GERMS OF NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.
[Sidenote: Creation of a national domain beyond the Alleghanies.]
While the events we have heretofore contemplated seemed to prophesy the
speedy dissolution and downfall of the half-formed American Union, a
series of causes, obscure enough at first, but emerging gradually into
distinctness and then into prominence, were preparing the way for the
foundation of a national sovereignty. The growth of this sovereignty
proceeded stealthily along such ancient lines of precedent as to take
ready hold of people's minds, although few, if any, understood the full
purport of what they were doing. Ever since the days when our English
forefathers dwelt in village communities in the forests of northern
Germany, the idea of a common land or folkland--a territory belonging to
the whole community, and upon which new communities might be organized
by a process analogous to what physiologists call
cell-multiplication--had been perfectly familiar to everybody. Townships
budded from village or parish folkland in Maryland and Massachusetts in
the seventeenth century, just as they had done in England before the
time of Alfred. The critical period of the Revolution witnessed the
repetition of this process on a gigantic scale. It witnessed the
creation of a national territory beyond the Alleghanies,--an enormous
folkland in which all the thirteen old states had a common interest, and
upon which new and derivative communities were already beginning to
organize themselves. Questions about public lands are often regarded as
the driest of historical deadwood. Discussions about them in newspapers
and magazines belong to the class of articles which the general reader
usually skips. Yet there is a great deal of the philosophy of history
wrapped up in this subject, and it now comes to confront us at a most
interesting moment; for without studying this creation of a national
domain between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, we cannot understand
how our Federal Union came to be formed.
[Sidenote: Conflicting claims to the western territory.]
When England began to contend with France and Spain for the possession
of North America, she made royal grants of land upon this continent, in
royal ignorance of its extent and configuration. But until the Seven
Years' War the eastward and westward partitioning of these grants was of
little practical consequence; for English dominion was bounded by the
Alleghanies, and everything beyond was in the hands of the French. In
that most momentous war the genius of the elder Pitt won the region east
of the Mississippi for men of English race, while the vast territory of
Louisiana, beyond, passed under the control of Spain. During the
Revolutionary War, in a series of romantic expeditions, the state of
Virginia took military possession of a great part of the wilderness east
of the Mississippi, founding towns in the Ohio and Cumberland valleys,
and occupying with garrisons of her state militia the posts at Cahokia,
Kaskaskia, and Vincennes. We have seen how, through the skill of our
commissioners at Paris, this noble country was secured for the Americans
in the treaty of 1783, in spite of the reluctance of France and the
hostility of Spain. Throughout the Revolutionary War the Americans
claimed the territory as part of the United States; but when once it
passed from under the control of Great Britain, into whose hands did it
go? To whom did it belong? To this question there were various and
conflicting answers. North Carolina, indeed, had already taken
possession of what was afterward called Tennessee, and at the beginning
of the war Virginia had annexed Kentucky. As to these points there could
be little or no dispute. But with the territory north of the Ohio River
it was very different. Four states laid claim either to the whole or to
parts of this territory, and these claims were not simply conflicting,
but irreconcilable.
[Sidenote: Claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut.]
The charters of Massachusetts and Connecticut were framed at a time when
people had not got over the notion that this part of the continent was
not much wider than Mexico, and accordingly these colonies had received
the royal permission to extend from sea to sea. The existence of a
foreign colony of Dutchmen in the neighbourhood was a trifle about which
these documents did not trouble themselves; but when Charles II.
conquered this colony and bestowed it upon his brother, the province of
New York became a stubborn fact, which could not be disregarded.
Massachusetts and Connecticut peaceably settled their boundary line with
New York, and laid no claims to land within the limits of that state;
but they still continued to claim what lay beyond it, as far as the
Mississippi River, where the Spanish dominion now began. The regions
claimed by Massachusetts have since become the southern halves of the
states of Michigan and Wisconsin. The region claimed by Connecticut was
a narrow strip running over the northern portions of Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois; and we have seen how much trouble was occasioned
in Pennsylvania by this circumstance.
[Sidenote: Claims of New York.]
But New York laughed to scorn these claims of Connecticut. In the
seventeenth century all the Algonquin tribes between Lake Erie and the
Cumberland Mountains had become tributary to the Iroquois; and during
the hundred years' struggle between France and England for the supremacy
of this continent the Iroquois had put themselves under the protection
of England, which thenceforth always treated them as an appurtenance to
New York. For a hundred years before the Revolution, said New York, she
had borne the expense of protecting the Iroquois against the French, and
by various treaties she had become lawful suzerain over the Six Nations
and their lands and the lands of their Algonquin vassals. On such
grounds New York claimed pretty much everything north of the Ohio and
east of the Miami.
[Sidenote: Virginia's claims.]
But according to Virginia, it made little difference what Massachusetts
and Connecticut and New York thought about the matter, for every acre
of land, from the Ohio River up to Lake Superior, belonged to her. Was
not she the lordly "Old Dominion," out of which every one of the states
had been carved? Even Cape Cod and Cape Ann were said to be in "North
Virginia," until, in 1614, Captain John Smith invented the name "New
England." It was a fair presumption that any uncarved territory belonged
to Virginia; and it was further held that the original charter of 1609
used language which implicitly covered the northwestern territory,
though, as Thomas Paine showed, in a pamphlet entitled "Public Good,"
this was very doubtful. But besides all this, it was Virginia that had
actually conquered the disputed territory, and held every military post
in it except those which the British had not surrendered; and who could
doubt that possession was nine points in the law?
[Sidenote: Maryland's novel and beneficent suggestion, Oct. 15, 1777.]
Of these conflicting claims, those of New York and Virginia were the
most grasping and the most formidable, because they concerned a region
into which immigration was beginning rapidly to pour. They were regarded
with strong disfavour by the small states, Rhode Island, New Jersey,
Delaware, and Maryland, which were so situated that they never could
expand in any direction. They looked forward with dread to a future in
which New York and Virginia might wax powerful enough to tyrannize over
their smaller neighbours. But of these protesting states it was only
Maryland that fairly rose to the occasion, and suggested an idea which
seemed startling at first, but from which mighty and unforeseen
consequences were soon to follow.[5] It was on the 15th of October,
1777, just two days before Burgoyne's surrender, that this path-breaking
idea first found expression in Congress. The articles of confederation
were then just about to be presented to the several states to be
ratified, and the question arose as to how the conflicting western
claims should be settled. A motion was then made that "the United States
in Congress assembled shall have the sole and exclusive right and power
to ascertain and fix the western boundary of such states as claim to the
Mississippi, ... and lay out the land beyond the boundary so ascertained
into separate and independent states, from time to time, as the numbers
and circumstances of the people may require." To carry out such a
motion, it would be necessary for the four claimant states to surrender
their claims into the hands of the United States, and thus create a
domain which should be owned by the confederacy in common. So bold a
step towards centralization found no favour at the time. No other state
but Maryland voted for it.
