Union and Democracy Part 1

Union and Democracy.

by Allen Johnson.

PREFACE

The t.i.tle of this volume must be regarded as suggestive rather than as strictly accurate, for the beginnings of union are to be found farther back than 1783, and democracy in its largest sense has even yet been only imperfectly realized. At the close of the Revolution, union was but a name. What Metternich said of the Italy of his day might have been said of the United States in 1783: it was only a geographical expression. The formation of the new federal union under the Const.i.tution is properly the main, though not the sole, theme of this volume. Behind the thirteen Atlantic communities lay a vast region which almost at once invited the colonizing activities of the people. The rise of this western world is a movement of immense significance. Out of the bosom of the West emerged the new democracy which transformed the face of society in the old States. Whether viewed economically or politically, this forms the second theme in any history of the times.

Around these two movements, therefore, I have endeavored to group the events of forty-five years.

Within the last few years special studies have added much to the common stock of historical information, and in many ways effected changes in the historian's point of view. The time seemed proper to restate the salient factors in the history of this formative period. I have frankly appropriated the labors of others. Had the plan of the series permitted the use of footnotes, I would gladly have made particular acknowledgment of my indebtedness. At the same time I have not hesitated to present the results of my own studies where they have led away from the conventional view of men and events.

In preparation of the maps showing the popular vote in the elections of 1800 and 1824, I have drawn largely upon the data which Dr. Charles O.

Paullin, of the Carnegie Inst.i.tution, has generously put at my disposal.

In States where the presidential electors were not chosen directly by the voters, other votes, such as those for governor, have been made the basis for determining the popular choice among party candidates for the presidency. Two of my graduate students, Miss Isabel S. Mitch.e.l.l and Mr.

Joseph E. Howe, have given me valuable a.s.sistance in the execution of the maps. I am under particular obligation to my colleague, Professor Stewart L. Mims, for reading critically both ma.n.u.script and proof.

Allen Johnson.

UNION AND DEMOCRACY

CHAPTER I

THE ORDEAL OF THE CONFEDERATION

It was characteristic of the people of the United States that once a.s.sured of their political independence they should face their economic future with buoyant expectations. As colonizers of a new world they were confident in their own strength. When once the shackles of the British mercantile system were shaken off, they did not doubt their ability to compete for the markets of the world. Even Washington, who had fewer illusions than most of his contemporaries, told his fellow citizens of America that they were "placed in the most enviable condition, as sole lords and proprietors of a vast tract of continent, comprehending all the various soils and climates of the world, and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniences of life." Independence was the magic word which the common man believed would open wide the gates of prosperity.

Yet within a year after the ratification of the Peace of Paris, American society was in the throes of a severe industrial depression.

Contrary to the accepted view, the latter years of the war were not years of penury and want among the people. Outside of those regions of Virginia and the Carolinas, which were devastated by the marching and countermarching of the combatants, the people were living in comparative comfort. North of the Potomac, indeed, there was even a tendency to speculation in business and extravagance in living. Throughout the war farmers had found a ready market for their produce within the lines of the British and French armies. The temporary suspension of commerce had encouraged many forms of productive industry. As the war continued, venturesome skippers eluded British men-of-war and found their way to European or Dutch West India ports, bringing home rich cargoes in exchange for tobacco, flour, and rice. The prizes brought in by privateers added largely to the stock of desirable and attractive merchandise in the shops of Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston. If such prosperity could follow in the wake of war, what commercial gains might not be expected in the piping times of peace? In antic.i.p.ation of immediate returns, merchants drew heavily upon their foreign creditors and stocked their shops with imported commodities. Southern planters indulged similar expectations and bought land and slaves on credit, regardless of the price. "A rage for running in debt became epidemical,"

wrote a contemporary observer. "Individuals were for getting rich by a _coup de main_; a good bargain--a happy speculation--was almost every man's object and pursuit."

During the hard times of 1785-86 these golden dreams vanished. Instead of sharing as the people of an independent nation in the trade and commerce of the world, American shippers found themselves no better off than they were as dependents of Great Britain. Orders in council at once closed the ports of the British West Indies to all staple products which were not carried in British bottoms. Certain commodities,--fish, pork, and beef,--which might compete with the products of British dependencies, were excluded altogether. The policy of France and Spain was scarcely less illiberal. The effect was immediate. Cut off from their natural markets, American shipowners were forced either to leave their vessels to rot at their wharves or to seek new markets. For months there seemed to be no other alternative. At the same time the new industries which had sprung up during the war had to meet the shock of foreign compet.i.tion, as the British manufacturer dumped on American wharves the acc.u.mulated stock of his warehouses. The plight of the small farmer and of the large planter was much the same; for both had incurred debts in expectation of continued prosperity.

