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and in italics (as in the original). The bibliography in
Volume 1, APPENDIX F on page xxi provides additional details,
including URLs of available internet versions. This volume (5)
also includes a bibliography on page 3885.
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[Image: Spine]
HISTORY FOR READY REFERENCE
FROM THE BEST HISTORIANS, BIOGRAPHERS, AND SPECIALISTS
THEIR OWN WORDS IN A COMPLETE SYSTEM OF HISTORY
FOR ALL USES, EXTENDING TO ALL COUNTRIES AND SUBJECTS,
AND REPRESENTING FOR BOTH READERS AND STUDENTS THE BETTER
AND NEWER LITERATURE OF HISTORY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
BY
J. N. LARNED
WITH NUMEROUS HISTORICAL MAPS FROM ORIGINAL
STUDIES AND DRAWINGS BY
ALAN O. REILEY
IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME V—TUNNAGE TO ZYP
AND SUPPLEMENT
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
THE C. A. NICHOLS CO., PUBLISHERS
MDCCCXCV
COPYRIGHT, 1895,
BY J. N. LARNED.
The Riverside Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U. S. A.
Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS.
Map of the United States Showing its territorial development,
To follow page 3286.
Maps of the United States in 1783, in 1790, in 1803, in 1840,
and in 1860,
To follow page 3326.
Map of the principal theatre Of war in Virginia, 1861-1865,
To follow page 3434.
Map of the Vicksburg Campaign,
On page 3490.
Map of the Battle-field of Gettysburg,
On page 3501.
Map of the Battle-field of Chattanooga,
On page 3511.
Map of the Atlanta Campaign,
On page 3531.
SUPPLEMENT.
"Abelard" to "Wheatstone,"
Pages 3669 to 3811.
Chronology of important and indicative events,
Pages 3812 to 3856.
Lineage of European Sovereigns and great historical families,
Pages 3857 to 3883.
Selected Bibliography,
Pages 3885 to 3909.
List of works from which passages have been quoted
in "History for Ready Reference and Topical Reading,"
Pages 3910 to 3985.
{3129}
TUNNAGE AND POUNDAGE.
A tax or custom of two shillings on the tun of wine and
sixpence on the pound of merchandise, which became, in
England, from the fourteenth century, one of the regular
parliamentary grants to the crown, for a long period. It grew
out of an agreement with the merchants in the time of Edward
II., to take the place of the former right of prisage; the
right, that is, to take two tuns of wine from every ship
importing twenty tuns or more,—one before and one behind the
mast.
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 17, sections 276-277 (volume 2)._
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1629.
TUPI, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: TUPI.
TUPUYAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: TUPI, ETC.
TURAN.
"The old Persians, who spoke an Aryan tongue, called their own
land Iran, and the barbarous land to the north of it they
called Turan. In their eyes, Iran was the land of light, and
Turan was the land of darkness. From this Turan, the land of
Central Asia, came the many Turkish settlements which made
their way, first into Western Asia and then into Europe."
_E. A. Freeman,
The Ottoman Power in Europe,
chapter 2._
TURANIAN RACES AND LANGUAGES.
The name Turanian has been given to a large group of peoples,
mostly Asiatic, whose languages are all in the agglutinative
stage and bear evident marks of a family relationship. "This
race, one of the largest, both numerically and with regard to
the extent of territory which it occupies, is divided into two
great branches, the Ugro-finnish and the Dravidian. The first
must be again subdivided into the Turkish, including the
populations of Turkestan and of the Steppes of Central Asia,
as well as the Hungarians who have been for a long time
settled in Europe; and the Uralo-finnish group, comprising the
Finns, the Esthonians, the Tchoudes, and, in general, nearly
all the tribes of the north of Europe and Asia. The country of
the Dravidian branch is, on the contrary, to the south. This
branch is in fact composed of the indigenous people of the
Peninsula of Hindustan; Tamuls, Telingas, Carnates, who were
subjugated by the Arian race, and who appear to have
originally driven before them the negroes of the Australian
group, the original inhabitants of the soil, who are now
represented by the almost savage tribe of the Khonds. The
Turanian race is one of the oldest in the world. … The skulls
discovered in France, England and Belgium, in caves of the
close of the quaternary epoch, appear from their
characteristics to belong to a Turanian race, to the
Uralo-finnish group, and particularly resemble those of the
Esthonians. Wherever the Japhetic or pure Indo-European race
extended, it seems to have encountered a Turanian population
which it conquered and finally amalgamated with itself."
_F. Lenormant,
Manual of Ancient History of the East,
book 1, chapter 4._
"From the 'Shah-nameh,' the great Persian epic, we learn that
the Aryan Persians called their nearest non-Aryan neighbours
—the Turkic or Turcoman tribes to the north of them—by the
name Turan, a word from which we derive the familiar
ethnologic term Turanian."
_I. Taylor,
Etruscan Researches,
chapter 2._
TURCOMANS, Russian subjugation of the.
See RUSSIA: A.D. 1869-1881.
TURDETANI, The.
"There is a tradition that the Turdetani (round Seville)
possessed lays from very ancient times, a metrical book of
laws, of 6,000 verses, and even historical records. At any
rate, this tribe is described as the most civilized of all the
Spanish tribes, and at the same time the least warlike."
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 7._
"The most mixed portion of the Peninsular population … is that
of the water-system of the Guadalquiver and the parts
immediately south and east of it, … the country of the
Turdetani and Bastitani, if we look to the ancient
populations—Bætica, if we adopt the general name of the
Romans, Andalusia in modern geography; … it was the Iberians
of these parts who were the first to receive foreign
intermixture, and the last to lose it."
_R. G. Latham,
Ethnology of Europe,
chapter 2._
TURDETANIA.
The ancient name of modern Andalusia, in Spain; known still
more anciently as Tartessus.
TURENNE, Vicomte de:
Campaigns in the Thirty Years War and the war with Spain.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645; 1643-1644; 1646-1648;
and ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.
TURENNE, Vicomte de:
The wars of the Fronde.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1649; 1650-1651; 1651-1653.
TURENNE, Vicomte de:
Campaigns against the Spaniards under Condé.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1656; and 1655-1658.
TURENNE, Vicomte de:
Last campaigns.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1667; 1672-1674;
and, 1674-1678.
TURGOT, Ministry of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1774-1788.
TURIERO, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CHIBCHAS.
----------TURIN: Start--------
TURIN: A. D. 312.
Defeat of Maxentius by Constantine.
See ROME: A. D. 305-323.
TURIN: 11-12th Centuries.
Acquisition of Republican Independence.
See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.
TURIN: 12th Century,
Included in the original Italian possessions
of the House of Savoy.
See SAVOY: 11-15TH CENTURIES.
TURIN: A. D. 1536-1544.
Occupation by the French and restoration to the Duke of Savoy.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
TURIN: A. D. 1559.
Held by France while other territory of the Duke of Savoy
was restored to him.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.
TURIN: A. D. 1562-1580.
Evacuation by the French.
Establishment of the seat of government
by Duke Emanuel Philibert.
Increased importance.
See SAVOY: A. D. 1559-1580.
TURIN: A. D. 1639-1657.
Extraordinary siege within a siege.
The citadel, and its restoration by France to the Duke of Savoy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.
TURIN: A. D. 1706.
Siege by the French and rout of the besiegers.
See ITALY (SAVOY AND PIEDMONT): A. D. 1701-1713.
----------TURIN: End--------
{3130}
TURIN PAPYRUS, The.
An Egyptian papyrus preserved in the Turin Museum, for which
it was purchased from M. Drovetti, consul-general of France.
"If this papyrus were entire, the science of Egyptian
antiquities could not possess a more valuable document. It
contains a list of all the mythical or historical personages
who were believed to have reigned in Egypt, from fabulous
times down to a period we cannot ascertain, because the end of
the papyrus is wanting. Compiled under Ramses II. (19th
dynasty), that is, in the most flourishing epoch of the
history of Egypt, this list has all the characteristics of an
official document, and gives us the more valuable assistance,
as the name of each king is followed by the duration of his
reign, and each dynasty by the total number of years during
which it governed Egypt. Unfortunately this inestimable
treasure exists only in very small pieces (164 in number),
which it is often impossible to join correctly."
_F. Lenormant,
Manual of Ancient History of the East,
book 3, chapter 1, section 2._
----------TURKESTAN: Start--------
TURKESTAN.
"Few even of the leading authorities are of accord as to the
exact meaning of such common expressions as Turkestán or
Central Asia. The Russians themselves often designate as
Central Asia the second great administrative division of their
Asiatic possessions, which is mainly comprised within the
Aralo-Caspian depression. But this expression is misguiding in
a geographical sense. To the portion of this division directly
administered by the Governor-General, whose headquarters are
at Tashkent, they give the still more questionable name of
Eastern Turkestán—the true Eastern Turkestán, if there be any,
lying beyond his jurisdiction in the Chinese province of
Kashgaria. … Russian Turkestán is bordered on the west by the
Caspian, the Ural river and mountains, on the east by the
Pamir plateau, the Tian-Shan and Ala-tau ranges separating it
from the Chinese Empire, northwards by the low ridge crossing
the Kirghis steppes about the 51st parallel, and forming the
water-parting between the Aralo-Caspian and Ob basins."
_Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel: Asia,
page 391-392._
Of the region sometimes called Chinese Turkestan, the name
"Kashgaria," "lately current in Europe, has no raison d'être
since the collapse of the independent state founded by Yakub
of Kashgar. In the same way the expression 'Kingdom of Khotan'
fell into disuse after the city of Khotan had ceased to be the
capital. The term 'Little Bokhara,' still in use some thirty
years ago, pointed at the former religious ascendancy of
Bokhara, but is now all the less appropriate that Bokhara
itself has yielded the supremacy to Tashkent. Lastly, the
expressions Eastern Turkestan and Chinese Turkestan are still
applicable, because the inhabitants are of Turki speech, while
the Chinese have again brought the country under subjection."
_E. Reclus,
The Earth and its Inhabitants: Asia,
volume 2, chapter 3._
See, also, YAKOOB BEG.
TURKESTAN: Ancient.
See SOGDIANA.
TURKESTAN: 6th Century.
Turkish conquest.
See TURKS: 6TH CENTURY.
TURKESTAN: A. D. 710.
Mahometan conquest.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 710.
TURKESTAN: A. D. 1859-1865.
Russian conquest.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.
----------TURKESTAN: Start--------
TURKEY.
See TURKS (THE OTTOMANS): A. D. 1240-1326, and after;
also, SUBLIME PORTE.
----------TURKS: Start--------
TURKS: 6th Century.
Beginning of their career.
"At the equal distance of 2,000 miles from the Caspian, the
Icy, the Chinese, and the Bengal seas, a ridge of mountains is
conspicuous, the centre, and perhaps the summit, of Asia,
which, in the language of different nations has been styled
Imaus, and Caf, and Altai, and the Golden Mountains, and the
Girdle of the Earth. The sides of the hills were productive of
minerals; and the iron-forges, for the purpose of war, were
exercised by the Turks, the most despised portion of the
slaves of the great khan of the Geougen. But their servitude
could only last till a leader, bold and eloquent, should arise
to persuade his countrymen that the same arms which they
forged for their masters might become in their own hands the
instruments of freedom and victory. They sallied from the
mountain; a sceptre was the reward of his advice. … The
decisive battle which almost extirpated the nation of the
Geougen established in Tartary the new and more powerful
empire of the Turks. … The royal encampment seldom lost sight
of Mount Altai, from whence the river Irtish descends to water
the rich pastures of the Calmucks, which nourish the largest
sheep and oxen in the world. … As the subject nations marched
under the standard of the Turks, their cavalry, both men and
horses, were proudly computed by millions; one of their
effective armies consisted of 400,000 soldiers, and in less
than fifty years they were connected in peace and war with the
Romans, the Persians, and the Chinese. … Among their southern
conquests the most splendid was that of the Nephthalites, or
White Huns, a polite and warlike people, who possessed the
commercial cities of Bochara and Samarcand, who had vanquished
the Persian monarch, and carried their victorious arms along
the banks and perhaps to the month of the Indus. On the side
of the west the Turkish cavalry advanced to the lake Mæotis
[Sea of Azov]. They passed that lake on the ice: The khan, who
dwelt at the foot of Mount Altai, issued his commands for the
siege of Bosphorus, a city the voluntary subject of Rome and
whose princes had formerly been the friends of Athens."
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 42._
_W. Smith,
Note to
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 42._
{3131}
ALSO IN:
_J. H. Newman,
Lectures on the History of the Turks
(Historical Sketches, volume 1), lectures 1-4._
See, also, TARTARS; and MONGOLS: ORIGIN, &c.;
and BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: RACES EXISTING.
TURKS: A. D. 710.
Subjugation by the Saracens.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 710.
TURKS: A. D. 815-945.
Slaves and masters of the Caliphate.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE: A. D. 815-945.
TURKS: A. D. 999-1183.
The Gaznevide empire.
The decline of the Caliphate at Bagdad in the 9th century was
signalized by the rise to practically independent power of
several dynasties in its Persian and Central Asian dominions.
Among these was the dynasty of the Samanides who ruled, for a
hundred and twenty-five years, an extensive dominion in
northern Persia and modern Afghanistan and in the Turkoman
regions to the Oxus and beyond. In this dominion of the
Samanides was included the Turkish tribes which had submitted
to Islam and which were presently to become the master
champions of the faith. Their first attainment of actual
empire in the Moslem world was accomplished by the overthrow
of the Samanide princes, and the chief instruments of that
revolution were two Turks of humble origin—Sebectagi, or
Sabektekin, and his son Mahmud. Sebectagi had been a slave (in
the service of a high official under the Samanides) who gained
the favor of his masters and acquired command of the city and
province of Gazna; whence his famous son Mahmud was called the
Gaznevide, and the wide conquests which the latter made are
sometimes distinguished as the Gaznevide empire. "For him the
title of Sultan was first invented [see SULTAN]; and his
kingdom was enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighbourhood of
Ispahan, from the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the
Indus. But the principal source of his fame and riches was the
holy war which he waged against the Gentoos of Hindostan. …
The Sultan of Gazna surpassed the limits of the conquests of
Alexander; after a march of three months, over the hills of
Cashmir and Thibet, he reached the famous city of Kinoge, on
the Upper Ganges, and, in a naval combat on one of the
branches of the Indus, he fought and vanquished 4,000 boats of
the natives. Delhi, Lahor, and Multan were compelled to open
their gates; the fertile kingdom of Guzarat attracted his
ambition and tempted his stay." The throne of Mahmud scarcely
outlasted himself. In the reign of his son Massoud, it was
nearly overturned by another Turkish horde—later comers into
the region of Bokhara from the steppes beyond. In a great
battle fought at Zendecan, in Khorassan, A. D. 1038, Massoud
was defeated and driven from Persia to a narrowed kingdom in
Cabul and the Punjaub, which survived for more than a century
longer and then disappeared.
