AFTER THE WAR
OUR BOUNDARIES.--By the treaty of 1783 our country was bounded on the
north by a line (very much as at present) from the mouth of the St. Croix
River in Maine to the Lake of the Woods; on the west by the Mississippi
River; and on the south by the parallel of 31° north latitude from the
Mississippi to the Apalachicola, and then by the present south boundary of
Georgia to the sea. [1]
But our flag did not as yet wave over every part of the country within
these bounds. Great Britain, claiming that certain provisions in the
treaty had been violated, held the forts from Lake Champlain to Lake
Michigan and would not withdraw her troops. [2] Spain, having received the
Floridas back from Great Britain by a treaty of 1783, held the forts at
Memphis, Baton Rouge, and Vicksburg, and much of what is now Alabama and
Mississippi. [3]
A CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.--From 1775 to 1781 the states were governed, so far
as they had any general government, by the Continental Congress. During
these years there was no written document fixing the powers of Congress
and limiting the powers of the states. While the war was going on,
Congress submitted a plan for a general government, called Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union; but nearly four years passed before all
the states accepted it. The delay was caused by the refusal of Maryland to
approve the Articles unless the states having sea-to-sea charters would
give to Congress, for the public good, the lands they claimed beyond the
mountains. [4]
Congress therefore appealed to the states to cede their Western lands. If
they would do this, Congress promised to sell the lands, use the money to
pay the debts of the United States, and cut the region into states and
admit them into the Union at the proper time. New York, Connecticut, and
Virginia at last agreed to give up their lands northwest of the Ohio
River, and on March 1, 1781, the Maryland delegates signed the Articles
and by so doing put them in force. [5]
THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.--In the government set up by the Articles
of Confederation there was no President of the United States, no Supreme
Court, no Senate. Congress consisted of a single body to which each state
sent at least two delegates, and might send any number up to seven. The
members were elected annually, were paid by the states they represented,
could not serve more than three years in six, and might be recalled at any
time. Each state cast one vote, and nine affirmative votes were necessary
to carry any important measure. Congress could make war and peace, enter
into treaties with foreign powers, coin money, contract debts in the name
of the United States, and call upon each state for its share of the
general expenses.
THE STATES CEDE LANDS.--Although three states had tendered their Western
lands when Maryland signed the Articles, the conditions of cession were
not at once accepted by Congress, and some time passed before the deeds
were delivered. By the year 1786, however, the claims northwest of the
Ohio had been ceded by New York, Virginia, [6] Massachusetts, and
Connecticut. [7] South of the Ohio, what is now West Virginia and Kentucky
still belonged to Virginia. North Carolina offered what is now Tennessee
to Congress in 1784, [8] but the conditions were not then accepted, and
that territory was not turned over to Congress till 1790. The long, narrow
strip of western land owned by South Carolina was ceded to Congress in
1787. South of this was a strip owned by Georgia, and farther south lands
long in dispute between Georgia and Spain and Congress. Georgia did not
accept her present western limits till 1802.
MIGRATION WESTWARD.--Into the country west of the mountains the people
were moving in three great streams. One from New England was pushing out
along the Mohawk valley into central New York; another from Pennsylvania
and Virginia was pouring its population into Kentucky; the third from
North Carolina was overrunning Tennessee.
[Illustration: A SETTLER'S LOG CABIN.]
For this movement the hard times which followed the Revolution were
largely the cause. Compared with our time, the means of making a
livelihood were few and far less remunerative. Great mills and factories
each employing thousands of persons had no existence. The imports from
Great Britain far surpassed in value our exports; the difference was
settled in specie (coin) taken from the country. The people were poor, and
as land in the West was cheap, they left the East and went westward.
ROUTES TO THE OHIO VALLEY.--New England people bound to the Ohio valley
went through Connecticut to Kingston, New York, on across New Jersey to
Easton, Pennsylvania, and thence to Bedford, where they struck the road
cut years before by the troops of General Forbes, and by it went to
Pittsburg (p. 194). Settlers from Maryland and Virginia went generally to
Fort Cumberland in Maryland, and then on by Brad dock's Road to Pittsburg,
or turned off and reached the Monongahela at Redstone, or the Ohio at
Wheeling (map, p. 201).
Such was the rush to the Ohio valley that each spring and summer hundreds
of boats and arks left Pittsburg and Wheeling or Redstone, and floated
down the Ohio to Maysville, Louisville, and other places in Kentucky. [9]
The flatboat was usually twelve feet wide and forty feet long, with high
sides and a flat or slightly arched top, and was steered, and when
necessary was rowed, by long oars or sweeps. Some were arranged to carry
cattle as well as household goods.