[Sidenote: The several states yield their claims in favour of the United
States, 1780-85.]
But Maryland's course was well considered: she pursued it resolutely,
and was rewarded with complete success. By February, 1779, all the other
states had ratified the articles of confederation. In the following May,
Maryland declared that she would not ratify the articles until she
should receive some definite assurance that the northwestern territory
should become the common property of the United States, "subject to be
parcelled out by Congress into free, convenient, and independent
governments." The question, thus boldly brought into the foreground, was
earnestly discussed in Congress and in the state legislatures, until in
February, 1780, partly through the influence of General Schuyler, New
York decided to cede all her claims to the western lands. This act of
New York set things in motion, so that in September Congress recommended
to all states having western claims to cede them to the United States.
In October, Congress, still pursuing the Maryland idea, went farther,
and declared that all such lands as might be ceded should be sold in
lots to immigrants and the money used for federal purposes, and that in
due season distinct states should be formed there, to be admitted into
the Union, with the same rights of sovereignty as the original thirteen
states. As an inducement to Virginia, it was further provided that any
state which had incurred expense during the war in defending its western
possessions should receive compensation. To this general invitation
Connecticut immediately responded by offering to cede everything to
which she laid claim, except 3,250,000 acres on the southern shore of
Lake Erie, which she wished to reserve for educational purposes.
Washington disapproved of this reservation, but it was accepted by
Congress, though the business was not completed until 1786. This part
of the state of Ohio is still commonly spoken of as the "Connecticut
Reserve." Half a million acres were given to citizens of Connecticut
whose property had been destroyed in the British raids upon her coast
towns, and the rest were sold, in 1795, for $1,200,000, in aid of
schools and colleges.
In January, 1781, Virginia offered to surrender all the territory
northwest of the Ohio, provided that Congress would guarantee her in the
possession of Kentucky. This gave rise to a discussion which lasted
nearly three years, until Virginia withdrew her proviso and made the
cession absolute. It was accepted by Congress on the 1st of March, 1784,
and on the 19th of April, in the following year,--the tenth anniversary
of Lexington,--Massachusetts surrendered her claims; and the whole
northwestern territory--the area of the great states of Michigan,
Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio (excepting the Connecticut
Reserve)--thus became the common property of the half-formed nation.
Maryland, however, did not wait for this. As soon as New York and
Virginia had become thoroughly committed to the movement, she ratified
the articles of confederation, which thus went into operation on the 1st
of March, 1781.
[Sidenote: Magnanimity of Virginia.]
This acquisition of a common territory speedily led to results not at
all contemplated in the theory of union upon which the articles of
confederation were based. It led to "the exercise of national
sovereignty in the sense of eminent domain," as shown in the ordinances
of 1784 and 1787, and prepared men's minds for the work of the Federal
Convention. Great credit is due to Maryland for her resolute course in
setting in motion this train of events. It aroused fierce indignation at
the time, as to many people it looked unfriendly to the Union. Some
hot-heads were even heard to say that if Maryland should persist any
longer in her refusal to join the confederation, she ought to be
summarily divided up between the neighbouring states, and her name
erased from the map. But the brave little state had earned a better fate
than that of Poland. When we have come to trace out the results of her
action, we shall see that just as it was Massachusetts that took the
decisive step in bringing on the Revolutionary War when she threw the
tea into Boston harbour, so it was Maryland that, by leading the way
toward the creation of a national domain, laid the corner-stone of our
Federal Union. Equal credit must be given to Virginia for her
magnanimity in making the desired surrender. It was New York, indeed,
that set the praiseworthy example; but New York, after all, surrendered
only a shadowy claim, whereas Virginia gave up a magnificent and
princely territory of which she was actually in possession. She might
have held back and made endless trouble, just as, at the beginning of
the Revolution, she might have refused to make common cause with
Massachusetts; but in both instances her leading statesmen showed a
far-sighted wisdom and a breadth of patriotism for which no words of
praise can be too strong. In the later instance, as in the earlier,
Thomas Jefferson played an important part. He, who in after years, as
president of the United States, was destined, by the purchase of
Louisiana, to carry our western frontier beyond the Rocky Mountains,
had, in 1779, done more than any one else to support the romantic
campaign in which General Clark had taken possession of the country
between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. He had much to do with the
generous policy which gave up the greater part of that country for a
national domain, and on the very day on which the act of cession was
completed he presented to Congress a remarkable plan for the government
of the new territory, which was only partially successful because it
attempted too much, but the results of which were in many ways notable.
[Sidenote: Jefferson proposes a scheme of government for the
northwestern territory, 1784.]
In this plan, known as the Ordinance of 1784, Jefferson proposed to
divide the northwestern territory into ten states, or just twice as many
as have actually grown out of it. In each of these states the settlers
might establish a local government, under the authority of Congress; and
when in any one of them the population should come to equal that of the
least populous of the original states, it might be admitted into the
Union by the consent of nine states in Congress. The new states were to
have universal suffrage; they must have republican forms of government;
they must pay their shares of the federal debt; they must forever remain
a part of the United States; and after the year 1800 negro slavery must
be prohibited within their limits. The names of these ten states have
afforded much amusement to Jefferson's biographers. In those days the
schoolmaster was abroad in the land after a peculiar fashion. Just as we
are now in the full tide of that Gothic revival which goes back for its
beginnings to Sir Walter Scott; as we admire mediæval things, and try to
build our houses after old English models, and prefer words of what
people call "Saxon" origin, and name our children Roland and Herbert, or
Edith and Winifred, so our great-grandfathers lived in a time of
classical revival. They were always looking for precedents in Greek and
Roman history; they were just beginning to try to make their wooden
houses look like temples, with Doric columns; they preferred words of
Latin origin; they signed their pamphlets "Brutus" and "Lycurgus," and
in sober earnest baptized their children as Cæsar, or Marcellus, or
Darius. The map of the United States was just about to bloom forth with
towns named Ithaca and Syracuse, Corinth and Sparta; and on the Ohio
River, opposite the mouth of Licking Creek, a city had lately been
founded, the name of which was truly portentous. "Losantiville" was this
wonderful compound, in which the initial _L_ stood for "Licking," while
_os_ signified "mouth," _anti_ "opposite," and _ville_ "town;" and the
whole read backwards as "Town-opposite-mouth-of-Licking." In 1790
General St. Clair, then governor of the northwest territory, changed
this name to Cincinnati, in honor of the military order to which he
belonged. With such examples in mind, we may see that the names of the
proposed ten states, from which the failure of Jefferson's ordinance has
delivered us, illustrated the prevalent taste of the time rather than
any idiosyncrasy of the man. The proposed names were Sylvania,
Michigania, Chersonesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga,
Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia.
