THE THIRTEEN COMMONWEALTHS.
[Sidenote: Departure of the British troops, Nov. 25, 1783.]
[Sidenote: Washington resigns his command, Dec. 23.]
"The times that tried men's souls are over," said Thomas Paine in the
last number of the "Crisis," which he published after hearing that the
negotiations for a treaty of peace had been concluded. The preliminary
articles had been signed at Paris on the 20th of January, 1783. The news
arrived in America on the 23d of March, in a letter to the president of
Congress from Lafayette, who had returned to France soon after the
victory at Yorktown. A few days later Sir Guy Carleton received his
orders from the ministry to proclaim a cessation of hostilities by land
and sea. A similar proclamation made by Congress was formally
communicated to the army by Washington on the 19th of April, the eighth
anniversary of the first bloodshed on Lexington green. Since Wayne had
driven the British from Georgia, early in the preceding year, there had
been no military operations between the regular armies. Guerrilla
warfare between Whig and Tory had been kept up in parts of South
Carolina and on the frontier of New York, where Thayendanegea was still
alert and defiant; while beyond the mountains the tomahawk and
scalping-knife had been busy, and Washington's old friend and comrade,
Colonel Crawford, had been scorched to death by the firebrands of the
red demons; but the armies had sat still, awaiting the peace which every
one felt sure must speedily come. After Cornwallis's surrender,
Washington marched his army back to the Hudson, and established his
headquarters at Newburgh. Rochambeau followed somewhat later, and in
September joined the Americans on the Hudson; but in December the French
army marched to Boston, and there embarked for France. After the formal
cessation of hostilities on the 19th of April, 1783, Washington granted
furloughs to most of his soldiers; and these weather-beaten veterans
trudged homeward in all directions, in little groups of four or five,
depending largely for their subsistence on the hospitality of the
farm-houses along the road. Arrived at home, their muskets were hung
over the chimney-piece as trophies for grandchildren to be proud of, the
stories of their exploits and their sufferings became household legends,
and they turned the furrows and drove the cattle to pasture just as in
the "old colony times." Their furloughs were equivalent to a full
discharge, for on the 3d of September the definitive treaty was signed,
and the country was at peace. On the 3d of November the army was
formally disbanded, and on the 25th of that month Sir Guy Carleton's
army embarked from New York. Small British garrisons still remained in
the frontier posts of Ogdensburg, Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Sandusky,
Detroit, and Mackinaw, but by the terms of the treaty these places were
to be promptly surrendered to the United States. On the 4th of December
a barge waited at the South Ferry in New York to carry General
Washington across the river to Paulus Hook. He was going to Annapolis,
where Congress was in session, in order to resign his command. At
Fraunces's Tavern, near the ferry, he took leave of the officers who so
long had shared his labours. One after another they embraced their
beloved commander, while there were few dry eyes in the company. They
followed him to the ferry, and watched the departing boat with hearts
too full for words, and then in solemn silence returned up the street.
At Philadelphia he handed to the comptroller of the treasury a neatly
written manuscript, containing an accurate statement of his expenses in
the public service since the day when he took command of the army. The
sums which Washington had thus spent out of his private fortune amounted
to $64,315. For his personal services he declined to take any pay. At
noon of the 23d, in the presence of Congress and of a throng of ladies
and gentlemen at Annapolis, the great general gave up his command, and
requested as an "indulgence" to be allowed to retire into private life.
General Mifflin, who during the winter of Valley Forge had conspired
with Gates to undermine the confidence of the people in Washington, was
now president of Congress, and it was for him to make the reply. "You
retire," said Mifflin, "from the theatre of action with the blessings of
your fellow-citizens, but the glory of your virtues will not terminate
with your military command; it will continue to animate remotest ages."
The next morning Washington hurried away to spend Christmas at his
pleasant home at Mount Vernon, which, save for a few hours in the autumn
of 1781, he had not set eyes on for more than eight years. His estate
had suffered from his long absence, and his highest ambition was to
devote himself to its simple interests. To his friends he offered
unpretentious hospitality. "My manner of living is plain," he said, "and
I do not mean to be put out of it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton
are always ready, and such as will be content to partake of them are
always welcome. Those who expect more will be disappointed." To
Lafayette he wrote that he was now about to solace himself with those
tranquil enjoyments of which the anxious soldier and the weary statesman
know but little. "I have not only retired from all public employments,
but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary
walk and tread the paths of private life with heartfelt satisfaction.
Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all; and this, my
dear friend, being the order of my march, I will move gently down the
stream of life until I sleep with my fathers."
[Sidenote: His "legacy" to the American people, June 8, 1783.]
In these hopes Washington was to be disappointed. "All the world is
touched by his republican virtues," wrote Luzerne to Vergennes, "but it
will be useless for him to try to hide himself and live the life of a
private man: he will always be the first citizen of the United States."
It indeed required no prophet to foretell that the American people could
not long dispense with the services of this greatest of citizens.
Washington had already put himself most explicitly on record as the
leader of the men who were urging the people of the United States toward
the formation of a more perfect union. The great lesson of the war had
not been lost on him. Bitter experience of the evils attendant upon the
weak government of the Continental Congress had impressed upon his mind
the urgent necessity of an immediate and thorough reform. On the 8th of
June, in view of the approaching disbandment of the army, he had
addressed to the governors and presidents of the several states a
circular letter, which he wished to have regarded as his legacy to the
American people. In this letter he insisted upon four things as
essential to the very existence of the United States as an independent
power. First, there must be an indissoluble union of all the states
under a single federal government, which must possess the power of
enforcing its decrees; for without such authority it would be a
government only in name. Secondly, the debts incurred by Congress for
the purpose of carrying on the war and securing independence must be
paid to the uttermost farthing. Thirdly, the militia system must be
organized throughout the thirteen states on uniform principles.
Fourthly, the people must be willing to sacrifice, if need be, some of
their local interests to the common weal; they must discard their local
prejudices, and regard one another as fellow-citizens of a common
country, with interests in the deepest and truest sense identical.
[Sidenote: Absence of a sentiment of union, and consequent danger of
anarchy.]
