Anne Soulard, Paul Wenker, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
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THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
IN TWO PARTS
PART I
1783-1830
BY EDWIN ERLE SPARKS, PH. D.
PREFACE
The story of the United States has frequently been told. It has been
told in the spirit of boasting, as a marvel of local accomplishment.
It has been told in the spirit of reverence, as the work of a chosen
people under a special dispensation of Providence. Its glory has been
ascribed now to one political party and now to another. Its success
has been attributed to various statesmen and to different sections.
The Union has been viewed from one point as originally the creature
of the States, whose powers it afterward ungratefully usurped and whose
intent it wilfully perverted to its own aggrandisement. It has been
regarded from another viewpoint as something inherent in the soil of
a new world, manifest in various colonial functions, and brought fully
to life and supremacy at the time of separation from England. An effort
is made in this narrative to find truth in a medium ground; to trace
the gradual evolution of a confederated republic under the laws of
necessity; to acknowledge that radical departures have been made from
first ideals as a result of progress; to take into constant
consideration the underlying forces of heredity and environment. It
will be necessary to omit many of the details commonly found in a
history of the United States for the sake of considering only those
centralising or decentralising factors which have aided or hindered
the unification of the States. In brief, an attempt is made in these
two volumes to tell the story of the _United_ States; to show how the
phrase "The United States is" has been slowly and unconsciously evolved
in the process of time from the early practice of saying "The United
States are."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. A UNION IN FORM ONLY
II. THE PROBLEMS OF THE BACK LANDS
III. THE CARE OF THE PUBLIC LANDS
IV. FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERACY
V. REFORMING THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
VI. ADOPTING A NATIONAL CONSTITUTION
VII. BEGINNING AN EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT
VIII. SUMMONING THE GENII OF THE IMPLIED POWERS
IX. NATIONAL CENTRALISATION
X. FIRST LESSONS IN NATIONAL OBEDIENCE
XI. NATIONAL PARTIES ON FOREIGN ISSUES
XII. SUPPRESSING THE FRENCH SYMPATHISERS
XIII. THE FIRST STATE PROTESTS
XIV. THE ADVENT OF DEMOCRACY
XV. STRICT CONSTRUCTION AN IMPOSSIBILITY
XVI. AMERICAN NEUTRALITY LOST IN WAR
XVII. TRANSFER OF PARTY POLICIES
XVIII. SECTIONAL DISCORD OVER TERRITORY
XIX. ANNOUNCEMENT OF NATIONAL INDIVIDUALITY
XX. FULL FRUITS OF AMERICANISM
ILLUSTRATIONS
SIGNATURES TO THE DEFINITE TREATY OF 1783
Original in the Department of State.
TITLE-PAGE OF A COPY OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION
This copy was printed in 1777.
THE OLD BLOCKHOUSE AT MACKINAC, 1780
MAP SHOWING WESTERN LAND
MAP SHOWING THE PROPOSED WESTERN STATES
From Morse's American Gazetteer.
NATHAN DANE'S DRAFT OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY CLAUSE IN THE ORDINANCE OF 1787
DR. CUTLER'S CHURCH AND PARSONAGE AT IPSWICH HAMLET, 1787
The place from which the first company started for the Ohio, December 3,
1787.
A PETITION FROM CONGRESS TO THE STATES
SIGNATURES TO AN ADDRESS OF THE INHABITANTS OF PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
Now in the archives of the Department of State.
SIGNATURES OF DELEGATES TO ANNAPOLIS CONVENTION
MANASSEH CUTLER
COPY OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION IN PARALLEL
COLUMNS
The foot-notes show that it is an Anti-Federal print.
FIRST DRAFT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
LAST PAGE OF THE MINUTES OF THE OLD CONGRESS
Preserved in the archives of the Department of State.
HEADING OF THE FIRST LAW PASSED UNDER THE CONSTITUTION
FEDERAL HALL, NEW YORK CITY
THE PRESIDENTIAL MANSION, FRANKLIN SQUARE, NEW YORK CITY, 1789
CERTIFICATE OF DEBT AGAINST THE UNITED STATES
From the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
A HALF-PAGE OF THE X Y Z DISPATCHES
From the original in the Department of State.
THE CITY OF WASHINGTON
From a drawing made about 1800, before the site was graded.
WESTERN ARKS AT NEW ORLEANS
From Hall's "Etchings in America."
