UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION
%163. How the Colonies became States.%--When the Continental Congress
met at Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, a letter was received from
Massachusetts, where the people had penned up the governor in Boston and
had taken the government into their own hands, asking what they should
do. Congress replied that no obedience was due to the Massachusetts
Regulating Act or to the governor, and advised the people to make a
temporary government to last till the King should restore the old
charter. Similar advice was given the same year to New Hampshire and
South Carolina, for it was not then supposed that the quarrel with the
mother country would end in separation. But by the spring of 1776 all
the governors of the thirteen colonies had either fled or been thrown
into prison. This put an end to colonial government, and Congress,
seeing that reconciliation was impossible, (May 15, 1776) advised all
the colonies to form governments for themselves (p. 132). Thereupon they
adopted constitutions, and by doing so turned themselves from British
colonies into sovereign and independent states.[1]
[Footnote 1: All but two made new constitutions; but Connecticut and
Rhode Island used their old charters, the one till 1818, the other till
1842. Vermont also formed a constitution, but she was not admitted to
the Congress (p. 243).]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES WHEN PEACE WAS DECLARED in 1783 SHOWING
THE STATE CLAIMS]
%164. Articles of Confederation.%--While the colonies were thus
gradually turning themselves into the states, the Continental
Congress was trying to bind them into a union by means of a sort of
general constitution called "Articles of Confederation." By order of
Congress, Articles had been prepared and presented by a committee in
July, 1776, but it was not till November 17, 1777, that they were sent
out to the states for adoption. Now it must be remembered that six
states, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia, claimed that their "from sea to sea" charters
gave them lands between the mountains and the Mississippi River, and
that one, New York, had bought the Indian title to land in the Ohio
valley. It must also be remembered that the other six states did not
have "from sea to sea" charters, and so had no claims to western lands.
As three of them, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, held that the
claims of their sister states were invalid, they now refused to adopt
the Articles unless the land so claimed was given to Congress to be used
to pay for the cost of the Revolution. For this action they gave
four reasons:
1. The Mississippi valley had been discovered, explored, settled, and
owned by France.
2. England had never owned any land there till France ceded the country
in 1763.
3. When at last England had got it, in 1763, the King drew the
"proclamation line," turned the Mississippi valley into the Indian
country, and so cut off any claim of the colonies in consequence of
English ownership.
4. The western lands were therefore the property of the King, and now
that the states were in arms against him, his lands ought to be seized
by Congress and used for the benefit of all the states.
For three years the land-claiming states refused to be convinced by
these arguments. But at length, finding that Maryland was determined not
to adopt the Articles till her demands were complied with, they began to
yield. In February, 1780, New York ceded her claims to Congress, and in
January, 1781, Virginia gave up her claim to the country north of the
Ohio River. Maryland had now carried her point, and on March 1, 1781,
her delegates signed the Articles of Confederation. As all the other
states had ratified the Articles, this act on the part of Maryland made
them law, and March 2, 1781, Congress met for the first time under a
form of government the states were pledged to obey.
%165. Government under the Articles of Confederation.%--The form of
government that went into effect on that day was bad from beginning to
end. There was no one officer to carry out the laws, no court or judge
to settle disputed points of law, and only a very feeble legislature.
Congress consisted of one house, presided over by a president elected
each year by the members from among their own number. The delegates to
Congress could not be more than seven, nor less than two from each
state, were elected yearly, could not serve for more than three years
out of six, and might be recalled at any time by the states that sent
them. Once assembled on the floor of Congress, the delegates became
members of a secret body. The doors were shut; no spectators were
allowed to hear what was said; no reports of the debates were taken
down; but under a strict injunction to secrecy the members went on
deliberating day after day. All voting was done by states, each casting
but one vote, no matter how many delegates it had. The affirmative votes
of nine states were necessary to pass any important act, or, as it was
called, "ordinance."
To this body the Articles gave but few powers. Congress could declare
war, make peace, issue money, keep up an army and a navy, contract
debts, enter into treaties of commerce, and settle disputes between
states. But it could not enforce a treaty or a law when made, nor lay
any tax for any purpose.