[Illustration: OHIO RIVER FLATBOAT OF ABOUT 1840. The boat is like those
used in earlier times.]
THE OHIO COMPANY OF ASSOCIATES.--Meanwhile, some old soldiers of New
England and New Jersey who had claims for bounty lands, [10] organized the
Ohio Company of Associates, and in 1787 sent an agent (Manasseh Cutler) to
New York, where Congress was sitting, and bade him buy a great tract of
land northwest of the Ohio, on which they might settle.
[Illustration: THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.]
THE ORDINANCE OF 1787.--When Cutler reached New York, he found Congress
debating a measure of great importance. This was an ordinance for the
government of the Northwest Territory, including the whole region from the
Lakes to the Ohio, and from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi. When passed,
this famous Ordinance of 1787 provided--
1. That until five thousand free white males lived in the territory, the
governing body should be a governor and three judges appointed by
Congress.
2. That when there were five thousand free white men in the territory,
they might elect a legislature and send a delegate to Congress.
3. That slavery should not be permitted in the territory, but that
fugitive slaves should be returned.
4. That the territory should in time be cut up into not more than five, or
less than three, states.
5. That when the population of each division numbered sixty thousand, it
should be admitted into the Union on the same footing as the original
states.
OHIO SETTLED.--After the ordinance was passed, Cutler bought five million
acres of land north of the Ohio River, and in the winter of 1787-88 a
party of young men sent out by the Ohio Company made their way from New
England to a branch of the Monongahela River. There they built a great
boat, and when the ice broke up, floated down the Ohio to the lands of the
Ohio Company, where they erected a few log huts and a fort of hewn timber
which they called Campus Martius. The little settlement was called
Marietta. [11]
Farther down the Ohio, on land owned by John Cleve Symmes and associates,
Columbia and Losantiville, afterward called Cincinnati, were founded in
1788.
STATE BOUNDARIES.--The old charters which led to the conflicting claims to
land in the West, caused like disputes in the East. Massachusetts claimed
a strip of country embracing western New York, and did not settle the
dispute till 1786. [12] A similar dispute between Connecticut and
Pennsylvania was settled in 1782. [13] New York claimed all Vermont as
having once been part of New Netherland; but Vermont was really an
independent republic. [14] In Kentucky the people were insisting that
their country be separated from Virginia and made a state.
TROUBLE WITH SPAIN.--Congress had trouble in trying to secure from foreign
nations fair treatment for our commerce, and was involved in a dispute
over the navigation of the Mississippi. Spain owned both banks at the
mouth of the river, and denied the right of Americans to go in or out
without her consent. The Spanish minister who came over in 1785 was ready
to make a commercial treaty if the river was closed to navigation for
twenty-five years, and the Eastern states were quite ready to agree to it.
But the people of Kentucky and Tennessee threatened to leave the Union if
cut off from the sea, and no treaty was made with Spain till 1795.
THE WEAKNESS OF THE CONFEDERATION.--The question of trade and commerce
with foreign powers and between the states was very serious, and the
weakness of Congress in this and other matters soon wrecked the
Confederation.
1. In the first place, the Articles of Confederation gave Congress no
power to levy taxes of any kind. Money, therefore, could not be obtained
to pay the debts of the United States, or the annual cost of government.
[15]
2. Congress had no power to regulate the foreign trade. As there were few
articles manufactured in the country, china, glass, cutlery, edged tools,
hardware, woolen, linen, and many other articles of daily use were
imported from Great Britain. As Great Britain took little from us, these
goods were largely paid for in specie, which grew scarcer and scarcer each
year. Great Britain, moreover, hurt our trade by shutting our vessels out
of her West Indies, and by heavy duties on American goods coming to her
ports in American ships. [16] Congress, having no power to regulate trade,
could not retaliate by treating British ships in the same way.
3. Congress had no power to regulate trade between the states. As a
consequence, some of the states laid heavy duties on goods imported from
other states. Retaliation followed, and the safety of the Union was
endangered.
4. Congress did not have sole power to coin money and regulate the value
thereof. There were, therefore, nearly as many kinds of paper money as
there were states, and the money issued by each state passed in others at
all sorts of value, or not at all. This hindered interstate trade.
5. Congress could not enforce treaties. It could make treaties with other
countries, but only the states could compel the people to observe them,
and the states did not choose to do so.
[Illustration: NEW HAMPSHIRE COLONIAL PAPER MONEY. Similar bills were
issued by the states before 1789.]
