"SHAYS'S REBELLION"--KENT ON MASSACHUSETTS--CONDUCT OF A NORTHERN
GOVERNMENT TO NORTHERN REBELS--THE "WHISKY INSURRECTION"--HOW
WASHINGTON TREATED A REBELLION--SECESSION OF NEW-ENGLAND BIRTH--THE
WAR OF 1812--BANCROFT ON 1676--THE BACONISTS--AN APPEAL.
By the last of March General Sherman had entered Goldsboro, and
effected his long meditated junction with General Schofield. He
himself at once proceeded to Southern Virginia to hold a conference
with General Grant, while the grand army lay quiet a few days to rest,
recruit, and prepare for its further advance. Leaving them there, I
venture to make a digression, suggested by the concluding lines of the
preceding number of these sketches--a digression having for its object
the consideration of the present policy of the Federal Government
toward vanquished rebels, as compared with its policy in former
cases of rebellion against its authority, even more inexcusable and
unprovoked.
Chancellor Kent, adverting to the first rebellion against the
government of this country, known in history as "Shays's Rebellion,"
pays the State of Massachusetts the following well-merited compliment
on her conduct upon its suppression: "The clemency of Massachusetts
in 1786, after an unprovoked and wanton rebellion, in not inflicting
a single capital punishment, contributed, by the judicious manner in
which its clemency was applied, to the more firm establishment of
their government." (Com. on Am. Law. Vol. i. p. 283.) What were the
circumstances of this first rebellion?
In 1786, the Legislature of that State laid taxes which were expected
to produce near a million of dollars. The country had just emerged
from the war of the Revolution in an exhausted and impoverished
condition. Litigation abounded, and the people, galled by the pressure
of their debts and of these taxes, manifested a spirit of revolt
against their government. From loudly-expressed complaints they
proceeded to meetings, and finally took up arms. They insisted that
the courts should be closed; they clamored against the lawyers and
their exorbitant fees, against salaried public officers; and they
demanded the issue of paper money. The Governor of Massachusetts,
John Bowdoin, convened the Legislature, and endeavored to allay the
general and growing mutiny by concessions; but the excitement still
increasing, the militia were ordered out, and Congress voted a supply
of thirteen thousand men to aid the State Government. The leader of
the insurrection was Daniel Shays, late a captain in the Continental
army. At the head of one thousand men he prevented the session of
the Supreme Court at Worcester, and his army soon increasing to two
thousand, they marched to Springfield, to seize the national arsenal.
Being promptly repulsed by the commandant there, they fled, leaving
several killed and wounded. General Lincoln, at the head of four
thousand militia, pursued them to Amherst, and thence to Pelham. On his
approach they offered to disperse on condition of a general pardon;
but General Lincoln had no authority to treat. They then retreated to
Petersham. Lincoln pursued, and pushing on all night through intense
cold and a driving snow-storm, he accomplished an unprecedented march
of forty miles, and early next morning completely surprised the rebels
in Petersham, taking one hundred and fifty prisoners, and dispersing
the rest so effectually that they never rallied again. Many took
refuge in New-Hampshire and the neighboring States, where they were
afterward arrested on requisition of Massachusetts. This ill-sustained
and wanton rebellion was easily quelled. Fourteen of the prisoners
were convicted of treason, but not one was executed, and the terms of
pardon imposed were so moderate that eight hundred took the benefit of
them. Prudence dictated this moderation and clemency, for it was known
that at least a third of the population sympathized with the rebels. It
was a significant fact that at the ensuing election, Governor Bowdoin,
who had distinguished himself by his zeal and energy, was defeated,
and other public officers who had been especially active against the
rebels lost their seats, and were replaced by more popular men. Daniel
Shays lived to a good old age, and died still in the enjoyment of his
revolutionary pension.[6] Such was the generous policy of a Northern
government to Northern rebels in the first rebellion.
