THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 1781-1798
The British colonists, who assumed independent legal existence with the
adoption of Articles of Confederation in 1781, had managed to carry
through a revolution and emerge into the light of peace. They were now
required to learn, in the hard school of experience, those necessary
facts of government which they had hitherto ignored, and which, even in
the agonies of civil war, they had refused to recognize.
Probably with three-quarters of the American people, the prevailing
political sentiment was that of aversion to any governmental control,
coupled with a deep-rooted jealousy and distrust of all officials, even
those chosen by and dependent upon themselves. Their political ideals
contemplated {130} the government of each colony chiefly by the elected
representatives of the voters, who should meet annually to legislate
and tax, and then, having defined the duties of the few permanent
officers in such a way as to leave them little or no discretion, should
dissolve, leaving the community to run itself until the next annual
session. Authority of any kind was to them an object of traditional
dread, even when exercised by their own agents. The early State
constitutions concentrated all power in the legislature, leaving the
executive and judicial officials little to do but execute the laws.
The only discretionary powers enjoyed by governors were in connection
with military affairs.
In establishing the Articles of Confederation the statesmen of the
Continental Congress had no intention of creating in any sense a
governing body. All that the Congress could do was to decide upon war
and peace, make treaties, decide upon a common military establishment,
and determine the sums to be contributed to the common treasury. These
matters, moreover, called for an affirmative vote of nine States in
each case. There was no federal executive or judiciary, nor any
provision for enforcing the votes of the Congress. To carry out any
single thing committed by the Articles to the Congress, and duly voted,
required the {131} positive co-operation of the State legislatures, who
were under no other compulsion than their sense of what the situation
called for and of what they could afford to do.
Things were, in short, just where the colonists would have been glad to
have them before the Revolution--with the objectionable provincial
executives removed, all coercive authority in the central government
abolished, and the legislatures left to their own absolute discretion.
In other words, the average American farmer or trader of the day felt
that the Revolution had been fought to get rid of all government but
one directly under the control of the individual voters of the States.
Typical of such were men like Samuel Adams of Massachusetts and Patrick
Henry of Virginia. They had learned their politics in the period
before the Revolution, and clung to the old colonial spirit, which
regarded normal politics as essentially defensive and anti-governmental.
On the other hand, there were a good many individuals in the country
who recognized that the triumph of the colonial ideal was responsible
for undeniable disasters. Such men were found, especially, among the
army officers and among those who had tried to aid the cause in
diplomatic or civil office during the Revolution. Experience made them
realize that the practical abolition of all {132} executive authority
and the absence of any real central government had been responsible for
chronic inefficiency. The financial collapse, the lack of any power on
the part of Congress to enforce its laws or resolutions, the visible
danger that State legislatures might consult their own convenience in
supporting the common enterprises or obligations--all these
shortcomings led men like Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Webster, a
pamphleteer of New England, to urge even before 1781 that a genuine
government should be set up to replace the mere league. Their
supporters were, however, few, and confined mainly to those merchants
or capitalists who realized the necessity of general laws and a general
authority. It is scarcely conceivable that the inherited prejudices of
most Americans in favour of local independence could have been
overborne had not the Revolution been followed by a series of public
distresses, which drove to the side of the strong-government
advocates--temporarily, as it proved--a great number of American voters.
When hostilities ended, the people of the United States entered upon a
period of economic confusion. In the first place, trade was
disorganized, since the old West India markets were lost and the
privileges formerly enjoyed under the Navigation Acts were terminated
by the separation of the {133} countries. American shippers could not
at once discover in French or other ports an equivalent for the former
triangular trade. In the second place, British manufacturers and
exporters rushed to recover their American market, and promptly put out
of competition the American industries which had begun to develop
during the war. Specie, plentiful for a few months, now flowed rapidly
out of the country, since American merchants were no longer able to buy
British goods by drawing on West India credits. At the same time, with
the arrival of peace, the State courts resumed their functions, and
general liquidation began; while the State legislatures, in the effort
to adjust war finances, imposed what were felt to be high taxes. The
result was a general complaint of hard times, poverty, and insufficient
money. Some States made efforts to retaliate against Great Britain by
tariffs and navigation laws, but this only damaged their own ports by
driving British Trade to their neighbours'. Congress could afford no
help, since it had no power of commercial regulation.