The unparalleled grandeur of Washington's character, his heroic
services, and his utter disinterestedness had given him such a hold upon
the people as scarcely any other statesman known to history, save
perhaps William the Silent, has ever possessed. The noble and sensible
words of his circular letter were treasured up in the minds of all the
best people in the country, and when the time for reforming the weak and
disorderly government had come it was again to Washington that men
looked as their leader and guide. But that time had not yet come. Only
through the discipline of perplexity and tribulation could the people be
brought to realize the indispensable necessity of that indissoluble
union of which Washington had spoken. Thomas Paine was sadly mistaken
when, in the moment of exultation over the peace, he declared that the
trying time was ended. The most trying time of all was just beginning.
It is not too much to say that the period of five years following the
peace of 1783 was the most critical moment in all the history of the
American people. The dangers from which we were saved in 1788 were even
greater than the dangers from which we were saved in 1865. In the War of
Secession the love of union had come to be so strong that thousands of
men gave up their lives for it as cheerfully and triumphantly as the
martyrs of older times, who sang their hymns of praise even while their
flesh was withering in the relentless flames. In 1783 the love of union,
as a sentiment for which men would fight, had scarcely come into
existence among the people of these states. The souls of the men of
that day had not been thrilled by the immortal eloquence of Webster, nor
had they gained the historic experience which gave to Webster's words
their meaning and their charm. They had not gained control of all the
fairest part of the continent, with domains stretching more than three
thousand miles from ocean to ocean, and so situated in geographical
configuration and commercial relations as to make the very idea of
disunion absurd, save for men in whose minds fanaticism for the moment
usurped the place of sound judgment. The men of 1783 dwelt in a long,
straggling series of republics, fringing the Atlantic coast, bordered on
the north and south and west by two European powers whose hostility they
had some reason to dread. But nine years had elapsed since, in the first
Continental Congress, they had begun to act consistently and
independently in common, under the severe pressure of a common fear and
an immediate necessity of action. Even under such circumstances the war
had languished and come nigh to failure simply through the difficulty of
insuring concerted action. Had there been such a government that the
whole power of the thirteen states could have been swiftly and
vigorously wielded as a unit, the British, fighting at such disadvantage
as they did, might have been driven to their ships in less than a year.
The length of the war and its worst hardships had been chiefly due to
want of organization. Congress had steadily declined in power and in
respectability; it was much weaker at the end of the war than at the
beginning; and there was reason to fear that as soon as the common
pressure was removed the need for concerted action would quite cease to
be felt, and the scarcely formed Union would break into pieces. There
was the greater reason for such a fear in that, while no strong
sentiment had as yet grown up in favour of union, there was an intensely
powerful sentiment in favour of local self-government. This feeling was
scarcely less strong as between states like Connecticut and Rhode
Island, or Maryland and Virginia, than it was between Athens and Megara,
Argos and Sparta, in the great days of Grecian history. A most wholesome
feeling it was, and one which needed not so much to be curbed as to be
guided in the right direction. It was a feeling which was shared by some
of the foremost Revolutionary leaders, such as Samuel Adams and Richard
Henry Lee. But unless the most profound and delicate statesmanship
should be forthcoming, to take this sentiment under its guidance, there
was much reason to fear that the release from the common adhesion to
Great Britain would end in setting up thirteen little republics, ripe
for endless squabbling, like the republics of ancient Greece and
mediæval Italy, and ready to become the prey of England and Spain, even
as Greece became the prey of Macedonia.
[Sidenote: False historic analogies.]
As such a lamentable result was dreaded by Washington, so by statesmen
in Europe it was generally expected, and by our enemies it was eagerly
hoped for. Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, was a far-sighted man in
many things; but he said, "As to the future grandeur of America, and
its being a rising empire under one head, whether republican or
monarchical, it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that
ever was conceived even by writers of romance. The mutual antipathies
and clashing interests of the Americans, their difference of
governments, habitudes, and manners, indicate that they will have no
centre of union and no common interest. They never can be united into
one compact empire under any species of government whatever; a disunited
people till the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other,
they will be divided and subdivided into little commonwealths or
principalities, according to natural boundaries, by great bays of the
sea, and by vast rivers, lakes, and ridges of mountains." Such were the
views of a liberal-minded philosopher who bore us no ill-will. George
III. said officially that he hoped the Americans would not suffer from
the evils which in history had always followed the throwing off of
monarchical government: which meant, of course, that he hoped they
_would_ suffer from such evils. He believed we should get into such a
snarl that the several states, one after another, would repent and beg
on their knees to be taken back into the British empire. Frederick of
Prussia, though friendly to the Americans, argued that the mere extent
of country from Maine to Georgia would suffice either to break up the
Union, or to make a monarchy necessary. No republic, he said, had ever
long existed on so great a scale. The Roman republic had been
transformed into a despotism mainly by the excessive enlargement of its
area. It was only little states, like Venice, Switzerland, and Holland,
that could maintain a republican government. Such arguments were common
enough a century ago, but they overlooked three essential differences
between the Roman republic and the United States. The Roman republic in
Cæsar's time comprised peoples differing widely in blood, in speech, and
in degree of civilization; it was perpetually threatened on all its
frontiers by powerful enemies; and representative assemblies were
unknown to it. The only free government of which the Roman knew anything
was that of the primary assembly or town meeting. On the other hand, the
people of the United States were all English in speech, and mainly
English in blood. The differences in degree of civilization between such
states as Massachusetts and North Carolina were considerable, but in
comparison with such differences as those between Attika and Lusitania
they might well be called slight. The attacks of savages on the frontier
were cruel and annoying, but never since the time of King Philip had
they seemed to threaten the existence of the white man. A very small
military establishment was quite enough to deal with the Indians. And to
crown all, the American people were thoroughly familiar with the
principle of representation, having practised it on a grand scale for
four centuries in England, and for more than a century in America. The
governments of the thirteen states were all similar, and the political
ideas of one were perfectly intelligible to all the others. It was
essentially fallacious, therefore, to liken the case of the United
States to that of ancient Rome.
[Sidenote: Influence of railroad and telegraph upon perpetuity of the
American Union.]