The second rebellion, commonly called the "Whisky Insurrection" of
Western Pennsylvania, assumed more formidable proportions, and was
instigated by even more sordid and inexcusable motives. In 1784, the
distillers of that part of the State were resolved to deny the right
of excise to the Federal Government. The excise law, though very
unpopular, had been carried into execution in every part of the United
States, and in most of the counties of Pennsylvania; but west of the
Alleghany the people rose in arms against the Government officers,
prevented them from exercising their functions, maltreated them, and
compelled them to fly from the district, and finally called a meeting
"to take into consideration the situation of the western country." They
seized upon the mail, and opened the letters to discover what reports
had been sent of their proceedings to Philadelphia, and by whom. They
addressed a circular letter to the officers of the militia in the
disaffected counties, calling on them to rendezvous at Braddock's
Field on the first of August, with arms in good order, and four days'
provisions, an "expedition," it was added, "in which they could have
an opportunity of displaying their military talent, and of serving
the country." This insurrection was headed by David Bradford, the
prosecuting attorney for Washington county, and was secretly fomented
by agents of the French Republic, who desired nothing better than to
see the downfall of Washington's administration, and the reign of
anarchy inaugurated on this continent. A large body of men, estimated
at from five to ten thousand, met on the day appointed at Braddock's
Field. Bradford took upon himself the military command. Albert Gallatin
(lately a rejected United States Senator, on the ground that he had
not been a resident of the State the length of time prescribed for
foreigners) was appointed Secretary. "Cowards and traitors" were freely
denounced, and those who advocated moderate measures were over-awed and
silenced. The rioters then marched to Pittsburgh, which they would have
burned but for the conciliatory conduct of the people of the town. They
burned the houses of several obnoxious men, compelled them to leave
the country, and then dispersed. It had been Bradford's design to get
possession of Fort Pitt, and seize the arms and ammunition there; but
not being supported in this by the militia officers, he had abandoned
it. All the remaining excise officers in the district were now forced
to leave. Many outrages were committed, houses burned, citizens
insulted, and a reign of terror completely established.
The news of this formidable and wide-spread insurrection reaching
Philadelphia, the President issued a proclamation reciting the acts
of treason, commanding the insurgents to disperse, and warning others
against abetting them. This was the first of such proclamations ever
issued in this country, and was no doubt the model proposed, to
himself, and followed by President Lincoln in 1861. But Washington, at
the same time, appointed three commissioners--a member of his cabinet,
a Pennsylvania United States Senator, and a judge of the Supreme
Court in that State--to repair to the scene of action, confer with
the insurgents, and make every practicable attempt toward a peaceful
adjustment. The policy of calling out the militia was discussed in the
Cabinet. Hamilton and Knox were in favor of it. Randolph opposed it,
and so did Governor Mifflin, who was consulted, on the ground that a
resort to force might influence and augment the excitement and unite
the whole State in rebellion. Washington finally determined to take
the responsibility on himself and act with vigor, since if such open
and daring resistance to the laws were not met and checked at once,
it might find many imitators in other parts of the country, then so
agitated and unsettled. The commissioners having failed to come to
any satisfactory terms with the rebels, the opinion rapidly gained
ground that the interposition of an armed force was indispensable.
A body of fifteen thousand militia was called out from the States
of Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and the whole
force put under the command of Governor (and General) Henry Lee, of
Virginia,[7] the father of _our_ General Robert E. Lee. The news
that this army was on the march materially increased the numbers and
influence of the moderate party in Western Pennsylvania. The Standing
Committee of the insurgents met and recommended submission, which was
ably and zealously advocated by Albert Gallatin and Breckenridge.
Nothing decisive was agreed upon, and pending another convention,
many of the ring-leaders fled from the State; David Bradford, who had
been foremost among them, being the first to seek safety in flight to
New-Orleans.
A resolution of submission was passed at the second convention, and
a committee of two, one of whom, Findley, was a member of Congress,
appointed to convey it to the President at Carlisle. The President
received this committee courteously, but the march of the troops was
not arrested. A third convention being held, and resolutions to pay
all excise duties and recommending the surrender of all delinquents
having passed, General Lee issued a proclamation granting an amnesty
to all who had submitted, and calling on the people to take the oath
of allegiance to the United States. Orders were issued and executed
to seize those offenders who had not submitted, and send them to
Philadelphia. Of those who were tried before the Circuit Court, only
two were found guilty of capital offenses, one of arson and the
other of robbing the mail; and both were ultimately pardoned by the
President. In less than four months from the burning of the first
house, the insurrection was completely defeated, and entire order
restored. A force of twenty-five hundred militia was retained in
the disaffected district during the ensuing winter, under command of
General Morgan. Provision was made to indemnify those whose property
had been destroyed, and an appropriation of more than a million of
dollars was made by Congress to defray the expenses incurred. Albert
Gallatin, who was then a hardly naturalized foreigner, notwithstanding
the part he had taken in the earlier stages of the rebellion, by
his subsequent moderate counsels had regained the confidence of the
Government, and being the choice of the people of that district, was
elected to the next Congress, taking his seat without any opposition
or word of rebuke. His subsequent brilliant career is now part of our
national history. Findley, who was a member of Congress at the time of
the outbreak, and was at one time prominent among the sympathizers,
though he acted at no time with decision, did not forfeit his seat by
his participation in the revolt. He appeared in his place in Congress
the ensuing November. He afterward wrote an elaborate history of the
insurrection and a vindication of himself and his friends. According
to him the troops sent to quell the rebellion would have left more
emphatic tokens of their desire for vengeance on the rebels, "if it had
not been for the moderation of Washington and his resistless weight of
character in the execution of his purposes."[8]
The prompt, energetic, and efficient measures of the Administration
in arresting the progress of this revolt, and its magnanimity
and moderation toward the offenders afterward, contributed very
materially to strengthen the Government at a critical period of its
existence, to give it dignity and influence, and to rally round it
the best affections of the people. And its patience and forbearance
had been somewhat tried by the State of Pennsylvania in those days.