TAKING POSSESSION OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
WRITTEN LAW OF THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY
A law passed at Vincennes, now Indiana, against gambling..
PRESIDENT JEFFERSON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS
BLANK COMMISSION FOR PRIVATEER IN WAR OF 1812
DISLOYALTY OF NEW ENGLAND DURING THE WAR
THE PRESIDENT'S TEMPORARY RESIDENCE, 1815
MAP SHOWING ADVANCE OF POPULATION
THE CAPITOL BURNED BY THE BRITISH ARMY
From Torrey's "American Slave Trader."
WASHINGTON IRVING
From the etching by Jacques Reich.
JOHN MARSHALL
Chief Justice of the United States, 1801-1836.
WESTERN END OF THE GREAT ERIE CANAL
Drawn with the Camera Lucida for Hairs "Etchings of the West."
CHAPTER I
A UNION IN FORM ONLY
When did the sovereign nation of the United States begin? From one
point of view, it was called into existence by the motion for
Independence passed by the Continental Congress on the second day of
July, 1776, when the people of the rebelling British colonies in
America, by action of their representatives, assumed a free and
independent position. But a motion is intangible. It is an act, of
which the announcement is the visible result. "A decent respect to the
opinions of mankind" prompted the Congress on July 4, 1776, to "declare
the causes" which impelled it to separation. This date is accepted in
the popular mind, as well as by official action, as the beginning of
national existence. If recognition by other powers be assumed as the
criterion, the sovereignty began in 1778, when treaties of alliance
and commerce were signed with France. But if the actions indicated
above were incidental steps to the commencement of sovereignty, if a
general recognition by nations be necessary, together with the consent
of the former owner, and a restoration of peace and order, then the
real story of the United States begins on September 3, 1783. This
conclusion is reached by considering fact as well as form.
[Illustration: SIGNATURES TO THE DEFINITIVE TREATY OF 1783. Original in
the Department of State Washington. D. Hartey was given power by the King
of England and Adams, Franklin, and Jay by the Congress of the United
States. Individual seals were used.]
A few days after that date, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John
Jay wrote from Paris to the president of the Continental Congress at
Philadelphia:
"On the 3d instant, definite treaties were concluded between all the
late belligerent powers except the Dutch, who the day before settled and
signed preliminary articles of peace with Britain. We most sincerely and
cordially congratulate Congress and our country in general on this happy
event; and we hope that the same kind Providence which has led us
through a vigorous war to an honourable peace will enable us to make a
wise and moderate use of that inestimable blessing."
Thus happily ended more than eight years of warfare and almost two
years of negotiation. The disturbed conditions of war gave way rapidly
to the normal condition of peace. The four European powers, which had
been drawn into war by the American cause, adjusted their disturbed
relations. The King of England, at the next opening of Parliament,
acknowledged the loss of a portion of his American possessions. John
Adams with his family crossed from France to England to represent the
new nation. The archives of the republic showed treaties with France,
the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Sweden, soon to be followed by
similar acknowledgments from Prussia and Morocco. A national frame of
government had been adopted by the new power. Peace prevailed throughout
the land. Local government was established in every State. In external
appearance as well as internal form the career of the independent
republic of the United States had most auspiciously begun.
But the course of events was soon to dispel the illusion; to show that
it was a union in form only and not in affection. Conversion from
provincial colonists into liberal-minded unionists was not to be so
easily effected. A feeling of true nationality must await years of
growth. Confidence in each other had not yet replaced fear and
suspicion. That the first attempt to come into a union could have been
a success, that a sacrifice to the god Provincialism could have been
avoided, seems in retrospect impossible.
This period of fear of centralisation, which began even before the
close of the Revolutionary War, a time of mutual distrust, of paramount
individualism, is little known and rarely dwelt upon at present. Perhaps
the omission is due to a happy nature, which recalls only the pleasant
events of the past. The school-texts dismiss it with a few paragraphs;
statesmen rarely turn to its valuable lessons of experience; and to
the larger number of the American people, the statement that we have
lived since our independence under a national frame of government other
than the Constitution is a matter of surprise. A writer of fiction
somewhere describes two maiden sisters, one of whom had a happy and
the other a melancholy disposition. In recalling the family history,
one could remember all the marriages and the other all the deaths. To
recall only national successes is undoubtedly most pleasant; but
posterity sitting ever at the feet of History gains a more valuable
lesson by including the failures of the past.