But there was another feature of the case which was quite hidden from
the men of 1783. Just before the assembling of the first Continental
Congress James Watt had completed his steam-engine; in the summer of
1787, while the Federal Convention was sitting at Philadelphia, John
Fitch launched his first steamboat on the Delaware River; and
Stephenson's invention of the locomotive was to follow in less than half
a century. Even with all other conditions favourable, it is doubtful if
the American Union could have been preserved to the present time without
the railroad. But for the military aid of railroads our government would
hardly have succeeded in putting down the rebellion of the southern
states. In the debates on the Oregon Bill in the United States Senate in
1843, the idea that we could ever have an interest in so remote a
country as Oregon was loudly ridiculed by some of the members. It would
take ten months--said George McDuffie, the very able senator from South
Carolina--for representatives to get from that territory to the District
of Columbia and back again. Yet since the building of railroads to the
Pacific coast, we can go from Boston to the capital of Oregon in much
less time than it took John Hancock to make the journey from Boston to
Philadelphia. Railroads and telegraphs have made our vast country, both
for political and for social purposes, more snug and compact than little
Switzerland was in the Middle Ages or New England a century ago.
[Sidenote: Difficulty of travelling a hundred years ago.]
At the time of our Revolution the difficulties of travelling formed an
important social obstacle to the union of the states. In our time the
persons who pass in a single day between New York and Boston by six or
seven distinct lines of railroad and steamboat are numbered by
thousands. In 1783 two stage-coaches were enough for all the travellers,
and nearly all the freight besides, that went between these two cities,
except such large freight as went by sea around Cape Cod. The journey
began at three o'clock in the morning. Horses were changed every twenty
miles, and if the roads were in good condition some forty miles would be
made by ten o'clock in the evening. In bad weather, when the passengers
had to get down and lift the clumsy wheels out of deep ruts, the
progress was much slower. The loss of life from accidents, in proportion
to the number of travellers, was much greater than it has ever been on
the railway. Broad rivers like the Connecticut and Housatonic had no
bridges. To drive across them in winter, when they were solidly frozen
over, was easy; and in pleasant summer weather to cross in a row-boat
was not a dangerous undertaking. But squalls at some seasons and
floating ice at others were things to be feared. More than one instance
is recorded where boats were crushed and passengers drowned, or saved
only by scrambling upon ice-floes. After a week or ten days of
discomfort and danger the jolted and jaded traveller reached New York.
Such was a journey in the most highly civilized part of the United
States. The case was still worse in the South, and it was not so very
much better in England and France. In one respect the traveller in the
United States fared better than the traveller in Europe: the danger from
highwaymen was but slight.
[Sidenote: Local jealousies and antipathies, an inheritance from
primeval savagery.]
Such being the difficulty of travelling, people never made long journeys
save for very important reasons. Except in the case of the soldiers,
most people lived and died without ever having seen any state but their
own. And as the mails were irregular and uncertain, and the rates of
postage very high, people heard from one another but seldom. Commercial
dealings between the different states were inconsiderable. The
occupation of the people was chiefly agriculture. Cities were few and
small, and each little district for the most part supported itself.
Under such circumstances the different parts of the country knew very
little about each other, and local prejudices were intense. It was not
simply free Massachusetts and slave-holding South Carolina, or English
Connecticut and Dutch New York, that misunderstood and ridiculed each
the other; but even between such neighbouring states as Connecticut and
Massachusetts, both of them thoroughly English and Puritan, and in all
their social conditions almost exactly alike, it used often to be said
that there was no love lost. These unspeakably stupid and contemptible
local antipathies are inherited by civilized men from that far-off time
when the clan system prevailed over the face of the earth, and the hand
of every clan was raised against its neighbours. They are pale and
evanescent survivals from the universal primitive warfare, and the
sooner they die out from human society the better for every one. They
should be stigmatized and frowned down upon every fit occasion, just as
we frown upon swearing as a symbol of anger and contention. But the only
thing which can finally destroy them is the widespread and unrestrained
intercourse of different groups of people in peaceful social and
commercial relations. The rapidity with which this process is now going
on is the most encouraging of all the symptoms of our modern
civilization. But a century ago the progress made in this direction had
been relatively small, and it was a very critical moment for the
American people.
[Sidenote: Conservative character of the Revolution.]
The thirteen states, as already observed, had worked in concert for only
nine years, during which their coöperation had been feeble and halting.
But the several state governments had been in operation since the first
settlement of the country, and were regarded with intense loyalty by the
people of the states. Under the royal governors the local political life
of each state had been vigorous and often stormy, as befitted
communities of the sturdy descendants of English freemen. The
legislative assembly of each state had stoutly defended its liberties
against the encroachments of the governor. In the eyes of the people it
was the only power on earth competent to lay taxes upon them, it was as
supreme in its own sphere as the British Parliament itself, and in
behalf of this rooted conviction the people had gone to war and won
their independence from England. During the war the people of all the
states, except Connecticut and Rhode Island, had carefully remodelled
their governments, and in the performance of this work had withdrawn
many of their ablest statesmen from the Continental Congress; but except
for the expulsion of the royal and proprietary governors, the work had
in no instance been revolutionary in its character. It was not so much
that the American people gained an increase of freedom by their
separation from England, as that they kept the freedom they had always
enjoyed, that freedom which was the inalienable birthright of
Englishmen, but which George III. had foolishly sought to impair. The
American Revolution was therefore in no respect destructive. It was the
most conservative revolution known to history, thoroughly English in
conception from beginning to end. It had no likeness whatever to the
terrible popular convulsion which soon after took place in France. The
mischievous doctrines of Rousseau had found few readers and fewer
admirers among the Americans. The principles upon which their revolution
was conducted were those of Sidney, Harrington, and Locke. In
remodelling the state governments, as in planning the union of the
states, the precedents followed and the principles applied were almost
purely English. We must now pass in review the principal changes wrought
in the several states, and we shall then be ready to consider the
general structure of the Confederation, and to describe the remarkable
series of events which led to the adoption of our Federal Constitution.
[Sidenote: State governments remodelled; assemblies continued from
colonial times.]
It will be remembered that at the time of the Declaration of
Independence there were three kinds of government in the colonies.