There had been many symptoms of instability in the "Keystone" of the
newly-erected arch of civil liberty. There were two examples of mutiny
among the Pennsylvania troops during the Revolution, and two popular
insurrections in regard to the excise laws, and this one had opened
with the exhibition of a temper ferocious and reckless. The estimate
by the Administration of the danger of the rebellion in 1794 may be
inferred from the fact that the number of troops called for to suppress
it was greater, in proportion to the then population of the United
States, than the call made by President Lincoln in 1861 to the present
population. In 1790, the white population of the United States was
3,172,464. The troops called out in '94 were 15,000. In 1860, the white
population was 26,690,206. Troops ordered out, 75,000. The proportion
in 1794 was greater, according to these figures, in the ratio of 389 to
354, without allowing for increase from 1790 to '94. And the magnitude
of the danger did indeed fully justify all the apprehensions and
precautions of the guardians of the state. The young republic was but
newly formed, the Government scarcely settled. Many prominent and able
men in different parts of the country were turning admiring eyes toward
France in her wild career, others toward some vision of a monarchical
form. Emissaries from the distracted states of the Old World were
prompt and zealous to foment discords and disturbances, and precedents
were wanting every day to meet new issues that arose continually. The
situation needed all the wisdom, prudence, and magnanimity of the
illustrious man called by Providence to guide the first steps of a
great nation.
Does any one hesitate to believe that if we had had a Washington for
President in 1860 and 1861, the late war would never have taken place;
that secession would never have been accomplished? How vigorous and
yet how conciliatory would have been the measures. The seventy-five
thousand would no doubt have been called for, but commissioners of
peace to the "wayward sisters" would have preceded them. In our day it
was the insurgents who sent commissioners. The best men of the South
were a month in Washington City, vainly endeavoring for a hearing,
vainly hoping for some oiler of conciliation or adjustment, and deluded
by promises from the highest officials that were never meant to be
fulfilled.
Does any one doubt what would have been Washington's conduct of the
grand army through its unparalleled and immortal march of triumph? Even
had he not been guided by Christian principles of honor and humanity,
he would at least have emulated the example and shared the glory of
the noble heathen of whom it was said: "_Postremo signa, et tabulas,
ceteraque ornamenta Græcorum oppidorum, quæ ceteri tollenda esse
arbitrantur, ea sibi ille ne visenda quidem existimavit. Itaque omnes
quidem nunc in his locis Cn. Pompeium sicut aliquem non ex hac urbe
missum, sed de ælo delapsum, intuentur._"[9]
And finally, can any one doubt what his policy would now be toward the
people so lately in arms against their Government? Alas! to him alone,
first in war and first in peace, can the whole of the splendid eulogy
of the Roman orator to the great captain of _his_ day be fittingly
applied: "_Humanitati jam tantâ est, ut difficile dictu sit, utrum
hostes magis virtutem ejus pugnantis timuerint, an mansuetudinem victi
delixerint_."[10]
Just twenty years from the time of the second rebellion, the third, and
by far the most evil-disposed, malignant, and far-reaching expression
of hostility to the General Government was organized. The Hartford
Convention indeed never proceeded so far as to make an appeal to arms,
but the spirit that suggested it, and the temper displayed by its
leaders, give it undoubtedly the best claim to have inaugurated the
hateful doctrine of secession.
The war of 1812 with England was, in general, excessively unpopular in
the New-England States. Their commerce was burned; their fisheries were
broken up, and their merchants and ship-owners, who constituted the
wealthiest and most influential class among them, were heavy losers.