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 57._
ALSO IN:
_J. H. Newman,
Lectures on the History of the Turks
(Historical Sketches, volume 1), lecture 4._
See, also, INDIA: A. D. 977-1290.
TURKS: (Seljuk), A. D. 1004-1063.
Conquests of Seldjuk and Togrul Beg.
"The history of the origin of the Seldjukides is obscured by
numerous myths, but it appears from it that Seldjuk, or more
correctly Seldjik, the son of Tokmak, and Subash, commander of
the army of a prince named Pigu or Bogu, were expelled from
their native steppes for some crime, and forced to seek their
fortunes in strange countries. Seldjuk, with 100 horsemen,
1,000 camels, and 50,000 sheep, migrated to a place on the
southern confines of the desert, in the neighbourhood of Djend
[described as distant twenty fersakhs from Bokhara]. He
settled there and, with all his followers, embraced Islamism."
Under Seldjuk and his two grandsons, Togrul and Tchakar, the
Seldjukides grew formidable in numbers and power, on the
border of the empire of Mahmud the Ghaznevide, then rising on
the ruins of the principality of the Samanides. Thinking to
control these turbulent kinsmen of his race, Mahmud unwisely
proposed to them to quit the country they occupied, between
the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and to settle themselves in
Khorasan. "In the year … (1030), that is, within a year of the
death of Sultan Mahmud, we find the Seldjukides west of Merv,
on the ground now occupied by the Tekke-Turkomans, in the
neighbourhood of the southern cities of Nisa and Abiverd, from
which point they molested the rich province of Khorasan by
constant raids, as grievously as is done by the Turkomans to
this very day.' When it was too late, the Ghaznevide Sultan
attempted to expel the marauders. His armies were routed, and
the grandsons of Seldjuk were soon (A. D. 1039) in undisputed
possession of the whole of Khorasan, with the rich and
flourishing cities of Merv, Balkh, and Nishabur. A few years
later they had pushed forward "over the ruins of the former
power of the Buyyides [or Bouides, of Persia] to Azerbaïdjan,
and, in the year 446 (1054) the skirmishers of the Turkish
army, led by Togrul Beg, penetrated into the interior of the
eastern Roman Empire [that is, into Asia Minor]; and although
the bold inhabitants of the desert in their raid on the land
of the Cæsars were bent rather on plunder than on actual
conquest, yet even their temporary success against the great
name of Rome—so long one of awe to the ancient
Asiatic—increased enormously the prestige and reputation of
the Seldjukides. Togrul Beg was said to meditate a pilgrimage
to Mecca, with the object at the same time of clearing the
road thither, which the state of anarchy in Bagdad had long
rendered unsafe."
_A. Vámbéry,
History of Bokhara,
chapter 6._
"Togrul Beg, under pretence of a pilgrimage to Mekka had
entered Irak at the head of a strong army, and sought to
obtain admission into Baghdad. The khalif, in opposition to
the advice of his vizier and the officers of the Turkish
militia, consented; on the 22nd Ramadan, 447 (December, 1050),
the name of Togrul was inserted in the public prayer; and
three days after he made his entry into the city. He had taken
an oath, before entering, to be the faithful and obedient
servant of the khalif; but it is needless to add that he broke
this immediately afterwards, and occupied the city in force. A
dispute broke out between the Seljuk soldiers and some
shop-keepers. The Baghdad Turks took the side of the citizens,
the foreigners were driven out, and several of them killed and
wounded. This riot was followed by a general attack upon the
ill-fated city by the army of Togrul Beg. It was useless for
the khalif and his vizier to protest their innocence. The
Turkish chief denounced them as the murderers of his soldiers,
and summoned the vizier to his camp to explain his conduct.
{3132}
On his arrival there he was arrested and flung into prison.
With this occurrence the rule of the Bouides in Baghdad may be
said to have terminated, and that of the Seljuks commenced.
Togrul Beg remained for a year inactive in Baghdad, neither
visiting the khalif nor heeding his entreaties to put an end
to the ravages and outrages perpetrated by his fierce and
lawless soldiery on the wretched townspeople." The khalif was
forced, nevertheless, to crown Sultan Togrul with two crowns,
one to represent the sovereignty of Persia and the other the
sovereignty of Arabia, and to confer on him the title of "The
Sultan of the Court, the Right Hand of the Chief of Believers,
the King of the East and of the West." The Seljuk sultan was
now master of the Asiatic Mahometan empire. But civil war was
still protracted for a period, by struggles of the partisans
of the Bouides, assisted by the Fatimite Kalif of Egypt, and
the unfortunate city of Baghdad suffered terribly at the hands
of each party in turn. Togrul Beg, in the end, destroyed the
opposition to his rule, and was at the point of marrying one
of the kalif's daughters, when a sudden illness ended his
life, A. D. 1063. He was succeeded by his nephew, Alp Arslan,
who extended the empire of the Seljukides in Asia Minor and
Armenia.
_R. D. Osborn,
Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad,
part 3, chapter 2._
TURKS: A. D. 1063-1073.
Conquests of Alp Arslan.
"Alp Arslan, the nephew and successor of Togrul Beg, carried
on the havoc and devastation which had marked the career
through life of his uncle. Togrul Beg had on two or three
occasions invaded the Asiatic territories of the Byzantine
Emperor; Alp Arslan carried these partial conquests to
completion. He invaded in person the northern parts of Armenia
and Iberia. He laid waste the country in the cruellest manner,
for it was the notion of these barbarians that a country was
not really conquered unless it was also depopulated. Iberia
had been long celebrated for the industry of its inhabitants,
the wealth of its numerous towns, and the valour of its
people. There is no doubt they could have flung back the
invaders had the Byzantine Empire come to their aid. But
avarice was the dominant passion of the Emperor, Constantine
X., and rather than disburse his loved hoards, he preferred to
look idly on, while his fairest provinces were laid waste and
overrun. The country was, in consequence, compelled to submit
to the Seljuk Turks, and the invaders settling upon it, like a
swarm of locusts, swiftly converted the happiest and most
flourishing portion of Asia into a scene of poverty and
desolation. From Iberia, Alp Arslan passed into Armenia. Ani,
the capital, was stormed and taken, after a gallant defence,
on the 6th June, 1064. … So great was the carnage that the
streets were literally choked up with dead bodies; and the
waters of the river were reddened from the quantity of bloody
corpses."
_R. D. Osborn,
Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad,
part 3, chapter 2._
"So far as one can judge from the evidence of modern and
mediæval travellers and of Byzantine historians, Asia Minor,
at the time of the Seljuk invasion of Alparslan, was thickly
occupied by races who were industrious, intelligent, and
civilised—races with a certain mixture of Greek blood and
mostly Greek as to language. The numerous provincial cities
were the centres of civilisation. Their walls and
amphitheatres, their works of art, aqueducts, and other public
buildings, give evidence of a long-continued sense of
security, of peaceful and progressive peoples, and of a
healthy municipal life. Wealth was widely diffused. … It was
against this prosperous portion of the Empire, which had
contributed largely to the wealth of the capital, that
Alparslan turned his attention when the border states were no
longer able to resist his progress. … The Strong Lion of the
Seljuks devoured many cities and devastated the fairest
provinces. Cappadocia was laid waste; the inhabitants of its
capital, Cæsarea, were massacred. … Mesopotamia, Mitylene,
Syria, and Cilicia were plundered."
_E. Pears,
The Fall of Constantinople,
chapter 2._
The career of Alp Arslan in Asia Minor was opposed by a
courageous and vigorous emperor, Romanus Diogenes, or Romanus
IV.; but Romanus exposed himself and his army rashly to the
chances of a battle at Manzikert, A. D. 1071, on which all was
staked. He lost; his army was routed, and he, himself, was
taken prisoner. He was released on signing a treaty of peace
and agreeing to pay a heavy ransom; but a revolution at
Constantinople meantime had robbed him of the throne, deprived
him of the means of fulfilling his engagements, and brought
upon him, soon afterwards, a cruel end. Alp Arslan, provoked
by the repudiation of the treaty, revenged himself on the
ill-fated country which lay at his mercy. "Every calamity of
this unfortunate period sinks into insignificance when
compared with the destruction of the greater part of the Greek
race, by the ravages of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor."
_G. Finlay,
History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires,
book 3, chapter 1, section 2._
TURKS: A. D. 1073-1092.
The empire of Malek Shah and its subordinate Sultans.
Alp Arslan, assassinated in 1073, "was succeeded by his son,
Malek Shah, in whose reign the power of the Seljukian Turks
attained its greatest height. … Turkestan, the home of his
race, including Bokhara and Samarcand, was annexed by Malek,
and the rule of the shepherd Sultan was admitted at Cashgar.
In addition to Persia and the countries just mentioned, his
territory included at one time nearly the whole of what is now
Turkey in Asia. … The Seljukian empire, however, broke up on
the death of Malek, which took place in 1092, and, after a
period of civil war, was divided into four parts. … The only
one of the divisions … with which I am concerned is that which
was carved out of the dominions of the Roman empire, and of
which the capital was, for the most part, at Iconium, a city
which to-day, under the name of Konieh, retains somewhat of a
sacred character among the Turks, because of its connection
with the first Sultans who obtained the right to be Caliphs.
Sultan Malek, eighteen years before his death, had prevented a
quarrel with Suliman, his cousin, by consenting to allow him
to be Sultan of the Seljuks in the lands of the Christian
empire. With Suliman there begins the famous line of robber
chiefs who are known as Seljukian Sultans of Rome or Roum, or
as Sultans of Iconium."
_E. Pears,
The Fall of Constantinople,
chapter 2._
{3133}
"The dominion of Suleiman over the greater part of Asia Minor
was recognised by a treaty with the Byzantine empire in 1074,
when Michael VII. purchased the assistance of a Turkish
auxiliary force against the rebellion of Oursel and his own
uncle John Dukas. Nicephorus III. ratified the treaty
concluded with Michael VII., augmented the power of the Turks,
and abandoned additional numbers of Christians to their
domination, to gain their aid in dethroning his lawful prince;
and Nicephorus Melissenos, when he rebelled against Nicephorus
III., repeated a similar treason against the traitor, and, in
hopes of gaining possession of Constantinople, yielded up the
possession of Nicæa to Suleiman, which that chief immediately
made the capital of his dominions. … When Alexius ascended the
throne [Alexius I. A. D. 1081], the Seljouk conquests in Asia
Minor were still considered as a portion of the dominions of
the Grand Sultan Malekshah, the son of Alp Arslan, and
Suleiman, the sultan of Nicæa, was only his lieutenant, though
as a member of the house of Seljouk, and as cousin of
Malekshah, he was honoured with the title of Sultan. The
prominent position which his posterity occupied in the wars of
the Crusaders, their long relations with the Byzantine empire,
and the independent position they held as sultans of Iconium,
have secured to them a far more lasting place in history than
has been obtained by the superior but less durable dynasty of
the grand sultans. … Toutoush, the brother of Malekshah, who
acted as his governor at Damascus at the same time, became the
founder of the Syrian dynasty of Seljouk sultans."
_G. Finlay,
History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires,
from 716 to 1453,
book 3, chapter 2, section 1._
The empire of Malek Shah "was as vast as that of the Sassanian
kings in the height of their glory. He encouraged the
cultivation of science and literature, and his reign is famous
for the reformation of the Calendar [in which work Omar
el-Khayyam, the poet, was one of the astronomers employed]. An
assembly of an the astronomers of Persia adopted a system of
computing time which Gibbon says 'surpasses the Julian and
approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian æra.' It was called
the Jalalæan æra, from Jalalu-'d-Din, 'Glory of the Faith,'
one of the titles of Malik-Shah, and commenced on March 15,
1079."
_C. R. Markham,
History of Persia,
chapter 6._
TURKS: A. D. 1092-1160.
Dissolution of the empire of Malek Shah.
"Melikshah's reign was certainly the culminating point of the
glory of the Seldjukides. … Mindful of the oriental adage,
'Perfection and decay go hand in hand,' he determined as far
as possible to provide, during his own lifetime, against
discord breaking out amongst those who should come after him,
by dividing the empire between his different relations.
Anatolia was given to Suleiman Shah, whose family had hitherto
governed Gazan; Syria fell to his brother Tutush, the
adversary of the Crusaders; Nushtekin Gartcha, who had raised
himself from slavery to the rank of generalissimo, and who
became later the founder of the dynasty of the Khahrezmides,
was invested with Khahrezm; Aksonghar got Aleppo; Tchekermish
Mosul, Kobulmish Damascus, Khomartekin Fars, and his son
Sandjar was entrusted with the administration of Khorasan and
Transoxania. These precautions proved, however, ineffectual to
preserve the dynasty of the Seljukides from the common fate of
oriental sovereign races, for after the death of Melikshah,
which took place in 485 (1092), his son Berkyaruk (the Very
Brilliant One) had scarcely ascended the throne before the
flames of discord were kindled amongst the numerous members of
the family, and they speedily fell a prey to the generals and
the other relations of the deceased prince." Sandjar, who died
in 1160, "was almost the only one of all his race who took to
heart the decay of their power in their old hereditary
dominions, or made any earnest endeavour to arrest it."
_A. Vámbéry,
History of Bokhara,
chapter 6._
TURKS: A. D. 1097-1099.
First encounters with the Crusaders.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099.
TURKS: A. D. 1101-1102.
Destruction of three hosts of Crusaders.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1101-1102.
TURKS: A. D. 1193.
Overthrow by the Khuarezmians.
See KHUAREZM
TURKS: (Ottoman): A. D. 1240-1326.
Origin and rise of the modern Turkish power.
On the final defeat and death, in Kurdistan, of the last
Khuarezmian or Carizmian prince, who was pursued relentlessly
by the Mongols of Jingis Khan and his successors, there was
dissolved an army which included various Turkish hordes. The
fragments of this Khuarezmian force were scattered and played
several important parts in the history of the troubled time.
"The bolder and more powerful chiefs invaded Syria, and
violated the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem; the more humble
engaged in the service of Aladin, Sultan of Iconium, and among
these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line. They had
formerly pitched their tents near the southern bank of the
Oxus, in the plains of Mahan and Nesa; and it is somewhat
remarkable that the same spot should have produced the first
authors of the Parthian and Turkish empires. At the head or in
rear of a Carizmian army, Soliman Shah was drowned in the
passage of the Euphrates. His son Orthogrul became the soldier
and subject of Aladin, and established at Surgut, on the banks
of the Sangar, a camp of four hundred families or tents, whom
he governed fifty-two years both in peace and war. He was the
father of Thaman, or Athman, whose Turkish name has been
melted into the appellation of the Caliph Othman; and if we
describe that pastoral chief as a shepherd and a robber, we
must separate from those characters all idea of ignominy and
baseness. Othman possessed, and perhaps surpassed, the
ordinary virtues of a soldier, and the circumstances of time
and place were propitious to his independence and success. The
Seljukian dynasty was no more, and the distance and decline of
the Mogul Khans soon enfranchised him from the control of a
superior. He was situate on the verge of the Greek empire. The
Koran sanctified his 'gazi,' or holy war, against the
infidels; and their political errors unlocked the passes of
Mount Olympus, and invited him to descend into the plains of
Bithynia. … It was on the 27th of July, in the year 1299 of
the Christian era, that Othman first invaded the territory of
Nicomedia; and the singular accuracy of the date seems to
disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of
the monster. The annals of the twenty-seven years of his reign
would exhibit a repetition of the same inroads; and his
hereditary troops were multiplied in each campaign by the
accession of captives and volunteers.