Connecticut and Rhode Island had always been true republics, with
governors and legislative assemblies elected by the people.
Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland presented the appearance of limited
hereditary monarchies. Their assemblies were chosen by the people, but
the lords proprietary appointed their governors, or in some instances
acted as governors themselves. In Maryland the office of lord
proprietary was hereditary in the Calvert family; in Delaware and
Pennsylvania, which, though distinct commonwealths with separate
legislatures, had the same executive head, it was hereditary in the Penn
family. The other eight colonies were viceroyalties, with governors
appointed by the king, while in all alike the people elected the
legislatures. Accordingly in Connecticut and Rhode Island no change was
made necessary by the Revolution, beyond the mere omission of the king's
name from legal documents; and their charters, which dated from the
middle of the seventeenth century, continued to do duty as state
constitutions till far into the nineteenth. During the Revolutionary War
all the other states framed new constitutions, but in most essential
respects they took the old colonial charters for their model. The
popular legislative body remained unchanged even in its name. In North
Carolina its supreme dignity was vindicated in its title of the House of
Commons; in Virginia it was called the House of Burgesses; in most of
the states the House of Representatives. The members were chosen each
year, except in South Carolina, where they served for two years. In the
New England states they represented the townships, in other states the
counties. In all the states except Pennsylvania a property qualification
was required of them.
[Sidenote: Origin of the senates.]
In addition to this House of Representatives all the legislatures except
those of Pennsylvania and Georgia contained a second or upper house
known as the Senate. The origin of the senate is to be found in the
governor's council of colonial times, just as the House of Lords is
descended from the Witenagemot or council of great barons summoned by
the Old-English kings. The Americans had been used to having the acts of
their popular assemblies reviewed by a council, and so they retained
this revisory body as an upper house. A higher property qualification
was required than for membership of the lower house, and, except in New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, and South Carolina, the term of service was
longer. In Maryland senators sat for five years, in Virginia and New
York for four years, elsewhere for two years. In some states they were
chosen by the people, in others by the lower house. In Maryland they
were chosen by a college of electors, thus affording a precedent for the
method of electing the chief magistrate of the union under the Federal
Constitution.
[Sidenote: Governors viewed with suspicion.]
Governors were unpopular in those days. There was too much flavour of
royalty and high prerogative about them. Except in the two republics of
Rhode Island and Connecticut, American political history during the
eighteenth century was chiefly the record of interminable squabbles
between governors and legislatures, down to the moment when the detested
agents of royalty were clapped into jail, or took refuge behind the
bulwarks of a British seventy-four. Accordingly the new constitutions
were very chary of the powers to be exercised by the governor. In
Pennsylvania and Delaware, in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the
governor was at first replaced by an executive council, and the
president of this council was first magistrate and titular ruler of the
state. His dignity was imposing enough, but his authority was merely
that of a chairman. The other states had governors chosen by the
legislatures, except in New York where the governor was elected by the
people. No one was eligible to the office of governor who did not
possess a specified amount of property. In most of the states the
governor could not be reëlected, he had no veto upon the acts of the
legislature, nor any power of appointing officers. In 1780, in a new
constitution drawn up by James Bowdoin and the two Adamses,
Massachusetts led the way in the construction of a more efficient
executive department. The president was replaced by a governor elected
annually by the people, and endowed with the power of appointment and a
suspensory veto. The first governor elected under this constitution was
John Hancock. In 1783 New Hampshire adopted a similar constitution. In
1790 Pennsylvania added an upper house to its legislature, and vested
the executive power in a governor elected by the people for a term of
three years, and twice reëligible. He was intrusted with the power of
appointment to offices, with a suspensory veto, and with the royal
prerogative of reprieving or pardoning criminals. In 1792 similar
changes were made in Delaware. In 1789 Georgia added the upper house to
its legislature, and about the same time in several states the
governor's powers were enlarged.
Thus the various state governments were repetitions on a small scale of
what was then supposed to be the triplex government of England, with its
King, Lords, and Commons. The governor answered to the king with his
dignity curtailed by election for a short period, and by narrowly
limited prerogatives. The senate answered to the House of Lords, except
in being a representative and not a hereditary body. It was supposed to
represent more especially that part of the community which was possessed
of most wealth and consideration; and in several states the senators
were apportioned with some reference to the amount of taxes paid by
different parts of the state. The senate of New York, in direct
imitation of the House of Lords, was made a supreme court of errors. On
the other hand, the assembly answered to the House of Commons, save that
its power was really limited by the senate as the power of the House of
Commons is not really limited by the House of Lords. But this
peculiarity of the British Constitution was not well understood a
century ago; and the misunderstanding, as we shall hereafter see,
exerted a very serious influence upon the form of our federal
government, as well as upon the constitutions of the several states.
[Sidenote: The judiciary.]
In all the thirteen states the common law of England remained in force,
as it does to this day save where modified by statute. British and
colonial statutes made prior to the Revolution continued also in force
unless expressly repealed. The system of civil and criminal courts, the
remedies in common law and equity, the forms of writs, the functions of
justices of the peace, the courts of probate, all remained substantially
unchanged. In Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, the judges held
office for a term of seven years; in all the other states they held
office for life or during good behaviour. In all the states save Georgia
they were appointed either by the governor or by the legislature. It was
Georgia that in 1812 first set the pernicious example of electing judges
for short terms by the people,[1]--a practice which is responsible for
much of the degradation that the courts have suffered in many of our
states, and which will have to be abandoned before a proper
administration of justice can ever be secured.
[Sidenote: The limited suffrage.]
