepted by the states, but this time the people found it a very easy question to answer.

There were several men who had taken a great part in the making of our country, and who might have been named for President. One of these was Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Another of them was Benjamin Franklin, who got France to come to our aid, and did many other n.o.ble things for his country. But none of them stood so high in the respect and admiration of the people as George Washington, who had led our armies through the great war, and to whom, more than to any other man, we owed our liberty.

This time, then, there was no real question as to whom should be President. Washington was the man. All men, all parties, settled upon Washington. No one opposed him; there was no man in the country like him. He was unanimously elected the first President of the United States.

In olden times, when a victorious general came back to Rome with the splendid spoils brought from distant countries, the people gave him a triumph, and all Rome rose to do him honor and to gaze upon the splendor of the show. Washington had no splendid spoils to display. But he had the love of the people, which was far better than gold and silver won in war; and all the way from his home at Mount Vernon to New York, where he was to take the office of President, the people honored him with a triumph.

Along the whole journey, men, women and children crowded the roadside, and waited for hours to see him pa.s.s. That was before the day of railroads, and he had to go slowly in his carriage, so that everybody had a fine chance to see and greet him as he went by. Guns were fired as he pa.s.sed through the towns; arches of triumph were erected for his carriage to go under; flowers were strewn in the streets for its wheels to roll over; cheers and cries of greeting filled the air; all that the people could do to honor their great hero was done.

On the 30th of April, 1789, Washington took the oath of office as the first President of our country and people. He stood on the balcony of a building in front of Federal Hall, in which Congress met, and in the street before him was a vast mult.i.tude, full of joy and hope. When he had taken the oath cannon roared out, bells were rung in all the neighboring steeples, and a mighty shout burst from the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude:

"Long live George Washington, President of the United States!"

This, I have said, was in New York. But Philadelphia was soon chosen as the seat of government, and the President and Congress moved to that city the next year. There they stayed for ten years. In the year 1800 a new city, named Washington, on the banks of the Potomac, was made the capital of our country, and in that city Congress has met ever since.

I must say something here about another of the great men of Revolutionary times, Alexander Hamilton. He was great in financial or money matters, and this was very important at that time, for the money-affairs of the country were in a sad state.

In the Revolution our people had very little money, and that was one reason why they had so much suffering. Congress soon ran out of gold and silver, so it issued paper money. This did very well for a time, and in the end a great deal of paper money was set afloat, but people soon began to get afraid of it. There was too much money of this kind for so poor a country. The value of the Continental currency, as it was called, began to go down, and the price of everything else to go up. In time the paper money lost almost all its value.

Such was the money the people had at the end of the Revolution. It was not good for much, was it? But it was the only kind of money Congress had to pay the soldiers with or to pay the other debts of the government. The country owed much more money than it could pay, so that it was what we call bankrupt. n.o.body would trust it or take its paper in payment. What Alexander Hamilton did was to help the country to pay its debts and to bring back its lost credit, and in doing that he won great honor.

Hamilton came to this country from the West Indies during the Revolution. He was then only a boy, but he soon showed himself a good soldier, and Washington made him an officer on his staff and one of his friends. He often asked young Hamilton for advice, and took it, too.

Hamilton was one of the men who made the Const.i.tution, and when Washington became President he chose him as his Secretary of the Treasury. That is, he gave him the money affairs of the government to look after. Hamilton was not afraid of the load of debt, and he soon took off its weight. He asked Congress to pay not only its own debt, but that of the states as well, and also to make good all the paper money.

Congress did not like to do this, but Hamilton talked to the members till he persuaded them to do so.

Then he set himself to pay it. He laid a tax on whiskey and brandy and on all goods that came into the country. He had a mint, which is a building where money is coined from metal, and a national bank built in Philadelphia. He made the debt a government fund or loan, on which he agreed to pay interest, and to pay off the princ.i.p.al as fast as possible. It was not long before all the fund was taken up by those who had money, and the country got back its lost credit, for the taxes began to bring in much money.

Washington was President for eight years. That made two terms of four years each. Many wished to make him President for a third term, but he refused to run again. Since then no one has been made President for more than two terms.

George Washington had done enough for his country. He loved his home, but he had little time to live there. When he was only a boy he was called away to take part in the French and Indian War. Then, after spending some happy years at home, he was called away again to lead the army in the Revolutionary War. Finally, he served his country eight years as President.

He was now growing old and wanted rest, and he went back with joy to his beloved home at Mount Vernon, hoping to spend there the remainder of his days. But trouble arose with France, and it looked as if there would be a new war, and Washington was asked to take command of the army again.

He consented, though he had had enough of fighting; but fortunately the war did not come, so he was not obliged to abandon his home.

He died in December, 1799, near the end of the century of which he was one of the greatest men. The news of his death filled all American hearts with grief. Not while the United States exists will the name of Washington be forgotten or left without honor. His home and tomb at Mt.