{3134}
Instead of retreating to the hills, he maintained the most
useful and defensible posts, fortified the towns and castles
which he had first pillaged; and renounced the pastoral life
for the baths and palaces of his infant capitals. But it was
not till Othman was oppressed by age and infirmities that he
received the welcome news of the conquest of Prusa, which had
been surrendered by famine or treachery to the arms of his son
Orchan. … From the conquest of Prusa we may date the true era
of the Ottoman empire. The lives and possessions of the
Christian subjects were redeemed by a tribute or ransom of
thirty thousand crowns of gold; and the city, by the labors of
Orchan, assumed the aspect of a Mahometan capital."
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 64._
"Osman is the real Turkish name, which has been corrupted into
Othman. The descendants of his subjects style themselves
Osmanlis, which has in like manner been corrupted into
Ottoman."
_Dr. W. Smith,
Note to
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 64._
TURKS: A. D. 1326-1359.
Progress of conquests in Asia Minor.
The Janissaries.
"Orchan [the son and successor of Othman] had captured the
city of Nicomedia in the first year of his reign (1326); and
with the new resources for warfare which the administrative
genius of his brother [Alaeddin] placed at his command, he
speedily signalised his reign by conquests still more
important. The great city of Nice [Nicæa] (second to
Constantinople only in the Greek Empire) surrendered to him in
1330. … Numerous other advantages were gained over the Greeks:
and the Turkish prince of Karasi (the ancient Mysia), who had
taken up arms against the Ottomans, was defeated; and his
capital city, Berghama (the ancient Pergamus), and his
territory, annexed to Orchan's dominions. On the conquest of
Karasi, in the year 1336 of our era, nearly the whole of the
north-west of Asia Minor was included in the Ottoman Empire;
and the four great cities of Brusa, Nicomedia, Nice, and
Pergamus had become strongholds of its power. A period of
twenty years, without further conquests, and without war,
followed the acquisition of Karasi. During this time the
Ottoman sovereign was actively occupied in perfecting the
civil and military institutions which his brother had
introduced; in securing internal order, in founding and
endowing mosques and schools, and in the construction of vast
public edifices. … Orchan died in the year 1359 of our era, at
the age of seventy-five, after a reign of thirty-three years,
during which the most important civil and military
institutions of his nation were founded, and the Crescent was
not only advanced over many of the fairest provinces of Asia,
but was also planted on the European continent."
_Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapter 2._
It is with Othman's son Orkhan that the Ottoman Empire really
begins. He threw off his nominal allegiance to the Sultan [of
Iconium], though he still bore only the title of Emir. And in
his time the Ottomans first made good their footing in Europe.
But while his dominion was still only Asiatic, Orkhan began
one institution which did more than anything else firmly to
establish the Ottoman power. This was the institution of the
tribute children. By the law of Mahomet … the unbeliever is
allowed to purchase life, property, and the exercise of his
religion, by the payment of tribute. Earlier Mahometan rulers
had been satisfied with tribute in the ordinary sense. Orkhan
first demanded a tribute of children. The deepest of wrongs,
that which other tyrants did as an occasional outrage, thus
became under the Ottomans a settled law. A fixed proportion of
the strongest and most promising boys among the conquered
Christian nations were carried off for the service of the
Ottoman princes. They were brought up in the Mahometan faith,
and were employed in civil or military functions, according to
their capacity. Out of them was formed the famous force of the
Janissaries, the new soldiers who, for three centuries, as
long as they were levied in this way, formed the strength of
the Ottoman armies. These children, torn from their homes and
cut off from every domestic and national tie, knew only the
religion and the service into which they were forced, and
formed a body of troops such as no other power, Christian or
Mahometan, could command. … While the force founded by Orkhan
lasted in its first shape, the Ottoman armies were
irresistible. But all this shews how far the Ottomans were
from being a national power. Their victories were won by
soldiers who were really of the blood of the Greeks, Slaves,
and other conquered nations. In the same way, while the
Ottoman power was strongest, the chief posts of the Empire,
civil and military, were constantly held, not by native Turks,
but by Christian renegades of all nations. The Ottoman power
in short was the power, not of a nation, but simply of an
army."
E. A. Freeman,
The Ottoman Power in Europe,
chapter 4.
The name of Yeni Tscheri, which means 'new troops,' and which
European writers have turned into Janissaries, was given to
Orchan's young corps by the Dervish Hadji Beytarch."
_Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapter 2._
TURKS: A. D. 1360-1389.
The conquests in Europe of Amurath I.
"The dissensions of the elder and younger Andronicus [Emperors
at Constantinople, the younger—a grandson—in revolt and the
elder finally deposed, A. D. 1320-1328], and the mistaken
policy of Cantacuzene [Great Domestic of the empire, regent,
after the death of Andronicus the younger, A. D. 1341, and
then usurper of the throne from 1341 until 1355], first led to
the introduction of the Turks into Europe; and the subsequent
marriage of Orchan with a Grecian princess was acceded to by
the Byzantine court as a faint bond of peace between a dreaded
conqueror and a crouching state. The expectation of
tranquillity was, however, fatally blasted; and, in the last
quarrel of Cantacuzene with his pupil [John Palæologus, the
youthful son of Andronicus the younger, who was deprived of
his crown for fourteen years by Cantacuzene], the disastrous
ambition of the former opened the path of Solyman, the son of
Orchan, across the Hellespont [A. D. 1356], and laid the
northern provinces of the kingdom open to the temporary
ravages of the barbarians, thus inflicting a lasting and
irremediable injury on the liberties of Christendom. The
exploits of Solyman, however, led to no other permanent
results than the example which they left to the ambition of
Amurath I., who, amongst his earliest achievements, led his
victorious army across the Hellespont [A. D. 1360], ravaged
the extended district from Mount Hæmus to the Straits, and,
taking possession of Adrianople [A. D. 1361], made it the
first seat of his royalty, and the first shrine of
Mahomedanism in Europe.
{3135}
His conquests had now drawn a circle round the enfeebled
dominions of the Emperor; and the submission of John
Palæologus, together with his political views in more distant
quarters, alone prevented Amurath from contracting the
circumference to the centre, and annihilating the empire of
the East, by seating himself on the throne of Byzantium. For
the present, he turned his back upon the city, and pursued his
course towards the wilds of Bulgaria and Servia."
_Sir J. E. Tennent,
History of Modern Greece,
volume 1, chapter 4._
"Hitherto the Turkish victories in Europe had been won over
the feeble Greeks; but the Ottomans now came in contact with
the far more warlike Sclavonic tribes, which had founded
kingdoms and principalities in Servia and Bosnia. Amurath also
menaced the frontiers of Wallachia and Hungary. The Roman See,
once so energetic in exciting the early crusades, had
disregarded the progress of the new Mahometan power, so long
as the heretical Greeks were the only sufferers beneath its
arms. But Hungary, a country that professed spiritual
obedience to the Pope, a branch of Latin Christendom, was now
in peril; and Pope Urban V. preached up a crusade against the
infidel Turks. The King of Hungary, the princes of Servia, of
Bosnia and Wallachia, leagued together to drive the Ottomans
out of Europe; and their forces marched towards Adrianople
until they crossed the river Marizza at a point not more than
two days' journey from that city." A single battle, fought on
the Marizza, in 1363, broke this first Sclavonic league
against the Turks, and Amurath proceeded in his acquisition of
towns and territory from the Servians and Bulgarians until
1376, when both people purchased a short peace, the former by
paying a heavy annual tribute of money and soldiers, the
latter by giving their king's daughter to the Turk. The peace
thus secured only gave an opportunity to the Sclavic nations
to organize one more great attempt to cast out their
aggressive and dangerous neighbor. Servia led the movement,
and was joined in it by the Bulgarians, the Bosnians, and the
Skipetars of Albania, with aid likewise promised and rendered
from Hungary, Wallachia, and Poland. But nothing prospered in
the undertaking; it served the ambition of the Turks and
quickened their conquest of southeastern Europe. Amurath fell
upon Bulgaria first (A. D. 1389), broke down all resistance,
dethroned the king and annexed his state to the Ottoman
dominions. A few weeks later in the same year, on the 27th of
August, 1389, the great and famous battle of Kossova was
fought, which laid the heavy yoke of Turkish tyranny upon the
necks of the Servian people, and the memory of which has been
embalmed in their literature. Amurath was assassinated in the
hour of victory by a despairing Servian nobleman, but lived
long enough to command the execution of the captive Servian
king.
_Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_L. Ranke,
History of Servia,
chapter 2._
_Madame E. L. Mijatovich,
Kossovo._
See, also,
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 9-16TH CENTURIES.
TURKS: A. D. 1389-1403.
The conquests of Bajazet.
The Emir becomes Sultan.
His overthrow and capture by Timour.
"The character of Bajazet, the son and successor of Amurath,
is strongly expressed in his surname of Ilderim, or the
Lightning; and he might glory in an epithet which was drawn
from the fiery energy of his soul and the rapidity of his
destructive march. In the fourteen years of his reign he
incessantly moved at the head of his armies, from Boursa to
Adrianople, from the Danube to the Euphrates. … No sooner had
he imposed a regular form of servitude on the Servians and
Bulgarians than he passed the Danube to seek new enemies and
new subjects in the heart of Moldavia. Whatever yet adhered to
the Greek empire in Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly,
acknowledged a Turkish master. … The humble title of emir was
no longer suitable to the Ottoman greatness; and Bajazet
condescended to accept a patent of sultan from the caliphs who
served in Egypt under the yoke of the Mamelukes—a last and
frivolous homage that was yielded by force to opinion, by the
Turkish conquerors to the House of Abbas and the successors of
the Arabian prophet. The ambition of the sultan was inflamed
by the obligation of deserving this august title; and he
turned his arms against the kingdom of Hungary, the perpetual
theatre of the Turkish victories and defeats. Sigismond, the
Hungarian king, was the son and brother of the emperors of the
West; his cause was that of Europe and the Church; and on the
report of his danger, the bravest knights of France and
Germany were eager to march under his standard and that of the
cross. In the battle of Nicopolis [September 28, A. D. 1396],
Bajazet defeated a confederate army of 100,000 Christians, who
had proudly boasted that if the sky should fall they could
uphold it on their lances. The far greater part were slain or
driven into the Danube; and Sigismond, escaping to
Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, returned, after
a long circuit, to his exhausted kingdom. In the pride of
victory, Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buda; that
he would subdue the adjacent countries of Germany and Italy;
and that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the
altar of St. Peter at Rome. His progress was checked, not by
the miraculous interposition of the apostle, not by a crusade
of the Christian powers, but by a long and painful fit of the
gout. … At length the ambition of the victorious sultan
pointed to the conquest of Constantinople; but he listened to
the advice of his vizir, who represented that such an
enterprise might unite the powers of Christendom in a second
and more formidable crusade. His epistle to the emperor was
conceived in these words: 'By the divine clemency, our
invincible scimitar has reduced to our obedience almost all
Asia, with many and large countries in Europe, excepting only
the city of Constantinople; for beyond the walls thou hast
nothing left. Resign that city; stipulate thy reward; or
tremble for thyself and thy unhappy people at the consequences
of a rash refusal.' But his ambassadors were instructed to
soften their tone, and to propose a treaty, which was
subscribed with submission and gratitude. A truce of ten years
was purchased by an annual tribute of thirty thousand crowns
of gold." The truce was soon broken by Bajazet, who found a
pretext for again demanding the surrender of Constantinople.
He had established his blockade of the city and would surely
have won it by famine or assault if Timour's invasion of Asia
Minor (A. D. 1402) had not summarily interrupted his plans and
ended his career. Defeated at the battle of Angora and taken
prisoner by the Tartar conqueror, he died a few months
later—whether caged like a beast or held in more honorable
captivity is a question in some dispute.
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 64-65._
See, also, TIMOUR.
{3136}
TURKS: A. D. 1393.
Wallachian capitulation.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES:
14-18TH CENTURIES (ROMANIA, ETC.).
TURKS: A. D. 1402-1451.
Prostration and recovery.
Conquests of Mahomet and Amurath II.
It is one of the marvels of history that the Ottoman empire,
broken and dismembered by Timour, recovered its vigor and
re-entered upon a long career. After the fall of Bajazet,
three fragments of his dominions were held by three of his
surviving sons, while other portions were transferred by
Timour to princes of the old Seljuk house. Civil war broke out
between the brothers of the Ottoman race; it resulted in the
triumph of Mahomet, the youngest (A. D. 1413), who reunited a
large part of the dominions of his father. He reigned but
eight years, which were years of peace for the Greeks, with
whom Mahomet maintained a friendly intercourse. His son,
Amurath II., was provoked to renew the state of war, and a
formidable attack upon Constantinople was made in August,
1422. The first assault failed, and disturbances at home
recalled Amurath before he could repeat it. The Roman capital
was reprieved for thirty years; but its trembling emperor paid
tribute to the sultan and yielded most of the few cities that
remained to him outside of his capital. The Ottoman power had
become threatening again in Europe, and Servians, Bosnians,
Albanians, Wallachians, Hungarians, and Poles now struck hands
together in a combination, once more, to oppose it. "A severe
struggle followed, which, after threatening the utter
expulsion of the house of Othman from Europe, confirmed for
centuries its dominion in that continent, and wrought the
heavier subjugation of those who were then seeking to release
themselves from its superiority. In 1442 Amurath was repulsed
from Belgrade; and his generals, who were besieging
Hermanstadt, in Transylvania, met with a still more disastrous
reverse. It was at Hermanstadt that the renowned Hunyades
first appeared in the wars between the Hungarians and the
Turks. He was the illegitimate son of Sigismond, King of
Hungary, and the fair Elizabeth Morsiney. In his early youth
he gained distinction in the wars of Italy; and Comines, in
his memoirs, celebrates him under the name of the White Knight
of Wallachia. After some campaigns in Western Christendom,
Hunyades returned to protect his native country against the
Ottomans." At Hermanstadt, and again at Vasag, Hunyades
defeated the Turks with great slaughter and rivalled them in
the ferocity with which his prisoners were treated. His fame
now gave a great impulse to the Crusade against the Turks
which Pope Eugenius had preached, and drew volunteers to his
standard from all the nations of the West. In 1443, Hunyades
led a splendid and powerful army across the Danube near
Semendra, drove the Turks beyond the Balkans, forced the
passage of the mountains with a boldness and a skill that is
compared with the exploits of Hannibal and Napoleon, and
extorted from the Sultan a treaty (of Szegeddin, July 12,
1444) which rescued a large Christian territory from the
Moslem yoke. "The Sultan resigned all claims upon Servia and
recognised George Brankovich as its independent sovereign.