%166. Origin of the Public Domain%.--In 1784 Massachusetts ceded her
strip of land in the west, following the example set by New York (1780),
and Virginia (1781).
As three states claiming western territory had thus by 1784 given their
land to Congress, that body came into possession of the greater part of
the vast domain stretching from the Lakes to the Ohio and from the
Mississippi to Pennsylvania.[1] Now this public domain, as it was
called, was given on certain conditions:
1. That it should be cut up into states.
2. That these states should be admitted into the Union (when they had a
certain population) on the same footing as the thirteen original states.
3. That the land should be sold and the money used to pay the debts of
the United States.
[Footnote 1: The strip owned by Connecticut had been offered to Congress
in October, 1789, but not accepted. It still belonged to Connecticut in
1785. In 1786 it was again ceded, with certain reservations, and
accepted.]
Congress, therefore, as soon as it had received the deeds to the tracts
ceded, trusting that the other land-owning states would cede their
western territory in time, passed a law (in 1785) to prepare the land
for sale by surveying it and marking it out into sections, townships,
and ranges, and fixed the price per acre.
%167. Virginia and Connecticut Reserves.%--When Virginia made her
cession in 1781, she expressly reserved two tracts of land north of the
Ohio. One, called the Military Lands, lay between the Scioto and Miami
rivers, and was held to pay bounties promised to the Virginia
Revolutionary soldiers. The other (in the present state of Indiana) was
given to General George Rogers Clark and his soldiers. A third piece was
reserved by Connecticut when she ceded her strip in 1786. This, called
the Western Reserve of Connecticut, stretched along the shore of Lake
Erie (map, p. 175). In 1800 Connecticut gave up her jurisdiction, or
right of government, over this reserve in return for the confirmation of
land titles she had granted.
[Illustration: TERRITORY OF THE %UNITED STATES% NORTHWEST OF THE OHIO
RIVER %1787%]
%168. Ordinance of 1787; Origin of the Territories.%--Hardly had
Congress provided for the sale of the land, when a number of
Revolutionary soldiers formed the Ohio Land Company, and sent an agent
to New York, where Congress was in session, and offered to buy 5,000,000
acres on the Ohio River: 1,500,000 acres were for themselves, and
3,500,000 for another company called the Scioto Company. The land was
gladly sold, and as the purchasers were really going to send out
settlers, it became necessary to establish some kind of government for
them. On the 13th of July, 1787, therefore, Congress passed another very
famous law, called the Ordinance of 1787, which ordered:
1. That the whole region from the Lakes to the Ohio, and from
Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, should be called "The Territory of the
United States northwest of the river Ohio."
2. That it should be cut up into not less than three nor more than five
states, each of which might be admitted into the Union when it had
60,000 free inhabitants.
3. That within it there was to be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude except in punishment for crime.
4. That until such time as there were 5000 free male inhabitants
twenty-one years old in the territory, it was to be governed by a
governor and three judges. They could not make laws, but might adopt
such as they pleased from among the laws in force in the states. After
there were 5000 free male inhabitants in the territory the people were
to elect a house of representatives, which in its turn was to elect ten
men from whom Congress was to select five to form a council. The house
and the council were then to elect a territorial delegate to sit in
Congress with the right of debating, not of voting. The governor, the
judges, and the secretary were to be elected by Congress. The council
and house of representatives could make laws, but must send them to
Congress for approval.
Thus were created two more American institutions, the territory and the
state formed out of the public domain. The ordinance was but a few
months old when South Carolina ceded (1787) her little strip of country
west of the mountains (see map on p. 157) with the express condition
that it _should_ be slave soil. In 1789 North Carolina ceded what is
now Tennessee on the same condition. Congress accepted both and out of
them made the "Territory southwest of the Ohio River." In that slavery
was allowed.[1]
[Footnote 1: The only remaining land-holding state, Georgia, ceded her
claim in 1802 (p. 246).]