Criticism of the Confederation which our fathers framed to take the
place of British rule must be tempered by the reflection that the
action was taken while the land was in the chaos of war. Praise is due
their genius for organisation, inherited from the mother country they
were warring against, which enabled them to contemplate a new form of
government while engaged in dissolving the old. The Government is dead;
long live the Government. According to the intention, there was to be
no interregnum in which Anarchy might rear his ugly head, and destroy
existing forms and instincts of government. Unfortunately a genius for
undertaking a beneficent enterprise may lack opportunity of carrying
it out. The war to secure the permanence of the Government they were
trying to establish produced a delay in completing the frame, and
allowed the individual States to assume a headway and win the people
to an allegiance, which the Union has not yet fully overcome.
In the form of British colonies, the States were well-recognised units
before resistance to authority compelled the people to entrust the
common defence to an irregularly formed Continental Congress. To the
revolutionary central authority thus formed and acknowledged through
necessity, colony after colony had turned for advice as their governors
and other royal officials fled to escape popular vengeance. Over a
year before national Independence was declared, the Congress had advised
the colony of Massachusetts that she owed no fealty to a parliament
attempting to change her charter, or to a governor who would not abide
by the old compact. The people, therefore, were urged to select certain
representatives. They in turn were to choose a council to act until
a governor should be appointed by the King, who would consent to rule
justly. Similar advice given to the other colonies resulted in the
formation of State constitutions and the erection of State governments.
The States, in this peculiar manner, dated their existence from the
suggestion of the Central Government, made at a time when it itself
had not been regularly formed. In turn, the States were now to complete
the Central Government by confederating themselves under a written
document.
Great Britain, the mother country, had never possessed a written
constitution, or frame of government; but the colonies were planted
under written charters. Perhaps this precedent has produced the American
predilection for written constitutions. Many statesmen of the colonial
days had attempted a written plan of union for the colonies. Franklin
had been one of these and, within three weeks after Washington took
command of the American Army, Franklin presented to the Congress certain
Articles of Confederation creating "The United Colonies of North
America." The federation was intended to be temporary in case the
colonial grievances were redressed, but otherwise permanent. The
proposition was unheeded at the time but was recalled nearly a year
later by one part of Richard Henry Lee's famous motion for Independence.
A committee was to be appointed "to prepare and digest the form of a
confederation to be entered into between these colonies." The importance
of the task was indicated by the fact that the committee was composed
of one member from each of the colonies represented, while the
committee, appointed at almost the same time, to draw up a declaration
concerning independency, had only five members. On July 12th, the
former committee brought in a draft of thirteen Articles of
Confederation, by common consent ascribed to John Dickinson, but
evidently based on Franklin's draft of a year before. This is indicated
by the style and form, although the details differ in many particulars.
Eighty copies of these proposed Articles were ordered printed for the
use of the members, extreme secrecy being enjoined upon all concerned.
These steps toward a national government were taken, it must be
remembered, in the midst of a war. The nascent nation had never
experienced the duties which peace places on a government; it was
familiar only with the requirements of war. The main idea running
through the Articles as reported by the committee was a "union for the
common defence." The general welfare found no place. The activities
of government were confined almost exclusively to conducting a foreign
war. The Central Government was authorised to declare war, make peace,
and send ambassadors. It had charge of appointing high officers of the
State armies, of judging prizes in war, of trials for piracy, and of
granting letters of marque. Its few peace functions embraced the postal
service between the States, regulating Indian trade, issuing bills of
credit, determining the national and State standard of coins, and
assessing quotas of expense on the States. Conversely, the States were
forbidden to perform these national acts.
Remembering that the Articles were framed to meet the exigencies of
war, and considering the condition of public sentiment at the time,
one finds it difficult to conceive how any other form of union could
have been secured. Individualism was in the saddle. Engaging in war
to resist the encroachments of a centralised government and smarting
under the actions of a body in which they were not represented, the
people would naturally resolve to retain the control which the rebellion
had thrown into their hands. Distributed power must never be centralised
again. Liberty was closely associated with individualism. A majority
was no safeguard. Reaction from a centralised monarchy had evidently
swung public sentiment to the other extreme, resulting in a
decentralised confederacy.