[Sidenote: He wishes to prohibit slavery in the national domain.]
It was not the nomenclature that stood in the way of Jefferson's scheme,
but the wholesale way in which he tried to deal with the slavery
question. He wished to hem in the probable extension of slavery by an
impassable barrier, and accordingly he not only provided that it should
be extinguished in the northwestern territory after the year 1800, but
at the same time his anti-slavery ardour led him to try to extend the
national dominion southward. He did his best to persuade the legislature
of Virginia to crown its work by giving up Kentucky to the United
States, and he urged that North Carolina and Georgia should also cede
their western territories. As for South Carolina, she was shut in
between the two neighbouring states in such wise that her western claims
were vague and barren. Jefferson would thus have drawn a north-and-south
line from Lake Erie down to the Spanish border of the Floridas, and west
of this line he would have had all negro slavery end with the eighteenth
century. The policy of restricting slavery, so as to let it die a
natural death within a narrowly confined area,--the policy to sustain
which Mr. Lincoln was elected president in 1860,--was thus first
definitely outlined by Jefferson in 1784. It was the policy of
forbidding slavery in the national territory. Had this policy succeeded
then, it would have been an ounce of prevention worth many a pound of
cure. But it failed because of its largeness, because it had too many
elements to deal with. For the moment, the proposal to exclude slavery
from the northwestern territory was defeated, because of the two thirds
vote required in Congress for any important measure. It got only seven
states in its favour, where it needed nine. This defeat, however, was
retrieved three years later, when the famous Ordinance of 1787
prohibited slavery forever from the national territory north of the Ohio
River. But Jefferson's scheme had not only to deal with the national
domain as it was, but also to extend that domain southward to Florida;
and in this it failed. Virginia could not be persuaded to give up
Kentucky until too late. When Kentucky came into the Union, after the
adoption of the Federal Constitution, she came as a sovereign state,
with all her domestic institutions in her own hands. With the western
districts of North Carolina the case was somewhat different, and the
story of this region throws a curious light upon the affairs of that
disorderly time.
[Sidenote: John Sevier, and the state of Franklin, 1784-87.]
In surrendering her western territory, North Carolina showed
praiseworthy generosity. But the frontier settlers were too numerous to
be handed about from one dominion to another, without saying something
about it themselves; and their action complicated the matter, until it
was too late for Jefferson's scheme to operate upon them. In June, 1784,
North Carolina ceded the region since known as Tennessee, and allowed
Congress two years in which to accept the grant. Meanwhile, her own
authority was to remain supreme there. But the settlers grumbled and
protested. Some of them were sturdy pioneers of the finest type, but
along with these there was a lawless population of "white trash,"
ancestors of the peculiar race of men we find to-day in rural districts
of Missouri and Arkansas. They were the refuse of North Carolina,
gradually pushed westward by the advance of an orderly civilization.
Crime was rife in the settlements, and, in the absence of courts, a
rough-and-ready justice was administered by vigilance committees. The
Cherokees, moreover, were troublesome neighbours, and people lived in
dread of their tomahawks. Petitions had again and again gone up to the
legislature, urging the establishment of courts and a militia, but had
passed unheeded, and now it seemed that the state had withdrawn her
protection entirely. The settlers did not wish to have their country
made a national domain. If their own state could not protect them, it
was quite clear to them that Congress could not. What was Congress, any
way, but a roomful of men whom nobody heeded? So these backwoodsmen held
a convention in a log-cabin at Jonesborough, and seceded from North
Carolina. They declared that the three counties between the Bald
Mountains and the Holston River constituted an independent state, to
which they gave the name of Franklin; and they went on to frame a
constitution and elect a legislature with two chambers. For governor
they chose John Sevier, one of the heroes of King's Mountain, a man of
Huguenot ancestry, and such dauntless nature that he was generally known
as the "lion of the border." Having done all this, the seceders, in
spite of their small respect for Congress, sent a delegate to that
body, requesting that the new state of Franklin might be admitted into
the Union. Before this business had been completed, North Carolina
repealed her act of cession, and warned the backwoodsmen to return to
their allegiance. This at once split the new state into two factions:
one party wished to keep on as they had now started, the other wished
for reunion with North Carolina. In 1786 the one party in each county
elected members to represent them in the North Carolina legislature,
while the other party elected members of the legislature of Franklin.
Everywhere two sets of officers claimed authority, civil dudgeon grew
very high, and pistols were freely used. The agitation extended into the
neighbouring counties of Virginia, where some discontented people wished
to secede and join the state of Franklin. For the next two years there
was something very like civil war, until the North Carolina party grew
so strong that Sevier fled, and the state of Franklin ceased to exist.
Sevier was arrested on a warrant for high treason, but he effected an
escape, and after men's passions had cooled down his great services and
strong character brought him again to the front. He sat in the senate of
North Carolina, and in 1796, when Tennessee became a state in the Union,
Sevier was her first governor.
These troubles show how impracticable was the attempt to create a
national domain in any part of the country which contained a
considerable population. The instinct of self-government was too strong
to allow it. Any such population would have refused to submit to
ordinances of Congress. To obey the parent state or to set up for one's
self,--these were the only alternatives which ordinary men at that time
could understand. Experience had not yet ripened their minds for
comprehending a temporary condition of semi-independence, such as exists
to-day under our territorial governments. The behaviour of these
Tennessee backwoodsmen was just what might have been expected. The land
on which they were living was not common land: it had been appropriated;
it belonged to them, and it was for them to make laws for it. Such is
the lesson of the short-lived state of Franklin. It was because she
perceived that similar feelings were at work in Kentucky that Virginia
did not venture to loosen her grasp upon that state until it was fully
organized and ready for admission into the Union. It was in no such
partly settled country that Congress could do such a thing as carve out
boundaries and prohibit slavery by an act of national sovereignty. There
remained the magnificent territory north of the Ohio,--an empire in
itself, as large as the German Empire, with the Netherlands thrown
in,--in which the collective wisdom of the American people, as
represented in Congress, might autocratically shape the future; for it
was still a wilderness, watched by frontier garrisons, and save for the
Indians and the trappers and a few sleepy old French towns on the
eastern bank of the Mississippi, there were no signs of human life in
all its vast solitude. Here, where there was nobody to grumble or
secede, Congress, in 1787, proceeded to carry out the work which
Jefferson had outlined three years before.
[Sidenote: Origin of the Ohio company.]