CONGRESS ASKS FOR MORE POWER.--Of the defects in the Articles of
Confederation Congress was fully aware, and it asked the states to amend
the Articles and give it more authority. [17] To do this required the
assent of all the states, and as the consent of thirteen states could not
be obtained, the additional powers were not given to Congress.
This soon brought matters to a crisis. With no regulation of trade, the
purchase of more and more goods from British merchants made money so
scarce that the states were forced to print and issue large amounts of
paper bills. In Massachusetts, when the legislature refused to issue such
currency, the debtors rose and, led by a Revolutionary officer named
Daniel Shays, prevented the courts from trying suits for the recovery of
debts. The governor called out troops, and several encounters took place
before a bitter winter dispersed the insurgents. [18]
THE ANNAPOLIS TRADE CONVENTION.--In this condition of affairs, Virginia
invited her sister states to send delegates to a convention at Annapolis
in 1786. They were to "take into consideration the trade and commerce of
the United States." Five states sent delegates, but the convention could
do nothing, because less than half the states were present, and because
the powers of the delegates were too limited. A request was therefore made
by it that Congress call a convention of the states to meet at
Philadelphia and "take into consideration the situation of the United
States."
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.--Congress issued the call early in 1787,
and delegates from twelve states [19] met at Philadelphia and framed the
Constitution of the United States. Washington was made president of the
convention, and among the members were many of the ablest men of the time.
[20]
[Illustration: INVITATION SENT BY WASHINGTON, AS PRESIDENT OF THE
CONVENTION. In the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.]
THE COMPROMISES.--In the course of the debates in the convention great
difference of opinion arose on several matters.
The small states wanted a Congress of one house, and equality of state
representation. The great states wanted Historical a Congress of two
houses, with representation in proportion to population. This difference
of opinion was so serious that a compromise was necessary, and it was
agreed that in one branch (House of Representatives) the people should be
represented, and in the other (Senate) the states.
The question then arose whether slaves should be counted as population.
The Southern delegates said yes; the Northern, no. It was finally agreed
that direct taxes and representatives should be apportioned according to
population, and that three fifths of the slaves should be counted as
population. This was the second compromise.
The convention agreed that Congress should regulate foreign commerce. But
the Southern members objected that by means of this power Congress might
pass navigation acts limiting trade to American ships, which might raise
freights on exports from the South. Many Northern members, on the other
hand, wanted the slave trade stopped. These two matters were therefore
made the basis of another compromise, by which Congress could pass
navigation acts, but could not prohibit the slave trade before 1808.
THE CONSTITUTION RATIFIED.--When the convention had finished its work
(September 17, 1787), the Constitution [21] was sent to the old
(Continental) Congress, which referred it to the states, and the states,
one by one, called on the people to elect; delegates to conventions to
ratify or reject the new plan of government. In a few states it was
accepted without any demand for changes. In others it was vigorously
opposed as likely to set up too strong a government. In Massachusetts, New
York, and Virginia adoption was long in doubt. [22]
By July, 1788, eleven states had ratified, and the Constitution was in
force as to these States. [23]
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT.--The Continental Congress then
appointed the first Wednesday in January, 1789, as the day on which
electors of President should be chosen in the eleven states; the first
Wednesday in February as the day on which the electors should meet and
vote for President; and the first Wednesday in March (which happened to be
the 4th of March) as the day when the new Congress should assemble at New
York and canvass the vote for President.
[Illustration: FEDERAL HALL, ON WALL STREET, NEW YORK. From an old print.]
WASHINGTON THE FIRST PRESIDENT.--When March 4 came, neither the Senate nor
the House of Representatives had a quorum, and a month went by before the
electoral votes were counted, and Washington and John Adams declared
President and Vice President of the United States. [24]
Some time now elapsed before Washington could be notified of his election.
More time was consumed by the long journey from Mount Vernon to New York,
where, on April 30, 1789, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall, he took
the oath of office in the presence of a crowd of his fellow-citizens.
SUMMARY
1. The treaty of peace defined the boundaries of our country; but Great
Britain continued to hold the forts along the north, and Spain to occupy
the country in the southwest.
2. Seven of the thirteen states claimed the country west of the mountains.
3. The other six, especially Maryland, denied these claims, and this
dispute delayed the adoption of the Articles of Confederation till 1781.
4. By the year 1786 the lands northwest of the Ohio had been ceded to
Congress.
5. In 1787, therefore, Congress formed the Northwest Territory.
6. Certain states, meantime, were settling disputes as to their boundaries
in the east.