In bestowing the suffrage, the new constitutions were as conservative as
in all other respects. The general state of opinion in America at that
time, with regard to universal suffrage, was far more advanced than the
general state of opinion in England, but it was less advanced than the
opinions of such statesmen as Pitt and Shelburne and the Duke of
Richmond. There was a truly English irregularity in the provisions which
were made on this subject. In New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
and South Carolina, all resident freemen who paid taxes could vote. In
North Carolina all such persons could vote for members of the lower
house, but in order to vote for senators a freehold of fifty acres was
required. In Virginia none could vote save those who possessed such a
freehold of fifty acres. To vote for governor or for senators in New
York, one must possess a freehold of $250, clear of mortgage, and to
vote for assemblymen one must either have a freehold of $50, or pay a
yearly rent of $10. The pettiness of these sums was in keeping with the
time when two daily coaches sufficed for the traffic between our two
greatest commercial cities. In Rhode Island an unincumbered freehold
worth $134 was required; but in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania the eldest
sons of qualified freemen could vote without payment of taxes. In all
the other states the possession of a small amount of property, either
real or personal, varying from $33 to $200, was the necessary
qualification for voting. Thus slowly and irregularly did the states
drift toward universal suffrage; but although the impediments in the way
of voting were more serious than they seem to us in these days when the
community is more prosperous and money less scarce, they were still not
very great, and in the opinion of conservative people they barely
sufficed to exclude from the suffrage such shiftless persons as had no
visible interest in keeping down the taxes.
[Sidenote: Abolition of primogeniture, entails, and manorial
privileges.]
At the time of the Revolution the succession to property was regulated
in New York and the southern states by the English rule of
primogeniture. The eldest son took all. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, and the four New England states, the eldest son took a double
share. It was Georgia that led the way in decreeing the equal
distribution of intestate property, both real and personal; and between
1784 and 1796 the example was followed by all the other states. At the
same time entails were either definitely abolished, or the obstacles to
cutting them off were removed. In New York the manorial privileges of
the great patroons were swept away. In Maryland the old manorial system
had long been dying a natural death through the encroachments of the
patriarchal system of slavery. The ownership of all ungranted lands
within the limits of the thirteen states passed from the crown not to
the Confederacy, but to the several state governments. In Pennsylvania
and Maryland such ungranted lands had belonged to the lords proprietary.
They were now forfeited to the state. The Penn family was indemnified by
Pennsylvania to the amount of half a million dollars; but Maryland made
no compensation to the Calverts, inasmuch as their claim was presented
by an illegitimate descendant of the last Lord Baltimore.
[Sidenote: Steps toward the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade.]
The success of the American Revolution made it possible for the
different states to take measures for the gradual abolition of slavery
and the immediate abolition of the foreign slave-trade. On this great
question the state of public opinion in America was more advanced than
in England. So great a thinker as Edmund Burke, who devoted much
thought to the subject, came to the conclusion that slavery was an
incurable evil, and that there was not the slightest hope that the trade
in slaves could be stopped. The most that he thought could be done by
judicious legislation was to mitigate the horrors which the poor negroes
endured on board ship, or to prevent wives from being sold away from
their husbands or children from their parents. Such was the outlook to
one of the greatest political philosophers of modern times just
eighty-two years before the immortal proclamation of President Lincoln!
But how vast was the distance between Burke and Bossuet, who had
declared about eighty years earlier that "to condemn slavery was to
condemn the Holy Ghost!" It was equally vast between Burke and his
contemporary Thurlow, who in 1799 poured out the vials of his wrath upon
"the altogether miserable and contemptible" proposal to abolish the
slave-trade. George III. agreed with his chancellor, and resisted the
movement for abolition with all the obstinacy of which his hard and
narrow nature was capable. In 1769 the Virginia legislature had enacted
that the further importation of negroes, to be sold into slavery, should
be prohibited. But George III. commanded the governor to veto this act,
and it was vetoed. In Jefferson's first-draft of the Declaration of
Independence, this action of the king was made the occasion of a fierce
denunciation of slavery, but in deference to the prejudices of South
Carolina and Georgia the clause was struck out by Congress. When George
III. and his vetoes had been eliminated from the case, it became
possible for the states to legislate freely on the subject. In 1776
negro slaves were held in all the thirteen states, but in all except
South Carolina and Georgia there was a strong sentiment in favour of
emancipation. In North Carolina, which contained a large Quaker
population, and in which estates were small and were often cultivated by
free labour, the pro-slavery feeling was never so strong as in the
southernmost states. In Virginia all the foremost statesmen--Washington,
Jefferson, Lee, Randolph, Henry, Madison, and Mason--were opposed to the
continuance of slavery; and their opinions were shared by many of the
largest planters. For tobacco-culture slavery did not seem so
indispensable as for the raising of rice and indigo; and in Virginia the
negroes, half-civilized by kindly treatment, were not regarded with
horror by their masters, like the ill-treated and ferocious blacks of
South Carolina and Georgia. After 1808 the policy and the sentiments of
Virginia underwent a marked change. The invention of the cotton-gin,
taken in connection with the sudden and prodigious development of
manufactures in England, greatly stimulated the growth of cotton in the
ever-enlarging area of the Gulf states, and created an immense demand
for slave-labour, just at the time when the importation of negroes from
Africa came to an end. The breeding of slaves, to be sold to the
planters of the Gulf states, then became such a profitable occupation in
Virginia as entirely to change the popular feeling about slavery. But
until 1808 Virginia sympathized with the anti-slavery sentiment which
was growing up in the northern states; and the same was true of
Maryland. Emancipation was, however, much more easy to accomplish in the
north, because the number of slaves was small, and economic
circumstances distinctly favoured free labour. In the work of gradual
emancipation the little state of Delaware led the way. In its new
constitution of 1776 the further introduction of slaves was prohibited,
all restraints upon emancipation having already been removed. In the
assembly of Virginia in 1778 a bill prohibiting the further introduction
of slaves was moved and carried by Thomas Jefferson, and the same
measure was passed in Maryland in 1783, while both these states removed
all restraints upon emancipation. North Carolina was not ready to go
quite so far, but in 1786 she sought to discourage the slave-trade by
putting a duty of £5 per head on all negroes thereafter imported. New
Jersey followed the example of Maryland and Virginia. Pennsylvania went
farther. In 1780 its assembly enacted that no more slaves should be
brought in, and that all children of slaves born after that date should
be free. The same provisions were made by New Hampshire in its new
constitution of 1783, and by the assemblies of Connecticut and Rhode
Island in 1784. New York went farther still, and in 1785 enacted that
all children of slaves thereafter born should not only be free, but
should be admitted to vote on the same conditions as other freemen. In
1788 Virginia, which contained many free negroes, enacted that any
person convicted of kidnapping or selling into slavery any free person
should suffer death on the gallows. Summing up all these facts, we see
that within two years after the independence of the United States had
been acknowledged by England, while the two southernmost states had done
nothing to check the growth of slavery, North Carolina had discouraged
the importation of slaves; Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey
had stopped such importation and removed all restraint upon
emancipation; and all the remaining states, except Massachusetts, had
made gradual emancipation compulsory. Massachusetts had gone still
farther. Before the Revolution the anti-slavery feeling had been
stronger there than in any other state, and cases brought into court for
the purpose of testing the legality of slavery had been decided in
favour of those who were opposed to the continuance of that barbarous
institution. In 1777 an American cruiser brought into the port of Salem
a captured British ship with slaves on board, and these slaves were
advertised for sale, but on complaint being made before the legislature
they were set free. The new constitution of 1780 contained a declaration
of rights which asserted that all men are born free and have an equal
and inalienable right to defend their lives and liberties, to acquire
property, and to seek and obtain safety and happiness. The supreme court
presently decided that this clause worked the abolition of slavery, and
accordingly Massachusetts was the first of American states, within the
limits of the Union, to become in the full sense of the words a free
commonwealth. Of the negro inhabitants, not more than six thousand in
number, a large proportion had already for a long time enjoyed freedom;
and all were now admitted to the suffrage on the same terms as other
citizens.