It is interesting to trace the immediate origin of the famous Ordinance
of 1787. At the close of the war General Rufus Putnam, from the mountain
village of Rutland in Massachusetts, sent to Congress an outline of a
plan for colonizing the region between Lake Erie and the Ohio with
veterans of the army, who were well fitted to protect the border against
Indian attacks. The land was to be laid out in townships six miles
square, "with large reservations for the ministry and schools;" and by
selling it to the soldiers at a merely nominal price, the penniless
Congress might obtain an income, and at the same time recognize their
services in the only substantial way that seemed practicable. Washington
strongly favoured the scheme, but, in order to carry it out, it was
necessary to wait until the cession of the territory by the various
claimant states should be completed. After this had been done, a series
of treaties were made with the Six Nations, as overlords, and their
vassal tribes, the Wyandots, Chippewas, Ottawas, Delawares, and
Shawnees, whereby all Indian claims to the lands in question were
forever renounced. The matter was then formally taken up by Holden
Parsons of Connecticut, and Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, Winthrop
Sargent, and others, of Massachusetts, and a joint-stock company was
formed for the purchase of lands on the Ohio River. A large number of
settlers--old soldiers of excellent character, whom the war had
impoverished--were ready to go and take possession at once; and in its
petition the Ohio company asked for nothing better than that its
settlers should be "under the immediate government of Congress in such
mode and for such time as Congress shall judge proper." Such a proposal,
affording a means at once of replenishing the treasury and satisfying
the soldiers, could not but be accepted; and thus were laid the
foundations of a state destined within a century to equal in population
and far surpass in wealth the whole Union as it was at that time. It
became necessary at once to lay down certain general principles of
government applicable to the northwestern territory; and the result was
the Ordinance of 1787, which was chiefly the work of Edward Carrington
and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, in
committee, following the outlines of a draft which is supposed to have
been made by Manasseh Cutler. Jefferson was no longer on the ground,
having gone on his mission to Paris, but some of the principles of his
proposed Ordinance of 1784 were adopted.
[Sidenote: The Ordinance of 1787.]
It was provided that the northwestern territory should ultimately be
carved into states, not exceeding five in number, and any one of these
might be admitted into the Union as soon as its population should reach
60,000. In the mean time, the whole territory was to be governed by
officers appointed by Congress, and required to take an oath of
allegiance to the United States. Under this government there was to be
unqualified freedom of religious worship, and no religious tests should
be required of any public official. Intestate property should descend in
equal shares to children of both sexes. Public schools were to be
established. Suffrage was not yet made universal, as a freehold in
fifty acres was required. No law was ever to be made which should impair
the obligation of contracts, and it was thoroughly agreed that this
provision especially covered and prohibited the issue of paper money.
The future states to be formed from this territory must make their laws
conform to these fundamental principles, and under no circumstances
could any one of them ever be separated from the Union. In such wise,
the theory of peaceful secession was condemned in advance, so far as it
was possible for the federal government to do so. Jefferson's principle,
that slavery should not be permitted in the national domain, was also
adopted so far as the northwest was concerned; and it is interesting to
observe the names of the states which were present in Congress when this
clause was added to the ordinance. They were Georgia, the two Carolinas,
Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts; and the
vote was unanimous. No one was more active in bringing about this result
than William Grayson of Virginia, who was earnestly supported by Lee.
The action of Virginia and North Carolina at that time need not surprise
us. But the movements in favour of emancipation in these two states, and
the emancipation actually effected or going on at the north, had already
made Georgia and South Carolina extremely sensitive about slavery; and
their action on this occasion can be explained only by supposing that
they were willing to yield a point in this remote territory, in order by
and by to be able to insist upon an equivalent in the case of the
territory lying west of Georgia. Nor would they have yielded at all had
not a fugitive slave law been enacted, providing that slaves escaping
beyond the Ohio should be arrested and returned to their owners. These
arrangements having been made, General St. Clair was appointed governor
of the territory; surveys were made; land was put up for sale at sixty
cents per acre, payable in certificates of the public debt; and settlers
rapidly came in. The westward exodus from New England and Pennsylvania
now began, and only fourteen years elapsed before Ohio, the first of the
five states, was admitted into the Union.
[Sidenote: Theory of folkland upon which the ordinance was based.]
"I doubt," says Daniel Webster, "whether one single law of any
law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct,
marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787." Nothing could
have been more emphatically an exercise of national sovereignty; yet, as
Madison said, while warmly commending the act, Congress did it "without
the least colour of constitutional authority." The ordinance was never
submitted to the states for ratification. The articles of confederation
had never contemplated an occasion for such a peculiar assertion of
sovereignty. "A great and independent fund of revenue," said Madison,
"is passing into the hands of a single body of men, who can raise troops
to an indefinite number, and appropriate money to their support for an
indefinite period of time.... Yet no blame has been whispered, no alarm
has been sounded," even by men most zealous for state rights and most
suspicious of Congress. Within a few months this argument was to be
cited with telling effect against those who hesitated to accept the
Federal Constitution because of the great powers which it conferred upon
the general government. Unless you give a government specific powers,
commensurate with its objects, it is liable on occasions of public
necessity to exercise powers which have not been granted. Avoid the
dreadful dilemma between dissolution and usurpation, urged Madison, by
clothing the government with powers that are ample but clearly defined.
In a certain sense, the action of Congress in 1787 was a usurpation of
authority to meet an emergency which no one had foreseen, as in the
cases of Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana and Lincoln's emancipation of
the slaves. Each of these instances marked, in one way or another, a
brilliant epoch in American history, and in each case the public
interest was so unmistakable that the people consented and applauded.
The theory upon which the Ordinance of 1787 was based was one which
nobody could fail to understand, though perhaps no one would then have
known just how to put it into words. It was simply the thirteen states,
through their delegates in Congress, dealing with the unoccupied
national domain as if it were the common land or folkland of a
stupendous township.
[Sidenote: Spain, hearing of the secret article in the treaty of 1783,
loses her temper and threatens to shut up the Mississippi River.]
The vast importance of the lands between the Alleghanies and the
Mississippi was becoming more apparent every year, as the westward
movement of population went on. But at this time their value was much
more clearly seen by the southern than by the northern states. In the
north the westward emigration was only just beginning to pass the
Alleghanies; in the south, as we have seen, it had gone beyond them
several years ago. The southern states, accordingly, took a much sounder
view than the northern states of the importance to the Union of the free
navigation of the Mississippi River. The difference was forcibly
illustrated in the dispute with Spain, which came to a crisis in the
summer of 1786. It will be remembered that by the treaties which closed
the Revolutionary War the provinces of East and West Florida were ceded
by England to Spain. West Florida was the region lying between the
Appalachicola and the Mississippi rivers, including the southernmost
portions of the present states of Alabama and Mississippi. By the treaty
between Great Britain and the United States, the northern boundary of
this province was described by the thirty-first parallel of latitude;
but Spain denied the right of these powers to place the boundary so low.