As implied in the name, this Continental Congress had been called
together originally as a consulting body for the thirteen distinct
colonies. When the war forced the second session into making laws, the
name should have been changed to "Parliament"; but, in the chaotic
condition of affairs and the very gradual assumption of sovereignty,
a change in name went by default. Although the Congress became a
parliament in form, its members never so regarded it. They still served
their sovereign States in a national body, consulting and providing
for the common defence. They had no desire to make a modern union at
the time they formed the Confederation. This is evidenced by the
preliminary statement of the Articles that each State retained its
sovereignty, freedom, and independence. In this view, "a firm league
of friendship," the phrase used to describe the nature of the
Confederation, is exact and appropriate. It formed a league of
individual units, such as the separate colonies had been, "binding
themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or attacks
made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty,
trade, or any other pretence whatever."
This individualistic tendency was manifest in the workings of the
Articles. Franklin's plan provided for an executive council of twelve,
appointed by Congress from its own numbers. Instead of this arrangement,
the Articles allowed the consulting Congress to retain all the executive
powers which it had gradually assumed. Fear of delegating authority
to any kind of executive, lest the action might lead eventually to
another king, was responsible for this mistake. Retaining also the
legislative powers, which it had assumed, and such judicial powers as
had arisen from the adjudication of prizes appeals, the Congress would
monopolise all the functions of the National Government. It would
probably continue to consult and recommend, and do nothing more. It
had a president, chosen by itself from its own number; but he was
simply an officer to preside over the sessions.
In voting in Congress, each State was given one vote, being considered
a unit. In declaring assessments, Congress dealt with the individual
States and not the people. Congress was authorised to make an estimate
of the value of land and improvements in each State for proportioning
expenses; but the matter was left to the States and never done. In an
elaborate plan for adjudication between States in the numerous boundary
disputes, Congress again dealt with the States as units. The central
authority would nowhere come into contact with citizens of the States.
It had no way of gaining their respect, their gratitude, or their
allegiance. It apparently dealt with them in the provision guaranteeing
citizens of each State all their rights in the several States; but if
a State transgressed on the rights of citizens of another State, the
Confederation could only complain and protest. It had no power of
punishment or coercion.
One of the chief disagreements over the Articles, as they were
considered by Congress, arose from the conflicting claims to the land
lying between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi. The claims
put forth by Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, the Carolinas, and
Georgia, that their charters extended interminably into the land, were
resisted by New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Maryland, whose western boundaries were distinctly defined. New York
put forth a claim for the Ohio valley, based on an Indian treaty. It
lay athwart the claims of some of the other States.
Virginia's assertion that the "South Sea" mentioned in her charter as
her western limits entitled her to the land as far west as the Pacific,
if British authority should ever extend so far, was declared
preposterous by delegates from other States who looked upon the land
between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi as a valuable common asset,
if the war should terminate favourably to their cause.
"Every gentleman," said Wilson, of Pennsylvania, in debate, "has heard
much of the claims to the South Sea. They are extravagant. The grants
were made upon mistake. They were ignorant of geography. They thought
the South Sea within one hundred miles of the Atlantic Ocean. It was not
conceived they extended three thousand miles. Lord Camden considers the
claims to the South Sea as what can never be reduced to practice.
Pennsylvania has no right to interfere in these claims, but she has a
right to say that she will not confederate unless those claims were cut
off."
On the other hand, Virginia and the States having these western claims
had sufficient influence in the Congress to strike out every proposed
clause attempting to restrict the western limits; but they could not
prevent the regulation of trade with the Indians not inhabiting a State
being handed over to the proposed Confederation. This was the initial
step in national regulation of western affairs.
Since the Congress in this new form was to be the sole visible agency
of the National Government, possessing the legislative, the executive,
and even such judicial powers as the Confederation possessed,
representation in it had to be most carefully considered. The committee
had provided that in determining questions the present method should
be continued which allowed each State to have one vote; and in vain
did the advocates of representation according to population plead
against it. Franklin pointed to the effects of unequal representation
in England and begged that the new Government might be started aright.
"Let the smaller colonies give equal money and men," said he, "and
then have an equal vote." His fellow-delegate from Pennsylvania, Dr.
Rush, added the voice of prophecy when he declared that the States
ought to represent the whole people; and that each State retaining one
vote would tend to keep up colonial distinctions.
"We are now a new nation," said he. "Our trade, language, customs,
manners, don't differ more than they do in Great Britain. The more a man
aims at serving America, the more he serves his colony. We have been too
free with the word independence; we are dependent on each other, not
independent States. I would not have it understood that I am pleading
the cause of Pennsylvania. When I entered that door I considered myself
a citizen of America."