The Administration had always been unpopular with them, and now its
policy of embargo, non-importation, non-intercourse, and finally of
war, were sufficient to rouse them into active opposition. This was
manifested in various ways; in the annual addresses of their governors;
in reports of legislative committees; in laws to embarrass the action
of the Federal Executive, as, for instance, forbidding it the use
of any of their jails for the confinement of prisoners of war, and
ordering all their jailers to liberate all British prisoners committed
to their keeping; in refusing to contribute their quota of men for the
support of the war, and even to allow them to march beyond the limits
of their own State. The spirit of disaffection was diligently cherished
by the leaders, and went on increasing in bitterness and extent till
a convention was proposed and agreed upon. On the 15th of December,
1814, there assembled in the city of Hartford twelve delegates from
Massachusetts, seven from Connecticut, four from Rhode Island, three
county delegates from New-Hampshire, and one from Vermont. They sat
with closed doors till the 5th of January, 1815, when they adjourned,
having issued a report setting forth their grievances and aims. The
following extract from a report of the proceedings of the Legislature
will exhibit the spirit that prevailed through the State:
"We believe that this war, so fertile in calamities, and so threatening
in its consequences, has been waged with the worst possible views, and
carried on in the worst possible manner, forming a union of wickedness
and weakness which defies, for a parallel, the annals of the world. We
believe also that its worst effects are yet to come; that loan upon
loan, tax upon tax, and exaction upon exaction, must be imposed, until
the comforts of the present and the hopes of the rising generation are
destroyed. _An impoverished people will be an enslaved people._" Of the
right of the State to prevent the exercise of unconstitutional power
by the General Government, they had no doubt. "A power to regulate
commerce is abused when employed to destroy it, and a voluntary
abuse of power sanctions the right of resistance as much as a direct
and palpable usurpation. The sovereignty reserved to the States was
reserved to protect the citizens from acts of violence by the United
States, as well as for purposes of domestic regulation. We spurn the
idea that the free, sovereign, and independent State of Massachusetts
is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without power to protect
its people, or to defend them from oppression, from whatever quarter
it comes. Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens
of this State oppressed by cruel and unauthorized enactments, this
Legislature is bound to interpose its power, and to wrest from the
oppressor its victim. This is the spirit of our Union."
The manifesto of the Convention did not, could not, use stronger
language. After proposing seven amendments to the Constitution, and
giving reasons for their adoption, they disclaimed all hostility to
that Constitution, and professed only to aim to unite all the friends
of the country of all parties, and obtain their aid in effecting a
change of Federal rulers. Should this be hopeless, they hinted at the
"necessity of more mighty efforts," which were plainly set forth in
their resolutions, and everywhere understood to refer to a secession of
the five New-England States, their consolidation into an independent
government of their own, or alliance with England.[11]
The time chosen for such a display of enmity to the Union was most
opportune for the purposes of the traitors. A war with a foreign foe,
and that foe the most powerful nation on earth, was in progress; the
Administration was greatly embarrassed; the country was rent with
fierce party factions. What would be the issue no human wisdom could
foresee; but that the ruin of the country was not then effected, can
not be attributed to the patriotism of the New-England States. Three
commissioners, appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts, to whom
Connecticut added two others, proceeded to Washington to lay their
resolutions and applications before the Government. But, most happily,
news of the treaty of Ghent and consequent peace arriving at the same
time with these envoys, their mission became the theme of unsparing
taunt and ridicule in the papers, and they returned home without
disburdening themselves of their object. Thus the third rebellion
was snuffed out by events; but its sparks were blown far and wide by
viewless winds, and effected a lodgment where, though smothered for a
generation or two, they yet burned in secret, and at length burst out
in the great conflagration of 1860, which lit the whole horizon and
dyed the very heavens with its crimson. The principles of the Hartford
Convention were the seeds of nullification and secession.
The eminent historian from Massachusetts records in glowing pages the
stifling of the earliest throbs of civil and religious liberty on
this continent in 1676. The earliest martyr in the Bacon Rebellion
against monarchical tyranny was William Drummond, the first Governor
of North-Carolina. His name is written on the beautiful sheet of water
that lies within the tangled brakes of the great swamp on the borders
of the land he loved and served so well. In that rebellion the women
(as at this day) shared the popular enthusiasm. "The child that is
unborn," said Sarah Drummond, "shall rejoice for the good that will
come by the rising of the country." She would not suffer a throb of
fear in her bosom, and in the greatest perils to which her husband was
exposed, she confidently exclaimed, "We shall do well enough," and
continually encouraged the people and inspired the soldiers with her
own enthusiasm. When Edmund Cheesman was arraigned for trial, his wife
declared that but for her he never would have joined the rebellion,
and on her knees begged that she might bear the punishment. Yet these
devoted people saw the cause for which they had risked and lost every
thing in the dust, overthrown, and trampled upon with vindictive fury
by the triumphant royalists. In the judicial trials that followed,
a rigor and merciless severity were exhibited, worthy of the gloomy
judge whose "bloody assize," ten years later, on the western circuit
of England, has left an indelible blot on her history. Twenty-two were
hanged; three others died of cruelty in prison; three more fled before
trial; two escaped after conviction. Nor is it certain when Sir William
Berkeley's thirst for blood would have been appeased if the newly
convened assembly had not voted an address that the Governor "should
spill no more blood." On Berkeley's return to England he was received
with coldness, and his cruelty openly disavowed by the government.
