The War of Independence Part 9

On the 19th of April, 1783, the eighth anniversary of Lexington, the cessation of hostilities was formally proclaimed, and the soldiers were allowed to go home on furloughs. The army was virtually disbanded. There were some who thought that this ought not to be done while the British forces still remained in New York; but Congress was afraid of the army and quite ready to see it scattered. On the 21st of June Congress was driven from Philadelphia by a small band of drunken soldiers clamorous for pay. It was impossible for Congress to get money. Of the Continental taxes a.s.sessed in 1783, only one fifth part had been paid by the middle of 1785. After peace was made, France had no longer any end to gain by lending us money, and European bankers, as well as European governments, regarded American credit as dead.

[Sidenote: Congress unable to fulfil the treaty.]

There was a double provision of the treaty which could not be carried out because of the weakness of Congress. It had been agreed that Congress should request the state governments to repeal various laws which they had made from time to time confiscating the property of Tories and hindering the collection of private debts due from American to British merchants. Congress did make such a request, but it was not heeded. The laws hindering the payment of debts were not repealed; and as for the Tories, they were so badly treated that between 1783 and 1785 more than 100,000 left the country. Those from the southern states went mostly to Florida and the Bahamas; those from the north made the beginnings of the Canadian states of Ontario and New Brunswick. A good many of them were reimbursed for their losses by Parliament.

[Sidenote: Great Britain retaliates, presuming upon the weakness of the feeling of union among the states.]

When the British government saw that these provisions of the treaty were not fulfilled, it retaliated by refusing to withdraw its troops from the northern and western frontier posts. The British army sailed from Charleston on the 14th of December, 1782, and from New York on the 25th of November, 1783, but in contravention of the treaty small garrisons remained at Ogdensburgh, Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, and Mackinaw until the 1st of June, 1796. Besides this, laws were pa.s.sed which bore very severely upon American commerce, and the Americans found it impossible to retaliate because the different states would not agree upon any commercial policy in common. On the other hand, the states began making commercial war upon each other, with navigation laws and high tariffs. Such laws were pa.s.sed by New York to interfere with the trade of Connecticut, and the merchants of the latter state began to hold meetings and pa.s.s resolutions forbidding all trade whatever with New York.

The old quarrels about territory were kept up, and in 1784 the troubles in Wyoming and in the Green Mountains came to the very verge of civil war. People in Europe, hearing of such things, believed that the Union would soon fall to pieces and become the prey of foreign powers. It was disorder and calamity of this sort that such men as Hutchinson had feared, in case the control of Great Britain over the colonies should cease. George III. looked upon it all with satisfaction, and believed that before long the states would one after another become repentant and beg to be taken back into the British empire.

[Sidenote: The craze for paper money and the Shays rebellion, 1786.]

The troubles reached their climax in 1786. Because there seemed to be no other way of getting money, the different states began to issue their promissory notes, and then tried to compel people by law to receive such notes as money. There was a strong "paper money" party in all the states except Connecticut and Delaware. The most serious trouble was in Rhode Island and Ma.s.sachusetts. In both states the farmers had been much impoverished by the war. Many farms were mortgaged, and now and then one was sold to satisfy creditors. The farmers accordingly clamoured for paper money, but the merchants in towns like Boston or Providence, understanding more about commerce, were opposed to any such miserable makeshifts. In Rhode Island the farmers prevailed. Paper money was issued, and harsh laws were pa.s.sed against all who should refuse to take it at its face value. The merchants refused, and in the towns nearly all business was stopped during the summer of 1786.

In the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature the paper money party was defeated.

There was a great outcry among the farmers against merchants and lawyers, and some were heard to maintain that the time had come for wiping out all debts. In August, 1786, the malcontents rose in rebellion, headed by one Daniel Shays, who had been a captain in the Continental army. They began by trying to prevent the courts from sitting, and went on to burn barns, plunder houses, and attack the a.r.s.enal at Springfield. The state troops were called out, under General Lincoln, two or three skirmishes were fought, in which a few lives were lost, and at length in February, 1787, the insurrection was suppressed.

[Sidenote: The Mississippi question, 1786.]

At that time the mouth of the Mississippi river and the country on its western bank belonged to Spain. Kentucky and Tennessee were rapidly becoming settled by people from Virginia and North Carolina, and these settlers wished to trade with New Orleans. The Spanish government was unfriendly and wished to prevent such traffic. The people of New England felt little interest in the southwestern country or the Mississippi river, but were very anxious to make a commercial treaty with Spain. The government of Spain refused to make such a treaty except on condition that American vessels should not be allowed to descend the Mississippi river below the mouth of the Yazoo. When Congress seemed on the point of yielding to this demand, the southern states were very angry. The New England states were equally angry at what they called the obstinacy of the South, and threats of secession were heard on both sides.