Truly here was the voice of unionism crying in the wilderness of
individualism. It is the sentiment of a century later.
The advocates of equal State representation had the advantage of
precedent and of present practice. The large States had won in retaining
their claims to the western lands. It was now the turn of the small
States. In the final vote on representation, the four large States of
Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, containing over
one-half the entire population of the thirteen States, were outvoted
by the five small States of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey,
Delaware, and Georgia. The State and not individual voting was to
continue in Congress. The medium-sized States of Connecticut, New York,
and the two Carolinas, showed a "disinterested coolness" in the matter.
Few took so gloomy a view of such an arrangement as did John Adams,
who predicted that within ten years the Articles would be found as
weak as a rope of sand in holding the people together.
Being one of the chief causes of the Revolution, the power of direct
taxation was a very sensitive point. To avoid this, the pernicious
system of assessing quotas on the several States was continued. It was
derived from the colonial custom, and might be expected to produce as
little revenue and as much discord as it had done in those days. The
Articles as adopted by the Congress were an improvement upon any effort
of the kind previously attempted; but the results likely to follow the
withdrawal of the pressure of war and the return of decentralising
peace might easily be predicted.
Having at length been agreed to in the Congress, the Articles were
sent to the several State Legislatures to be accepted or rejected.
Although popular conventions had come into use in forming the various
State Constitutions, the Congress maintained its early diplomatic and
consulting nature by dealing with the State Legislatures instead of
popular conventions. The members of Congress were too well aware of
the many defects in the new frame to hope that it would be speedily
adopted. In the official letter which accompanied it to the State
Legislatures, they confessed that the business of coming into the
national agreement had been attended with uncommon embarrassment and
delay.
"To form a permanent union," said the address, "accommodated to the
opinion and wishes of the delegates of so many states, differing in
habits, produce, commerce, and internal police, was found to be a work
which nothing but time and reflection, conspiring with a disposition to
conciliate, could mature and accomplish. Hardly is it to be expected
that any plan, in the variety of provisions essential to our union,
should exactly correspond with the maxims and political views of every
particular State."
As rapidly as the State Legislatures adopted the proposed plan, they
were to notify their delegates in Congress to sign the document, thus
formally entering the Confederation. It was provided in the Articles
that they should not go into effect until signed by every State. Neither
could they be amended without unanimous consent. These unfortunate
provisions were due to the tender regard which prevailed at the time
for the rights of the individual. "Government proceeds from the consent
of the governed" was interpreted by many enthusiasts to mean the consent
of every individual and not simply the majority. These Article days
mark not only the ultimate point of the fear of centralisation, but
also the greatest solicitude for the individual. Even in Congress,
where delay in legislation might be hazardous, no important action
could be taken by a majority, but the consent of nine States must be
had.
The required unanimity of ratification kept the Articles for nearly
three years awaiting action by all the State Legislatures, while the
people gradually lapsed into that lawlessness which a civil war always
brings in its train. The war itself contributed in no small degree to
the delay. When a State was invaded by the enemy, help was needed, and
the confederation feeling ran high; but the civic machinery, disturbed
by war, could not be made to serve the purpose of ratification. When
the tide of war swept on, and the State was relieved from immediate
danger, the old feeling of local importance returned, individualism
revived, and the union feeling waned.
The Legislatures of seven States in ratifying thought they could improve
the Articles in certain particulars. Some wanted a test oath applied
to all national officers; others would have wealth as a basis of
apportionment simply a trial arrangement; and still others would remove
the requirement that nine States be represented in Congress for the
consideration of certain matters. New Jersey had the clearest vision
of all.
"We are of the opinion," said her Legislature, "that the sole and
exclusive power of regulating the trade of the United States with
foreign nations ought to be clearly vested in the Congress, and that the
revenue arising from all duties and customs imposed thereon ought to be
appropriated to the building, equipping, and manning a navy, for the
protection of the trade and defence of the coasts, and to such other
public and general purposes as to the Congress shall seem proper and for
the common benefit of the states."
Neither this nor any of the forty-six amendments thus proposed by the
States was adopted by the Congress. The Articles stood as first adopted
until their overthrow.
Maryland, for reasons to be given hereafter, was the last State to
consent to the Articles. On March 2, 1781, the legal government of the
Articles of Confederation took the place of the illegal revolutionary
government, which had existed by common consent since 1776. A few guns
were fired, and flags displayed, but there was nothing to show the
change. The United States Congress, as it came to be called, was the
chief evidence of the Federation. Its actions were now justified by
a written agreement among the States and its powers definitely
prescribed. Otherwise affairs continued as before. The war was still
the engrossing business.