"That old fool," said the kind-hearted Charles II., "has taken more
lives in that naked country than I for the murder of my father."[12]
"More blood was shed," adds the historian, "than, on the action of
our present political system, would be shed for political offenses
in a thousand years." Alas! for the sunny South, the scorched and
consumed South, alas for her! that the prediction of the great American
historian is not history!
Considering this rebellion in the perspective afforded by nearly two
hundred years, it is easy for us to understand how the severity with
which it was punished by the fanatic old royal Governor only drove
the entering-wedge of separation between the mother country and her
colonies in America deeper. The principles of Bacon and his party had
obtained a great hold on the popular mind; and though for years all
tendency to a popular government appeared to be crusted out and forever
silenced, yet they were there, in the hearts of men, silently growing,
nurtured by a deep sense of injustice and wrong, and biding their time.
Just a century from the suppression of the "Baconists," the Declaration
of Independence was adopted; Sarah Drummond's words were verified, and
Bacon and Drummond and Cheesman and Hansford were amply avenged.
It is to such pages of history as these that I would turn the attention
of our Northern friends now. Here they may see how the Father of his
country dealt with his wayward children. How a prompt and dignified
and successful assertion of the rights of the Federal Government were
followed by leniency and generous and prudent forbearance such as a
great government can afford to show, and by which it best exhibits its
strength and its claims to the love and veneration of its people. Here
they may see how a brutal gratification of vengeance, a lust of blood,
like the tiger's spring, overleaps its mark. The hardest lesson to be
learned is moderation in the hour of triumph; the greatest victory to
be achieved is the victory over self.
Where now are the Bowdoins, the Hancocks, the Dexters, the Ames, the
Websters of Massachusetts? Has she no statesman now capable of rising
to the magnanimity which characterized her early history? Has thrice
revolting and thrice pardoned Pennsylvania no representative man who
can rise to the height of the great argument, and vindicate the cause
of a country pillaged and plundered and peeled to an extent of which
the history of civilized humanity affords us no parallel? Is there no
one now to stand up and advocate for Southerners the same measure of
forbearance and generosity that was shown by a Southern President to
Northern rebels?
"O thou that spoilest and wast not spoiled, that dealt treacherously,
and they dealt not treacherously with thee!" haste to the work of
reconciliation and to build up the waste places! Even now on our
thresholds are heard the sounds of the departing feet of those who in
despair for their country, hopeless of peace or of justice, are leaving
our broad, free, noble land for the semi-civilized haciendas of Mexico
or of far-off tropical Brazil. Even now are their journals scattered
freely among us--invitations, beckonings, sneers at the North, flattery
of the South, fair promises, golden lures, every inducement held out
to a high-hearted and fainting people to cast their lot in with them.
Haste to arrest them by some display of returning fraternity and
consideration, ere for them we raise the saddest lament yet born of the
war: "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep sore for
him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native
country!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: For these particulars, I am indebted to Tucker's History
of the United States, vol. i. chap. 4, and to Hildreth's History of the
United States, first series, vol. iii. chap. 45.]
[Footnote 7: My readers will remember the reference in the second
chapter to the capture by this officer of a portion of Tarleton's staff
on Haw River, while engaged in satisfying the claims of a countryman
for forage. No member of General Sherman's command is known to have
suffered a surprise under similar circumstances. Certainly not in this
region!
Washington's characteristic sagacity and humanity were shown in the
selection of General Lee as commander of the forces.]
[Footnote 8: Tucker's History, vol, i. chap. 7. Hildreth's History,
second series, vol. i. chap. 7.]
[Footnote 9: "Lastly, the statues and pictures and other ornaments of
Grecian cities, which other commanders suppose might be carried off, he
indeed thought that they ought not even to have been looked at by him.
Therefore now all the inhabitants in those places look upon Cn. Pompey
as one not sent from this city, but descended from heaven."]
[Footnote 10: "Now, by the exercise of such great humanity it has
become hard to say whether his enemies feared his valor more when they
were fighting, or loved his humanity more when they were conquered."]
[Footnote 11: Tucker's History, vol. iii. chap. 18. Hildreth, vol. iii.
chap. 29.]
[Footnote 12: Bancroft's History, vol. ii. chap. 14.]