The effect upon the working of the Confederation showed that a majority
of Americans had learned nothing from all their experiences, for the
State legislatures declined to furnish to the central government any
{134} more money than they felt to be convenient, regardless of the
fact that without their regular support the United States was certain
to become bankrupt. Robert Morris was appointed Financier in 1871, and
took energetic steps to introduce order into the mass of loan
certificates, foreign loans, certificates of indebtedness, and
mountains of paper currency; but one unescapable fact stood in his way,
that the States felt under no obligation to pay their quotas of
expenses. In spite of his urgent appeals, backed by resolutions of
Congress, the government revenues remained too scanty to pay even the
interest on the debt. Morris resigned in disgust in 1784; and his
successors, a committee of Congress, found themselves able to do
nothing more than confess bankruptcy. The people of the States felt
too poor to support their federal government, and, what was more, felt
no responsibility for its fate.
Without revenue, it naturally followed that the Congress of the
Confederation accomplished practically nothing. As will be shown
later, it could secure no treaties of any importance, since its
impotence to enforce them was patent. It managed to disband the
remaining troops with great difficulty and only under the danger of
mutiny, a danger so great that it took all of {135} Washington's
personal influence to prevent an uprising at Newburg in March, 1783.
For the rest, its leaders, men often of high ability--Hamilton,
Madison, King of Massachusetts, Sherman of Connecticut--found
themselves helpless. Naturally they appealed to the States for
additional powers and submitted no less than three amendments: first,
in 1781, a proposal to permit Congress to levy and collect a five per
cent. duty on imports; then, in 1783, a plan by which certain specific
duties were to be collected by State officers and turned over to the
government; and finally, in 1784, a request that Congress be given
power to exclude vessels of nations which would not make commercial
treaties. No one of these succeeded, although the first plan failed of
unanimous acceptance by one State only. The legislatures recognized
the need, but dreaded to give any outside power whatever authority
within their respective boundaries. While those who advocated these
amendments kept reiterating the positive necessity for some means to
avert national disgrace and bankruptcy, their opponents, reverting to
the language of 1775, declared it incompatible with "liberty" that any
authority other than the State's should be exercised in a State's
territory. By 1787, it was clear that any hope of specific amendments
was vain. Unanimity from {136} thirteen legislatures was not to be
looked for.
On the other hand, where the States chose to act they produced
important results. The cessions of western lands, which had been
exacted by Maryland as her price for ratifying the Articles, were
carried out by New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia until
the title to all territory west of Pennsylvania and north of the Ohio
was with the Confederation. Then, although nothing in the Articles
authorized such action, Congress, in 1787, adopted an Ordinance
establishing a plan for settling the new lands. After a period of
provincial government, substantially identical with that of the
colonies, the region was to be divided into States and admitted into
the union, under the terms of an annexed "compact" which prohibited
slavery and guaranteed civil rights. But where the States did not
co-operate, confusion reigned. Legislatures imposed such tariffs as
they saw fit, which led to actual inter-State commercial
discriminations between New York and its neighbours. Connecticut and
Pennsylvania wrangled over land claims. The inhabitants of the
territory west of New Hampshire set up a State government under the
name of Vermont, and successfully maintained themselves against the
State of New York, {137} which had a legal title to the soil, while the
frontier settlers in North Carolina were prevented only by inferior
numbers from carrying through a similar secession.