Wallachia was given up to Hungary." But the peace which this
treaty secured was brief; Christian perfidy destroyed it, and
the penalty was paid by whole centuries of suffering and shame
for the Christians of the Danubian states. "Within a month
from the signature of the treaty of Szegeddin the Pope and the
Greek Emperor had persuaded the King of Hungary and his
councillors to take an oath to break the oath which had been
pledged to the Sultan. They represented that the confessed
weakness of the Ottomans, and the retirement of Amurath [who
had placed his son Mahomet on the throne and withdrawn from
the cares of sovereignty] to Asia, gave an opportunity for
eradicating the Turks from Europe which ought to be fully
employed. The Cardinal Julian [legate of the Pope] pacified
the conscientious misgivings which young King Ladislaus
expressed, by his spiritual authority in giving dispensation
and absolution in the Pope's name. … On the 1st of September,
the King, the legate, and Hunyades, marched against the
surprised and unprepared Turks with an army of 10,000 Poles
and Hungarians. The temerity which made them expect to destroy
the Turkish power in Europe with so slight a force was equal
to the dishonesty of their enterprise." They advanced through
Bulgaria to the Black Sea, and southward along its coast as
far as Varna, which they took. There they were called to
account. Amurath had resumed the sceptre, put himself at the
head of 40,000 of the best warriors of Islam and on the 10th
November he dashed them upon the Christian forces at Varna,
with the broken treaty borne like a banner at their head. His
victory was overwhelming. Cardinal Julian and the King of
Hungary were both among the slain. Hunyades fled with a little
remnant of followers and escaped to try fortune in other
fields. "This overthrow did not bring immediate ruin upon
Hungary, but it was fatal to the Sclavonic neighbours of the
Ottomans, who had joined the Hungarian King against them.
Servia and Bosnia were thoroughly reconquered by the
Mahometans; and the ruin of these Christian nations, which
adhered to the Greek Church, was accelerated by the religious
intolerance with which they were treated by their fellow
Christians of Hungary and Poland, who obeyed the Pope and
hated the Greek Church as heretical. … The bigotry of the
Church of Rome in preaching up a crusade against the sect of
the Patarenes, which was extensively spread in that country
[Bosnia], caused the speedy and complete annexation of an
important frontier province to the Ottoman Empire. Seventy
Bosnian fortresses are said to have opened their gates to the
Turks within eight days. The royal house of Bosnia was
annihilated, and many of her chief nobles embraced
Mahometanism to avoid a similar doom." After once more
attempting to escape from the throne, and being recalled by
domestic disturbances, Amurath reigned yet six years,
extending his dominions in the Peloponnesus, defeating once
more his old antagonist, Hunyades, who invaded Servia (1448),
but being successfully defied in Albania by the heroic
Scanderbeg. He died in 1451.
{3137}
_Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_L. Ranke,
History of Servia,
chapter 2._
_E. Szabad,
Hungary,
part 1, chapters 3-4._
_A. Lamartine,
History of Turkey,
books 10-11._
TURKS: A. D. 1451-1481.
Conquest of Constantinople.
The Empire organized and perfected by Mahomet II.
Mahomet II., son of Amurath II., "finished the work of his
predecessors; he made the Ottoman power in Europe what it has
been ever since. He gave a systematic form to the customs of
his house and to the dominion which he had won. His first act
was the murder of his infant brother, and he made the murder
of brothers a standing law of his Empire. He overthrew the
last remnants of independent Roman rule, of independent Greek
nationality, and he fixed the relations which the Greek part
of his subjects were to bear both towards their Turkish
masters and towards their Christian fellow-subjects. He made
the northern and western frontiers of his Empire nearly what
they still remain. The Ottoman Empire, in short, as our age
has to deal with it, is, before all things, the work of
Mahomet the Conqueror. The prince whose throne was fixed in
the New Rome held altogether another place from even the
mightiest of his predecessors. Mahomet had reigned two years,
he had lived twenty-three, on the memorable day, May 29th
1453, when the Turks entered the city of the Cæsars and when
the last Emperor, Constantine, died in the breach. …
See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1453.
And now that the Imperial city was at last taken, Mahomet
seemed to make it his policy both to gather in whatever
remained unconquered, and to bring most of the states which
had hitherto been tributary under his direct rule. Greece
itself, though it had been often ravaged by the Turks, had not
been added to their dominions. The Emperors had, in the very
last days of the Empire before the fall of Constantinople,
recovered all Peloponnesos, except some points which were held
by Venice. Frank Dukes also reigned at Athens, and another
small duchy lingered on in the islands of Leukas and
Kephallenia and on the coasts of Akarnania. The Turkish
conquest of the mainland, again saving the Venetian points,
was completed by the year 1460, but the two western islands
were not taken until 1479. Euboia was conquered in 1471. … The
Empire of Trebizond was conquered in 1461, and the island of
Lesbos or Mitylene in 1462. There was now no independent Greek
state left. Crete, Corfu, and some smaller islands and points
of coast, were held by Venice, and some of the islands of the
Ægean were still ruled by Frank princes and by the Knights of
Saint John. But, after the fall of Trebizond, there was no
longer any independent Greek state anywhere, and the part of
the Greek nation which was under Christian rulers of any kind
was now far smaller than the part which was under the Turk.
While the Greeks were thus wholly subdued, the Slaves fared no
better. In 1459 Servia was reduced from a tributary
principality to an Ottoman province, and six years later
Bosnia was annexed also. … One little fragment of the great
Slavonic power in those lands alone remained. The little
district of Zeta, a part of the Servian kingdom, was never
fully conquered by the Turks. One part of it, the mountain
district called Tsernagora or Montenegro, has kept its
independence to our times. Standing as an outpost of freedom
and Christendom amid surrounding bondage, the Black Mountain
has been often attacked, it has been several times overrun,
but it has never been conquered. … To the south of them, the
Christian Albanians held out for a long time under their
famous chief George Castriot or Scanderbeg. After his death in
1459, they also came under the yoke. These conquests of
Mahomet gave the Ottoman dominion in Europe nearly the same
extent which it has now. His victories had been great, but
they were balanced by some defeats. The conquest of Servia and
Bosnia opened the way to endless inroads into Hungary,
South-eastern Germany and North-eastern Italy. But as yet
these lands were merely ravaged, and the Turkish power met
with some reverses. In 1456 Belgrade was saved by the last
victory of Huniades [see HUNGARY: A. D. 1442-1458], and this
time Mahomet the Conqueror had to flee. In another part of
Europe, if in those days it is to be counted for Europe,
Mahomet won the Genoese possessions in the peninsula of Crimea
[A. D. 1475], and the Tartar Khans who ruled in that peninsula
and the neighbouring lands became vassals of the Sultan. … The
last years of Mahomet's reign were marked by a great failure
and a great success. He failed to take Rhodes [A. D. 1480],
which belonged to the Knights of Saint John; but his troops
suddenly seized on Otranto in Southern Italy. Had this post
been kept, Italy might have fallen as well as Greece; but the
Conqueror died the next year, and Otranto was won back."
_E. A. Freeman,
The Ottoman Power in Europe,
chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_A. Lamartine,
History of Turkey,
books 12-13._
_Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapters 5-6._
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 68._
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.
TURKS: A. D. 1454-1479.
Treaty with Venice, followed by war.
See GREECE: A. D. 1454-1479.
TURKS: A. D. 1479.
Defeat at Kenyer-Mesö by the Hungarians and Wallachians.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1471-1487.
TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.
The sad story of Prince Jem and the Christians.
Massacre of the Shiites.
Selim's conquests in Persia, Syria and Egypt.
The Sultan becomes the successor of the Khalifs,
the chief of Islam.
"The long reign of Bayezid [or Bajazet] II. (1481-1512) which
surpassed that of his father and grandfather, so that the
three together nearly completed a century, was marked by a
general lethargy and incapacity on the part of the Turkish
Government. … Family dissensions were indeed the leading
incidents of Bayezid's reign, and for many years he was kept
in a state of anxious uncertainty by the ingenious intrigues
of the Christian Powers concerning the custody of his brother,
the unfortunate Prince Jem. The adventures of Prince Jem (the
name is short for Jemshid, but in Europe it has been written
Zizim) cast a very unpleasant light upon the honour of the
Christians of his time, and especially upon the Knights of
Rhodes. Of the two sons of Mohammed II. Jem was undoubtedly
the one who was by nature fitted to be his successor. … Jem
however, was not the first to hear of his father's death, and
a year's warfare against his brother ended in his own defeat.
{3138}
The younger prince then sought refuge with the Knights of
Rhodes, who promised to receive him hospitably, and to find
him a way to Europe, where he intended to renew his opposition
to his brother's authority. D'Aubusson, the Grand Master of
Rhodes, was too astute a diplomatist to sacrifice the solid
gains that he perceived would accrue to his Order for the sake
of a few paltry twinges of conscience; and he had no sooner
made sure of Prince Jem's person, and induced him to sign a
treaty, by which, in the event of his coming to the throne,
the Order was to reap many sterling advantages, than he
ingeniously opened negotiations with Sultan Bayezid, with a
view to ascertain how much gold that sovereign was willing to
pay for the safe custody of his refractory brother. It is only
fair to say that Bayezid, who had no particle of cruelty in
his nature, did all he could to come to terms with Jem. … All
negotiation and compromise having proved ineffectual, he
listened to the proposals of the crafty Grand Master, and
finally agreed to pay him 45,000 ducats a year, so long as he
kept Jem under his surveillance. The Knights of St. John
possessed many commanderies, and the one they now selected for
Jem's entertainment was at Nice, in the south of France. In
1482 he arrived there, wholly unconscious of the plots that
were being woven about him. … On one pretext or another the
knights contrived to keep their prisoner at Nice for several
months, and then transferred him to Rousillon, thence to Puy,
and next to Sassenage, where the monotonies of captivity were
relieved by the delights of love, which he shared with the
daughter of the commandant, the beautiful Philipine Hélène,
his lawful spouse being fortunately away in Egypt. Meanwhile
Grand Master D'Aubusson was driving a handsome trade in his
capacity of jailor. All the potentates of Europe were anxious
to obtain possession of the claimant to the Ottoman throne,
and were ready to pay large sums in hard cash to enjoy the
privilege of using this specially dangerous instrument against
the Sultan's peace. D'Aubusson was not averse to taking the
money, but he did not wish to give up his captive; and his
knightly honour felt no smirch in taking 20,000 ducats from
Jem's desolate wife (who probably had not heard of the fair
Hélène) as the price of her husband's release, while he held
him all the tighter. Of such chivalrous stuff were made the
famous knights of Rhodes; and of such men as D'Aubusson the
Church made cardinals! A new influence now appeared upon the
scene of Jem's captivity. Charles VIII. of France considered
that the Grand Master had made enough profit out of the
unlucky prince, and the king resolved to work the oracle
himself. His plan was to restore Jem to a nominal sultanate by
the aid of Matthias Corvinus, Ferdinand of Naples, and the
Pope. He took Jem out of the hands of the knights, and
transferred him to the custody of Innocent VIII., who kindly
consented to take care of the prince for the sum of 40,000
ducats a year, to be paid by his grateful brother at
Constantinople." Innocent's successor, the terrible Borgia,
Alexander VI., unsatisfied with this liberal allowance, opened
negotiations with Constantinople looking to the payment of
some heavy lump sum for summary riddance of poor Jem. But the
sinister bargain was interrupted by Charles VIII. of France,
who invaded Italy at this juncture, passed through Rome, and
took the captive prince in his train when he went on to
Naples. Jem died on the way, and few have doubted that Pope
Alexander poisoned him, as he had poisoned many before. "The
curious conclusion one draws from the whole melancholy tale
is, that there was not apparently a single honest prince in
Christendom to take compassion upon the captive." In 1512
Bayezid was deposed by his son Selim, and did not long survive
the humiliation. To avoid troubles of the Prince Jem
character, Selim slew all his brothers and nephews, eleven in
number, making a family solitude around the throne. Then he
prepared himself for foreign conquest by exterminating the
sometimes troublesome sect of the Shias, or Shiites, in his
dominions. "A carefully organized system of detectives, whom
Selim distributed throughout his Asiatic provinces, revealed
the fact that the number of the heretical sect reached the
alarming total of 70,000. Selim … secretly massed his troops
at spots where the heretics chiefly congregated, and at a
given signal 40,000 of them were massacred or imprisoned. …
Having got rid of the enemy within his gates, Selim now
proceeded to attack the head of the Shias, the great Shah
Ismail himself [the founder of the Sufi line of Persian
sovereigns, who had lately established his authority over the
provinces of Persia]. … Selim set forth with an army estimated
at over 140,000 men, 80,000 of which were cavalry. … After
weary and painful marching, the Ottomans forced Ismail to give
battle at Chaldiran [or Tabreez—see PERSIA: A. D. 1499-1887],"
and defeated him. "The victory of Chaldiran (1514) might have
been followed by the conquest of Persia, but the privations
which the soldiery had undergone had rendered them
unmanageable, and Selim was forced to content himself with the
annexation of the important provinces of Kurdistan and
Dyarbekr, which are still part of the Turkish Empire; and then
turned homewards, to prosecute other schemes of conquest. No
peace, however, was concluded between him and the Shah, and a
frontier war continued to be waged for many years. During the
campaign against Persia, the Turks had been kept in anxiety by
the presence on their flanks of the forces of the Mamluk
Sultans of Egypt and Syria, whose frontiers now marched with
the territory of the Ottomans." Turning his arms against the
Mamluks, "Selim set out in 1516 for Syria, and meeting the
Mamluk army on the field of Marj Dabik near Aleppo,
administered a terrible defeat, in which the aged Sultan
El-Ghuri was trampled to death. He found a brave successor in
Tuman Bey, but in the interval the Turks had mastered Syria
and were advancing to Gaza. Here the Mamluks made another
stand, but the generalship of Sinan Pasha was not to be
resisted any more than the preponderance of his forces. The
final battle was fought at Reydaniya in the neighbourhood of
Cairo, in January, 1517. … Twenty-five thousand Mamluks lay
stark upon the field, and the enemy occupied Cairo. There a
succession of street-fights took place." The perfidious
Turkish Sultan finally cheated the Mamluks into submission by
offering amnesty, and then put them to the sword, giving the
city up to massacre. "Tuman Bey, after some further
resistance, was captured and executed, and Egypt became a
Turkish province. … Sultan Selim returned to Constantinople in
1518, a much more dignified personage than he had set out.
