CHAPTER I. A RETROSPECT. MOVEMENTS TOWARD UNION. 1643-1781.
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| The order of time brings us to
the most cheering act in the political history of mankind, when thirteen republics, of
which at least three reached from the sea to the Mississippi, formed themselves into one
federal commonwealth. There was no revolt against the past, but a persistent and healthy
progress. The sublime achievement was the work of a people led by statesmen of
earnestness, perseverance, and public spirit, instructed by the widest experience in the
forms of representative government, and warmed by that mutual love which proceeds from
ancient connection, harmonious effort in perils, and common aspirations. Scarcely one who wished me good speed when I first essayed to trace the history of America remains to greet me with a welcome as I near that goal. Deeply grateful as I am for the friends who rise up to gladden my old age, their encouragement must renew my grief for those who have gone before me. |
Chap. I. |
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While so much is changed in the living objects of personal respect and affection, infinitely greater are the transformations in the condition of the world. Power has come to dwell with every people, from the Arctic sea to the Mediterranean, from Portugal to the borders of Russia. From end to end of the United States, the slave has become a freeman; and the various forms of bondage have disappeared from European Christendom. Abounding harvests of scientific discovery have been garnered by numberless inquisitive minds, and the wildest forces of nature have been taught to become the docile helpmates of man. The application of steam to the purposes of travel on land and on water, the employment of a spark of light as the carrier of thought across continents and beneath oceans, have made of all the inhabitants of the earth one society. A journey round the world has become the pastime of a holiday vacation. The morning newspaper gathers up and brings us the noteworthy events of the last four-and-twenty hours in every quarter of the globe. All states are beginning to form parts of one system. The "new nations," which Shakespeare's prophetic eye saw rising on our eastern shore, dwell securely along two oceans, midway between their kin in Great Britain on the one side and the oldest surviving empire on the other. More than two thousand years ago it was truly said that the nature of justice can be more easily discerned in a state than in one man. [1] It may now be |
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studied in the collective states. The ignorance and prejudices that come from isolation are worn away in the conflict of the forms of culture. We learn to think the thought, to hope the hope of mankind. Former times spoke of the dawn of civilization in some one land; we live in the morning of the world. Day by day the men who guide public affairs are arraigned before the judgment-seat of the race. A government which adopts a merely selfish policy is pronounced to be the foe of the human family. The statesman who founds and builds up the well-being of his country on justice has all the nations for a cloud of witnesses, and, as one of our own poets [1] has said, "The linked hemispheres attest his deed." He thrills the world with joy; and man becomes of a nobler spirit as he learns to gauge his opinions and his acts by a scale commensurate with his nature. History carries forward the study of ethics by following the footsteps of states from the earliest times of which there is a record. The individual who undertakes to capture truth by solitary thought loses his way in the mazes of speculation, or involves himself in mystic visions, so that the arms which he extends to embrace what are but formless shadows return empty to his own breast. To find moral truth, he must study man in action. The laws of which reason is conscious can be tested best by experience; and inductions will be the more sure, the larger the experience from which they are drawn. However great may be the number of those who persuade themselves |
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that there is in man nothing superior to himself, history interposes with evidence that tyranny and wrong lead inevitably to decay; that freedom and right, however hard may be the struggle, always prove resistless. Through this assurance ancient nations learn to renew their youth; the rising generation is incited to take a generous part in the grand drama of time; and old age, staying itself upon sweet Hope as its companion and cherisher, [1] not bating a jot of courage, nor seeing cause to argue against the hand or the will of a higher power, stands waiting in the tranquil conviction that the path of humanity is still fresh with the dews of morning, that the Redeemer of the nations liveth.
The colonies, which became one federal republic, were founded by rival powers. That difference of origin and the consequent antagonism of interest were the motives to the first American union. In 1643 three New England colonies joined in a short-lived "confederacy" for mutual protection, especially against the Dutch; each member reserving its peculiar jurisdiction and government, and an equal vote in the general council. Common danger gave the next impulse to collective action. Rivers, which were the convenient warpaths of the natives, flowed in every direction from the land of the Five Nations; against whom, in 1684, measures of defence, extending from North Carolina to the northern boundary of New England, were con- |
1643.