[Sidenote: The northwestern territory; the first national domain, 1780-87.]

Perhaps the only thing that kept the Union from falling to pieces in 1786 was the Northwestern Territory, which George Rogers Clark had conquered in 1779, and which skilful diplomacy had enabled us to keep when the treaty was drawn up in 1782. Virginia claimed this territory and actually held it, but New York, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Connecticut also had claims upon it. It was the idea of Maryland that such a vast region ought not to be added to any one state, or divided between two or three of the states, but ought to be the common property of the Union.

Maryland had refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation until the four states that claimed the northwestern territory should yield their claims to the United States. This was done between 1780 and 1785, and thus for the first time the United States government was put in possession of valuable property which could be made to yield an income and pay debts. This piece of property was about the first thing in which all the American people were alike interested, after they had won their independence. It could be opened to immigration and made to pay the whole cost of the war and much more. During these troubled years Congress was busy with plans for organizing this territory, which at length resulted in the famous Ordinance of 1787 laying down fundamental laws for the government of what has since developed into the five great states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. While other questions tended to break up the Union, the questions that arose in connection with this work tended to hold it together.

[Sidenote: The convention at Annapolis, Sept. 11, 1786.]

The need for easy means of communication between the old Atlantic states and this new country behind the mountains led to schemes which ripened in course of time into the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Erie ca.n.a.ls. In discussing such schemes, Maryland and Virginia found it necessary to agree upon some kind of commercial policy to be pursued by both states. Then it was thought best to seize the occasion for calling a general convention of the states to decide upon a uniform system of regulations for commerce. This convention was held at Annapolis in September, 1786, but only five states had sent delegates, and so the convention adjourned after adopting an address written by Alexander Hamilton, calling for another convention to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May, "to devise such further provisions as shall appear necessary to render the const.i.tution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."

The Shays rebellion and the quarrel about the Mississippi river had by this time alarmed people so that it began to be generally admitted that the federal government must be in some way strengthened. If there were any doubt as to this, it was removed by the action of New York. An amendment to the Articles of Confederation had been proposed, giving Congress the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the collectors. By the summer of 1786 all the states except New York had consented to this. But in order to amend the articles, unanimous consent was necessary, and in February, 1787, New York's refusal defeated the amendment. Congress was thus left without any immediate means of raising a revenue, and it became quite clear that something must be done without delay.

[Sidenote: The Federal Convention at Philadelphia, May-Sept., 1787.]

The famous Federal Convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, and remained in session four months, with Washington presiding. Its work was the framing of the government under which we are now living, and in which the evils of the old confederation have been avoided. The trouble had all the while been how to get the whole American people _represented_ in some body that could thus rightfully _tax_ the whole American people. This was the question which the Albany Congress had tried to settle in 1754, and which the Federal Convention did settle in 1787.

In the old confederation, starting with the Continental Congress in 1774, the government was all vested in a single body which represented states, but did not represent individual persons. It was for that reason that it was called a congress rather than a parliament. It was more like a congress of European states than the legislative body of a nation, such as the English parliament was. It had no executive and no judiciary. It could not tax, and it could not enforce its decrees.

[Sidenote: The new government, in which the Revolution was consummated, 1789.]

The new const.i.tution changed all this by creating the House of Representatives which stood in the same relation to the whole American people as the legislative a.s.sembly of each single state to the people of that state. In this body the people were represented, and could therefore tax themselves. At the same time in the Senate the old equality between the states was preserved. All control over commerce, currency, and finance was lodged in this new Congress, and absolute free trade was established between the states. In the office of President a strong executive was created. And besides all this there was a system of federal courts for deciding questions arising under federal laws. Most remarkable of all, in some respects, was the power given to the federal Supreme Court, of deciding, in special cases, whether laws pa.s.sed by the several states, or by Congress itself, were conformable to the Federal Const.i.tution.