Finally, in the years 1785-7, the number of those who found the
unrestrained self-government of the separate States another name for
anarchy was enormously increased by a sudden craze for paper money,
"tender" laws, and "stay" laws which swept the country. The poorer
classes, especially the farmers, denounced the courts as agents of the
rich, clamoured for more money to permit the easy payment of
obligations, and succeeded in compelling more than half of the States
to pass laws hindering the collection of debts and emitting bills of
credit, which promptly depreciated. Worse remained. In New Hampshire,
armed bands tried to intimidate the legislature; and in Massachusetts
the rejection of such laws brought on actual insurrection. Farmers
assembled under arms, courts were broken up, and a sharp little civil
war, known as Shays' Rebellion, was necessary before the State
government could re-establish order.
In these circumstances, a sudden strong reaction against mob rule and
untrammelled democracy ran through the country, swinging all men of
property and law-abiding habits powerfully in favour of the demand
{138} for a new, genuinely authoritative, national government, able to
compel peace and good order. So the leaders of the reform party
struck; and at a meeting of Annapolis in October, 1786, summoned
originally to discuss the problem of navigating the Potomac River, they
issued a call for a convention of delegates from all the States to meet
at Philadelphia in May, 1787, for the purpose of recommending
provisions "intended to render the federal government adequate to the
exigencies of the Union." This movement, reversing the current of
American history, gained impetus in the winter of 1787. Congress
seconded the call; and, after Virginia had shown the way by nominating
its foremost men as delegates, the other States fell into line and sent
representatives--all but Rhode Island, which was the scene of an orgy
of paper-money tyranny, and would take no part in any such meeting.
Of the fifty-five men present at the Philadelphia convention, not more
than half-a-dozen were of the old colonial type, which clung to
individual State independence as the palladium of liberty. All the
others felt that the time had come to lay the most thoroughgoing
limitations upon the States, with the express purpose of preventing any
future repetition of the existing inter-State wrangles, and especially
of the financial {139} abuses of the time; and they were ready to gain
this end by entrusting large powers to the central government. They
divided sharply, however, on one important point, namely, whether the
increased powers were to be exercised by a government similar to the
existing one, or by something wholly new and far more centralized; and
over this question the convention ran grave danger of breaking up.
Discussion began in June, 1787, behind closed doors, with a draft plan
agreed upon by the Virginia members as the working project. This was a
bold scheme, calling for the creation of a single great State, relying
on the people for its authority, superior to the existing States, and
able, if necessary, to coerce them; in reality, a fusion of the United
States into a single commonwealth. In opposition to this, the
representatives of the smaller States--Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland
and Connecticut--aided by the conservative members from New York,
announced that they would never consent to any plan which did not
safeguard the individuality and equality of their States; and, although
the Virginia plan commanded a majority of those present, its supporters
were obliged to permit a compromise in order to prevent an angry
dissolution of the convention. In keeping with a suggestion of the
{140} Connecticut members, it was agreed that one House of the proposed
legislature should contain an equal representation of the States, while
the other should be based on population.
The adoption of this compromise put an end to the danger of disruption,
for all but a few irreconcilables were now ready to co-operate; and in
the course of a laborious session a final draft was hammered out, with
patchings, changes, and additional compromises to safeguard the
interests of the plantation States in the institution of slavery.
When the convention adjourned, it placed before the people of America a
document which was a novelty in the field of government. In part, it
aimed to establish a great State, on the model of the American States,
which in turn derived their features from the colonial governments. It
had a Congress of two Houses, an executive with independent powers, and
a judiciary authorized to enforce the laws of the United States.
Congress was given full and exclusive power over commerce, currency,
war and peace, and a long list of enumerated activities involving
inter-State questions, and was authorized to pass all laws necessary
and proper to the carrying out of any of the powers named in the
constitution. Further, the constitution, the federal laws, and
treaties were declared to be the supreme {141} law of the land,
anything in a State law or constitution notwithstanding. In addition,
the States were expressly forbidden to enter the fields reserved to the
federal government, and were prohibited from infringing the rights of
property. On the other hand, the new government could not exist
without the co-operation of the States in providing for the election of
electors,--to choose a president--of senators, and of congressmen. It
was a new creation, a federal State.