Everywhere people complained of hard times. Discouragement and ill-humor displaced the buoyant optimism with which peace had been heralded. "What is independence?" asked a writer in _A Shorter Catechism_. "Dependence upon nothing" was the cynical answer. In many States the popular discontent found vent in a vindictive crusade against the Tories. Even sober-minded citizens shared the general detestation of these unfortunate people. In the heat of war Washington had declared them to be "abominable pests of society" who ought to be hanged as traitors.

The States had quite generally confiscated their property and in some cases had pa.s.sed acts of attainder against them. In communities like New York, which had long remained in the hands of the British, the popular animosity was exceedingly bitter. To aid those citizens who had been dispossessed of their estates, the legislature pa.s.sed the Trespa.s.s Act, which permitted suits for the recovery of property that had pa.s.sed into the hands of the enemy upon the flight of the owners. The terms of the act were in flat contradiction to the treaty of peace. Further to aid claimants, it was provided that no military order could be pleaded in court in justification of the seizure of property.

In a famous case brought before the Mayor's Court of New York by the widow Rutgers to recover her property from Joshua Waddington, a wealthy Tory, Alexander Hamilton appeared as counsel for the defendant. It was a daring act which brought down upon him the unmitigated wrath of the radical elements. Nevertheless, in an opinion which has considerable interest for students of const.i.tutional law, the court ruled that the Trespa.s.s Act, "by a reasonable interpretation," must be construed in harmony with the treaty of peace, which was obligatory upon every State.

It was not to be presumed that the legislature would intentionally violate the law of nations. The judgment of the court therefore, was in favor of the defendant. With chagrin and resentment the popular party declared that the court had set aside a law of the State and had presumed to set itself above the legislature. Wherever the radicals got the upper hand, confiscation was the order of the day; and even where the conservatives succeeded in restraining their radical brethren from legislative reprisals, no Tory was safe from the a.s.saults of irresponsible mobs. Thousands took refuge in flight, to the infinite delight of the wits in the coffee-houses who jested of the "Independence Fever" which was carrying off so many worthy people.

Financially the Confederation was hopelessly embarra.s.sed. Having sowed the wind by its issues of bills of credit, it was now reaping the whirlwind. By the end of the war this paper money had so far depreciated that it ceased to pa.s.s as currency. "Not worth a continental" has pa.s.sed into our native idiom. Without power to levy taxes, Congress could only make requisitions upon the States. The returns were pitifully inadequate to the needs of government. All told, less than a million and a half of dollars came into the treasury between 1781 and 1784, although Morris, as Superintendent of Finance, had earnestly besought the governors of the States for two millions for the year 1783 alone, in order to meet outstanding obligations and current expenses. Without foreign and domestic loans the war could never have been carried to a successful conclusion; but in 1783 even that source was drained. In sheer desperation Congress authorized the Superintendent of Finance to draw bills of exchange, at his discretion, upon the credit of loans _which were to be procured_ in Europe. In vain Morris warned Congress that no more loans could be secured. "Our public credit is gone," he declared.

The obvious remedy for the financial ills of the Confederation was to give Congress the power to levy taxes. Early in 1781, indeed, before the Articles of Confederation had been ratified by Maryland, the proposal had been made that Congress should be vested with power to levy a five per cent duty on imports; but the obstinate opposition of Rhode Island effectually blocked the amendment. "She considered it the most precious jewel of sovereignty that no State be called upon to open its purse but by the authority of the State and by her own officers." Again, in 1783, Congress submitted to the States an amendment which would confer upon it the power to place specific duties for a term of twenty-five years upon certain cla.s.ses of imported commodities. The tardy response of the States to this proposal left little hope that it would be adopted.

In fact, the Confederation and its woes hardly occupied the thoughts of the people at all, except as a subject for jest and ridicule. The newspapers made merry over the peregrinations of Congress. Frightened away from Philadelphia by the riotous conduct of some troops of the Pennsylvania line, who had imbibed too freely, the delegates had withdrawn first to Princeton and then to Annapolis. Thither Washington repaired to resign his commission; but even so notable an occasion as this brought together delegates from only seven of the States. The best talent in America was drafted into the service of the several States.

Men had ceased to think continentally. "A selfish habitude of thinking and reasoning," wrote one who styled himself Yorick, in the _New York Packet_, "leads us into a fatal error the moment we begin to talk of the interests of America. The fact is, by the interests of America we mean only the interests of that State to which property or accident has attached us." "Of the affairs of Georgia," Madison confessed in 1786, "I know as little as those of Kamskatska."