%169. Defects of the Articles of Confederation.%--While Congress at
New York was framing the Ordinance of 1787, a convention of delegates
from the states was framing the Constitution at Philadelphia. A very
little experience under the Articles of Confederation showed them to
have serious defects.
_No Taxing Power_.--In the first place, Congress could not lay a tax of
any kind, and as it could not tax it could not get money with which to
pay its expenses and the debt incurred during the Revolution. Each of
the states was in duty bound to pay its share. But this duty was so
disregarded that although Congress between 1782 and 1786 called on the
states for $6,000,000, only $1,000.000 was paid.
_No Power to regulate Trade_.--In the second place, Congress had no
power to regulate trade with foreign nations, or between the states.
This proved a most serious evil. The people of the United States at that
time had few manufactures, because in colonial days Parliament would not
allow them. All the china, glass, hardware, cutlery, woolen goods,
linen, muslin, and a thousand other things were imported from Great
Britain. Before the war the Americans had paid for these goods with
dried fish, lumber, whale oil, flour, tobacco, rice, and indigo, and
with money made by trading in the West Indies. Now Great Britain forbade
Americans to trade with her West Indies. Spain would not make a trade
treaty with us, so we had no trade with her islands, and what was worse,
Great Britain taxed everything that came to her from the United States
unless it came in British ships. As a consequence, very little lumber,
fish, rice, and other of our products went abroad to pay for the immense
quantity of foreign-made goods that came to us. These goods therefore
had to be paid for in money, which about 1785 began to be boxed up and
shipped to London. When the people found that specie was being carried
out of the country, they began to hoard it, so that by 1786 none was in
circulation.
%170. Paper Money issued.%--This left the people without any money
with which to pay wages, or buy food and clothing, and led at once to a
demand that the states should print paper money and loan it to their
citizens. Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North and
South Carolina, and Georgia did so. But the money was no sooner issued
than the merchants and others who had goods to sell refused to take it,
whereupon in some of the states laws called "tender acts" were passed to
compel people to use the paper. This merely put an end to business, for
nobody would sell. In Massachusetts, when the legislature refused to
issue paper money, many of the persons who owed debts assembled, and,
during 1786-87, under the lead of Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary soldier,
prevented the courts from trying suits for the recovery of money owed or
loaned.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read McMaster's _History of the People of the United
States_, Vol. I., pp. 281-295, 304-329, 331-340; Fiske's _Critical
Period of American History_, pp. 168-186.]
%171. Congress proposes Amendments.%--Of the many defects in the
Articles, the Continental Congress was fully aware, and it had many a
time asked the states to make amendments. One proposed that Congress
should have power for twenty-five years to lay a tax of five per cent on
all goods imported, and use the money to pay the Continental debts.
Another was to require each state to raise by special tax a sum
sufficient to pay its yearly share of the current expenses of Congress.
A third was to bestow on Congress for fifteen years the sole power to
regulate trade and commerce. A fourth provided that in future the share
each state was to bear of the current expenses should be in proportion
to its population.
But the Articles of Confederation could not be amended unless all
thirteen states consented, and, as all thirteen never did consent, none
of these amendments were ever made.
%172. The States attempt to regulate Trade and fail.%--In the
meantime the states attempted to regulate trade for themselves. New York
laid double duties on English ships. Pennsylvania taxed a long list of
foreign goods. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island passed
acts imposing heavy duties on articles unless they came in American
vessels. But these laws were not uniform, and as many states took no
action, very little good was accomplished.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_,
Vol. I., pp. 246-259, 266-280; Fiske's _Critical Period of American
History_, 134-137, 145-147.]
%173. A Trade Convention called to meet at Annapolis,
1786.%[2]--Under these conditions, the business of the whole country
was at a standstill, and as Congress had no power to do anything to
relieve the distress, the state of Virginia sent out a circular letter
to her sister states. She asked them to appoint delegates to meet and
"take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States."
Four (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) responded, and
their delegates, with those from Virginia, met at Annapolis in
September, 1786.
[Footnote 2: The report of this Annapolis convention is printed in
_Bulletin of Bureau of Rolls and Library of the Department of State_,
No. 1, Appendix, pp. 1-5.]