[Sidenote: Progress toward freedom in religion.]
By the revolutionary legislation of the states some progress was also
effected in the direction of a more complete religious freedom.
Pennsylvania and Delaware were the only states in which all Christian
sects stood socially and politically on an equal footing. In Rhode
Island all Protestants enjoyed equal privileges, but Catholics were
debarred from voting. In Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut,
the old Puritan Congregationalism was the established religion. The
Congregational church was supported by taxes, and the minister, once
chosen, kept his place for life or during good behaviour. He could not
be got rid of unless formally investigated and dismissed by an
ecclesiastical council. Laws against blasphemy, which were virtually
laws against heresy, were in force in these three states. In
Massachusetts, Catholic priests were liable to imprisonment for life.
Any one who should dare to speculate too freely about the nature of
Christ, or the philosophy of the plan of salvation, or to express a
doubt as to the plenary inspiration of every word between the two covers
of the Bible, was subject to fine and imprisonment. The tithing-man
still arrested Sabbath-breakers and shut them up in the town-cage in the
market-place; he stopped all unnecessary riding or driving on Sunday,
and haled people off to the meeting-house whether they would or not.
Such restraints upon liberty were still endured by people who had dared
and suffered so much for liberty's sake. The men of Boston strove hard
to secure the repeal of these barbarous laws and the disestablishment of
the Congregational church; but they were outvoted by the delegates from
the rural towns. The most that could be accomplished was the provision
that dissenters might escape the church-rate by supporting a church of
their own. The nineteenth century was to arrive before church and state
were finally separated in Massachusetts. The new constitution of New
Hampshire was similarly illiberal, and in Connecticut no change was
made. Rhode Island nobly distinguished herself by contrast when in 1784
she extended the franchise to Catholics.
In the six states just mentioned the British government had been
hindered by charter, and by the overwhelming opposition of the people,
from seriously trying to establish the Episcopal church. The sure fate
of any such mad experiment had been well illustrated in the time of
Andros. In the other seven states there were no such insuperable
obstacles. The Church of England was maintained with languid
acquiescence in New York. By the Quakers and Presbyterians of New Jersey
and North Carolina, as well as in half-Catholic, half-Puritan Maryland,
its supremacy was unwillingly endured; in the turbulent frontier
commonwealth of Georgia it was accepted with easy contempt. Only in
South Carolina and Virginia had the Church of England ever possessed any
real hold upon the people. The Episcopal clergy of South Carolina, men
of learning and high character, elected by their own congregations
instead of being appointed to their livings by a patron, were thoroughly
independent, and in the late war their powerful influence had been
mainly exerted in behalf of the patriot cause. Hence, while they
retained their influence after the close of the war, there was no
difficulty in disestablishing the church. It felt itself able to stand
without government support. As soon as the political separation from
England was effected, the Episcopal church was accordingly separated
from the state, not only in South Carolina, but in all the states in
which it had hitherto been upheld by the authority of the British
government; and in the constitutions of New Jersey, Georgia, and the two
Carolinas, no less than in those of Delaware and Pennsylvania, it was
explicitly provided that no man should be obliged to pay any church rate
or attend any religious service save according to his own free and
unhampered will.
[Sidenote: Church and state in Virginia.]
The case of Virginia was peculiar. At first the Church of England had
taken deep root there because of the considerable immigration of members
of the Cavalier party after the downfall of Charles I. Most of the great
statesmen of Virginia in the Revolution--such as Washington, Madison,
Mason, Jefferson, Pendleton, Henry, the Lees, and the Randolphs--were
descendants of Cavaliers and members of the Church of England. But for a
long time the Episcopal clergy had been falling into discredit. Many of
them were appointed by the British government and ordained by the
Bishop of London, and they were affected by the irreligious
listlessness and low moral tone of the English church in the eighteenth
century. The Virginia legislature thought it necessary to pass special
laws prohibiting these clergymen from drunkenness and riotous living. It
was said that they spent more time in hunting foxes and betting on
race-horses than in conducting religious services or visiting the sick;
and according to Bishop Meade, many dissolute parsons, discarded from
the church in England as unworthy, were yet thought fit to be presented
with livings in Virginia. To this general character of the clergy there
were many exceptions. There were many excellent clergymen, especially
among the native Virginians, whose appointment depended to some extent
upon the repute in which they were held by their neighbours. But on the
whole the system was such as to illustrate all the worst vices of a
church supported by the temporal power. The Revolution achieved the
discomfiture of a clergy already thus deservedly discredited. The
parsons mostly embraced the cause of the crown, but failed to carry
their congregations with them, and thus they found themselves arrayed in
hopeless antagonism to popular sentiment in a state which contained
perhaps fewer Tories in proportion to its population than any other of
the thirteen.