1684. |
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1. glnketa oi kardian atalloisa ghrotrofoV sunaorei elpiV. Pindar in Plato, Republic, Book i. Bekkar, III. i. 10. |
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On the side of England, James II., using the simple method of the prerogative of an absolute king, began the suppression of colonial legislatures, and the consolidation of colonies under the rule of one governor. After the English revolution of 1688 had gained consistency, the responsible government which it established would gladly have devised one uniform system of colonial administration; and in 1696 the newly created board of trade, of which John Locke was a member, suggested the appointment of a captain-general of all the forces on the continent of North America, with such power as could be exercised through the prerogative of a constitutional king. In 1697 William Penn appeared before the board and advised an annual "congress" of two delegates from each one of the American provinces, to determine by plurality of voices the ways and means for supporting their union, providing for their safety, and regulating their commerce. In 1721, to ensure the needed co-operation of the colonies in the rivalry of England with France for North American territory, the plan attributed to Lord Stairs provided for a lord-lieutenant or captain-general over them all; and for a general council to which each provincial assembly should send two of its members, electing one of the two in alternate years. The lord-lieutenant of the king, in conjunction with the general council on behalf of the colonies, was then to allot the quotas of men and money which the several assemblies were to raise by laws of |
1685- 1688.
1696.
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their own. All these projects slumbered among heaps of neglected papers. On the final struggle between England and France, the zeal of the colonists surpassed that of the mother country. A union, proposed by Franklin in 1754, would have preserved the domestic institutions of the several colonies; for the affairs of the whole, a governor-general was to be appointed from England, and a legislature, in which the representation would have borne some proportion to population, was to be chosen triennially by the colonies. This plan, which foreshadowed the present constitution of the Dominion of Canada and the federation which with hope and applause was lately offered by rival ministries to South Africa, was at that day rejected by the British government with abhorrence and disdain. The English administration confined itself next to methods for obtaining a colonial revenue. For this end Lord Halifax, in 1754, advised that the commander-in-chief, attended by one commissioner from each colony, whose elections should be subject to one negative of the king by the royal council and another by the royal governor, should adjust the quotas of each colony, which were then to be enforced by the authority of parliament. This plan was suppressed by impending war. Great Britain having, with the lavish aid of her colonies, driven France from Canada, needed them no more as allies in war. The problem was how to create a grand system of empire. James Otis of Boston would have had all kingdoms and all outlying possessions of the crown wrought into the flesh and |
Chap.
1762- |
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blood and membership of one organization; but this advice, which would have required home governments for every kingdom and for every colony, and, for general affairs, one imperial parliament representing the whole, found no favor. In those days of aristocratic rule, the forming of a grand plan of union was assigned by the Bedford faction to George Grenville, a statesman bred to the law, the impersonation of idolatry of the protective system as the source of British prosperity, and of faith in the omnipotence of the British parliament as the groundwork of British liberty. He sought to unite the thirteen colonies in their home administration by the prerogative; in their home legislation by a royal veto of acts of their own legislatures; in the establishment of their general revenue and the regulation of their commerce by acts of the British parliament. And now came into the view of the world the rare aptitude of the colonies for concert and organization. James Otis, in the general court of Massachusetts, spoke the word for an American congress, and in 1765 nine of the thirteen met at New York: the British parliament aimed at consolidating their administration without their own consent, and did but force them to unite in the denial of its power. The truest and greatest Englishman of that century breasted the heaving wave and by his own force stayed it, but only for the moment. An aristocratic house of commons, piqued and vexed at its own concession, imposed a tax on the colonies in the least hateful form that it could devise; and the sound of |
Chap. I. 1762- 1765.
1765.
1773. |
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into Boston harbor, startled the nations with the news of a united and resistant America. The British parliament thought proper to punish Boston and attempt coercion by arms; "delegates of the inhabitants" of twelve American colonies in a continental congress acted as one in a petition to the king. The petition was not received. Six months before the declaration of independence, Thomas Paine, in "Common Sense," had said: "Nothing but a continental form of government can keep the peace of the continent. [1] Let a CONTINENTAL CONFERENCE be held [2], to frame a CONTINENTAL CHARTER, drawing the line of business and jurisdiction between members of congress and members of assembly, always remembering that our strength and happiness are continental, not provincial. [3] The bodies chosen conformably to said charter shall be the legislators and governors of this continent. [4] We have every opportunity and every encouragement to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth." [5] The continental convention which was to frame the constitution for the union was to represent both the colonies and the people of each colony; its members were to be chosen, two by congress from the delegation of each colony, two by the legislature of each colony out of its own body, and five directly by the people. [6] |
Chap. I.