The Articles were in reality only a general treaty between thirteen
sovereign States occupying contiguous territory and pledging themselves
mutually to resist any attacks made upon them. Such a plan might have
been practicable, if the States had occupied thirteen islands, each
using a different language, and each producing sufficient to satisfy
its inhabitants, so that trade and communication need never have become
necessary. As it was, the framers failed to appreciate the force of
geographic contiguity. They believed that they could create and maintain
a kind of central clearing-house for national needs, giving to it only
the duties of declaring war and peace, managing ambassadors, making
treaties, establishing prize courts, managing the post-office, and
commanding such land and naval forces as might at any time be necessary.
Regardless of the expanding laws of growth, they thought the central
authority could be confined to these stated activities.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF A COPY OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.
This copy was printed in 1777, the year the articles were proposed by
the Continental Congress to the several States to be ratified.]
Compared with the present National Government, which a different plan
and a liberal interpretation for a century have conspired to bring
about, the Articles of Confederation presented some strange anomalies
of administration. The Federal Government could declare war, but could
not enlist soldiers. It could only call upon each State to furnish its
proportion. If, as was likely to happen, any particular portion of the
country was threatened by an enemy, Congress might call for an extra
number of soldiers; but the State Legislature might judge how many
could safely be spared from the service of the State. The National
Government could not even appoint its own officers below the rank of
colonel. It could make peace, but, in order to secure a successful end
to a war, it could not collect a dollar for expense, except as each
State graciously consented to pay its share. It could make a treaty
with another sovereign, but could not compel its own subjects to obey
the terms of the treaty. It could send an ambassador to a foreign
Court, but had to turn to the States for money to pay his salary. It
could regulate prizes and subdue piracies on the high seas, but had
no control over goods entering its own ports. At the close of the war,
it could gratefully vote a monument to General Washington to be erected
at the seat of government, but could not secure enough money to erect
it.
The National Government under the Articles of Confederation could
destroy the commerce of an enemy, but could not retaliate upon the
products of an unfriendly rival in time of peace. It could regulate
the alloy and value of coins, but could not keep a State from issuing
waggon-loads of paper money, destined to depreciate and to disturb its
own finances. It could make laws within certain limits but could not
enforce the least of its decrees. It pledged its faith to discharge
all debts contracted by the Continental Congress, but it could not
collect a sixpence with which to do it. The States entering the
agreement promised to refrain from inter-alliances and foreign treaties,
from making war except against Indians or pirates, and from keeping
standing armies or vessels of war; yet if a State broke one of these
stipulations, no provision was made for punishing it. Although any
State could levy impost duties on goods coming into it from another
State the same as from a foreign country, thereby engendering endless
dispute, the Central Government had no court or other means of settling
such contentions or of getting redress for individuals.
With such false conceptions of the relations between individualism and
unionism, with a national frame foredoomed to failure, with the
distracting situations of the war still upon them, the people of the
United States attempted in 1783 to take that stand among the nations
which they declared God had given them. At once they came into contact
with the habits and precedents of old and well-established governments.
Diplomacy is not a game for amateurs. Fortunately a decade was to
elapse before a European crisis would call attention to the new-comer
as a possible pawn in the game. Their first introduction in the
character of solicitors for aid had not been auspicious. The process
of securing this aid had gained for them a treaty with France and
indirectly with Holland; but Spain, more suspicious of the new nation
because of the proximity of her Floridas and Louisiana to them, still
dallied with their advances. England, compelled to make a treaty to
close the war, refused to do more. Sweden, Prussia, and Morocco were
of insufficient maritime importance to make the treaties with them a
cause for rejoicing.
Admission to full membership and to an equal share in trade did not
follow necessarily from these first greetings. They could be gained
only by proof of fitness and even compulsion. The applicant must make
a place for himself. Sentiment plays no part in the rivalry of nations.
Self-preservation is the prime law.
John Adams, conscious of his prominent part in the rebellion, militant
in his ideas of republicanism, elbowed his way into the Court of St.
James as the first representative of the former British possessions.