There now followed a sharp and decisive contest to gain the necessary
ratification by nine commonwealths. At first, the advocates of strong
government, by a rapid campaign, secured the favourable votes of
half-a-dozen States in quick succession; but when it came the turn of
New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia, the conservative, localistic
instincts of the farmers and older people were roused to make a
strenuous resistance. The "Federalists," as the advocates of the new
government termed themselves, had to meet charges that the proposed
scheme would crush the liberties of the State, reduce them to ciphers,
and set up an imitation of the British monarchy. But, by the eager
urging of the foremost lawyers and most influential men of the day, the
tide was turned and ratification carried, although with the utmost
difficulty, and usually with {142} the recommendation of amendments to
perfect the constitution. In June, 1788, the contest ended; and,
although Rhode Island and North Carolina remained unreconciled, the
other eleven States proceeded to set up the new government.
In the winter of 1789, in accordance with a vote of the Congress of the
Confederation, the States chose electors and senators, and the people
voted for representatives. But one possible candidate existed for the
presidency, namely, the hero of the Revolutionary War; and accordingly
Washington received the unanimous vote of the whole electoral college.
With him, John Adams was chosen vice-president, by a much smaller
majority. The Congress, which slowly assembled, was finally able to
count and declare the votes, the two officers were inaugurated, and the
new government was ready to assume its functions.
There followed a period of rapid and fundamental legislation. In the
new Congress were a body of able men, by far the greater number of them
zealous to establish a strong authoritative government, and to complete
the victory of the Federalists. The defeated States' Rights men now
stood aside, watching their conquerors carry their plan to its
conclusion. Led for the most part by James Madison of the House, {143}
Congress passed Acts creating executive departments with federal
officials; establishing a full independent federal judiciary, resident
in every State, with a supreme court above all; imposing a tariff for
revenue and for protection to American industries, and appropriating
money to settle the debts of the late confederation. In addition, it
framed and submitted to the States a series of constitutional
amendments whose object was to meet Anti-federalist criticisms by
securing the individual against oppression from the federal government.
When Congress adjourned in September, 1789, after its first session, it
had completed a thoroughgoing political revolution. In place of a
loose league of entirely independent States, there now existed a
genuine national government, able to enforce its will upon individuals
and to perform all the functions of any State.
That the American people, with their political inheritance, should have
consented even by a small majority to abandon their traditional lax
government, remains one of the most remarkable political decisions in
history. It depended upon the concurrence of circumstances which, for
the moment, forced all persons of property and law-abiding instincts to
join together in all the States to remedy an intolerable situation.
{144} The leaders, as might be expected, were a different race of
statesmen, on the whole, from those who had directed events prior to
1776. Washington and Franklin favoured the change; but Richard Henry
Lee and Patrick Henry were eager opponents, Samuel Adams was
unfriendly, and Thomas Jefferson, in Paris, was unenthusiastic. The
main work was done by Hamilton, Madison, John Marshall, Gouverneur
Morris, Fisher Ames--men who were children in the days of the Stamp
Act. The old agitators and revolutionists were superseded by a new
type of politicians, whose interests lay in government, not opposition.
But the fundamental American instincts were not in reality changed;
they had only ebbed for the moment. No sooner did Congress meet in its
second session in January, 1790, and undertake the task of reorganizing
the chaotic finances of the country, than political unanimity vanished,
and new sectional and class antagonisms came rapidly to the front in
which could be traced the return of the old-time colonial habits. The
central figure was no longer Madison, but Hamilton, Secretary of the
Treasury, who aspired to be a second William Pitt, and submitted an
elaborate scheme for refunding the entire American debt. In addition,
he called for an excise tax, and {145} later recommended the chartering
of a National Bank to serve the same function in America that the Bank
of England performed in Great Britain.