1774.
1776. |
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1. Common Sense: original edition of 8 Jan., 1776, p. 51. 2. Ibid., 55. 3. Ibid., 56. 4. Ibid., 56. |
5. Appendix, annexed to second edition of Common Sense, 14 Feb., 1776. 6. Common Sense, original edition, 55. |
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Great Britain offered its transatlantic dominions no unity but under a parliament in which they were not represented; the people of thirteen colonies by special instructions to their delegates in congress declared themselves to be states, independent and united, and began the search for a fitting constitution. In their first formative effort they missed the plain road of English and American experience. They had rightly been jealous of extending the supremacy of England, because it was a government outside themselves; they now applied that jealousy to one another, forgetting that the general power would be in their own hands. Joseph Hawley of Massachusetts had, in November, 1775, advised annual parliaments of two houses; the committee for framing the confederation, misled partly by a rooted distrust for which the motive had ceased, and partly by erudition which studied Hellenic councils and leagues as well as later confederacies, took for its pattern the constitution of the United Provinces, with one house and no central power of final decision. These evils were nearly fatal to the United Provinces themselves, although every one of them could be reached by a messenger within a day's journey; and here was a continent of states which could not be consulted without the loss of many months, and would ever tend to anarchy from the want of agreement in their separate deliberations. Hopeless of a good result from the deliberations of congress on a confederation, Edward Rutledge, in August, 1776, in a letter to Robert R. Livingston, |
Chap. I. 1776. July 4.
1775.
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to "propose that the states should appoint a special congress, to be composed of new
members, for this purpose." [1] The necessities of the war called into being, north of the Potomac, successive conventions of a cluster of states. In August, 1780, a convention of the New England states at Boston declared for a more solid and permanent union with one supreme head, and "a congress competent for the government of all those common and national affairs which do not nor can come within the jurisdiction of the particular states." At the same time it issued an invitation for a convention of the New England states, New York, and "others that shall think proper to join them," [2] to meet at Hartford. The legislature of New York approved the measure. [3] "Our embarrassments in the prosecution of the war," such was the message of Governor George Clinton on the opening of the session in September, "are chiefly to be attributed to a defect of power in those who ought to exercise a supreme jurisdiction; for, while congress only recommends and the different states deliberate upon the propriety of the recommendation, we cannot expect a union of force or council." The senate answered in the words of Philip Schuyler: "We perceive the defects in the present system, and the necessity of a supreme and coercive power in the government of |
Chap. I.
Sept. |
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1. Rutledge to Livingston, Aug., 1776. MS. 2. Hough's Convention of New England States at Boston, 50, 52. |
3. Duane to Washington, 19 Sept., 1780. Letters to Washington, iii. 92. |
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these states; and are persuaded that, unless congress are authorized to direct uncontrollably the operations of war and enabled to enforce a compliance with their requisitions, the common force can never be properly united." [1] Meantime, Alexander Hamilton in swiftness of thought outran all that was possible. Early in September, in a private letter to James Duane, then a member of congress, he took up the proposal, which, nearly five years before, Paine had made known, and advised that a convention of all the states should meet on the first of the following November, with full authority to conclude finally and set in motion a "vigorous" general confederation. [2] His ardor would have surprised the people into greater happiness without giving them an opportunity to view and reject his project. [3] Before the end of the year the author of "Common Sense" himself, publishing in Philadelphia a tract asserting the right of the United States to the vacant western territory, closed his argument for the "Public Good" with these words: "I take the opportunity of renewing a hint which I formerly threw out in the pamphlet 'Common Sense,' and which the several states will, sooner or later, see the convenience, if not the necessity, of adopting; which is, that of electing a continental constitution, defining and describing the powers of congress. To have them marked out le- |
Chap. I.
Sept.