{3139}
By the conquest of the Mamluk kingdom he had also succeeded to
their authority over the sacred cities of Arabia, Mekka and
Medina, and in recognition of this position, as well as of his
undoubted supremacy among Mohammedan monarchs, he received
from the last Abbaside Khalif, who kept a shadowy court at
Cairo, the inheritance of the great pontiffs of Baghdad. The
'fainéant' Khalif was induced to make over to the real
sovereign the spiritual authority which he still affected to
exercise, and with it the symbols of his office, the standard
and cloak of the Prophet Mohammed. Selim now became not only
the visible chief of the Mohammedan State throughout the wide
dominions subdued to his sway, but also the revered head of
the religion of Islam, wheresoever it was practised in its
orthodox form. The heretical Shias of Persia might reject his
claim, but in India, in all parts of Asia and Africa, where
the traditional Khalifate was recognized, the Ottoman Sultan
henceforth was the supreme head of the church, the successor
to the spiritual prestige of the long line of the Khalifs. How
far this new title commands the homage of the orthodox Moslem
world is a matter of dispute; but there can be no doubt that
it has always added, and still adds, a real and important
authority to the acts and proclamations of the Ottoman
Sultan." Selim died in 1520, and was succeeded by his son
Suleyman, or Solyman, who acquired the name of "the
Magnificent."
_S. Lane-Poole,
Story of Turkey,
chapters 8-9._
ALSO IN:
_A. de Lamartine,
History of Turkey,
books 15-18 (volume 2)._
_A. A. Paton,
History of the Egyptian Revolution,
chapter 5._
TURKS: A. D. 1498-1502.
War with the Venetians.
"During the first 17 years of Bajazet's reign, the peace
between the Venetians and the Porte, though occasionally
menaced, remained on the whole undisturbed. The Venetians
complained of the Turkish incursions; and the definitive
occupation of Montenegro, while the Porte, on its side, was
jealous because the Republic had reduced the Duke of Naxos to
dependence, and obtained possession of Cyprus (1489). At last,
in 1498, the Turks, after making great naval preparations,
suddenly arrested all the Venetian residents at
Constantinople, and in the following year seized Lepanto,
which surrendered without striking a blow (August 1499). Soon
after, a body of 10,000 Turks crossed the Isonzo, carrying
fire and desolation almost to the lagoons of Venice. In August
1500, Modon was taken by assault. … Navarino and Koron
surrendered soon after, but towards the close of the year the
Venetians were more successful. They captured Ægina,
devastated and partly occupied Mytilene, Tenedos, and
Samothrace, and with the help of a Spanish squadron, and 7,000
troops, under Gonsalvo de Cordova, reduced the island of
Cephalonia. For this service the grateful Venetians rewarded
Gonsalvo with a present of 500 tuns of Cretan wine, 60,000
pounds of cheese, 266 pounds of wrought silver, and the
honorary freedom of their Republic. In 1501 the Venetian fleet
was joined by a French, a Papal, and a Spanish squadron, but,
through a want of cordiality among the commanders, little was
effected. The Turks, however; had not made a better figure;
and the Porte, whose attention was at that time distracted by
the affairs of Persia, was evidently inclined for peace. The
disordered state of the Venetian finances, and the decay of
their commerce through the maritime discoveries of the
Portuguese, also disposed them to negociation; although the
sale of indulgences, granted to them by the Pope for this war,
is said to have brought more than 700 pounds of gold into
their exchequer. The war nevertheless continued through 1502,
and the Venetians were tolerably successful, having captured
many Turkish ships, and, with the assistance of the French,
taken the island of Sta. Maura. But at length a treaty was
signed, December 14th, by which Venice was allowed to hold
Cephalonia, but restored Sta. Maura, and permitted the Porte
to retain its conquests, including the three important
fortresses of Modon, Koron, and Navarino."
_T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 1, chapter 6 (volume 1)._
TURKS: A. D. 1519.
The Sultan acquires sovereignty of Algiers and Tunis.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1516-1535.
TURKS: A. D. 1520.
Accession of Solyman I.
TURKS: A. D. 1521-1526.
Capture of Belgrade.
Great invasion of Hungary.
Overwhelming victory of Mohacs.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1487-1526.
TURKS: A. D. 1522.
Conquest of the isle of Rhodes.
Expulsion of the Knights of St. John.
See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN: A. D. 1522.
TURKS: A. D. 1526-1567.
The Sultan suzerain of Transylvania and master of Hungary.
Invasion of Austria and siege of Vienna.
Death of Solyman the Magnificent.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567.
TURKS: A. D. 1527.
Final subjugation of the Bosnians.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 9-16TH CENTURIES.
TURKS: A. D. 1532-1553.
Frightful depredations along the coast of Southern Italy.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1528-1570.
TURKS: A. D. 1542.
Alliance with France.
Siege of Nice.
Ravages on the Italian coast.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
TURKS: A. D. 1551-1560.
Unsuccessful attack on Malta.
Capture of Tripoli.
Disastrous attempt of the Christians to recover that city.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1543-1560.
TURKS: A. D. 1565.
Unsuccessful attack on the Knights of St. John in Malta.
See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN: A. D. 1530-1565.
TURKS: A. D. 1566-1571.
Reign of Selim II.
War with the Holy League of Spain, Venice and the Pope.
Conquest of Cyprus.
Great defeat at Lepanto.
"In 1566, Solyman the Magnificent closed his long and
prosperous reign. His son and successor, Selim II., possessed
few of the qualities of his great father. Bred in the
Seraglio, he showed the fruits of his education in his
indolent way of life, and in the free indulgence of the most
licentious appetites. With these effeminate tastes, he
inherited the passion for conquest which belonged, not only to
his father, but to the whole of his warlike dynasty. … The
scheme which most occupied the thoughts of Selim was the
conquest of Cyprus. … Selim, resolved on the acquisition of
Cyprus, was not slow in devising a pretext for claiming it
from Venice as a part of the Ottoman empire. The republic,
though willing to make almost any concession rather than come
to a rupture with the colossal power under whose shadow she
lay, was not prepared to surrender without a struggle the
richest gem in her colonial diadem. War was accordingly
declared against her by the Porte, and vast preparations were
made for fitting out an armament against Cyprus.
{3140}
Venice, in her turn, showed her usual alacrity in providing
for the encounter. She strained her resources to the utmost.
In a very short time she equipped a powerful fleet, and took
measures to place the fortifications of Cyprus in a proper
state of defence. But Venice no longer boasted a navy such as
in earlier days had enabled her to humble the pride of Genoa,
and to ride the unquestioned mistress of the Mediterranean.
The defences of her colonies, moreover, during her long repose
had gradually fallen into decay. In her extremity, she turned
to the Christian powers of Europe, and besought them to make
common cause with her against the enemy of Christendom." The
only responses to her appeal came, first, from Pope Pius V.,
and finally, through his urgency, from Philip II. of Spain.
After much deliberation, Philip agreed, in the spring of 1570,
to enter into an alliance with Venice and the Pope against the
Ottoman Porte. "The ensuing summer, the royal admiral, the
famous John Andrew Doria, who was lying with a strong squadron
off Sicily, put to sea, by the king's orders. He was soon
after reinforced by a few galleys which were furnished by his
holiness, and placed under the command of Mark Antonio
Colonna. … On the last of August, 1570, the combined fleet
effected its junction with the Venetians at Candia, and a plan
of operations was immediately arranged. It was not long before
the startling intelligence arrived that Nicosia, the capital
of Cyprus, had been taken and sacked by the Turks, with all
the circumstances of cruelty which distinguish wars in which
the feeling of national hostility is embittered by religious
hatred. The plan was now to be changed. A dispute arose among
the commanders as to the course to be pursued. No one had
authority enough to enforce compliance with his own opinion.
The dispute ended in a rupture. The expedition was abandoned.
… Still the stout-hearted pontiff was not discouraged;" nor
did the king of Spain draw back. "Venice, on the other hand,
soon showed that the Catholic king had good reason for
distrusting her fidelity. Appalled by the loss of Nicosia,
with her usual inconstancy, she despatched a secret agent to
Constantinople, to see if some terms might not yet be made
with the sultan." Her overtures, however, were coldly received
by the sultan, and she was won back to the alliance. "Towards
the close of 1570, the deputies from the three powers met in
Rome to arrange the terms of the league." With much
difficulty, a treaty was concluded, and ratified in May, 1571,
to the effect that the operations of the league "should be
directed against the Moors of Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, as
well as against the Turks; that the contracting parties should
furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports and smaller vessels,
50,000 foot and 4,500 horse, with the requisite artillery and
munitions; that by April, at farthest, of every succeeding
year, a similar force should be held in readiness by the
allies for expeditions to the Levant; and that any year in
which there was no expedition in common, and either Spain or
the republic should desire to engage in one on her own account
against the infidel, the other confederates should furnish 50
galleys towards it; that if the enemy should invade the
dominions of any of the three powers, the others should be
bound to come to the aid of their ally; that three-sixths of
the expenses of the war should be borne by the Catholic king,
two-sixths by the republic, the remaining sixth by the Holy
See; … that each power should appoint a captain-general; that
the united voices of the three commanders should regulate the
plan of operations; that the execution of this plan should be
intrusted to the captain-general of the league, and that this
high office should be given to Don John of Austria [natural
son of Charles V. and half-brother of Philip II.]. … Such were
the principal provisions of the famous treaty of the Holy
League." The sultan was not dismayed. "He soon got together a
powerful fleet, partly drawn from his own dominions, and in
part from those of the Moslem powers on the Mediterranean, who
acknowledged allegiance to the Porte. The armada was placed
under the command of Selim's brother-in-law, the Pacha Piali.
… Early in the season [of 1571] the combined fleets sailed for
the Adriatic, and Piali, after landing and laying waste the
territory belonging to the republic, detached Uluch [dey of
Algiers] with his squadron to penetrate higher up the gulf.
The Algerine, in executing these orders, advanced so near to
Venice as to throw the inhabitants of that capital into …
consternation. … Meanwhile the Venetians were pushing forward
their own preparations with their wonted alacrity,—indeed with
more alacrity than thoroughness. … The fleet was placed under
the command of Sebastian Veniero," and sailed before
midsummer, "or as much of it as was then ready, for the port
of Messina, appointed as the place of rendezvous for the
allies. Here he was soon joined by Colonna, the papal
commander, with the little squadron furnished by his holiness;
and the two fleets lay at anchor … waiting the arrival of the
rest of the confederates and of Don John of Austria." The
latter reached Messina on the 25th of August. "The whole
number of vessels in the armada, great and small, amounted to
something more than 300. Of these full two thirds were 'royal
galleys.' Venice alone contributed 106, besides six
'galeazzas.' These were ships of enormous bulk. … The number
of persons on board of the fleet, soldiers and seamen, was
estimated at 80,000. … The soldiers did not exceed 29,000. …
On the 16th of September the magnificent armament … stood out
to sea." Before encountering the Turkish fleet, the allies
received tidings "that Famagosta, the second city of Cyprus,
had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and this under
circumstances of unparalleled perfidy and cruelty. … The fall
of Famagosta secured the fall of Cyprus, which thus became
permanently incorporated in the Ottoman empire." On Sunday,
October 7th, the armada of the Turks was found and attacked in
the gulf of Lepanto. The terrific fight which ensued lasted
only four hours, but those were hours of indescribable
destruction and carnage. "It was indeed a sanguinary battle,
surpassing in this particular any sea-fight of modern times.
The loss fell much the most heavily on the Turks. There is the
usual discrepancy about numbers; but it may be safe to estimate
their loss at nearly 25,000 slain and 5,000 prisoners. What
brought most pleasure to the hearts of the conquerors was the
liberation of 12,000 Christian captives, who had been chained
to the oar on board the Moslem galleys, and who now came
forth, with tears of joy streaming down their haggard cheeks,
to bless their deliverers.
{3141}
The loss of the allies was comparatively small,—less than
8,000." As to the armada of the Turks, "it may almost be said
to have been annihilated. Not more than 40 galleys escaped out
of near 250 which entered into the action. … The news of the
victory of Lepanto caused a profound sensation throughout
Christendom. … In Venice, which might be said to have gained a
new lease of existence from the result of the battle, … the
7th of October was set apart to be observed for ever as a
national anniversary. … It is a great error to speak of the
victory of Lepanto as a barren victory, which yielded no
fruits to those who gained it. True, it did not strip the
Turks of an inch of territory. … But the loss of
reputation—that tower of strength to the conqueror—was not to
be estimated."
_W. H. Prescott,
History of Philip II.,
book 5, chapters 9-11._
ALSO IN:
_Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell,
Don John of Austria,
volume 1, chapters 13-15._
TURKS: A. D. 1569-1570.
First collision with the Russians.
Vizir Sokolli's canal project and its frustration.
Peace with the Czar.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1569-1571.
TURKS: A. D. 1572-1573.
Withdrawal of Venice from the Holy League.
Conquest of Tunis by Don John of Austria
and its recovery, with Goletta.
"Ulucciali, whom Selim … made commander-in-chief of all his
naval forces, exerted himself with extraordinary vigour and
activity in fitting out a new fleet, to supply the place of
that which had been ruined in the battle of Lepanto; and such
at this time were the resources of the Turkish empire, that he
was ready by the month of April [1572] to leave
Constantinople, with more than 200 galleys, besides a great
number of other ships. With this fleet he coasted along
Negropont, the Morea, and Epirus; put the maritime towns into
a posture of defence; chastised with great severity many of
those Christians who had been concerned in the invitation
given to Don John [who had just been offered the sovereignty
of Albania and Macedonia by the Christians of those
countries]; and afterwards took his station at Modon in the
Morea, with an intention to watch there the motions of the
enemy. He had full leisure to finish all the preparations
which he judged to be necessary. The allies disputed long with
one another concerning the plan of their future operations."
and were also held inactive by the Spanish king's fear of an
attack from France. "It was the last day of August before the
allies could effectuate a junction of their forces; and it was
the middle of September before they came in sight of the
enemy. … Ulucciali drew out his fleet, as if he intended to
offer battle; but no sooner had he made a single discharge of
his artillery … than he retired under the fortifications of
Modon." The allies thought first of besieging Modon, but gave
up the project. They then sent Alexander Farnese, prince of
Parma—afterwards so famous in the Netherlands—to reduce
Navarino; but he had no success and abandoned the siege. The
expedition then returned to Messina. The Venetians,
dissatisfied with the conduct of the war, now faithlessly
negotiated a separate peace with the Turks; but Philip II. of
Spain maintained his alliance with the Pope (now Gregory
XIII.), and ordered his brother, Don John, to proceed the next
spring to Africa and undertake the reduction of Tunis. Don
John obeyed the order, "carrying with him for this purpose a
fleet of 2,000 sail, having 20,000 foot on board, besides 400
light horse, 700 pioneers, and a numerous train of heavy
artillery. Tunis was at this time in the hands of the Turks,
commanded by Heder Basha, whom Selim had lately sent to govern
the town and kingdom. Heder, seized with consternation at the
approach of the Spanish fleet, left Tunis with his troops and
a great number of the inhabitants, and Don John took
possession of the place without meeting with the smallest
opposition. Philip had instructed his brother, when he sent
him on this expedition, to destroy Tunis, and to strengthen
the fortifications of the isle and fortress of Goletta. But
instead of complying with these instructions, Don John
resolved to fortify the town more strongly than ever; and
having laid the foundations of a new fort, or citadel, he
treated all the inhabitants who remained with lenity and
indulgence; and engaged many of those who had fled to return
and submit to the Spanish government; after which he carried
back his fleet to Sicily." It is believed that Don John had
conceived ambitious hopes of a kingdom on the African border
of the Mediterranean. "In the summer following [1573], Selim
sent Ulucciali against Tunis, with a fleet consisting of 300
ships, having about 40,000 troops on board, under the command
of his son-in-law, Sinan Basha. The new fort which Don John
had begun to build was not yet complete. Nor was the garrison
which he had left strong enough to hold out long against so
great a force." Before Don John could reassemble a fleet with
which to make his way to the protection of his African
conquest, both Tunis and Goletta were carried by assault, and
passed again into the possession of the Turks and their
Moorish vassals.