7. We had trouble with Spain over the right to use the lower Mississippi
River, and with Great Britain over matters of trade.
8. Six years' trial proved that the government of the United States was
too weak under the Articles of Confederation.
9. In 1787, therefore, the Constitution was framed, and within a year was
ratified by eleven states.
10. In 1789 Washington and Adams became President and Vice President, and
government under the Constitution began.
[Illustration: LIBERTY BELL.]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Both France and Spain had tried to shut us out of the Mississippi
valley. Read Fiske's Critical Period of American History, pp. 17-25.
[2] By the treaty of 1783 Congress provided that all debts due British
subjects might be recovered by law, and that the states should be asked to
pay for confiscated property of the Loyalists. But the states would not
permit the recovery of the debts nor pay for the property taken from the
Loyalists. Great Britain, by holding the forts along our northern
frontier, controlled the fur trade and the Indians, and ruled the country
about the forts. These were Dutchman's Point, Point au Fer, Oswegatchie,
Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Detroit, Mackinaw.
[3] To understand her conduct we must remember that in 1764, shortly after
the French and Indian War, Great Britain made 32° 28' north latitude
(through the mouth of the Yazoo, p. 143) the north boundary of West
Florida; and although Great Britain in her treaty with us made 31° the
boundary between us and West Florida, Spain insisted that it should be 32°
28'. Spain's claim to the Northwest, founded on her occupation of Fort St.
Joseph (p. 183), had not been allowed; she was therefore the more
determined to expand her claims in the South.
[4] The states claiming such lands by virtue of their colonial charters
were Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and
Georgia. New York had acquired the Iroquois title to lands in the West.
Her claim conflicted with those of Virginia, Connecticut, and
Massachusetts. The claims of Connecticut and Massachusetts covered lands
included in the Virginia claim--Maryland denied the validity of all these
claims, for these reasons: (1) the Mississippi valley belonged to France
till 1763; (2) when France gave the valley east of the Mississippi to
Great Britain in 1763, it became crown land; (3) in 1763 the king drew the
line around the sources of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, and
forbade the colonists to settle beyond that line (p. 143).
[5] The Articles were not to go into effect till every state signed.
Maryland was the thirteenth state to sign.
[6] Virginia reserved ownership of a large tract called the Virginia
Military Lands. It lay in what is now Ohio between the Scioto and Little
Miami rivers (map, p. 201), and was used to pay bounties to her soldiers
of the Revolution.
[7] Connecticut reserved the ownership (and till 1800 the government) of a
tract 120 miles long, west of Pennsylvania. Of this "Western Reserve of
Connecticut," some 500,000 acres were set apart in 1792 for the relief of
persons whose houses and farms had been burned and plundered by the
British. The rest was sold and the money used as a school fund.
[8] When the settlers on the Watauga (pp. 181, 182) heard of this, they
became alarmed lest Congress should not accept the cession, and forming a
new state which they called Franklin, applied to Congress for admission
into the Union. No attention was given to the application. North Carolina
repealed the act of cession, arranged matters with the settlers, and in
1787 the Franklin government dissolved.
[9] The favorite time for the river trip was from February to May, when
there was high water in the Ohio and its tributaries the Allegheny and
Monongahela. Then the voyage from Pittsburg to Louisville could be made in
eight or ten days. An observer at Pittsburg in 1787 saw 50 flatboats
depart in six weeks. Another man at Fort Finney counted 177 passing boats
with 2700 people in eight months.
[10] In order to encourage enlistment in the army, Congress had offered to
give a tract of land to each officer and man who served through the war.
The premium in land, or gift, over and above pay, was known as land
bounty.
[11] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 505-
519. All the land bought by the Ohio Company was not for its use. A large
part was for another, known as the Scioto Company, which sent an agent to
Paris and sold the land to a French company. This, in turn, sold in small
pieces to Frenchmen eager to leave a country then in a state of
revolution. In 1790, accordingly, several hundred emigrants reached
Alexandria, Virginia, and came on to the little square of log huts, with a
blockhouse at each corner, which the company had built for them and named
Gallipolis. Most of them were city-bred artisans, unfit for frontier life,
who suffered greatly in the wilderness.
[12] The land was included in the limits laid down in the charter of
Massachusetts; but that charter was granted after the Dutch were in actual
possession of the upper Hudson. In 1786 a north and south line was drawn
82 miles west of the Delaware. Ownership of the land west of that line
went to Massachusetts; but jurisdiction over the land, the right to
govern, was given to New York.