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1. Hough's Convention, 63-65. 2. Hamilton to Duane, 3 Sept., 1780. Hamilton, i. 157. |
3. Compare McHenry to Hamilton. Hamilton, i. 411. |
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gally will give additional energy to the whole, and a new confidence to the several parts." [1] "Call a convention of the states, and establish a congress upon a constitutional footing," wrote Greene, after taking command of the southern army, to a member of congress. [2] On the eleventh of November able representatives from each of the four New England states and New York assembled at Hartford. [3] The lead in the convention was taken by the delegates from New York, John Sloss Hobart, a judge of its supreme court, and Egbert Benson, its attorney-general. [4] At their instance it was proposed, as a foundation for a safe system of finance, to provide by taxes or duties a certain and inalienable revenue, to discharge the interest on any funded part of the public debt, and on future loans. As it had proved impossible to get at the valuation of lands, congress should be empowered to apportion taxes on the states according to their number of inhabitants, black as well as white. They then prepared a circular letter to all the states, in which they said: "Our embarrassments arise from a defect in the present government of the United States. All government supposes the power of coercion; this |
Chap. I. 1780.
Nov. |
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1. Thomas Paine's Public Good. Original edition, 38. 2. Johnson's Life of Greene, ii. 446. 3. The names of all the delegates are given in Papers of the Old Congress, xxxiii. 391, MS. John T. Gilman of New Hampshire, Thomas Cushing, Azor Orne, George Partridge of Massachusetts, William Bradford of Rhode Island, Eliphalet Dyer and |
William Williams of Connecticut, John Sloss Hobart and Egbert Benson of New York. 4. That New York took the lead appears from comparison of the message of Clinton in September and the circular letter of the convention; and from the public tribute of Hamilton to the New York delegates in the presence of Hobart. Hamilton, ii. 360. |
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power, however, never did exist in the general government of the continent, or has never been exercised. Under these circumstances, the resources and force of the country can never be properly united and drawn forth. The states individually considered, while they endeavor to retain too much of their independence, may finally lose the whole. By the expulsion of the enemy we may be emancipated from the tyranny of Great Britain; we shall, however, be without a solid hope of peace and freedom, unless we are properly cemented among ourselves." The proceedings of this convention were sent to every state in the union, to Washington, and to congress. [1] They were read in congress on the twelfth of December, 1780; and were referred to a committee of five, on which were John Witherspoon and James Madison, [2] the master and his pupil. In the same days Pennsylvania instructed its delegates in congress that imposts on trade were absolutely necessary; and in order to prevent any state from taking advantage of a neighbor, congress should recommend to the several states in union a system of imposts. [3] Before the end of 1780 the legislative council and general assembly of New Jersey, while they insisted "that the rights of every state in the union should be strictly maintained," declared that "congress represent the federal republic." [4] Thus early was that |
Chap. I. 1780.
29. |
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1. Papers of the Old Congress, xxxiii. 391, containing copies of the credentials of the commissioners, the resolutions of the convention, and its letters to the several states, to congress, and to Washington. MS. |
2. Endorsement by Charles Thomson, secretary of congress. MS. 3. Journals of Assembly, 564. 4. Representation and Remonstrance, printed in Mulford's New Jersey, 469, 470. |
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name applied to the United States. Both branches of the legislature of New York, which at that time was "as well disposed a state as any in the union," [1] approved the proceedings of the convention as promoting the interest of the continent. [2] With the year 1781, when the ministry of Great Britain believed themselves in possession of the three southernmost states and were cheering Cornwallis to complete his glory by the conquest of Virginia; when congress was confessedly without the means to recover the city of New York; when a large contingent from France was at Newport, serious efforts for the creation of a federal republic began, and never ceased until it was established. The people of New York, from motives of the highest patriotism, had already ceded its claims to western lands. The territory north-west of the Ohio, which Virginia had conquered, was on the second of January [3] surrendered to the United States of America. For this renunciation one state and one state only had made delay. On the twenty-ninth, congress received the news so long anxiously waited for, that Maryland by a resolution of both branches of her legislature had acceded to the confederation, seven members only in the house voting in the negative. Duane, who had been taught by Washington that "greater powers to congress were indispensably necessary to the well-being and good government of public affairs," [4] instantly addressed him: "Let us devote |
Chap. I. 1780.