_R. Watson,
History of Philip II.,
book 9._
ALSO IN:
_Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell,
Don John of Austria,
volume 2, chapters 1-3._
TURKS: A. D. 1572-1623.
Beginning of the decline of the Ottoman power.
"The conquest of Cyprus was the last great exploit which ever
added materially to the dominions of the Porte; the battle of
Lepanto was the final blow which destroyed its naval
superiority. The days of greatness had gone by. The kingdoms
of the West were developing their strength, and had learnt the
policy of union and of peace among themselves. Their armies
had acquired the discipline and had learnt the lessons in
which the Ottomans had shown so formidable an example; and
their navy rode triumphant on the seas. The Empire, no longer
in the hands of Charles V., with foreign interests to absorb
its power, could bestow an undivided strength upon its own
affairs; and the Emperor Ferdinand was looking forward with
some hope to an incorporation of Hungary, which should end the
weakness, and ensure the safety, of his eastern frontier. As
the pre-eminence of the Porte, however, and the dread of it
declined, a wider intercourse for her with Europe began. …
Slowly the Sultans were beginning to take part in the schemes
and combinations of the Christian Powers, from which they had
hitherto so contemptuously stood aloof. Five reigns succeeded
to that of Selim [the Sot, son of Solyman the Magnificent].
during which the progress of decline continued marked.
{3142}
The indolence of Amurath III. [1574-1595], the incapacity of
Mahomet III. [1595-1603], the inexperience of Achmet I.
[1603-1617], the imprudence of Othman II. [1618-1622], and the
imbecility of Mustapha [1617-1618, and 1622-1623], contributed
to bring the Ottoman Empire into a condition of anarchy and
weakness. During the reign of Amurath hostilities with Austria
were renewed, and successive losses testified to the enfeebled
state of the Ottoman arms."
_C. F. Johnstone,
Historical Abstracts,
chapter 3._
TURKS: A. D. 1591-1606.
Wars in Hungary and Croatia.
Great victory at Cerestes.
Peace of Sitvatorok.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1567-1604; and 1595-1606.
TURKS: A. D. 1621-1622.
War with Poland.
Victory at Cecora and defeat at Choczim.
See POLAND: A. D. 1590-1648.
TURKS: A. D. 1623-1640.
War with Persia.
Siege and capture of Bagdad.
Horrible massacre of the inhabitants.
"During the first twelve years of the reign of Amurath IV.
[1623-1635], the Ottoman Empire had been occupied with active
hostilities in different parts of Europe, and especially with
Poland, Germany, and the maritime powers of the Mediterranean.
… In the east, however, great losses had been sustained. Shah
Abbas, a sovereign well entitled to the epithet 'Great,' had
repossessed himself of Diarbekr, Baghdad [1623], the district
of the Euphrates, with Kourdistan; and, on the north, he had
regained Armenia, and a considerable part of Anatolia. The
Sultan therefore resolved to undertake an expedition to
recover the territories thus taken from him, and to this he
was encouraged by the death of his formidable foe the Persian
monarch. Amurath marched from his capital early in 1635, to
superintend the operations of the campaign. … In passing
through Asia, he took care personally to examine into the
conduct of his various Pashas, and wherever it was requisite
he subjected them to a severe punishment. One of them, the
Pasha of Erzeroum, was put to death. Having at that city
reviewed his army, he found them to amount to 200,000 men, and
as his first object was the seizure of Armenia, the key of the
Persian provinces, he besieged Erivan, and notwithstanding a
vigorous defence, the fortress in a few days surrendered.
Tauris and the surrounding provinces speedily fell into his
hands, and Amurath returned in the winter to Constantinople,
entering the city in great triumph. The affairs of Europe were
in such a state of confusion, that it was several years ere he
again appeared in the east, the scene of so many of his
victories. The Khan of Tartary threw off his allegiance, the
Polish serfs appeared suddenly on the Caspian shores, and,
joining a body of Russians, attacked and carried the fortress
of Azof. … The European war, which at this time occurred,
rendered it unnecessary for the Sultan to entertain any
serious apprehension from his enemies in the west, who were
sufficiently occupied with their own affairs. He therefore
directed his attention to Persia, resolved to subjugate that
country, and to seize upon Baghdad. To this end his
preparations were proportionally great. An immense army was
collected on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. This mighty
host numbered more than 300,000 armed men, and was accompanied
by a numerous array of miners, as well as artillery. And after
having consulted an astrologer, Amurath embarked amid all the
display which Asiatic pomp could furnish, and directed his
progress toward Persia. After a successful march, this immense
army arrived at Baghdad. The city was strongly fortified, and
defended by a resolute army of 80,000 men. The Shah, however,
was absent in the northern part of his dominions, which had
been threatened by an invasion from India, under Shah Jehan,
father of the celebrated Aurungzebe. Baghdad, therefore, was
left to its own resources. The operations of the siege began
in October 1638. … The besieged made repeated sallies, with a
force of five or six thousand men at a time, who, on retiring,
were succeeded by a similar number, and thus the losses of the
Ottoman army were sometimes very great. The 200 great guns,
however, which played upon the ramparts, at length made a wide
opening in the walls, and after five days' fighting in the
breach thus made, where 'the slain lay in immense multitudes,
and the blood was stagnated like a pool to wade through,' the
city was taken. Quarter was given to 24,000 of the defenders,
who remained alive, on condition that they would lay down
their arms. But as soon as they had done so, the Sultan
perfidiously issued orders to the Janizaries, and the work of
butchery commenced, and was carried on by torch-light during
the night on which the city was taken, and an indiscriminate
slaughter took place, neither youth, nor age, nor sex being
spared by the ruthless conqueror and his merciless soldiers. …
In the morning of the 23d of December the Sultan marched into
the city, passing with his army over the innumerable bodies of
the unfortunate Persians, whose gallant defence merited a
better fate. Some 15,000 women, children and old men were all
that remained of the inhabitants, who, but a day or two
before, filled every part of the magnificent capital. … The
capture of Baghdad closed the military career of the Sultan."
_R. W. Fraser,
Turkey, Ancient and Modern,
chapter 17._
"A peace with Persia, on the basis of that which Solyman the
Great had granted in 1555, was the speedy result of Amurath's
victories (15th September, 1639). Eriwan was restored by the
Porte; but the possession of Bagdad and the adjacent territory
by the Ottomans was solemnly sanctioned and confirmed. Eighty
years passed away before Turkey was again obliged to struggle
against her old and obstinate enemy on the line of the
Euphrates. … Amurath died at the age of 28, on the 9th of
February, 1640."
_Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapter 13._
TURKS: A. D. 1625-1626.
War in Hungary.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1606-1660.
TURKS: A. D. 1640.
Accession of Ibrahim.
TURKS: A. D. 1645-1669.
The war of Candia.
Conquest of Crete.
"The Turks attacked the island [of Crete] in 1645, and the war
went on till 1669, when Crete was lost. This is called the war
of Candia, from the long siege of the town of Candia, which
was most gallantly defended by the Venetians, with the help of
many volunteers from Western Europe. It must be remembered
that, though the island has sometimes got to be called Candia,
from the town of Candia and its memorable siege, yet the
island itself has never changed its name, but has always been
called Crete both by Greeks and Turks."
_E. A. Freeman,
The Ottoman Power in Europe,
page 145._
{3143}
"The war which cost the republic of Venice the island of Crete
owed its origin to the incessant irritation caused by the
Western corsairs in the Archipelago. Some strong measures
adopted by the Venetians to suppress the piracies committed by
Turkish and Barbary corsairs in the Adriatic, created much
dissatisfaction on the part of the Othoman government, which
looked chiefly to the Mohammedan corsairs as a protection
against the Christian corsairs in the Levant, and considered
it the duty of the Venetians to suppress the piracies of these
Christians. The Porte at last resolved to seek a profitable
revenge, and a pretext soon presented itself. In 1644 some
Maltese galleys made a prize which offended the personal
feelings of the reigning sultan, Ibrahim. … As he feared to
attack Malta, he resolved to make the Venetians responsible
for the shelter which Crete had afforded to the corsairs. The
Porte affected to consider Venice as a tributary State, which
was bound to keep the Archipelago free from Christian
corsairs, in return for the great commercial privileges it
enjoyed in the Othoman empire. Immediate preparations were
made for attacking Crete, but the project was concealed from
the Venetian senate, under the pretence of directing the
expedition against Malta. … In the month of June 1645, the
Othoman army landed before Canea, which capitulated on the
17th of August. This treacherous commencement of the war
authorised the Christian powers to dispense with all the
formalities of international law in lending assistance to the
Venetians during the celebrated War of Candia, which lasted
nearly 25 years. During this long struggle the Venetians
generally maintained the superiority at sea, but they were
unable to prevent the Othoman navy, whenever it exerted its
full force, from throwing in supplies of fresh troops and
ample stores, by which the Othoman army was enabled to command
the whole island, and kept Candia, and the other fortresses in
the hands of the republic, either blockaded or besieged. The
Greeks generally favoured the Turks, who encouraged them to
cultivate their lands by purchasing the produce at a liberal
price, for the use of the army. … The squadrons of the
republic often ravaged the coasts of the Othoman empire, and
on one occasion they carried off about 5,000 slaves from the
coast of the Morea, between Patras and Coron. In the year
1656, after Mocenigo's great victory at the Dardanelles, they
took possession of the islands of Tenedos and Lemnos, but they
were driven from these conquests by the Othoman fleet in the
following year. At the end of the year 1666, the grand vizier,
Achmet Kueprily, one of the greatest ministers of the Othoman
empire, took the command of the siege of Candia. The whole
naval force of Venice, and numerous bands of French and
Italian volunteers, attempted to force the grand vizier to
raise the siege; but the skill of the Italian engineers, the
valour of the French nobles, and the determined perseverance
of Morosini, were vain against the strict discipline and
steady valour of the Othoman troops. The works of the
besiegers were pushed forward by the labours of a numerous
body of Greek pioneers, and the fire of the powerful batteries
at last rendered the place untenable. At this crisis Morosini
proved himself a daring statesman and a sincere patriot. When
he found that he must surrender the city, he resolved to make
his capitulation the means of purchasing peace for the
republic. … On the 27th September 1669, Achmet Kueprily
received the keys of Candia, and the republic of Venice
resigned all right to the island of Crete, but retained
possession of the three insular fortresses of Karabusa, Suda,
and Spinalonga, with their valuable ports. No fortress is said
to have cost so much blood and treasure, both to the besiegers
and the defenders, as Candia; yet the Greeks, in whose
territory it was situated, and who could have furnished an
army from the inhabitants of Crete sufficiently numerous to
have decided the issue of the contest, were the people on the
shores of the Mediterranean who took least part in this
memorable war. So utterly destitute of all national feeling
was the Hellenic race at this period."
_G. Finlay,
History of Greece under Othoman and Venetian Domination,
chapter 2._
TURKS: A. D. 1649.
Accession of Mohammed IV.
TURKS: A. D. 1660-1664.
Renewed war with Austria.
Defeat at St. Gothard.
A twenty years truce.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.
TURKS: A. D. 1664-1665.
Alliance with France broken.
War of the French with Tunis and Algiers.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.
TURKS: A. D. 1670-1676.
Wars with the Poles.
See POLAND: A. D. 1668-1606.
TURKS: A. D. 1681-1684.
Rupture with France.
French attack on Scio and war with the Barbary States.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.
TURKS: A. D. 1683.
Great invasion of Austria.
Siege of Vienna.
Overwhelming defeat by Sobieski and the Imperialists.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1668-1683.
TURKS: A. D. 1683-1699.
Expulsion from Hungary.
The Peace of Carlowitz.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.
TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.
War with the Holy League.
Expulsion from Hungary.
Venetian conquests in Greece.
Revolution at Constantinople.
Accession of Solyman II.
Czar Peter's capture of Azov.
The first Russian acquisition on the Black Sea.
In 1684, "a league against the Turks, under the protection of
the Pope, and thence called the Holy League, was formed by the
Emperor, the King of Poland, and the Republic of Venice; and
it was resolved to procure, if possible, the accession to it
of the Czar of Muscovy. The Venetians were induced to join the
league by the hope of recovering their former possessions, and
declared war against the Sultan, Mahomet IV., July 15th. The
war which ensued, now called the Holy War, lasted till the
Peace of Carlowicz in 1609. Venice in this war put forth a
strength that was little expected from that declining state.
Many thousand Germans were enrolled in her army, commanded by
Morosini, and by Count Königsmark, a Swede. The Austrians
pursued the campaign in Hungary with success [steadily
expelling the Turks—see HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1609]. … While the
war in Hungary had been conducted by the Emperor with such
eminent success, the King of Poland had made only some
fruitless attempts upon Moldavia. The Czar of Muscovy, Ivan
Alexiowitsch, who, after settling some disputes about
boundaries with the King of Poland, had joined the Holy League
in 1686, did not fare much better. All the attempts of the
Russians to penetrate into the Crimea were frustrated by the
Tartars.
{3144}
The Venetians, on the other hand, had made some splendid
conquests. St. Maura, Koron, the mountain tract of Maina,
Navarino, Modon, Argos, Napoli di Romania, fell successively
into their hands. The year 1687 especially was almost as fatal
to the Turks in their war with Venice as in that with Hungary.