Her troops still held Natchez, and she maintained that the boundary must
be placed a hundred miles farther north, starting from the Mississippi
at the mouth of the Yazoo River, near the present site of Vicksburg. Now
the treaty between Great Britain and the United States contained a
secret article, wherein it was provided that if England could contrive
to keep West Florida, instead of surrendering it to Spain, then the
boundary should start at the Yazoo. This showed that both England and
the United States were willing to yield the one to the other a strip of
territory which both agreed in withholding from Spain. Presently the
Spanish court got hold of the secret article, and there was great
indignation. Here was England giving to the Americans a piece of land
which she knew, and the Americans knew, was recently a part of West
Florida, and therefore belonged to Spain! Castilian grandees went to bed
and dreamed of invincible armadas. Congress was promptly informed that,
until this affair should be set right, the Americans need not expect the
Spanish government to make any treaty of commerce with them; and
furthermore, let no American sloop or barge dare to show itself on the
Mississippi below the Yazoo, under penalty of confiscation. When these
threats were heard in America, there was great excitement everywhere,
but it assumed opposite phases in the north and in the south. The
merchants of New York and Boston cared little more about the Mississippi
River than about Timbuctoo, but they were extremely anxious to see a
commercial treaty concluded with Spain. On the other hand, the
backwoodsmen of Kentucky and the state of Franklin cared nothing for the
trade on the ocean, but they would not sit still while their corn and
their pork were confiscated on the way to New Orleans. The people of
Virginia sympathized with the backwoodsmen, but her great statesmen
realized the importance of both interests and the danger of a conflict
between them.
[Sidenote: Gardoqui and Jay.]
[Sidenote: Threats of secession in Kentucky and in New England, 1786.]
The Spanish envoy, Gardoqui, arrived in the summer of 1784, and had many
interviews with Jay, who was then secretary for foreign affairs.
Gardoqui set forth that his royal master was graciously pleased to deal
leniently with the Americans, and would confer one favour upon them, but
could not confer two. He was ready to enter into a treaty of commerce
with us, but not until we should have renounced all claim to the
navigation of the Mississippi River below the Yazoo. Here the Spaniard
was inexorable. A year of weary argument passed by, and he had not
budged an inch. At last, in despair, Jay advised Congress, for the sake
of the commercial treaty, to consent to the closing of the Mississippi,
but only for twenty-five years. As the rumour of this went abroad among
the settlements south of the Ohio, there was an outburst of wrath, to
which an incident that now occurred gave added virulence. A North
Carolinian trader, named Amis, sailed down the Mississippi with a cargo
of pots and kettles and barrels of flour. At Natchez his boat and his
goods were seized by the Spanish officers, and he was left to make his
way home afoot through several hundred miles of wilderness. The story of
his wrongs flew from one log-cabin to another, until it reached the
distant northwestern territory. In the neighbourhood of Vincennes there
were Spanish traders, and one of them kept a shop in the town. The shop
was sacked by a band of American soldiers, and an attempt was made to
incite the Indians to attack the Spaniards. Indignation meetings were
held in Kentucky. The people threatened to send a force of militia down
the river and capture Natchez and New Orleans; and a more dangerous
threat was made. Should the northeastern states desert them and adopt
Jay's suggestion, they vowed they would secede, and throw themselves
upon Great Britain for protection. On the other hand, there was great
agitation in the seaboard towns of Massachusetts. They were disgusted
with the backwoodsmen for making such a fuss about nothing, and with the
people of the southern states for aiding and abetting them; and during
this turbulent summer of 1786, many persons were heard to declare that,
in case Jay's suggestion should not be adopted, it would be high time
for the New England states to secede from the Union, and form a
confederation by themselves. The situation was dangerous in the extreme.
Had the question been forced to an issue, the southern states would
never have seen their western territories go and offer themselves to
Great Britain. Sooner than that, they would have broken away from the
northern states. But New Jersey and Pennsylvania now came over to the
southern side, and Rhode Island, moving in her eccentric orbit,
presently joined them; and thus the treaty was postponed for the
present, and the danger averted.
[Sidenote: Washington's views on the importance of canals between east
and west.]
[Sidenote: His far-sighted genius and self-devotion.]
This lamentable dispute was watched by Washington with feelings of
gravest concern. From an early age he had indulged in prophetic dreams
of the grandeur of the coming civilization in America, and had looked to
the country beyond the mountains as the field in which the next
generation was to find room for expansion. Few had been more efficient
than he in aiding the great scheme of Pitt for overthrowing the French
power in America, and he understood better than most men of his time how
much that scheme implied. In his early journeys in the wilderness he had
given especial attention to the possibilities of water connection
between the east and west, and he had bought for himself and surveyed
many extensive tracts of land beyond the mountains. The subject was a
favourite one with him, and he looked at it from both a commercial and a
political point of view. What we most needed, he said in 1770, were easy
transit lines between east and west, as "the channel of conveyance of
the extensive and valuable trade of a rising empire." Just before
resigning his commission in 1783 Washington had explored the route
through the Mohawk Valley, afterward taken first by the Erie Canal, and
then by the New York Central Railroad, and had prophesied its commercial
importance in the present century. Soon after reaching his home at Mount
Vernon, he turned his attention to the improvement of intercourse with
the west through the valley of the Potomac. The east and west, he said,
must be cemented together by interests in common; otherwise they will
break asunder. Without commercial intercourse they will cease to
understand each other, and will thus be ripe for disagreement. It is
easy for mental habits, as well as merchandise, to glide down stream,
and the connections of the settlers beyond the mountains all centre in
New Orleans, which is in the hands of a foreign and hostile power. No
one can tell what complications may arise from this, argued Washington;
"let us bind these people to us by a chain that can never be broken;"
and with characteristic energy he set to work at once to establish that
line of communication that has since grown into the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal, and into the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. During the three years
preceding the meeting of the Federal Convention he was largely occupied
with this work. In 1785 he became president of a company for extending
the navigation of the Potomac and James rivers, and the legislature of
Virginia passed an act vesting him with one hundred and fifty shares in
the stock of the company, in order to testify their "sense of his
unexampled merits." But Washington refused the testimonial, and declined
to take any pay for his services, because he wished to arouse the people
to the political importance of the undertaking, and felt that his words
would have more weight if he were known to have no selfish interest in
it. His sole purpose, as he repeatedly said, was to strengthen the
spirit of union by cementing the eastern and western regions together.