Jan. |
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1. Washington to Jefferson, 1 Aug., 1786. Sparks, ix. 186. 2. Journals of Assembly, 91, 93. |
3. Journal of Virginia House of Delegates, 79. 4. Washington to James Duane, 26 Dec., 1780. MS. |
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this day to joy and congratulation, since by the accomplishment of our federal union we are become a nation. In a political view it is of more real importance than a victory over all our enemies. We shall not fail of taking advantage of the favorable temper of the states and recommending for ratification such additional articles as will give vigor and authority to government." [1] The enthusiasm of the moment could not hide the truth, that without amendments the new system would struggle vainly for life. Washington answered: "Our affairs will not put on a different aspect unless congress is vested with, or will assume, greater powers than they exert at present." [2] To another member of congress, Washington wrote: "I never expect to see a happy termination of the war, nor great national concerns well conducted in peace, till there is something more than a recommendatory power in congress. The last words, therefore, of my letter and the first wish of my heart concur in favor of it." [3] The legislature of Maryland swiftly transformed its resolution into an act. The delegates having full authority, in the presence of congress, on the first day of March, subscribed the articles of confederation, and its complete, formal, and final ratification by all the United States was announced to the public; to the executives in Europe, and through them to |
Chap. I. 1781.
March |
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1. James Duane to Washington, 29 Jan., 1781. MS. 2. Washington to Duane, 19 Feb., 1781. MS. |
3. Washington to Sullivan, 4 Feb., 1781. Sparks, vii. 402. |
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the courts at which they resided; to the minister plenipotentiary of France in America; to the commander-in-chief, and through him to the army. [1] Clinton communicated "the important event" to the legislature of New York, adding: "This great national compact establishes our union." [2] But the completion of the confederation was the instant revelation of its insufficiency, and the summons to the people of America to form a better constitution. Washington rejoiced that Virginia had relinquished her claim to the land south of the great lakes and north-west of the Ohio, which he said, "for fertility of soil, pleasantness of climate, and other natural advantages, is equal to any known tract of country of the same extend in the universe." [3] He was pleased that Maryland had acceded to the confederation; but he saw no ground to rest satisfied. On taking command of the army in Massachusetts in 1775, he at once discriminated between the proper functions of individual colonies and "that power and weight which ought to right to belong only to the whole;" [4] and he applied to Richard Henry Lee, then in congress, for aid in establishing the distinction. In the following years he steadily counselled the formation of one continental army. As a faithful laborer in the cause, as a man injuring his private estate without the smallest personal advantage, as one who wished the prosperity of America most devoutly, he in the |
Chap. I. 1781. March |
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1. Journals of Congress, iii. 581, 582, 591. 2. Journal of New York Assembly, for 19 March, 1781. |
3. Washington to Sullivan, 4 Feb., 1781. Sparks, vii. 400. 4. Washington to Richard Henry Lee, 29 Aug., 1775. Sparks, iii. 68, 69. |
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last days of 1778 had pleaded with the statesmen of Virginia for that which to him was more than life. He called on Benjamin Harrison, then speaker of the house of delegates, on Mason, Wythe, Jefferson, Nicholas, Pendleton, and Nelson, "not to be satisfied with places in their own state while the common interests of America were mouldering and sinking into irretrievable ruin, but to attend to the momentous concerns of an empire." [1] "Till the great national interest is fixed upon a solid basis," so he wrote in March, 1779, to George Mason, "I lament the fatal policy of the states of employing their ablest men at home. How useless to put in fine order the smallest parts of a clock, unless the great spring which is to set the whole in motion is well attended to! Let this voice call forth you, Jefferson, and others to save their country." [2] But now, with deeper emotion, he turns to his own state as he had done in the gloomy winter of 1778. He has no consolation but in the hope of a good federal government. His growing desire has the character of the forces of nature, which from the opening year increase in power till the earth is renewed. A constant, close observer of what was done by Virginia, he held in mind that on the twenty-fourth day of December, 1779, on occasion of some unwise proceedings of congress, she had resolved "that the legislature of this commonwealth are greatly alarmed at the assumption of power lately exercised by congress. While the right of recommending measures to each state by congress is admitted, we contend for that |
Chap. I. 1778. Dec.