Many men of great and various powers played important parts in effecting this change of government which at length established the American Union in such a form that it could endure; but the three who stood foremost in the work were George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. Two other men, whose most important work came somewhat later, must be mentioned along with these, for the sake of completeness. It was John Marshall, chief justice of the United States from 1801 to 1835, whose profound decisions did more than those of any later judge could ever do toward establishing the sense in which the Const.i.tution must be understood. It was Thomas Jefferson, president of the United States from 1801 to 1809, whose sound democratic instincts and robust political philosophy prevented the federal government from becoming too closely allied with the interests of particular cla.s.ses, and helped to make it what it should be,--a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." In the _making_ of the government under which we live, these five names--Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Marshall--stand before all others. I mention them here chronologically, in the order of the times at which their influence was felt at its maximum.

When the work of the Federal Convention was sanctioned by the Continental Congress and laid before the people of the several states, to be ratified by special conventions in each state, there was earnest and sometimes bitter discussion. Many people feared that the new government would soon degenerate into a tyranny. But the century and a half of American history that had already elapsed had afforded such n.o.ble political training for the people that the discussion was, on the whole, more reasonable and more fruitful than any that had ever before been undertaken by so many men. The result was the adoption of the Federal Const.i.tution, followed by the inauguration of George Washington, on the 30th of April, 1789, as President of the United States. And with this event our brief story may fitly end.

COLLATERAL READING.

The following books may be recommended to the reader who wishes to get a general idea of the American Revolution:--

1. GENERAL WORKS. The most comprehensive and readable account is contained in Mr. Fiske's larger work, _The American Revolution_, in two volumes. The subject is best treated from the biographical point of view in Washington Irving's _Life of Washington_, vols. i.-iv. Mr. Fiske has abridged and condensed these four octavos into one stout duodecimo ent.i.tled _Washington and his Country_, Boston, Ginn & Co., 1887. Our young friends may find Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_ rather close reading, but one can hardly name a book that will more richly reward them for their study. Green's _Historical View of the Revolution_ should be read by every one. Carrington's _Battles of the Revolution_ makes the military operations quite clear with numerous maps. Very young readers find it interesting to begin with Coffin's _Boys of Seventy-Six_, or C.

H. Woodman's _Boys and Girls of the Revolution_. The social life of the time is admirably portrayed in Scudder's _Men and Manners in America One Hundred Years Ago_. See also Thornton's _Pulpit of the Revolution_.

Lossing's _Field Book of the Revolution_--two royal octavos profusely ill.u.s.trated--is an excellent book to browse in. Lecky's _England in the Eighteenth Century_ gives an admirable statement of England's position.

2. BIOGRAPHIES. Lodge's _George Washington_, 2 vols., Scudder's _George Washington_, Tyler's _Patrick Henry_, Tudor's _Otis_, Hosmer's _Samuel Adams_, Morse's _John Adams_, Frothingham's _Warren_, Quincy's _Josiah Quincy_, Parton's _Franklin_ and _Jefferson_, Fonblanque's _Burgoyne_, Lossing's _Schuyler_, Riedesel's _Memoirs_, Stone's _Brant_, Arnold's _Arnold_, Sargent's _Andre_, Kapp's _Steuben_ and _Kalb_, Greene's _Greene_, Amory's _Sullivan_, Graham's _Morgan_, Simms's _Marion_, Abbott's _Paul Jones_, John Adams's _Letters to his Wife_, Morse's _Hamilton_, Gay's _Madison_, Roosevelt's _Gouverneur Morris_, Russell's _Fox_, Albemarle's _Rockingham_, Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, MacKnight's _Burke_, Macaulay's essay on _Chatham_.

3. FICTION. Cooper's _Chainbearer_, Miss Sedgwick's _Linwoods_, Paulding's _Old Continental_, Mrs. Child's _Rebels_, Motley's _Morton's Hope_, Herman Melville's _Israel Potter_, Kennedy's _Horse Shoe Robinson_. There is an account of the battle of Bunker Hill in Cooper's _Lionel Lincoln_. Thompson's _Green Mountain Boys_ gives interesting descriptions of many of the events in that region. The border warfare is treated in Grace Greenwood's _Forest Tragedy_ and Hoffman's _Greyslaer_.

Simms's _Partisan_ and _Mellichampe_ deal with events in South Carolina in 1780, and later events are covered in his _Scout_, _Katharine Walford_, _Woodcraft_, _Forayers_, and _Eutaw_. See also Miss Sedgwick's _Walter Thornley_, and Cooper's _Pilot_ and _Spy_, and H. C. Watson's _Camp Fires of the Revolution_. The scenes of _Paul and Persis_, by Mary E. Brush, are laid in the Mohawk Valley.

For further references, see Justin Winsor's _Reader's Handbook of the American Revolution_, a book which is absolutely indispensable to every one who wishes to study the subject.