[Sidenote: Madison and the Religious Freedom Act, 1785.]
At the same time the Episcopal church itself had gradually come to be a
minority in the commonwealth. For more than half a century Scotch and
Welsh Presbyterians, German Lutherans, English Quakers, and Baptists,
had been working their way southward from Pennsylvania and New Jersey,
and had settled in the fertile country west of the Blue Ridge. Daniel
Morgan, who had won the most brilliant battle of the Revolution, was one
of these men, and sturdiness was a chief characteristic of most of them.
So long as these frontier settlers served as a much-needed bulwark
against the Indians, the church saw fit to ignore them and let them
build meeting-houses and carry on religious services as they pleased.
But when the peril of Indian attack had been thrust westward into the
Ohio valley, and these dissenting communities had waxed strong and
prosperous, the ecclesiastical party in the state undertook to lay taxes
on them for the support of the Church of England, and to compel them to
receive Episcopal clergymen to preach for them, to bless them in
marriage, and to bury their dead. The immediate consequence was a revolt
which not only overthrew the established church in Virginia, but nearly
effected its ruin. The troubles began in 1768, when the Baptists had
made their way into the centre of the state, and three of their
preachers were arrested by the sheriff of Spottsylvania. As the
indictment was read against these men for "preaching the gospel contrary
to law," a deep and solemn voice interrupted the proceedings. Patrick
Henry had come on horseback many a mile over roughest roads to listen to
the trial, and this phrase, which savoured of the religious despotisms
of old, was quite too much for him. "May it please your worships," he
exclaimed, "what did I hear read? Did I hear an expression that these
men, whom your worships are about to try for misdemeanour, are charged
with preaching the gospel of the Son of God!" The shamefast silence and
confusion which ensued was of ill omen for the success of an undertaking
so unwelcome to the growing liberalism of the time. The zeal of the
persecuted Baptists was presently reinforced by the learning and the
dialectic skill of the Presbyterian ministers. Unlike the Puritans of
New England, the Presbyterians were in favour of the total separation of
church from state. It was one of their cardinal principles that the
civil magistrate had no right to interfere in any way with matters of
religion. By taking this broad ground they secured the powerful aid of
Thomas Jefferson, and afterwards of Madison and Mason. The controversy
went on through all the years of the Revolutionary War, while all
Virginia, from the sea to the mountains, rang with fulminations and
arguments. In 1776 Jefferson and Mason succeeded in carrying a bill
which released all dissenters from parish rates and legalized all forms
of worship. At last in 1785 Madison won the crowning victory in the
Religious Freedom Act, by which the Church of England was disestablished
and all parish rates abolished, and still more, all religious tests were
done away with. In this last respect Virginia came to the front among
all the American states, as Massachusetts had come to the front in the
abolition of negro slavery. Nearly all the states still imposed
religious tests upon civil office-holders, from simply declaring a
general belief in the infallibleness of the Bible to accepting the
doctrine of the Trinity. The Virginia statute, which declared that
"opinion in matters of religion shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or
affect civil capacities," was translated into French and Italian, and
was widely read and commented on in Europe.
It is the historian's unpleasant duty to add that the victory thus
happily won was ungenerously followed up. Theological and political
odium combined to overwhelm the Episcopal church in Virginia. The
persecuted became persecutors. It was contended that the property of the
church, having been largely created by unjustifiable taxation, ought to
be forfeited. In 1802 its parsonages and glebe lands were sold, its
parishes wiped out, and its clergy left without a calling. "A reckless
sensualist," said Dr. Hawks, "administered the morning dram to his
guests from the silver cup" used in the communion service. But in all
this there is a manifest historic lesson. That it should have been
possible thus to deal with the Episcopal church in Virginia shows
forcibly the moribund condition into which it had been brought through
dependence upon the extraneous aid of a political sovereignty from which
the people of Virginia were severing their allegiance. The lesson is
most vividly enhanced by the contrast with the church of South Carolina
which, rooted in its own soil, was quite able to stand alone when
government aid was withdrawn. In Virginia the church in which George
Washington was reared had so nearly vanished by the year 1830 that Chief
Justice Marshall said it was folly to dream of reviving so dead a
thing. Nevertheless, under the noble ministration of its great bishop,
William Meade, the Episcopal church in Virginia, no longer relying upon
state aid, but trusting in the divine persuasive power of spiritual
truth, was even then entering upon a new life and beginning to exercise
a most wholesome influence.
[Sidenote: Mason Weems and Samuel Seabury.]
[Sidenote: November 14, 1784.]
The separation of the English church in America from the English crown
was the occasion of a curious difficulty with regard to the ordination
of bishops. Until after the Revolution there were no bishops of that
church in America, and between 1783 and 1785 it was not clear how
candidates for holy orders could receive the necessary consecration. In
1784 a young divinity student from Maryland, named Mason Weems, who had
been studying for some time in England, applied to the Bishop of London
for admission to holy orders, but was rudely refused. Weems then had
recourse to Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, author of the famous reply to
Gibbon. Watson treated him kindly and advised him to get a letter of
recommendation from the governor of Maryland, but after this had been
obtained he referred him to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that
nothing could be done without the consent of Parliament. As the law
stood, no one could be admitted into the ranks of the English clergy
without taking the oath of allegiance and acknowledging the king of
England as the head of the church. Weems then wrote to John Adams at the
Hague, and to Franklin at Paris, to see if there were any Protestant
bishops on the Continent from whom he could obtain consecration. A
rather amusing diplomatic correspondence ensued, and finally the king of
Denmark, after taking theological advice, kindly offered the services of
a Danish bishop, who was to perform the ceremony in Latin. Weems does
not seem to have availed himself of this permission, probably because
the question soon reached a more satisfactory solution.[2] About the
same time the Episcopal church in Connecticut sent one of its ministers,
Samuel Seabury of New London, to England, to be ordained as bishop. The
oaths of allegiance and supremacy stood as much in the way of the
learned and famous minister as in that of the young and obscure student.