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1. Sparks, vi. 150. |
2. MS. letter to Geo. Mason. |
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of judging of their utility and expediency, and of course either to approve or reject. Making any state answerable for not agreeing to any of its recommendations would establish a dangerous precedent against the authority of the legislature and the sovereignty of the separate states." [1] This interposition of the Virginia legislature so haunted Washington's mind that he felt himself more particularly impelled to address with freedom men of whose abilities and judgments he wished to avail himself. He thoroughly understood the obstinacy and strength which he must encounter and overcome. His native state, reaching to the Mississippi and cutting off the mass of the south from the north, held, from its geographical place, its numbers, and the influence of its statesmen, a power of obstructing union such as belonged to no other state. He must persuade it to renounce some share of its individual sovereignty and forego "the liberty to reject or alter any act of congress which in a full representation of states has been solemnly debated and decided on," [2] or there is no hope of consolidating the union. His position was one of extreme delicacy; for he was at the head of the army which could alone be employed to enforce the requisitions of congress. He therefore selected, as the Virginians to whom he could safely address himself, the three great civilians whom that commonwealth had appointed to codify its laws and adapt them to the new state of society consequent on independence, Jefferson, its governor, Pen- |
Chap. I. |
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1. Journal of House of Delegates of Virginia, for 24 Dec., 1779, 108. |
2. Washington to James Duane, 26 Dec., 1780. MS. |
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dleton, the president of its court of appeals, and Wythe, its spotless chancellor. [1] "The alliance of the states," he said, "is now complete. If the powers granted to the respective body of the states are inadequate, the defects should be considered and remedied. Danger may spring from delay; good will result from a timely application of a remedy. The present temper of the states is friendly to the establishment of a lasting union; the moment should be improved; if suffered to pass away it may never return, and, after gloriously and successfully contending against the usurpations of Britain, we may fall a prey to our own follies and disputes." He argued for the power of compelling the states to comply with the requisitions for men and money agreeably to their respective quotas; adding: "It would give me concern should it be thought of me that I am desirous of enlarging the powers of congress unnecessarily; I declare to God, my only aim is the general good." And he promised to make his views known to others besides the three. His stepson, John Parke Custis, who was just entering into public life, he thus instructed: "The fear |
Chap. I. 1781. Feb. |
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1. Washington to Jefferson, Pendleton, and Wythe, Madison Papers, 83, Gilpin's edition. The date of his letter is not given. It was written soon after the accession of Maryland to the confederation; probably in February, before the middle of the month, which was the time fixed for his departure from New Windsor for Newport. The dates of the letters of 1781, informing him of the accession of Maryland, were, from Duane, 29 Jan., MS.; from Sullivan, 29 Jan., |
MS.; from Matthews, 30 Jan. Letters to Washington, iii. 218. Washington's answer to Sullivan is 4 Feb., Sparks, vii. 402; to Matthews, 14 Feb. "The confederation being now closed will, I trust, enable congress to speak decisively in their requisitions," etc. MS. On the evening of the fourteenth, Washington was preparing to leave for Newport; an unexpected letter from Rochambeau detained him in camp till the second of March. Sparks, vii. 446, note. |
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of giving sufficient powers to congress is futile. Under its present constitution, each assembly will be annihilated, and we must once more return to the government of Great Britain, and be made to kiss the rod preparing for our correction. A nominal head, which at present is but another name for congress, will no longer do. That honorable body, after hearing the interests and views of the several states fairly discussed and explained by their respective representatives, must dictate, and not merely recommend." [1] To another Virginian, Joseph Jones of King George county, whom he regarded with sincere affection and perfect trust, he wrote: "Without a controlling power in congress it will be impossible to carry on the war; and we shall speedily be thirteen distinct states, each pursuing its local interests, till they are annihilated in a general crash. The fable of the bunch of sticks may well be applied to us." [2] In a like strain he addressed other trusty correspondents and friends. [3] His wants as commander-in-chief did not confine his attention to the progress of the war; he aimed at nothing less than an enduring government for all times of war and peace. |
Chap. I. 1781. |
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1. Washington to John Parke Custin, 28 Feb., 1781. Sparks, vii. 440-444. 2. Washington to Joseph Jones, 24 March, 1781. MS. 3. Compare his letters to R. R. Livingston of New York, 31 Jan., 1781 -- Sparks, vii. 391; to John Sullivan of New Hampshire, 4 Feb., 1781 -- Sparks, vii. 401, 402; to John Matthews of South Carolina, 14 Feb., 1781, MS.; to James |