Vernon are visited each year by thousands of patriotic Americans. As was said of him long ago by General Henry Lee, he was and is, "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

CHAPTER XVII

THE STEAMBOAT AND THE COTTON GIN

I THINK you must now have learned a great deal about the history of your country from the time Columbus crossed the ocean till the year 1800, the beginning of the Nineteenth century. You have been told about discovery, and settlement, and wars, and modes of life, and government, and other things, but you must bear in mind that these are not the whole of history. The story of our country is broad and deep enough to hold many other things beside these. For instance, there is the story of our great inventors, to whom we owe so much. I propose in this chapter to tell you about some of those who lived near the year 1800.

First, I must ask you to go back with me to a kitchen in Scotland many years ago. On the open hearth of that kitchen a bright fire blazed, and near by sat a thoughtful-faced boy, with his eyes fixed on the tea-kettle which was boiling away over the fire, while its lid kept lifting to let the steam escape. His mother, who was bustling about, no doubt thought him idle, and may have scolded him a little. But he was far from idle; he was busy at work--not with his hands, but with his brain. The brain, you know, may be hard at work while the body is doing nothing.

How many of you have seen the lid of a kettle of boiling water keeping up its clatter as the steam lifts it and puffs out into the air? And what thought has this brought into your mind? Into the mind of little James Watt, the Scotch boy, it brought one great thought, that of power.

As he looked at it, he said to himself that the steam which comes from boiling water must have a great deal of force, if a little of it could keep the kettle lid clattering up and down; and he asked himself if such a power could not be put to some good use.

Our Scotch boy was not the first one to have that thought. Others had thought the same thing, and steam had been used to move a poor sort of engine. But what James Watt did when he grew up, was to invent a much better engine than had ever been made before. It was a great day for us all when that engine was invented. Before that time men had done most of the work of the world with their hands, and you may imagine that the work went on very slowly. Since that time most of the world's work has been done with the aid of the steam-engine, and one man can do as much as many men could do in the past. You have seen the wheels rolling and heard the machines rattling and the hammers clanging in our great factories and workshops. And I fancy most of you know that back of all these is the fire under the boilers and the steam in the engine, the mighty magician which sets all these wheels and machines at work and changes raw material into so many things of use and beauty.

Now let us come back to our American inventors. I have spoken about the steam engine because it was with this that most of them worked. They thought that if horses could drag a wagon over the ground and the wind could drive a vessel through the water, steam might do the same thing, and they set themselves to see in what way a carriage or a boat could be moved by a steam engine.

Very likely you have all heard about Robert Fulton and his steamboat, but you may not know that steamboats were running on American waters years before that of Fulton was built. Why, as long ago as 1768, before the Revolutionary War, Oliver Evans, one of our first inventors, had made a little boat which was moved by steam and paddle-wheels. Years afterwards he made a large engine for a boat at New Orleans. It was put in the boat, but there came a dry season and low water, so that the boat could not be used, and the owners took the engine out and set it to work on a sawmill. It did so well there that it was never put back in the boat; so that steamboat never had a chance.

Oliver Evans was the first man to make a steamboat, but there were others who thought they could move a boat by steam. Some of these were in Europe and some in America. Down in Virginia was an inventor named Rumsey who moved a boat at the speed of four miles an hour. In this boat jets of water were pumped through the stern and forced the boat along.

In Philadelphia was another man named John Fitch, who was the first man to make a successful steamboat. His boat was moved with paddles like an Indian canoe. It was put on the Delaware River, between Philadelphia and Trenton in 1790, and ran for several months as a pa.s.senger boat, at the speed of seven or eight miles an hour. Poor John Fitch! He was unfortunate and in the end he killed himself.

I am glad to be able to tell you a different story of the next man who tried to make a steamboat. His name was Robert Fulton. He was born in Pennsylvania, and as a boy was very fond of the water, he and the other boys having an old flatboat which they pushed along with a pole. Fulton got tired of this way of getting along, and like a natural-born inventor set his wits to work. In the end he made two paddle-wheels which hung over the sides and could be moved in the water by turning a crank and so force the boat onward. The boys found this much easier than the pole, and likely enough young Fulton thought a large vessel might be moved in the same way.

He knew all about what others had done. He had heard how Rumsey moved his boat by pumping water through the stern, and Fitch by paddling it along. And he had seen a boat in Scotland moved by a stern paddle-wheel.

I fancy he had not forgotten the side paddle-wheel he made as a boy to go fishing with, for when he set out to invent his steamboat this is the plan he tried.

Fulton made his first boat in France, but he had bad luck there. Then he came to America and built a boat in New York. While he was at work on this boat in America, James Watt, of whom I have already told you, was building him an engine in England. He wanted the best engine that he could get, and he thought the Scotch inventor was the right man to make it.