[13] Connecticut, under her sea-to-sea grant from the crown, claimed a
strip across northern Pennsylvania, bought some land there from the
Indians (1754), and some of her people settled on the Susquehanna in what
was known as the Wyoming Valley (1762 and 1769). The dispute which
followed, first with the Penns and then with the state of Pennsylvania,
dragged on till a court of arbitration appointed by the Continental
Congress decided in favor of Pennsylvania.
[14] Because of Champlain's discovery of the lake which now bears his name
(p. 115), the French claimed most of Vermont; on their early maps it
appears as part of New France, and as late as 1739 they made settlements
in it. About 1750 the governor of New Hampshire granted land in Vermont to
settlers, and the country began to be known as "New Hampshire Grants"; but
in 1763 New York claimed it as part of the region given to the Duke of
York in 1664. This brought on a bitter dispute which was still raging
when, in 1777, the settlers declared New Hampshire Grants "a free and
independent state to be called New Connecticut." Later the name was
changed to Vermont. But the Continental Congress, for fear of displeasing
New York, never recognized Vermont as a state.
[15] Each state was bound to pay its share of the annual expenses; but
they failed or were unable to do so.
[16] Why would not Great Britain make a trade treaty with us? Read Fiske's
_Critical Period_, pp. 136-142; also pp. 142-147, about difficulties
between the states.
[17] Congress asked for authority to do three things: (1) to levy taxes on
imported goods, and use the money so obtained to discharge the debts due
to France, Holland, and Spain; (2) to lay and collect a special tax, and
use the money to meet the annual expenses of government; and (3) to
regulate trade with foreign countries.
[18] The story of Shays's Rebellion is told in fiction in Bellamy's _Duke
of Stockbridge_. Read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._,
Vol. I, pp. 313-326.
[19] All the states except Rhode Island.
[20] One had written the Albany Plan of Union; some had been members of
the Stamp Act Congress; some had signed the Declaration of Independence,
or the Articles of Confederation; two had been presidents and twenty-eight
had been members of Congress; seven had been or were then governors of
states. In after times two (Washington and Madison) became Presidents, one
(Elbridge Gerry) Vice President, four members of the Cabinet, two Chief
Justices and two justices of the Supreme Court, five ministers at foreign
courts, and many others senators and members of the House of
Representatives. One, Franklin, has the distinction of having signed the
Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France (1778),
the treaty of peace with Great Britain (1783), and the Constitution of the
United States, the four great documents in our early history.
[21] Every student should read the Constitution, as printed near the end
of this book or elsewhere, and should know about the three branches of
government, legislative, executive, and judicial; the powers of Congress
(Art. I, Sec. 8), of the President (Art. I, Sec. 7; Art. II, Secs. 2 and
3), and of the United States; courts (Art. III); the principal powers
forbidden to Congress (Art. I, Sec. 9) and to the states (Art. I, Sec.
10); the methods of amending the Constitution (Art. V); the supremacy of
the Constitution (Art. VI).
[22] To remove the many objections made to the new plan, and enable the
people the better to understand it, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote a
series of little essays for the press, in which they defended the
Constitution, explained and discussed its provisions, and showed how
closely it resembled the state constitutions. These essays were called
_The Federalist_, and, gathered into book form (in 1788), have become
famous as a treatise on the Constitution and on government. Those who
opposed the Constitution were called Anti-Federalists, and they wrote
pamphlets and elaborate series of letters in the newspapers, signed by
such names as Cato, Agrippa, A Countryman. They declared that Congress
would overpower the states, that the President would become a despot, that
the Courts would destroy liberty; and they insisted that amendments should
be made, guaranteeing liberty of speech, freedom of the press, trial by
jury, no quartering of troops in time of peace, liberty of conscience.
Read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. I, pp.
490-491; 478-479.
[23] Because the Constitution provided that it should go into force as
soon as nine states ratified it. North Carolina and Rhode Island did not
ratify till some months later, and, till they did, were not members of the
new Union.
[24] In three of the eleven states then in the Union (Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and Virginia) the presidential electors were chosen by vote of
the people. In Massachusetts the voters in each congressional district
voted for two candidates, and the legislature chose one of the two, and
also two electors at large. In New Hampshire also the people voted for
electors, but none receiving a majority vote, the legislature made the
choice. Elsewhere the legislatures appointed electors; but in New York the
two branches of the legislature fell into a dispute and failed to choose
any. Washington received the first vote of all the 69 electors, and Adams
received 34 votes, the next highest number.