In this year the Venetians took Patras, the castles at the
entrance of the bay of Lepanto, Lepanto itself, all the
northern coast of the Morea, Corinth, and Athens. Athens had
been abandoned with the exception of the acropolis or citadel;
and it was in this siege that one of the Venetian bombs fell
into the Parthenon, which had been converted by the Turks into
a powder magazine, and destroyed the greater part of those
magnificent remains of classical antiquity. The acropolis
surrendered September 29th. The fall of Athens, added to the
disastrous news from Hungary, excited the greatest
consternation and discontent at Constantinople," and brought
about a revolution which deposed the sultan, raising his
brother Solyman to the throne (1687) in his place. "By the
capture of Malvasia in 1690, the Venetians completed the
conquest of the Morea. The Isle of Chios, taken in 1694, was
again lost the following year; but in Dalmatia and Albania the
Venetian Republic made many permanent conquests, from the
mountains of Montenegro to the borders of Croatia and the
banks of the Unna. The operations of the Poles in the Turkish
war were insignificant; but in July 1696, the Russians, under
the Czar Peter, after many long and fruitless attempts, at
length succeeded in taking Azov, at the mouth of the Don; a
most important conquest as securing for them the entry into
the Black Sea. It was the fall of this place, combined with
the defeat at Zenta [in Hungary], that chiefly induced the
Porte to enter into negociation for a peace."
_T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 5, chapter 4 (volume 3)._
TURKS: A. D. 1691.
Accession of Achmet II.
TURKS: A. D. 1695.
Accession of Mustapha II.
TURKS: A. D. 1703.
Accession of Achmet III.
TURKS: A. D. 1709-1714.
Refuge given to Charles XII. of Sweden.
His intrigues.
Unlucky invasion of Moldavia by Peter the Great.
The Treaty of the Pruth.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.
TURKS: A. D. 1714-1718.
War with Venice and Austria.
Recovery of the Morea and disasters in Hungary.
The Peace of Passarowitz.
"By the treaty of the Pruth the Russian conquest of Azof had
been recovered. This success encouraged the hope of repairing
the other losses that had been incurred in the former war.
There were two states which had aggrandised themselves at
Turkish expense, Austria and Venice. Of these the republic was
far the less formidable and was naturally chosen as the first
object of attack. A pretext was found in the protection which
Venice had given to some Montenegrin fugitives, and in
December, 1714, the Porte declared war. Venice was entirely
unprepared, and moreover had failed to acquire popularity
amongst her Greek subjects. In 1715, the grand vizier, Ali
Cumurgi, landed in the Morea, and by the end of the year was
master of the whole peninsula. Sailing thence he captured Suda
and Spinalonga, the two last fortresses that Venice had been
allowed to retain in Crete. The republic naturally appealed to
her old ally, Austria, which had guaranteed her possessions by
the treaty of Carlowitz. … As the Turk refused to give any
satisfaction, war was inevitable. The intervention of Austria
saved Venice from ruin. The grand vizier and the main body of
the Turkish army had to be employed in Hungary. Still a
considerable army and fleet was sent to attack Corfu. The
Venetian troops were commanded by count Schulenburg, who had
won a great reputation in the northern war, and whose services
had been procured for the republic by Eugene. A heroic defence
ended successfully, and in August, 1716, the Turks were
compelled to raise the siege. 'It was the last glorious
military exploit in the annals of the republic, and it was
achieved by a German mercenary soldier.' Meanwhile the vizier,
with an army of 150,000 men, had laid siege to Peterwardein,
the most important of the Austrian border-fortresses in
Hungary," and suffered death there, in a great defeat which
prince Eugene inflicted upon his army, August 5, 1716. The
same year, Eugene took Temesvar, and in August, 1717, he
annihilated the Turkish army before Belgrad, capturing the
town.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1699-1718.
The result was the Treaty of Passarowitz, signed in July,
1718. "Austria retained all its conquests, thus completing its
possession of Hungary by acquiring the Banat of Temesvar, and
adding to it Belgrad and a strip of Servia. The Turks, on
their side, kept the Morea, while Venice was confirmed in its
possession of Corfu and Santa Maura, together with the
conquests which it had made in 1717 in Albania and Dalmatia."
_R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 16._
TURKS: A. D. 1730.
Accession of Mahmoud I.
TURKS: A. D. 1735-1739.
War with Russia and Austria.
Favourable Treaty of Belgrade.
Important acquisitions of Territory from Austria.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1725-1739.
TURKS: A. D. 1754.
Accession of Othman III.
TURKS: A. D. 1757.
Accession of Mustapha III.
TURKS: A. D. 1768-1774.
War with Russia on behalf of Poland.
Concession of independence to the Crim Tartars.
The Poles, in their struggle with Catherine II. of Russia
found a strange champion in the Turk.
See POLAND: A. D. 1763-1773.
"The Sultan, Mustafa III., was opposed to intervention in
Poland; but his hand was forced by a rising in Constantinople,
and he declared war against Russia in October, 1768.
Hostilities were not commenced till the next year, and they
never assumed considerable proportions. The Turkish army was
in the last stage of inefficiency, and the Russians, who were
wholly unprepared for war, were little better. Galitzin, an
incompetent commander, defeated the grand vizier, and took
Khoczim after his first attack had been repulsed. His
successor, Romanzow, 'the Russian Turenne,' acted with greater
energy. He drove the Turks from Moldavia, and in 1770 he
occupied Wallachia, won a great victory over vastly superior
numbers at Kaghul [August 1, 1770], and advanced into the
Crimea. At the same time a Russian fleet appeared in the
Mediterranean with the avowed intention of restoring Greece to
independence. But the admiral, Alexis Orloff, mismanaged the
expedition. After encouraging the Greeks to rebel, he left
them to the horrors of a Turkish revenge, and sailed towards
Constantinople.
{3145}
A victory over the Turkish fleet gave him possession of Chios
and other islands of the Archipelago, but he refused, in spite
of his English officers, to attempt the passage of the
Dardanelles." In May, 1772, a truce was arranged and a
congress assembled to settle the terms of peace. "But the
Russian demands were too excessive for the Porte to accept,
and the Turks resumed hostilities in 1773. They attempted to
recover Moldavia and Wallachia, and for a time they succeeded
in forcing the Russians to retreat. Mustafa III. died in
December, and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Hamid. In the
next year Romanzow won a complete victory, and compelled the
grand vizier to accept the terms dictated to him at Kutschuk
Kainardji [July 16, 1774]. The Russians restored the conquered
provinces except Azof and Kinburn, only stipulating for
toleration for the Christian population. The Tartars of the
Crimea and Kuban were declared independent of the Porte, and
authorised to elect their own Khan. Russian ships were allowed
free passage through the Dardanelles, and the right of sailing
in the Turkish seas and on the Danube. Poland, for which the
Turks had undertaken the war, was not even mentioned in the
treaty."
_R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 20, sections 11-12._
ALSO IN:
_F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 4, pages 405-441._
See, also, RUSSIA: A. D. 1762-1796.
TURKS: A. D. 1774.
Accession of Abdul Hamid.
TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.
Acquisition of the Crimea by the Russians.
War with Russia and Austria.
The Treaties of Sistova and Jassy.
Territorial concessions.
"A peace of some years followed the treaty of Kainarji, if,
indeed, that can be called peace where the most solemn
engagements are perpetually evaded. On that treaty Catherine
put what interpretation she pleased. … She offered her
protection to the voivods of Wallachia and Moldavia, who, in
consequence, were her vassals rather than those of the Porte.
The Christians on the opposite bank of the Danube were in
correspondence with Russia; they were encouraged to revolt, to
claim her protection, to oppose the Turkish government in
every way. … Though the Crimea had been declared independent,
she proved that the word had reference merely to the authority
of the sultan, and not to hers. … More than once … the Russian
troops appeared in that peninsula. In 1776 they deposed the
reigning khan, and elected in his stead another, who was
easily induced to solicit the protection of the empress.
Turkey threatened to resume the war. … At length … a new
treaty, or rather a modification of the former, was signed at
Constantinople in 1779. In it Russia promised to desist from
some of her obnoxious pretensions in regard both to the two
principalities and the Crimea; but promises cost little. …
Almost every year brought new complaints and evasions. The
foundation of the city of Cherson, about ten leagues from
Otzakof, gave peculiar umbrage to the Porte. This place had
now a population of 40,000; and the number of warlike vessels
constructed in its arsenal were evidently intended to overawe
Constantinople. In 1783 another insulting message was sent to
the Turkish ministers,—that, let the conduct of the empress in
regard to the Crimea be whatever it might, they should not
interfere. At the same time she prevailed on the khan whom she
had supported, Sahim Gherei, to make the most outrageous
demands from the Porte. The khan's envoy was beheaded. Under
the pretext of punishing the Turks for this insult to their
'good ally,' the Russians requested permission to march
through his territory. It was immediately granted; but no
sooner were they in the peninsula than, instead of proceeding
against the Turkish fortifications on the island of Taman,
they seized the towns, forced the Mahometan authorities, in
the khan's presence, to take the oath of allegiance to the
empress, and seized on the revenues of the country. … The khan
was now forced to resign his authority, and transfer it to
Catherine; in return, he received some estates in Russia. A
manifesto declared that the Crimea, Kuban, and Taman, were for
ever incorporated with the empire. In a document of some
length, and of great force, the Turkish ministry exposed to
the world the unprincipled encroachments of their neighbours."
But Russia responded to it by marshalling three great armies
on the frontiers, with an exhibition of formidable fleets in
the Euxine and the Baltic. "The Porte, terrified at this
menacing display, listened to the advice of France and
Austria; and, by another treaty (signed at Constantinople
early in 1784) recognised the sovereignty of the empress over
the Crimea, Taman, and a great part of Kuban. To the first and
last of these places she restored their ancient classical
names, Taurida and Caucasus." The treaty of Constantinople did
not put an end to Russian aggressions, and in August, 1787,
the Sultan declared war. "The campaign was opened with ardour.
Knowing that Otzakof would be the earliest object of
hostility, the Sultan sent a considerable force to cover it.
Another army marched to the Danube, and the vizier in person
took the field. … On the other hand, Potemkin, the
commander-in-chief, having under his orders some of the best
generals in the service, hastened to the frontiers, which were
soon covered by Russian troops. At the same time the emperor
Joseph [according to a prior agreement with Catherine] sent
80,000 Austrians into Moldavia; while a powerful fleet in the
Euxine prepared to co-operate with the allies, and another in
the Baltic was ready to sail for the Mediterranean. It seemed,
indeed, as if Catherine's favourite dream, the elevation of
her grandson Constantine to the throne of the Greek empire,
was about to be realised. Yet these mighty preparations had no
commensurate effect. An attack on Kinburn by 5,000 Turks from
the garrison of Otzakof was repulsed [by Suwarof] with heavy
loss. But this advantage was counterbalanced by the dispersion
of the Euxine fleet in a storm, with the loss of some vessels.
These were the chief events of the first campaign. The second,
of 1788, was more decisive. Otzakof was taken by assault, and
the garrison [with nearly all the inhabitants] put to the
sword. At the same time Joseph took Sobach; and his generals
captured Soubitza [Dubitza?]. On the deep, too, fortune was
equally adverse to the Turks. Their fleet was defeated in the
Euxine. … In the following campaigns the superiority of the
Russians was maintained. It would have been still more signal
but for the jealousy of Potemkin, who could not tolerate
success in any of his generals. … The death of Abdul Hamet,
and the accession of Selim III., made no difference in the
character of the war; it was still adverse to the Turks.
{3146}
Fortress after fortress [including Belgrade, taken by General
Loudon for the Austrians] was reduced by the enemy; and,
though no general engagement was risked, the loss of men was
not the less felt. Suwarof saved the Austrians [in Moldavia,
defeating the Turks, who had nearly overwhelmed them, at
Fockshani, July 30, and again at Rimnik, September 16, 1789];
Repnin forced the Seraskier, Hussein Pasha, to seek refuge in
Ismail; Komenski reduced Galatza; Ackerman fell into the power
of the Christians; Bender was forced to capitulate. In the
following campaign, the important fortress of Ismail was
assailed: the siege was conducted by Suwarof, the most dreaded
of all the Russian generals. … It was taken … though the loss
was most severe; and, in revenge, the garrison, with the
greater part of the population [nearly 40,000 in all], was put
to the sword. Other successes followed, both on the banks of
the Caspian, and on those of the Danube. Bohada was stormed;
at Kotzim 100,000 Turks were defeated by Repnin; Varna was
menaced; and the road to Adrianople lay open. The grand vizier
now sued for peace, which Catherine was ready to grant, on
conditions much less onerous than might have been expected."
Austria had already made peace with the sultan and withdrawn
from the war. By the treaty of Sistova, which the new emperor,
Leopold, signed on the 4th of August, 1791, the Austrians
relinquished all their conquests except the town of Old Orsova
and a small district in Croatia along the left bank of the
river Unna. With these slight variations the same boundary
between Austria and Turkey was reconstituted in 1791 that had
been defined by the treaty of Belgrade in 1739. The treaty of
the Turks with Russia was signed at Jassy on the 9th of
January 1792. "By that treaty, Catherine retained the whole
country between the Bog and the Dniester, but restored all the
other conquests which she had made since 1787. This was the
last of the hostilities between Russia and the Porte during
the reign of this empress; and the peace of Jassy enabled her
to carry into effect her designs on Poland."
_R. Bell,
History of Russia,
volume 2, chapter 11._
ALSO IN:
_Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapter 21._
_F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
period 5, division 1, chapter 2 (volume 6)._
_G. B. Malleson,
Loudon,
chapter 15._
TURKS: A. D. 1789-1812.
Attempted reforms of Sultan Selim III.
Their fate and his.
Palace revolutions.
Reign of Mahmud II.
War with Russia.
"Abd-ul-Hamid died on the 7th April, 1789, and was succeeded
by his nephew, Selim III (1789-1807). Although Selim had been
confined in the Seraglio by his uncle, he had been in other
respects well treated. His love of information and his natural
talents had induced him to carry on an active correspondence
with several servants of his father and his uncle. Their
information had, however, in no way satisfied him, and he had
commenced a correspondence with Choiseuil, the French envoy at
Constantinople in 1786, and had also sent his intimate friend
Isaac Bey to France, to enquire into the state measures and
administrative organization of that country. Selim had also
entered into correspondence with Louis XVI, and this lasted
till 1789, when the French Revolution broke out simultaneously
with Selim's ascension of the throne. All this throws a clear
light upon Selim's eventual exertions to cause reforms which
at last cost him both his throne and his life. His thirst for
knowledge leads us to presume that he was not deficient in
natural and sound talent. … But it was a mistake, that in his
pursuit of knowledge, and desire to improve the institutions
of Turkey—and the habits and character of its
inhabitants—Selim should have applied to France, and to
Frenchmen. That country was then on the eve of her great
revolution. Theories of all kinds were afloat. … Selim would
certainly have acted more wisely had he sought help from his
own sensible mind; he would have easily perceived the palpable
fact, that things which were suited for Christian nations were
utterly inapplicable to the rude, uncivilized Turks. …
Unfortunately ke set about the task with very different ideas,
and listened to the suggestions of the sciolists who
surrounded him. The first thing to which they drew his
attention was the formation of a council of state, which not
only restricted the power of the Grand Vizier, but that of the
Sultan, very materially. The Reis Effendi, Raschid, was the
soul of the council, and the boldest of these sciolists; and
he had perfect liberty to carry on the work of reform. He set
the printing presses again in activity which had been
introduced in a preceding reign, sent for French officers, who
founded an engineer academy, built arsenals and foundries, and
openly stated that he took science under his protection. But
his chief care was to form an army after the European fashion,
in order by their assistance to gain the mastery over the
Janissaries, in whom old customs and traditions found their
most zealous guardians. He took several steps, therefore, to
call into life the new military organization, called the Nizam
Djedid; and as money was required for the purpose, he laid a
tax on articles of consumption. This was quite sufficient to
cause the popular discontent to burst into a flame. The Ulema
declared themselves hostile to the Nizam Djedid, and Pashwan
Oglu, Pacha of Widdin, who placed himself at the head of the
Janissaries, openly rebelled against the Porte, which could
not effect anything to check him, but acquiesced in all that
was demanded. The extraordinary conquests of Napoleon diverted
attention from Turkey, and instead of seeking to divide the
dominions of a weak neighbour, the Great Powers of the
Continent were trembling for their own safety. Egypt became
the battle field between England and France [see FRANCE: A. D.