Duane of New York, 19 Feb., 1781, MS.; to Philip Schuyler of New York, 20 Feb., 1781, MS.; to John Parke Custis of Virginia, 28 Feb., 1781 -- Sparks, vii. 442; to William Gordon, in Massachusetts, 9 March, 1781 -- Sparks, vii. 448; to Joseph Jones of Virginia, 24 March, 1781, MS.; to John Armstrong of Pennsylvania, 26 March, 1781 -- Sparks, vii. 403. |
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As soon as the new form of union was proclaimed, congress saw its want of real authority, and sought a way to remedy the defect. A report by Madison, from a committee, [1] was completed on the twelfth of March; and this was its reasoning: "The articles of confederation, which declare that every state shall abide by the determinations of congress, imply a general power vested in congress to enforce them and carry them into effect. The United States in congress assembled, being desirous as far as possible to cement and invigorate the federal union, recommend to the legislature of every state to give authority to employ the force of the United States as well by sea as by land to compel the states to fulfil their federal engagements." [2] Madison enclosed to Jefferson a copy of his report, and, on account of the delicacy and importance of the subject, expressed a wish for his judgment on it before it should undergo the final decision of congress. No direct reply from him is preserved, [3] but Joseph Jones, who, after a visit to Richmond, was again in Philadelphia about the middle of May, gave to Madison a copy of the letter of Washington to Jefferson and his two associates. [4] There were no |
Chap. I. 1781. March 12. |
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1. Reports of committees on increasing the powers of congress, p. 19. MS. This report is dated 12 March, and was read in congress 16 March. 2. Madison Papers, Gilpin's Edition, 88-90. Reports of committees, 20, 22. MS. Madison was a member of the committee to which were referred the papers from the Hartford convention of November, 1780. |
That committee, on the sixteenth of February, 1781, made a report, which was referred back to it. Whether Madison's report of the twelfth of March proceeded from that committee, the imperfect record does not show. 3. None of the letters of Jefferson to Madison of this year have been preserved. 4. Madison Papers, Gilpin's Edition, 81. |
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chances that the proposal of Madison would be approved by any one state, yet on the second of May it was referred to a grand committee; that is, to a committee of one from each state. [1] On the eighteenth, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, then the French minister in America, sent this dispatch to Vergennes: "There is a feeling to reform the constitution of congress; but the articles of confederation, defective as they are, cost a year and a half of labor and of debates; a change will not encounter less difficulty, and it appears to me there is more room for desire than for hope." [2] Even while he was writing, the movement for reform received a new impulse. In a pamphlet dated the twenty-fourth, and dedicated to the congress of the United States of America and to the assembly of the state of Pennsylvania, William Barton [3] insisted that congress should "not be left with the mere shadow of sovereign authority, without the right of exacting obedience to their ordinances, and destitute of the means of executing their resolves." To rem- |
Chap. I. 1781. May 2.
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1. Reports of committees on increasing the powers of congress, p. 22. MS. 2. Luzerne to Vergennes, 18 May, 1781. MS. 3. Not by Pelatiah Webster, as stated by Madison. Introduction to debates, Madison Papers, Gilpin's Edition, 706; Elliot's stereotyped reprint, 117. First: at a later period, Webster collected his pamphlets in a volume, and this one is not among them; a disclaimer which, under the circumstances, is conclusive. Secondly: the style of this pamphlet |
of 1781 is totally unlike the style of those collected by Pelatiah Webster. My friend F. D. Stone of Philadelphia was good enough to communicate to me the bill for printing the pamphlet; it was made out against William Barton and paid by him. Further: Barton from time to time wrote pamphlets, of which, on a careful comparison, the style, language, and forms of expression are found to correspond to this pamphlet published in 1781. Without doubt it was written by William Barton. |
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edy this evil he did not look to congress itself, but "indicated the necessity of their calling a continental convention, for the express purpose of ascertaining, defining, enlarging, and limiting the duties and powers of their constitution." [1] This is the third time that the suggestion of a general constituent convention was brought before the country by the press of Philadelphia. The grand committee of thirteen delayed their report till the twentieth of July, and then only expressed a wish to give congress power in time of war to lay an embargo at least for sixty days, and to appoint receivers of the money of the United States as soon as collected by state officers. By their advice the business was then referred to a committee of three. [2] Day seemed to break, when, on the twentieth of July, Edmund Randolph, who had just brought from Virginia the news of its disposition to strengthen the general government, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, and James M. Varnum of Rhode Island, three of the ablest lawyers in their states, were selected to "prepare an exposition of the confederation, to devise a plan for its complete execution, and to present supplemental articles." [3] In support of the proceedings of congress, Hamilton, during July and August, published a series of papers which he called "The Continentalist." "There is hardly a man," said he, "who will not acknowledge |
Chap. I. 1781.