On all sides intelligent men agreed that the return of prosperity depended upon the opening-up of foreign trade. Their immediate concern was the recovery of old markets. When John Adams went to London in 1785 as the first representative of the United States, he bent all his energies to the task of securing a commercial treaty which would provide for unrestricted intercourse between the countries. It was an impossible task. At every turn he encountered the hostility of the mercantile cla.s.ses, of whom Lord Sheffield was the most conspicuous representative.

"What have you to give us in exchange for this and that?" "What have you to give us as reciprocity for the benefit of going to our islands?"

"What a.s.surance can you give that the States will agree to a treaty?"

These were the embarra.s.sing questions which Adams had to encounter.

Baffled by the cool indifference of the English Ministry, Adams wrote home in despair that there was not the slightest prospect of relief for American commerce unless the States would confer the power of pa.s.sing navigation laws upon Congress or themselves pa.s.s retaliatory acts against Great Britain.

Congress had, indeed, already urged upon the States the necessity of yielding the power to enact navigation laws; but they had replied with such deliberation and with so many conditions that Congress was as powerless as ever. Meantime, each State struck blindly at the common enemy with little or no regard for its neighbors. "The States are every day giving proofs," wrote Madison, "that separate regulations are more likely to set them by the ears than to attain the common object." When the other New England States closed their ports to British shipping, Connecticut hastened to profit at their expense by throwing her ports wide open. New Jersey, with New York on one side and Pennsylvania on the other, was likened to a cask tapped at both ends. To find a historical parallel to the annals of this period, one must go back to the bickerings and jealousies of the states of ancient Greece.

In this dark picture, however, there are cheering rays of light. One by one the States were redeeming their promises and ceding their western lands. It seemed as though the Confederation, hitherto a disembodied spirit, was about to tenant a body. By the year 1786 the United States were in joint possession of the greater part of the vast region between the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes--a domain of imperial dimensions. In antic.i.p.ation of these cessions, Congress took under consideration an ordinance reported by a committee of which Thomas Jefferson was chairman. This ordinance contemplated the division of the land north of the thirty-first parallel into fourteen or sixteen States.

The settlers in these rectangular areas were not to form state governments at once, but for their temporary government were to borrow such const.i.tutions as they thought best from the older States. When a State had twenty thousand inhabitants, it might frame a permanent const.i.tution and send a delegate to Congress. Admission to the Union was to be granted only when a State had as many free inhabitants as "the least numerous of the thirteen original States." Two features of Jefferson's report do not appear in the Ordinance of 1784; the fantastic names which Jefferson had selected and the fifth of the fundamental conditions which were to be a charter of compact between the old States and the new. It is perhaps no misfortune that the names a.s.senisipia, Polypotamia, Pelisipia, do not appear on the map; the article prohibiting slavery after the year 1800 might well have been retained.

[Map: State-Making In the West 1783-1787]

More important than the Ordinance of 1784, which indeed is interesting chiefly because it was the forerunner of the final ordinance for the Northwest Territory, is that adopted by Congress in the following year.

The so-called Land Ordinance of 1785 provided in general for the survey of a series of townships six miles square in the region immediately west of Pennsylvania, and for the further division of each township into thirty-six lots, or, as they were later styled, "sections," one mile square. After satisfying the claims of the soldiers of the Continental Army, Congress proposed to distribute these lands among the States, to be sold at auction for a minimum price of one dollar an acre, reserving certain sections in each township and one third of the mineral ore which might be found. The sixteenth section in each township was to be set aside for the support of education. Each purchaser was to receive with his deed a definite description of his holding. Subsequent amendments to the Land Ordinance made the terms of purchase somewhat easier. Instead of making an out-and-out purchase, prospective settlers might pay one third in cash and receive a credit of three months for the balance of the purchase price. Yet even with these inducements only seventy-three thousand acres had been sold to individuals down to 1788. The hazards of western settlement were still too great.

Disappointed in the sales under the Land Ordinance, Congress was persuaded to consider the alternative course of selling large tracts to companies. The collapse of national credit left the public domain almost the only available source of revenue. Early in 1787 the Ohio Company offered to purchase a tract of land between the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers. The promoters of this company had been interested in an earlier project of army officers for the founding of a military colony beyond the Ohio. Organized at Boston in March, 1786, with a nominal capital of one million dollars, it had within a year raised one fourth of that amount and sent first General Samuel Parsons and then the Reverend Mana.s.seh Cutler to secure the desired grant from Congress. The labors of this astute divine at the seat of government form an interesting chapter in the evolution of American legislative methods. By devices well known to the modern lobbyist he not only secured the grant of land, but also took a hand in the shaping of a new ordinance for the Northwest Territory. In order to secure the grant to his a.s.sociates, he had to resort to log-rolling and agree to procure for a group of land speculators an option to lands on the Scioto River. The grant to the Ohio Company contained a million and a half acres; that to the Scioto Company, five million acres. But while the one paid down half a million dollars, the other made no payment, expecting to dispose of their "rights" before the first payment was due. In the following year a third grant of a million acres on the Great and Little Miami Rivers in Ohio was made to John Cleve Symmes.