Daring, far-sighted, based on the methods of English financiers,
Hamilton's plans bristled with points certain to arouse antagonism. He
proposed to refund and pay the debt at its face value to actual
holders, regardless of the fact that the nearly worthless federal stock
and certificates of indebtedness had fallen into the hands of
speculators; he recommended that the United States should assume, fund,
and pay the war debt of the States, disregarding the fact that, while
some States were heavily burdened, others had discharged their
obligations. He urged an excise tax on liquors, although such an
internal tax was an innovation in America and was certain to stir
intense opposition; he suggested the chartering of a powerful bank, in
spite of the absence of any clause in the constitution authorizing such
action. Hamilton was, in fact, a great admirer of the English
constitution and political system, and he definitely intended to
strengthen the new government by making it the supreme financial power
and enlisting in its support all the moneyed interests of the country.
Property, as in England, must be the basis of government.
{146}
Against his schemes, there immediately developed a rising opposition
which made itself felt in Congress, in State legislatures, in the
newspapers, and finally in Washington's own Cabinet. All the farmer
and debtor elements in the country disliked and dreaded the financial
manipulations of the brilliant secretary; and the Virginian planters,
universally borrowers, who had been the strongest single power in
establishing the new constitution, now swung into opposition to the
administration. Madison led the fight in the House against Hamilton's
measures; and Jefferson, in the Cabinet, laid down, in a memorandum of
protest against the proposed bank, the doctrine of "strict
construction" of the constitution according to which the powers granted
to the federal government ought to be narrowly construed in order to
preserve the State governments, the source of liberty, from
encroachment. He denounced the bank, accordingly, as unwarranted by
the constitution, corrupt, and dangerous to the safety of the country.
In the congressional contest Hamilton was successful, for all his
recommendations were adopted, but at the cost of creating a lasting
antagonism in the southern States and in the western regions.
In 1791, Jefferson and Madison co-operated to establish a newspaper at
Philadelphia whose sole occupation consisted in denouncing {147} the
corrupt and monarchical Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton retorted
by publishing letters charging Jefferson with responsibility for it;
and Washington, who steadily approved Hamilton's policies, found his
Cabinet splitting into two factions. By the year 1792, when the second
presidential election took place, the opposition, styling itself
"Republican," was sufficiently well organized to run George Clinton,
formerly the Anti-federalist leader of New York, for the
Vice-Presidency against the "monarchical" Adams. Washington was not
opposed, but no other one of the Hamiltonian supporters escaped attack.
There was, in short, the beginning of the definite formation of
political parties on lines akin to those which existed in the period
before 1787. Behind Jefferson and Madison were rallying all the
colonial-minded voters, to whom government was at best an evil and to
whom, under any circumstances, strong authority and elaborate finance
were utterly abhorrent. Around Hamilton gathered the men whose
interests lay in building up a genuine, powerful, national
government--the merchants, shipowners, moneyed men and creditors
generally in the northern States--and, of course, all Tories.
Up to 1793, the Federalist administration successfully maintained its
ground; and, when {148} the Virginian group tried in the House to prove
laxity and mismanagement against Hamilton, he was triumphantly
vindicated. Had the United States been allowed to develop in
tranquillity and prosperity for a generation, it is not unlikely that
the Federalist party might have struck its roots so deeply as to be
impervious to attacks. But it needed time, for in contrast to the
Jeffersonian party, whose origin is manifestly in the old-time colonial
political habits of democracy, local independence, and love of lax
finance, the Federalist party was a new creation, with no traditions to
fall back upon. Reflecting in some respects British views, notably in
its distrust of the masses and its respect for property and wealth, it
far surpassed any English party of the period, except the small group
led by William Pitt, in its demand for progressive and vigorous
legislation. In 1793, when matters were in this situation, the state
of European and British politics suddenly brought the United States
into the current of world politics, and subjected the new
administration to difficulties, which were ultimately to cause its
downfall.
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