At this time he could ill afford to give his services without pay, for
his long absence in war-time had sadly impaired his estate. But such was
Washington.
[Sidenote: Maryland confers with Virginia regarding the navigation of
the Potomac, 1785.]
In order to carry out the enterprise of extending the navigation of the
Potomac, it became necessary for the two states Virginia and Maryland to
act in concert; and early in 1785 a joint commission of the two states
met for consultation at Washington's house at Mount Vernon. A compact
insuring harmonious coöperation was prepared by the commissioners; and
then, as Washington's scheme involved the connection of the head waters
of the Potomac with those of the Ohio, it was found necessary to invite
Pennsylvania to become a party to the compact. Then Washington took the
occasion to suggest that Maryland and Virginia, while they were about
it, should agree upon a uniform system of duties and other commercial
regulations, and upon a uniform currency; and these suggestions were
sent, together with the compact, to the legislatures of the two states.
Great things were destined to come from these modest beginnings. Just as
in the Yorktown campaign, there had come into existence a multifarious
assemblage of events, apparently unconnected with one another, and all
that was needed was the impulse given by Washington's far-sighted genius
to set them all at work, surging, swelling, and hurrying straight
forward to a decisive result.
[Sidenote: Madison's motion; a step in advance, 1785.]
Late in 1785, when the Virginia legislature had wrangled itself into
imbecility over the question of clothing Congress with power over trade,
Madison hit upon an expedient. He prepared a motion to the effect that
commissioners from all the states should hold a meeting, and discuss the
best method of securing a uniform treatment of commercial questions; but
as he was most conspicuous among the advocates of a more perfect union,
he was careful not to present the motion himself. Keeping in the
background, he persuaded another member--John Tyler, father of the
president of that name, a fierce zealot for state rights--to make the
motion. The plan, however, was "so little acceptable that it was not
then persisted in," and the motion was laid on the table. But Madison
knew what was coming from Maryland, and bided his time. After some weeks
it was announced that Maryland had adopted the compact made at Mount
Vernon concerning jurisdiction over the Potomac. Virginia instantly
replied by adopting it also. Then it was suggested, in the report from
Maryland, that Delaware, as well as Pennsylvania, ought to be consulted,
since the scheme should rightly include a canal between the Delaware
River and the Chesapeake Bay. And why not also consult with these states
about a uniform system of duties? If two states can agree upon these
matters, why not four? And still further, said the Maryland
message,--dropping the weightiest part of the proposal into a
subordinate clause, just as women are said to put the quintessence of
their letters into the postscript,--might it not be well enough, if we
are going to have such a conference, to invite commissioners from all
the thirteen states to attend it? An informal discussion can hurt
nobody. The conference of itself can settle nothing; and if four states
can take part in it, why not thirteen? Here was the golden opportunity.
The Madison-Tyler motion was taken up from the table and carried.
Commissioners from all the states were invited to meet on the first
Monday of September, 1786, at Annapolis,--a safe place, far removed from
the influence of that dread tyrant, the Congress, and from wicked
centres of trade, such as New York and Boston. It was the governor of
Virginia who sent the invitations. It may not amount to much, wrote
Madison to Monroe, but "the expedient is better than nothing; and, as
the recommendation of additional powers to Congress is within the
purview of the commission, it may possibly lead to better consequences
than at first occur."
[Sidenote: Convention at Annapolis, Sept. 11, 1786.]
[Sidenote: Hamilton's address; a further step in advance.]
The seed dropped by Washington had fallen on fruitful soil. At first it
was to be just a little meeting of two or three states to talk about the
Potomac River and some projected canals, and already it had come to be a
meeting of all the states to discuss some uniform system of legislation
on the subject of trade. This looked like progress, yet when the
convention was gathered at Annapolis, on the 11th of September, the
outlook was most discouraging. Commissioners were there from Virginia,
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Massachusetts and New
Hampshire, Rhode Island and North Carolina, had duly appointed
commissioners, but they were not there. It is curious to observe that
Maryland, which had been so earnest in the matter, had nevertheless now
neglected to appoint commissioners; and no action had been taken by
Georgia, South Carolina, or Connecticut. With only five states
represented, the commissioners did not think it worth while to go on
with their work. But before adjourning they adopted an address, written
by Alexander Hamilton, and sent it to all the states. All the
commissioners present had been empowered to consider how far a uniform
commercial system might be essential to the permanent harmony of the
states. But New Jersey had taken a step in advance, and instructed her
delegates "to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial
regulations _and other important matters_ might be necessary to the
common interest and permanent harmony of the several states." _And other
important matters_,--thus again was the weightiest part of the business
relegated to a subordinate clause. So gingerly was the great
question--so dreaded, yet so inevitable--approached! This reference to
"other matters" was pronounced by the commissioners to be a vast
improvement on the original plan; and Hamilton's address now urged that
commissioners be appointed by all the states, to meet in convention at
Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May, "to devise such
further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the
constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the
Union, and to report to Congress such an act as, when agreed to by them,
and confirmed by the legislatures of every state, would effectually
provide for the same." The report of the commissioners was brought
before Congress in October, in the hope that Congress would earnestly
recommend to the several states the course of action therein suggested.
But Nathan Dane and Rufus King of Massachusetts, intent upon
technicalities, succeeded in preventing this. According to King, a
convention was an irregular body, which had no right to propose changes
in the organic law of the land, and the state legislatures could not
properly confirm the acts of such a body, or take notice of them.
Congress was the only source from which such proposals could properly
emanate. These arguments were pleasing to the self-love of Congress, and
it refused to sanction the plan of the Annapolis commissioners.
[Sidenote: New York defeats the impost amendment.]
In an ordinary season this would perhaps have ended the matter, but the
winter of 1786-87 was not an ordinary season. All the troubles above
described seemed to culminate just at this moment. The paper-money craze
in so many of the states, the shameful deeds of Rhode Island, the riots
in Vermont and New Hampshire, the Shays rebellion in Massachusetts, the
dispute with Spain, and the consequent imminent danger of separation
between north and south had all come together; and the feeling of
thoughtful men and women throughout the country was one of real
consternation. The last ounce was now to be put upon the camel's back in
the failure of the impost amendment. In 1783, when the cessions of
western lands were creating a national domain, a promising plan had been
devised for relieving the country of its load of debt, and furnishing
Congress with money for its current expenses. All the money coming from
sales of the western folkland was to be applied to reducing and wiping
out the principal of the public debt. Then the interest of this debt
must be provided for; and to that end Congress had recommended an
impost, or system of custom-house duties, upon liquors, sugars, teas,
coffees, cocoa, molasses, and pepper. This impost was to be kept up for
twenty-five years only, and the collectors were to be appointed by the
several states, each for its own ports. Then for the current expenses of
the government, supplementary funds were needed; and these were to be
assessed upon the several states, each of which might raise its quota as
it saw fit. Such was the original plan; but it soon turned out that the
only available source of revenue was the national domain, which had thus
been nothing less than the principal thread which had held the Union
together. As for the impost, it had never been possible to get a
sufficient number of states to agree upon it, and of the quotas for
current expenses, as we have seen, very little had found its way to the
federal treasury. Under these difficulties, it had been proposed that an
amendment to the articles of confederation should endow Congress with
the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the collectors; and
by the summer of 1786, after endless wrangling, twelve states had
consented to the amendment. But, in order that an amendment should be
adopted, unanimous consent was necessary. The one delinquent state,
which thus blocked the wheels of the confederacy, was New York. She had
her little system of duties all nicely arranged for what seemed to be
her own interests, and she would not surrender this system to Congress.