He was distressed, as he wrote to Livingston, Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, at being obliged to consume the labour of his fellow-citizens
upon the foolish ostentation of a Court presentation. Anxious concerning
the reception which he would meet from representatives of other nations,
he was relieved to find that custom required them to call first upon
a new-comer. "We shall now see," he wrote, "who will and who will not."
As a whole, his reception by both Court and diplomatic corps was
satisfactory, especially the courtesies shown him by the King. But he
was chagrined to find what a small impression the birth of his country
had made on British memory and British policy. Political independence
had been allowed, but commercial independence was denied. No treaty
of commerce could he add to the existing treaty of peace. The West
India ports remained closed to American trade. Pitt's bill to annul
the Navigation Acts so far as they concerned the United States was
dropped in Parliament. It was feared to put the Americans on the same
footing as European nations, lest they might be able to retain the
trade which they had enjoyed as British colonists. Certain additional
restrictive measures were put into force. "Our trade was never more
completely monopolised by Great Britain when it was under the direction
of the British Parliament," Madison complained to Monroe.
Neither would Britain grant the new sovereign power the courtesy of
sending a Minister in return for Adams.
"At present," Lord Sheffield advised in his book on _Observations on the
Commerce of the American States_, which passed through several editions,
"the only part Britain should take is most simple and perfectly sure. If
the American States choose to send consuls, receive them, and send a
consul to _each State_. Each State will soon enter into all the necessary
regulations with the consul and this is the whole that is necessary."
This gentle insinuation that the Confederation had no force and the
suggestion of uncertainty whether the new nation consisted of one or
thirteen powers contained too much truth to be pleasant to the
Americans.
Mrs. John Adams, exchanging the social station accorded her in
Braintree, Massachusetts, for the diplomatic colony at London, found
herself of little service in aiding her husband's social standing. She
shared his Americanism. She wrote home that she had never seen an
assembly room in America which did not exceed that at St. James in
point of elegance and decoration, and that the women of the Court, in
all their blaze of diamonds set off with Parisian rouge, could not
match the blooming health, the sparkling eye, and modest deportment
of the dear girls of her native land. When presented to the King, she
declared that her reception stung her like an adder, although His
Majesty was kind enough to salute her cheek. She thought Queen Charlotte
rather embarrassed and Mrs. Adams confessed to a disagreeable feeling.
Yet the Queen simply inquired whether Mrs. Adams had gotten into her
new house and how she liked it. Years after, Mrs. Adams confessed that
the humiliation of Queen Charlotte was no sorrow for her. Three years
of neglect could not be readily forgotten or forgiven.
"Nothing but retaliation, reciprocal prohibitions, and imposts, and
putting ourselves in a posture of defence," the American Minister
informed his Government, could make an impression on England. National
action along any of these lines was impossible, because each State had
control of its own commerce. Individual retaliation was a burlesque.
Virginia at one time placed a tonnage duty on British vessels four
times that charged French and Dutch traders with whom the United States
had treaty arrangements. British vessels simply avoided Virginia ports
and sailed freely into those of other States. "When Massachusetts set
on foot a retaliation of the policy of Great Britain," wrote Madison,
sending the news to Jefferson in France, "Connecticut declared her
ports free. New Jersey served New York the same way. And Delaware, I
am told, has lately followed the example, in opposition to the
commercial plans of Pennsylvania." Many similar cases might be cited.
Some wag likened such efforts to a man who plugged up most carefully
the worm-holes in one end of a cask and knocked the whole head out at
the other end.
Fully three-fourths of all shipping to be seen in American ports flew
the British flag; yet American vessels could bring only American goods
into British ports. American ships were positively forbidden to trade
in the British West Indies, and American vessels sold in England could
not be used in British colonial trade. Under these circumstances, John
Adams became convinced that nothing but a complete change in the form
of the American National Government, giving over the control of commerce
into the hands of the Confederation, would be of avail in bringing
Britain to terms. As the end of her husband's mission drew nigh, Mrs.
Adams declared that she would quit Europe with more pleasure than she
came to it, and uncontaminated, she hoped, with its manners and its
vices. She attributed the ill success of her husband's efforts to the
lack of concord at home; to the debts which her countrymen had
contracted in Europe and were unable to pay; to the expectation in
England that prohibitory acts and heavy duties would bring the Americans
back to British allegiance; and to the calumnies circulated by the
Tory refugees in England. Their departure was marked, in the opinion
of John Adams, by a dry decency and a cold civility, which made him
feel, in breathing the air of his own country again, as if he had just
escaped from prison.