CHAPTER V.

A PLAN TO FORCE A STRONGER GOVERNMENT.

January -- March, 1783.

"The uneasiness of the soldiers for want of pay is great and dangerous; further experiments on their patience may have fatal effects. There is a balance due upon the account for retained rations, forage, and arrearages on the score of clothing. Whenever there has been a want of means, defect in system, or neglect in execution, we have invariably been the sufferers by hunger and nakenness and languishing in a hospital. We beg leave to urge an immediate adjustment of all dues.

"We see with chagrin the odious point of view in which too many of the states endeavor to place men entitled to half-pay. For the honor of human nature we hope that there are none so hardened in the sin of ingratitude as to deny the justice of the reward. To prevent altercations, we are willing to commute the half-pay pledged. And in this we pray that the disabled officers and soldiers, with the widows and orphans of those who have expended, or may expend, their lives in the service of their country, may be fully comprehended.

The grand committee to whome the memorial was referred held a conference with the superintendent of finance. He declared peremptorily that it was impossible, in the present state of the finances, to make any payment to the army, and that it would be imprudent to give assurances with regard to future pay until funds that could be relied upon should be established. [1] Not only had he no money in hand, but he had overdrawn his account in Europe to the amount of three and a half millions of livres. [2] He therefore asked a decision on teh expediency of staking the public credit on further drafts to be met by the contingent proceeds of a loan from the Dutch and by the friendship of France. On the tenth of January, [3] congress, under an injunction of secrecy, authorized the superintendent to draw bills on the credit of applications for loans in Europe. Dyer of Connecticut alone opposed the measure as unwarranted and dishonorable, but allowed the resolution to be entered as unanimous. [4]

10.

The deputies animadverted with surprise and even indignation on the repugnance of some of the states to establish a federal revenue for discharging federal engagements, while the affluence of the people indicated adequate resources. Speaking with peculiar emphasis and making a strong impression by his manner, general Macdougall declared "that the most intelligent part of the army were deeply touched by the debility of the federal government and the unwillingness of the states to invigorate it; in case of its dissolution, the benefits expected from the revolution would be greatly impaired; and the contests which might ensue among the states would be sure to embroil their respective officers." [2] As to the half-pay for life, they complained that men who had not received a shilling of emoluments were artfully called pensioners.

"A great majority of the members of congress," avowed Robert Morris, "will not adopt the necessary measures because they are afraid of offending their states;" [2] and he undertook to drive them to decisive action. Accordingly, on the twenty-fourth, the day on which the report was taken up, he sent to them his resignation of office in these words: "The funding the public debts on solid revenues, I fear, will never be made. If before the end of May effectual measures to make permanent provision for the public debts of every kind are not taken, congress will be pleased to appoint some other man to be the superintendent of their finances: I will never be the minister of injustice." [3] The design of Robert Morris required the immediate publication of his letter, that, by uniting the army with all other creditors, congress and the states might be coerced into an efficient system; but congress reasoned that this authoritative statement of the financial ruin of the country would encourage the enemy, annihilate foreign and domestic credit, and provoke the army to mutiny. They therefore placed the communication under the injunction of secrecy. [4]

  
24.

At this stage of the discussion, an efficient reply could be made only by one who was of Virginia. To Randolph, then in Richmond, Madison had already written: "Virgina could never have cut off the impost at a more unlucky crisis than when she is protesting her inabililty to comply with the continental requisitions. Congress cannot abandon the plan as long as there is a spark of hope. Nay, other plans on a like principle must be added. Justice, gratitude, our reputation abroad and our tranquility at home, require provision for a debt of not less than fifty millions of dollars; and this provision will not be adequately met by separate acts of the states. If there are not revenue laws which operate at the same time through all the states, and are exempt from the control of each, mutual jealousies will assuredly defraud both our foreign and domestic creditors of their just claims." [1]

"The idea," said Madison, "of erecting our national independence on the ruins of public faith and national honor must be horrid to every mind which retains either honesty or pride. Is a continental revenue indispensably necessary for doing complete justice to the public creditors? This is the question.

"The necessity and reasonableness of a general revenue have been gaining ground among the states. I am aware that one exception ought to be made. The state of Virginia, as appears by an act yesterday laid before congress, has withdrawn its assent once given to the scheme. This circumstance cannot but embarrass a representative of that state advocating it; one, too, whose principles are extremely unfavorable to a disregard of the sense of constituents. But, though the delegates who compose congress more immediately represent and are amenable to the states from which they come, yet they owe a fidelity to the collective interests of the whole. The part I take is the more fully justified to my own mind by my thorough persuasion that, with the same knowledge of public affairs which my station commands, the legislature of Virginia would not have repealed the law in favor of the impost, and would even now rescind the repeal."

On the following day, the proposition of Wilson and Madison, with slight amendments, passed the committee of the whole without opposition. On the twelfth of February, it was adopted in congress by seven states in the affirmative, and without the negative of any state.

The public mind was ripening for a transition from a confederation to a real government. Just at this time Pelatiah Webster, a graduate of Yale college, in a dissertation published at Philadelphia, [4] proposed for the legislature of the United States a congress of two houses which should have ample authority for making laws "of general necessity and utility," and enforcing them as well on individuals as on states. he further suggested not only heads of executive departments, but judges of law and chancery. The tract awakened so much attention that it was reprinted in hartford, and called forth a reply.

Hamilton held it as certain that the army had secretly determined not to lay down their arms until due provision and a satisfactory prospect should be afforded on the subject of their pay; that the commander was already become extremely unpopular among all ranks from his known dislike to every unlawful proceeding; but, as from his virtue, his patriotism, and firmness, he would sooner suffer himself to be cut in pieces than yield to disloyal plans, Hamilton wished him to be the "conductor of the army in their plans for redress," to the exclusion of a leader like Horatio Gates. [3]

Congress was brought no nearer to decisive action. Hamilton proposed that the doors of congress should be thrown wide open whenever the finances were under discussion, though the proposal, had it been accepted, would have filled the galleries with holders of certificates of the public debt. [2]

On the other side, Rutledge again and again moved that the proceeds of the impost should be appropriated exclusively to the army, but was supported only by his own state. Ruffled by his indifference to the civil creditors, Wilson had one day answered with warmth: "Pennsylvania will take her own measures without regard to those of congress, and she ought to do so. She is willing to sink or swim according to the common fate; but she will not suffer herself, with a millstone of six millions of the continental debt, to go to the bottom alone." [3] The weakness of the friends of a general revenue appeared from their consenting to leave to the several states the appointment of the collectors of taxes, and to limit the grant of the impost to twenty-five years. [4]