From these sales Congress expected to realize over three and a half million dollars in public securities and at the same time to satisfy military bounty warrants amounting to about eight hundred thousand acres. The actual amount realized was less than six hundred thousand dollars. The Scioto Company succeeded in disposing of rights to about three million acres to a company organized in France, which in turn sold them to unsuspecting royalist emigrants. Neither company ever secured a clear t.i.tle to these lands, and Congress had eventually to come to the relief of the unhappy French settlers with a donation of twenty-four thousand acres. Unforeseen circ.u.mstances prevented either the Ohio Company or Symmes from complying with the conditions of sale; and in both cases Congress consented to alter the terms of contract.

On July 13, 1787, Congress adopted the ordinance which it had long had under consideration. The authorship of this "charter of the west," after long controversy, is still in dispute. Like all legislative measures it bears the mark of many hands. Certain features of Jefferson's ordinance reappear: the provision for temporary government and eventual statehood, and the fundamental articles of compact. Other provisions are stated in a detailed fashion and suggest the probability that Congress had definite conditions to meet. The ordinance took final form while the Reverend Mana.s.seh Cutler was representing the Ohio Company in New York.

Perhaps the most striking departure from the Ordinance of 1784 is the provision for not less than three nor more than five States north of the Ohio, where Jefferson planned for ten. Admission to the Union was to be gained only after the population had reached sixty thousand. Temporary government was to consist of a governor, a secretary, and three judges appointed by Congress, who were to adopt such laws from other States as they believed suited to local conditions. In each and every case Congress reserved the right to disallow these laws. Whenever a territory attained a population of five thousand, it was to pa.s.s to the second grade of government, with a representative a.s.sembly, an appointive council, and a delegate in Congress.

Six articles of compact were also written into the ordinance, which were to remain forever unalterable except by the common consent of the parties thereto--"the original States and the people and States in the said territory." Freedom of worship, the usual rights of person and property, and the obligation of private contracts were guaranteed.

Religion, morality, and education were to be forever encouraged. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude was to be permitted. In imposing these conditions Congress undoubtedly exceeded its powers under the Articles of Confederation, for that doc.u.ment nowhere confers upon Congress the power to make binding contracts, nor for that matter to legislate in any wise for the government of the common domain.

The Ohio Company hastened to colonize its broad acres on the Muskingum.

Before the end of the year 1787, the vanguard of the first colony was on the march through Pennsylvania to the upper waters of the Ohio. There they spent the winter constructing the craft which was to carry them to their destination. As soon as the ice broke up in the spring, they embarked on the Mayflower,--for so they had christened the craft,--and within five days set foot on the soil of Ohio. Other bands joined them, and by midsummer their rude huts and a blockhouse marked the site of what was to be the town of Marietta, the first New England settlement in the West. Across the Muskingum, at Fort Harmar, the new governor, General St. Clair, had already taken up his official residence. Farther down the river, Symmes planted a colony from New Jersey on the tract which he had purchased; and within the next few years settlements were made in the adjoining district, which Virginia had reserved as bounty land for her soldiers. The vision of virgin lands in the Ohio country was beginning to dawn upon the small farmer of the East. Emigration grew apace. Between February and June, 1788, an observer noted not less than forty-five hundred settlers drifting past Fort Harmar in their flatboats, in search of new homes in the wilderness.

While the colonization of the Northwest was going on under the eye of Governor St. Clair, hardy pioneers were laying the foundations of a new society in the Southwest, without the protecting arm of the Government.