Seabury accordingly appealed to the non-juring Jacobite bishops of the
Episcopal church of Scotland, and at length was duly ordained at
Aberdeen as bishop of the diocese of Connecticut. While Seabury was in
England, the churches in the various states chose delegates to a
general convention, which framed a constitution for the "Protestant
Episcopal Church of the United States of America." Advowsons were
abolished, some parts of the liturgy were dropped, and the tenure of
ministers, even of bishops, was to be during good behaviour. At the same
time a friendly letter was sent to the bishops of England, urging them
to secure, if possible, an act of Parliament whereby American clergymen
might be ordained without taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.
Such an act was obtained without much difficulty, and three American
bishops were accordingly consecrated in due form. The peculiar
ordination of Seabury was also recognized as valid by the general
convention, and thus the Episcopal church in America was fairly started
on its independent career.
[Sidenote: Francis Asbury and the Methodists.]
This foundation of a separate episcopacy west of the Atlantic was
accompanied by the further separation of the Methodists as a distinct
religious society. Although John Wesley regarded the notion of an
apostolical succession as superstitious, he had made no attempt to
separate his followers from the national church. He translated the
titles of "bishop" and "priest" from Greek into Latin and English,
calling them "superintendent" and "elder," but he did not deny the
king's headship. Meanwhile during the long period of his preaching there
had begun to grow up a Methodist church in America. George Whitefield
had come over and preached in Georgia in 1737, and in Massachusetts in
1744, where he encountered much opposition on the part of the Puritan
clergy. But the first Methodist church in America was founded in the
city of New York in 1766. In 1772 Wesley sent over Francis Asbury, a man
of shrewd sense and deep religious feeling, to act as his assistant and
representative in this country. At that time there were not more than a
thousand Methodists, with six preachers, and all these were in the
middle and southern colonies; but within five years, largely owing to
the zeal and eloquence of Asbury, these numbers had increased sevenfold.
At the end of the war, seeing the American Methodists cut loose from the
English establishment, Wesley in his own house at Bristol, with the aid
of two presbyters, proceeded to ordain ministers enough to make a
presbytery, and thereupon set apart Thomas Coke to be "superintendent"
or bishop for America. On the same day of November, 1784, on which
Seabury was consecrated by the non-jurors at Aberdeen, Coke began
preaching and baptizing in Maryland, in rude chapels built of logs or
under the shade of forest trees. On Christmas Eve a conference assembled
at Baltimore, at which Asbury was chosen bishop by some sixty ministers
present, and ordained by Coke, and the constitution of the Methodist
church in America was organized. Among the poor white people of the
southern states, and among the negroes, the new church rapidly obtained
great sway; and at a somewhat later date it began to assume considerable
proportions in the north.
[Sidenote: Presbyterians; Roman Catholics.]
Four years after this the Presbyterians, who were most numerous in the
middle states, organized their government in a general assembly, which
was also attended by Congregationalist delegates from New England in the
capacity of simple advisers. The theological difference between these
two sects was so slight that an alliance grew up between them, and in
Connecticut some fifty years later their names were often inaccurately
used as if synonymous. Such a difference seemed to vanish when
confronted with the newer differences that began to spring up soon after
the close of the Revolution. The revolt against the doctrine of eternal
punishment was already beginning in New England, and among the learned
and thoughtful clergy of Massachusetts the seeds of Unitarianism were
germinating. The gloomy intolerance of an older time was beginning to
yield to more enlightened views. In 1789 the first Roman Catholic church
in New England was dedicated in Boston. So great had been the prejudice
against this sect that in 1784 there were only 600 Catholics in all New
England. In the four southernmost states, on the other hand, there were
2,500; in New York and New Jersey there were 1,700; in Delaware and
Pennsylvania there were 7,700; in Maryland there were 20,000; while
among the French settlements along the eastern bank of the Mississippi
there were supposed to be nearly 12,000. In 1786 John Carroll, a cousin
of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, was selected by the Pope as his
apostolic vicar, and was afterward successively made bishop of Baltimore
and archbishop of the United States. By 1789 all obstacles to the
Catholic worship had been done away with in all the states.
[Sidenote: Except in the instance of slavery, all these changes were
favourable to union.]
In this brief survey of the principal changes wrought in the several
states by the separation from England, one cannot fail to be struck with
their conservative character. Things proceeded just as they had done
from time immemorial with the English race. Forms of government were
modified just far enough to adapt them to the new situation and no
farther. The abolition of entails, of primogeniture, and of such few
manorial privileges as existed, were useful reforms of far less sweeping
character than similar changes would have been in England; and they were
accordingly effected with ease. Even the abolition of slavery in the
northern states, where negroes were few in number and chiefly employed
in domestic service, wrought nothing in the remotest degree resembling a
social revolution. But nowhere was this constitutionally cautious and
precedent-loving mode of proceeding more thoroughly exemplified than in
the measures just related, whereby the Episcopal and Methodist churches
were separated from the English establishment and placed upon an
independent footing in the new world. From another point of view it may
be observed that all these changes, except in the instance of slavery,
tended to assimilate the states to one another in their political and
social condition. So far as they went, these changes were favourable to
union, and this was perhaps especially true in the case of the
ecclesiastical bodies, which brought citizens of different states into
coöperation in pursuit of specific ends in common.
At the same time this survey most forcibly reminds us how completely
the legislation which immediately affected the daily domestic life of
the citizen was the legislation of the single state in which he lived.
In the various reforms just passed in review the United States
government took no part, and could not from the nature of the case. Even
to-day our national government has no power over such matters, and it is
to be hoped it never will have. But at the present day our national
government performs many important functions of common concern, which a
century ago were scarcely performed at all. The organization of the
single state was old in principle and well understood by everybody. It
therefore worked easily, and such changes as those above described were
brought about with little friction. On the other hand, the principles
upon which the various relations of the states to each other were to be
adjusted were not well understood. There was wide disagreement upon the
subject, and the attempt to compromise between opposing views was not at
first successful. Hence, in the management of affairs which concerned
the United States as a nation, we shall not find the central machinery
working smoothly or quietly. We are about to traverse a period of
uncertainty and confusion, in which it required all the political
sagacity and all the good temper of the people to save the half-built
ship of state from going to pieces on the rocks of civil contention.