Upon the neighbouring states her tariff system bore hard, and especially
upon New Jersey. In 1786 this little state flatly refused to pay her
quota until New York should stop discriminating against her trade.
Nothing which occurred in that troubled year caused more alarm than
this, for it could not be denied that such a declaration seemed little
less than an act of secession on the part of New Jersey. The arguments
of a congressional committee at last prevailed upon the state to rescind
her declaration. At the same time there came the final struggle in New
York over the impost amendment, against which Governor Clinton had
firmly set his face. There was a fierce fight, in which Hamilton's most
strenuous efforts succeeded in carrying the amendment in part, but not
until it had been clogged with a condition that made it useless.
Congress, it was declared, might have the revenue, but New York must
appoint the collectors; she was not going to have federal officials
rummaging about her docks. The legislature well knew that to grant the
amendment in such wise was not to grant it at all, but simply to reopen
the whole question. Such was the result. Congress expostulated in vain.
On the 15th of February, 1787, the matter was reconsidered in the New
York legislature, and the impost amendment was defeated.
[Sidenote: Sudden changes in popular sentiment.]
Thus, only three months before the Federal Convention was to meet, if
indeed it was ever to meet, Congress was decisively informed that it
would not be allowed to take any effectual measures for raising a
revenue. There now seemed nothing left for Congress to do but adopt the
recommendation of the Annapolis commissioners, and give its sanction to
the proposed convention. Madison, however, had not waited for this, but
had prevailed upon the Virginia legislature to go on and appoint its
delegates to the convention. The events of the year had worked a change
in the popular sentiment in Virginia; people were more afraid of
anarchy, and not quite so much afraid of centralization; and now, under
Madison's lead, Virginia played her trump card and chose George
Washington as one of her delegates. As soon as this was known, there was
an outburst of joy throughout the land. All at once the people began
everywhere to feel an interest in the proposed convention, and presently
Massachusetts changed her attitude. Up to this time Massachusetts had
been as obstinate in her assertion of local independence, and as
unwilling to strengthen the hands of Congress, as any of the thirteen
states, except New York and Rhode Island. But the Shays rebellion had
served as a useful object-lesson. Part of the distress in Massachusetts
could be traced to the inability of Congress to pay debts which it owed
to her citizens. It was felt that the time had come when the question of
a national revenue must be seriously considered. Every week saw fresh
converts to the party which called for a stronger government. Then came
the news that Virginia had chosen delegates, and that Washington was one
of them; then that New Jersey had followed the example; then that
Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Delaware, had chosen delegates. It was
time for Massachusetts to act, and Rufus King now brought the matter up
in Congress. His scruples as to the legality of the proceeding had not
changed, and accordingly he moved that Congress should of itself propose
a convention at Philadelphia, identical with the one which the Annapolis
commissioners had already recommended. The motion was carried, and in
this way Congress formally approved and adopted what was going on.
Massachusetts immediately chose delegates, and was followed by New York.
In April, Georgia and South Carolina followed suit. Connecticut and
Maryland came on in May, and New Hampshire, somewhat tardily, in June.
Of the thirteen states, Rhode Island alone refused to take any part in
the proceedings.
[Sidenote: The Federal Convention meets at Philadelphia, May 14-25,
1787.]
The convention held its meetings in that plain brick building in
Philadelphia already immortalized as the place from which the
Declaration of Independence was published to the world. The work which
these men were undertaking was to determine whether that Declaration had
been for the blessing or the injury of America and of mankind. That they
had succeeded in assembling here at all was somewhat remarkable, when we
think of the curious medley of incidents that led to it. At no time in
this distressed period would a frank and abrupt proposal for a
convention to remodel the government have found favour. Such proposals,
indeed, had been made, beginning with that of Pelatiah Webster in 1781,
and they had all failed to break through the crust of a truly English
conservatism and dread of centralized power. Now, through what some
might have called a strange chapter of accidents, before the element of
causal sequence in it all had become so manifest as it is to us to-day,
this remarkable group of men had been brought together in a single room,
while even yet but few of them realized how thoroughly and exhaustively
reconstructive their work was to be. To most of them it was not clear
whether they were going merely to patch up the articles of
confederation, or to strike out into a new and very different path.
There were a few who entertained far-reaching purposes; the rest were
intelligent critics rather than constructive thinkers; the result was
surprising to all. It is worth our while to pause for a moment, and
observe the character and composition of one of the most memorable
assemblies the world has ever seen. Mr. Gladstone says that just "as the
British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded
from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most
wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose
of man."[6] Let us now see who the men were who did this wonderful
work,--this Iliad, or Parthenon, or Fifth Symphony, of statesmanship. We
shall not find that they were all great geniuses. Such is never the case
in such an assembly. There are not enough great geniuses to go around;
and if there were, it is questionable if the result would be
satisfactory. In such discussions the points which impress the more
ordinary and less far-sighted members are sure to have great value;
especially when we bear in mind that the object of such an assembly is
not merely to elaborate a plan, but to get the great mass of people,
including the brick-layers and hod-carriers, to understand it well
enough to vote for it. An ideally perfect assembly of law-makers will
therefore contain two or three men of original constructive genius, two
or three leading spirits eminent for shrewdness and tact, a dozen or
more excellent critics representing various conflicting interests, and a
rank and file of thoroughly respectable, commonplace men, unfitted for
shining in the work of the meeting, but admirably competent to proclaim
its results and get their friends and neighbours to adopt them. And in
such an assembly, even if it be such as we call ideally perfect, we must
allow something for the presence of a few hot-headed and irreconcilable
members,--men of inflexible mind, who cannot adapt themselves to
circumstances, and will refuse to play when they see the game going
against them.
[Sidenote: The men who were assembled.]