Before the war Daniel Boone had made his famous trace to "the country of Kentucke" through the c.u.mberland Gap; and Robertson had led his colony from North Carolina to the upper waters of the Tennessee. Settlers had followed the long-rangers; and numerous communities sprang up by salt lick and water course. In all these settlements there was much local independence. For a time the people on the Watauga had established a government of their own. Upon the cession by North Carolina of her western lands, the settlers of eastern Tennessee took matters into their own hands and prepared to organize as a State. Congress had just adopted the Ordinance of 1784, and one of Jefferson's prospective States included most of the land already appropriated by these pioneers. They nourished, too, long-standing grievances. They were taxed for the support of a government which treated them with contumely and ignored their administrative needs. The movement toward independence acquired such headway that not even the repeal of the act of cession by North Carolina could stay its course. With a confidence born of frontier conditions these "modern Franks, the hardy mountain men," as a contemporary called them, drafted a const.i.tution, organized a government, and appealed to Congress for recognition as a State of the Confederation. For three years the State of Franklin, as it was officially christened, under the able leadership of Governor John Sovier, refused to recognize the authority of North Carolina, even to the point of resisting the militia by arms. But Congress turned a deaf ear to the pet.i.tions of the insurgents; and in the year 1788, diplomacy succeeding where coercion had failed, the people of Franklin returned to their first allegiance.

Much the same centrifugal forces were at work in northwestern Virginia and western Pennsylvania, a region which felt its isolation keenly.

"Separated by a vast, extensive and almost impa.s.sible Tract of Mountains, by Nature itself formed and pointed out as a Boundary between this Country and those below it," the settlers of this trans-Alleghany region besought Congress to recognize them as a "sister colony and fourteenth province of the American Confederacy."

More menacing to the integrity of Virginia was a movement for independent statehood among the people of Kentucky. Rivers were the highways of their commerce and the current of all bore their flatboats away from the parent State. New Orleans was their inevitable _entrepot_.

The forces of nature seemed to conspire to throw these western settlements into the hands of Spain. Washington was deeply impressed by the necessity of connecting the headwaters of the James and the Potomac with the tributaries of the Ohio, if the trade and allegiance of the people of Kentucky were to be secured to Virginia and to the Union. "The western States," he wrote to Governor Harrison of Virginia, "stand as it were upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way." The situation in Kentucky became more acute as intimations reached the people that John Jay was proposing to renounce the free navigation of the Mississippi.

In the summer of 1785, Don Diego de Gardoqui, the first accredited Minister from Spain, arrived in the United States to settle all outstanding differences between the two countries. Congress appointed John Jay as its diplomatic agent and instructed him to hold insistently to the thirty-first parallel as the southern boundary of the States and to the free navigation of the Mississippi. The prospect of agreement was very slight. The American claims were based solely on the Treaty of 1783 which the King of Spain was determined not to recognize. Negotiations dragged on for months. Reporting to Congress in August, 1786, Jay advised the abandonment of the claim of free navigation of the Mississippi for the sake of securing an advantageous commercial treaty with Spain. The delegates from Northern States were ready to barter away the Southwest; but the Southern delegates succeeded in postponing action until the impotent Confederation gave way to a more perfect union.

At the Court of St. James, John Adams was having no better luck in pressing the rights of the moribund Confederation. Notwithstanding the explicit terms of the Treaty of 1783, British garrisons still held strategic posts along the Great Lakes, exercising a strong influence upon the Indians and guarding the interests of British fur traders. Such a situation would have been intolerable to a self-respecting nation.

Smothering his pride, Adams mustered all the diplomacy which his nature permitted and sought an explanation of this extraordinary conduct from the ministers. He was finally told that he need not expect Great Britain to relinquish the Western posts so long as the States continued to put obstacles in the way of the collection of British debts.

A general reluctance to meet financial obligations was a deplorable aspect of the depression to which American society had succ.u.mbed. In all the States there was a more or less numerous cla.s.s of debtors who were convinced that the Government could help them out of all their distresses. As the cause of all their woes was the scarcity of money, why, let the Government manufacture money and so put an end to the stringency. What Madison called "the general rage for paper money"

seized upon Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Coupled with paper-money acts were others designed to alleviate the distress of the unfortunate. Stay laws of one sort or another were devised to keep the wolf, in the guise of the sheriff, from the door.

Legal-tender acts made cattle and produce equivalent to money when offered in payment of debts. Nor was this legislation inspired altogether by dishonest intent. Many believed with Luther Martin, of Maryland, that there were times of great public distress and extreme scarcity of specie when it was the duty of the Government to pa.s.s stay laws and legal-tender acts, "to prevent the wealthy creditor and the moneyed man from totally destroying the poor, though even industrious, debtor."

No State suffered more from the paper-money aberration than Rhode Island. Under pressure from the radical elements the legislature pa.s.sed an act for the emission of bills of credit which were to be issued to any freeholder who would offer as security real estate of any sort to double the amount of the loan. "Many from all parts of the State made haste to avail themselves of their good fortune, and mortgaged fields strewn thick with stones and covered with cedars and stunted pines for sums such as could not have been obtained for the richest pastures." But when they sought their creditors, not a merchant nor a shop-keeper could be found. n.o.body fished to have a just debt discharged in such currency.