July
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1. Observations on the Nature and use of Paper Credit, etc., Philadelphia, 1781, 37. The preface of the pamphlet is dated 24 May, 1781. |
2. Report of the grand committee. MS. 3. Report of the committee of three. MS. |
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the confederation unequal to a vigorous prosecution of the war, or to the preservation of the union in peace. The federal government, too weak at first, will continually grow weaker." [1] "Already some of the states have evaded or refused the demands of congress; the currency is depreciated; public credit is at the lowest ebb; our army deficient in numbers and unprovided with everything; the enemy making an alarming progress in the southern states; Cornwallis still formidable to Virginia. [2] As in explanation of our embarrassments nothing can be alleged to the disaffection of the people, we must have recourse to impolicy and mismanagement in their rulers. [3] We ought therefore not only to strain every nerve to render the present campaign as decisive as possible, but we ought without delay to enlarge the powers of congress. Every plan of which this is not the foundation will be illusory. The separate exertions of the states will never suffice. Nothing but a well-proportioned exertion of the resources for the whole, under the direction of a common council with power sufficient to give efficacy to their resolutions, can preserve us from being a conquered people now, or can make us a happy one hereafter." [4] The committee of three, Randolph, Ellsworth, and Varnum, made their report on the twenty-second of August. They declined to prepare an exposition of the confederation, because such a comment would be voluminous if coextensive with the subject; and, in |
Chap. I. 1781.
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1. Continentalist. Reprinted in J. C. Hamilton's edition of the Federalist, cxl., cxli. |
2. Ibid., cxlv., cxlvi. 3. Ibid., cxlvii. 4. Ibid., cxlviii. |
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the enumeration of powers, omissions would become an argument against their existence. With professional exactness they explained in twenty-one cases the "manner" in which "the confederation required execution." As to delinquent states, they advised, "That -- as America became a confederate republic to crush the present and future foes of her independence; as of this republic a general council is a necessary organ; and as, without the extension of its power, war may receive a fatal inclination and peace be exposed to daily convulsions -- be it resolved to recommend to the several states to authorize the United States in congress assembled to lay embargoes and prescribe rules for impressing property in time of war; to appoint collectors of taxes required by congress; to admit new states with the consent of any dismembered state; to establish a consular system without reference to the states individually; to distrain the property of a state delinquent in its assigned proportion of men and money; and to vary the rules of suffrage in congress so as to decide the most important questions by the agreement of two thirds of the United States." [1] It was further proposed to make a representation to the several states of the necessity for these supplemental powers, and of pursuing in their development one uniform plan. At the time when this report was made, the country was rousing its energies for a final campaign. New England with its militia assisted to man the lines near New York; the commander-in-chief with |
Chap. I. 1781. |
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1. Reports of committees on increasing the powers of congress. MS. |
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his army had gone to meet Cornwallis in Virginia; and Greene was recovering the three southernmost states. Few persons in that moment of suspense cared to read the political essays of Hamilton, and he hastened to take part in the war under the command of Lafayette. The hurry of crowded hours left no opportunity for deliberation on the reform of the constitution. Moreover, the committee of three, while they recognized the duty of obedience on the part of the states to the requisitions of congress, knew no way to force men into the ranks of the army, or distrain the property of a state. There could be no coercion; for every state was a delinquent. Had it been otherwise, the coercion of a state by force of arms is civil war, and, from the weakness of the confederacy and the strength of organization of each separate state, would have been disunion. Yet it was necessary for the public mind to pass through this process of reasoning. The conviction that the confederacy could propose no remedy for its weakness but the impracticable one of the coercion of sovereign states compelled the search for a really efficient and more humane form of government. Meantime the report of Randolph, Ellsworth, and Varnum, which was the result of the deliberations of nearly eight months, fell to the ground. We shall not have to wait long for a word from Washington; and, when he next speaks, he will propose "A NEW CONSTITUTION." |
Chap. I. 1781. |
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