All these points are well illustrated in the assemblage of men that
framed our Federal Constitution. In its composition, this group of men
left nothing to be desired. In its strength and in its weakness, it was
an ideally perfect assembly. There were fifty-five men, all of them
respectable for family and for personal qualities,--men who had been
well educated, and had done something whereby to earn recognition in
these troubled times. Twenty-nine were university men, graduates of
Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, William and Mary, Oxford, Glasgow,
and Edinburgh. Twenty-six were not university men, and among these were
Washington and Franklin. Of the illustrious citizens who, for their
public services, would naturally have been here, John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson were in Europe; Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry
Lee disapproved of the convention, and remained at home; and the
greatest man of Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene, who--one likes to
think--might have succeeded in bringing his state into the convention,
had lately died of a sun-stroke, at the early age of forty-four.
[Sidenote: James Madison.]
Of the two most famous men present little need be said. The names of
Washington and Franklin stood for supreme intelligence and consummate
tact. Franklin had returned to this country two years before, and was
now president of Pennsylvania. He was eighty-one years of age, the
oldest man in the convention, as Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, aged
twenty-six, was the youngest. The two most profound and original
thinkers in the company were but little older than Dayton. Alexander
Hamilton was thirty, James Madison thirty-six. Among political writers,
these two men must be ranked in the same order with Aristotle,
Montesquieu, and Locke; and the "Federalist," their joint production, is
the greatest treatise on government that has ever been written. John
Jay, who contributed a few pages to this immortal volume, had not been
sent to the convention, because New York did not wish to have it
succeed. Along with Hamilton, New York sent two commonplace men, Robert
Yates and John Lansing, who were extreme and obstinate Antifederalists;
and the action of Hamilton, who was thus prevented from carrying the
vote of his own state for any measure which he might propose, was in
this way sadly embarrassed. For another reason, Hamilton failed to
exert as much influence in the convention as one would have expected
from his profound thought and his brilliant eloquence. Scarcely any of
these men entertained what we should now call extreme democratic views.
Scarcely any, perhaps, had that intense faith in the ultimate good sense
of the people which was the most powerful characteristic of Jefferson.
But Hamilton went to the other extreme, and expressed his distrust of
popular government too plainly. His views were too aristocratic and his
preference for centralization was too pronounced to carry conviction to
his hearers. The leading part in the convention fell, therefore, to
James Madison, a young man somewhat less brilliant than Hamilton, but
superior to him in sobriety and balance of powers. Madison used to be
called the "Father of the Constitution," and it is true that the
government under which we live is more his work than that of any other
one man. From early youth his life had been devoted to the study of
history and the practice of statesmanship. He was a graduate of
Princeton College, an earnest student, familiar with all the best
literature of political science from Aristotle down to his own time, and
he had given especial attention to the history of federal government in
ancient Greece, and in Switzerland and Holland. At the age of
twenty-five he had taken part in the Virginia convention which
instructed the delegates from that state in Congress to bring forward
the Declaration of Independence. During the last part of the war he was
an active and influential member of Congress, where no one equalled or
approached him for knowledge of English history and constitutional law.
In 1784 he had returned to the Virginia legislature, and been foremost
in securing the passage of the great act which gave complete religious
freedom to the people of that state. No man understood better than he
the causes of the alarming weakness of the federal government, and of
the commercial disturbances and popular discontent of the time; nor had
any one worked more zealously or more adroitly in bringing about the
meeting of this convention. As he stood here now, a leader in the
debate, there was nothing grand or imposing in his appearance. He was
small of stature and slight in frame, like Hamilton, but he had none of
Hamilton's personal magnetism. His manner was shy and prim, and blushes
came often to his cheeks. At the same time, he had that rare dignity of
unconscious simplicity which characterizes the earnest and disinterested
scholar. He was exceedingly sweet-tempered, generous, and kind, but very
hard to move from a path which, after long reflection, he had decided to
be the right one. He looked at politics judicially, and was so little of
a party man that on several occasions he was accused (quite wrongfully,
as I hope hereafter to prove) of gross inconsistency. The position of
leadership, which he won so early and kept so long, he held by sheer
force of giant intelligence, sleepless industry, and an integrity which
no man ever doubted. But he was above all things a man of peace. When in
after years, as president of the United States, he was called upon to
manage a great war, he was out of place, and his reputation for supreme
ability was temporarily lowered. Here in the Federal Convention we are
introduced to him at the noblest and most useful moment of his life.
[Sidenote: Other leading members.]
Of the fifty-five men here assembled, Washington, Franklin, Hamilton,
and Madison were of the first order of ability. Many others in the room
were gentlemen of more than ordinary talent and culture. There was John
Dickinson, who had moved from Pennsylvania into Delaware, and now came
to defend the equal rights of the smaller states. There was James Wilson
of Pennsylvania, born and educated in Scotland, one of the most learned
jurists this country has ever seen. Beside him sat the financier, Robert
Morris, and his namesake Gouverneur Morris of Morrisania, near the city
of New York, the originator of our decimal currency, and one of the
far-sighted projectors of the Erie Canal. Then there was John Rutledge
of South Carolina, who ever since the Stamp Act Congress had been the
mainstay of his state; and with him were the two able and gallant
Pinckneys. Caleb Strong, afterward ten times governor of Massachusetts,
was a typical Puritan, hard-headed and supremely sensible; his
colleague, Rufus King, already distinguished for his opposition to negro
slavery, was a man of brilliant attainments. And there were George
Wythe, the chancellor of Virginia, and Daniel Carroll of Maryland, who
had played a prominent part in the events which led to the creation of a
national domain. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, afterward chief
justice of the United States, was one of the ablest lawyers of his
time; with him were Roger Sherman and William Johnson, the latter a
Fellow of the Royal Society, and afterward president of Columbia
College. The New Jersey delegation, consisting of William Livingston,
David Brearley, William Paterson, and Jonathan Dayton, was a very strong
one; and as to New Hampshire, it is enough to mention the name of John
Langdon. Besides all these there were some twenty of less mark, men who
said little, but listened and voted. And then there were the
irreconcilables, Yates and Lansing, the two Antifederalists from New
York; and four men of much greater ability, who took an important part
in the proceedings, but could not be induced to accept the result. These
four were Luther Martin of Maryland; George Mason and Edmund Randolph of
Virginia; and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.
When these men had assembled in Independence Hall, they chose George
Washington president of the convention. The doors were locked, and an
injunction of strict secrecy was put upon every one. The results of
their work were known in the following September, when the draft of the
Federal Constitution was published. But just what was said and done in
this secret conclave was not revealed until fifty years had passed, and
the aged James Madison, the last survivor of those who sat there, had
been gathered to his fathers. He kept a journal of the proceedings,
which was published after his death, and upon the interesting story told
in that journal we have now to enter.