1798-1799 (AUGUST-AUGUST), and 1801-1802], and its invasion by
Napoleon obliged the Turks to unite with the Allied Powers
against France. When the French were expelled from Egypt, that
province was restored to Turkey, and peace concluded between
the two Powers. Selim, under the influence of General
Sebastiani who was then French ambassador at Constantinople,
signed [seized?] what was considered by him a favourable
opportunity for renewing the war with Russia [see below], in
which, however, the Turks were defeated both by land and sea.
These misfortunes the Janissaries attributed to the new troops
or Seymens. … At the end of May, 1807, the chiefs of the
Janissaries and the Ulema had already formed their plans for
the overthrow of the Sultan, when Selim accelerated the
outbreak by going to the mosque on Friday, accompanied by a
body of Seymens and the French ambassador, Sebastiani.
{3147}
The Janissaries, aroused by this, broke out in open revolt,
which soon grew of such a menacing nature by the co-operation
of the Mufti, that Selim was compelled to promise the
abolition of the Nizam, and the heads of those of his advisers
who had promoted the measure. But the insurgents were not
satisfied with this: they demanded the abdication of the
Sultan, whom the Mufti declared unworthy to be a successor of
Muhammad, through his partiality for foreigners, and marched
to the Seraglio, to carry their designs into effect. But when
the Mufti and the Ulema entered it, they found a new Sultan.
Selim, under the conviction that he could not resist the storm
his attempts at reform had created, had retired to the Harem,
where his nephew, Mustapha, was confined, and led him to the
throne: he had then attempted to destroy his own life by a cup
of poisoned sherbet, but had been prevented by Mustapha, and
was led into the apartments of the Royal Princes, with a
promise that he should ever be treated as a friend and an
uncle. On the same afternoon, Sultan Mustapha III [IV] (who
reigned from 31st May, 1807, to 28th July, 1808) rode in
solemn procession for the first time to the great mosque, was
invested in the traditional manner with the sabre of Muhammad,
then immediately did away with the Nizam Djedid, and restored
the old customs. But among the Pachas in the provinces, there
were several devoted partisans of reform. The most influential
of these was Mustapha Bairaktar, Pacha of Rustchuk, who set
out in July 1808, at the head of 18,000 men, to restore Selim
to the throne. He succeeded in taking possession of the
capital, and keeping the Sultan so long in ignorance of his
designs, until he sent him orders to resign the throne in
favour of Selim. As the Sultan had only one hour allowed him
for consideration, he was so helpless that he followed the
advice of the Mufti and had Selim cruelly murdered. As the
gates of the Seraglio were not opened at the appointed time,
and Bairaktar hurried up to enforce his authority, Selim's
lifeless body was thrown over the wall. Upon this the Pacha
ordered the Seraglio to be stormed, seized the Sultan,
destroyed all those who had advised the abolition of the plans
of reform, and placed Mustapha's younger brother on the
throne. Mahmud II, the second son of Abd-ul-Hamid, was born on
the 2nd July, 1785, and was consequently twenty-three years of
age when he ascended the throne. … Mahmud appointed Mustapha
Bairaktar his Grand Vizier, and, regardless of the fate of his
predecessor, restored all the measures of reform which Selim
had undertaken. Within three months the Janissaries were again
in open rebellion, and on the night of the 14th November,
1808, attacked the Seymens, destroyed a great number of them,
and, after storming the new barracks, forced their way into
the Grand Vizier's palace. He fled and appealed to the people
for help, but the greater portion abused him as a renegade and
joined the rebels. Bairaktar recognised his impending fate,
but still ordered the execution of Mustapha, for fear he might
reascend the throne. After this he retired with a body of
Seymens into a stone tower, where he had before collected a
quantity of gunpowder. He defended himself here for some time,
but, at last, when the Janissaries rushed up in larger masses
to the attack, he blew up the tower. The Janissaries then
attacked the Seraglio, and, but for the fact that Mahmud was
the last legitimate descendant of the race of Osman, they
would have taken his life. But even this, probably, would not
have saved him, had he not sent a deputation to the insurgents
and given an unconditional assent to their demands. … As an
additional guarantee for his own safety on the throne,
ensanguined with the blood of his uncle and his brother,
Mahmud ordered his brother's son, a child of three months old,
to be strangled, and four of the Sultanas to be thrown into
the Bosphorus. The reign of Mahmud is one of the longest and
most important in the whole of Turkish history. It commenced
with war. The Emperor Alexander menaced him on the Danube: the
Hospodar of Servia, Czerny George, had rebelled against him.
The campaign of the Turks in 1809, was, consequently, not a
prosperous one. The contest lasted till 1812, when it was
ended by the treaty of Bucharest, which surrendered the whole
of Bessarabia, as far as the Pruth, to Russia. At the same
time the Russian protectorate of the Greek Christian subjects
of the Porte, which had been stipulated in the treaty of
Kudjuk Kainardji, was again confirmed."
_Sir J. Porter,
Turkey,
volume 1, pages 194-204._
ALSO IN:
_Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapters 21-24._
TURKS: A. D. 1798.
In the Coalition against France.
War declared.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL.).
TURKS: A. D. 1806-1807.
Alliance with Napoleon, and hostilities with Russia and England.
British fleet before Constantinople.
Its humiliating retreat.
The English again in Egypt.
Disastrous failure of their expedition.
"Before the end of 1806, Russia had driven Selim into the arms
of France; and war was declared at the Porte just after
Napoleon's victories in Prussia had filled Alexander with
alarm. His troops had overrun some Turkish territory before
war was declared; but just at this juncture he wanted all his
forces for the defence of his own frontier. He dreaded the
effects of withdrawing them from the Turkish provinces, which
would immediately fight for France; but he must do it. He
besought the British to undertake another of those
'diversions' which began to sound so disagreeably to the ears
of Englishmen. … The Grenville Cabinet … gave orders to Sir
John Duckworth, then cruising off Ferrol, to join Admiral
Louis at the mouth of the Dardanelles. … Neither the efforts
of Sebastiani [French representative at Constantinople] … nor
any other warning that the English were coming, had roused the
Turks to make the slightest preparation. The ships sailed
proudly up the strait [February, 1807], undelayed by the fire
of the forts at the narrowest part of the channel, and
belching out flames and cannonballs as they went. They took
and burned some Turkish ships, and appeared before
Constantinople, to the horror of the whole population, who
were absolutely without means of defence. The Divan would have
yielded at once; but Sebastiani prevented it, and instigated a
negotiation which proved a fatal snare to Sir John Duckworth,
notwithstanding express warnings and instructions, strong and
clear, from Lord Collingwood.
{3148}
He was unwilling to destroy the city, and shoot down the
defenceless inhabitants; and he allowed himself to be drawn
on, from day to day, exchanging notes and receiving promises.
… Meantime, not a moment was lost by Sebastiani and the Turks,
whom he was instructing in Napoleon's methods of warfare.
Women and children, Christians and Mohammedans, worked day and
night at the defences; and in a few days the whole coast was
bristling with artillery, and the chance was over. … There was
nothing to be done but to get away as safely as they yet
might. … For thirty miles (reckoning the windings of the
channel) the ships ran the gauntlet of an incessant fire—and
such a fire as was never seen before. Stone balls, weighing
700 or 800 lbs., broke down the masts, crushed in the decks,
snapped the rigging, and amazed the hearts of the sailors. The
hills smoked from end to end, and the roar of the artillery
rolled from side to side. In another week, Sir J. Duckworth
declared in his dispatch, any return would have been
impossible. The news of this singular affair spread fast over
Europe. Every body thought the expedition gallantly conceived,
and miserably weak in its failure. … So ended the second of
the 'diversions' proposed under the Grenville Ministry. The
third legacy of this kind that they left was a diversion on
the side of Egypt. For some time, a notion had been gaining
ground, in the minds of English politicians, that the Sultan
would, some day soon, be giving Egypt to Napoleon, in return
for the aid afforded to Constantinople, on the Danube, and
elsewhere. Egypt was in an unhappy state. Mohammed Alee, the
Viceroy, was at feud with the Memlooks; and the Arab
inhabitants were made a prey of by both. The Grenville
Ministry thought that a diversion in that direction would be
of great service to Russia, and great injury to Napoleon; and
they confidently reckoned on being enthusiastically received
by the Arab inhabitants, and probably by the Memlooks also. In
laying their plans, however, they strangely underrated the
forces and the ability of Mohammed Alee; and they sent only
between 4,000 and 5,000 men to the mouth of the Nile, instead
of an army large enough to cope with the able and warlike
Pasha of Egypt, and his Albanian troops. The small British
force was drafted from the troops in Sicily. It landed without
opposition on the 17th of March, supposing that Sir John
Duckworth must by this time have conquered the Sultan, and
that his province of Egypt would come very easily into our
hands. No opposition was made to the landing of the troops,
and Alexandria capitulated immediately. Only seven lives were
lost on the British side. Within the city, however, no
provisions were found." A detachment of 1,200 men sent to
Rosetta for supplies were trapped in the city by Mohammed
Alee's Albanians, and 400 of them, with their general, were
shot down in the streets. Then Rosetta was besieged, with
results of disastrous failure and the loss of 1,000 or 1,200
more men. General Fraser, the Commander, "was discouraged from
home, and hourly harassed by the enemy. … More and more of the
enemy came up as his little force dwindled away; and at last,
on the appearance of a column which he was unable to
encounter, he sent out a flag of truce, with an offer to
evacuate Egypt on the restoration of the prisoners taken since
the invasion. This was in August, 1807; and in September the
last English soldier left the mouth of the Nile. By this time,
the Sultan had declared war against England, and had caused a
seizure of all the British property in his dominions."
_H. Martineau,
History of England, 1800-1815,
book 2, chapter 1._
TURKS: A. D. 1807.
Accession of Mustapha IV.
TURKS: A. D. 1807.
Schemes of Napoleon and Alexander I. at Tilsit
for the partition of Turkey.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY).
TURKS: A. D. 1808.
Accession of Mahmud II.
TURKS: A. D. 1821-1829.
Revolt and recovery of independence by the Greeks.
Battle of Navarino.
Treaty of Adrianople.
See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.
TURKS: A. D. 1822-1823.
The Congress of Verona.
See VERONA, CONGRESS OF.
TURKS: A. D. 1826.
Reforms of Mahmud II.
Insurrection of the Janissaries.
Their subjugation and destruction.
"While the struggle in Greece was proceeding, Mahmud had been
busily engaged with his internal reforms, many of which were
of a nature to offend the prejudices of his subjects. His
great object was to give a European character to the
institutions and the manners of his country. He introduced the
western style of dress into Turkey; abandoned the use of the
turban, which Mohammedans generally regard with much
veneration; and gave musical and theatrical entertainments
within the sacred enclosure of the Seraglio. He resolved also
to recommence the military reforms of his uncle Selim, and
again to establish the Nizam Jedid, or body of troops
organized after European models. This last design roused once
more the savage fanaticism of the Janizaries. On the 15th of
June, 1826, when the Sultan and the Grand Vizier were in the
country, the dissatisfied troops rose in insurrection, and
committed great excesses. The Grand Vizier, hastily recalled
to the metropolis, took measures for vindicating his master's
authority, and at once found himself supported, not only by
the new troops, but by the Ulemas and Students. Mahmud arrived
shortly afterwards at the Seraglio, and by his orders the
Mufti unfolded the standard of the Prophet, and summoned all
faithful Mohammedans to rally round that holy symbol. The city
was soon divided into two hostile factions. The Janizaries
concentrated their forces in one of the great squares, and
threw up entrenchments. The supporters of the Sultan gathered
in their front, and an attack was made by ordnance, before
which the Janizaries retired into their fortified barracks,
where they continued to fight with the resolution of despair.
… The building was presently on fire from one end to the
other. The frightful struggle was continued in the midst of
the flames; all who endeavoured to escape were at once shot
down; and before the day was over 6,000 Janizaries had
perished at the hands of their fellow-troops. Fifteen thousand
who had not taken part in the movement were exiled to
different places in Asia Minor, and on the following day a
Hatti-Sherif pronounced the abolition of a corps which had
contributed so much to the military predominance of Turkey,
but which had at length become a source of internal danger too
great to be suffered."
_E. Ollier,
Cassell's Illustrated History of the Russo-Turkish War,
volume 1, chapter 23._
{3149}
TURKS: A. D. 1826-1829.
Convention of Ackerman.
War with Russia.
Surrender of Varna and Silistria.
Disastrous battle of Koulevscha.
Treaty of Hadrianople.
Cessions of territory.
"It was not to be expected that an event so remarkable as the
destruction of the Janizaries would fail to be taken advantage
of by the court of St. Petersburg. The Emperor Nicholas had
brought with him to the Russian throne a thorough
determination to carry out that aggressive policy of the
Empress Catherine, of which the terms of the celebrated treaty
of Kutschouc-Kainardji [see above: A. D. 1768-1774] afforded
so striking an illustration, and the annihilation of the
Ottoman army, as well as the distracted condition of many of
the provinces of that empire, afforded an opportunity too
tempting to be neglected. The Czar, therefore, demanded that
the Sultan should conclude with him a treaty, the provisions
of which were made the subject of discussion at Ackerman, a
town in Bessarabia; and Mahmoud, pressed by the necessity of
his condition, … had found it requisite to conclude the
arrangement, and the celebrated convention of Ackerman was
ratified in October 1826. This treaty proved of great
importance to Russia. In addition to other provisions, it
recognised the whole stipulations of the two treaties of
Bucharest and Kainardji, by which Russia claimed the right to
interpose in behalf of the members of the Greek church in the
Ottoman dominions. … During the year which succeeded the
ratification of the convention of Ackerman, Russia was
occupied with the Persian war, which was prosecuted with great
vigour by General Paskewitch, by whom very considerable
advantages were obtained; and in November 1827 the treaty of
Tourkmantchai was concluded between Russia and Persia. … It
left the Emperor … at leisure to carry out those hostile
intentions which his ready interference in the affairs of
Greece, and a variety of other considerations, clearly proved
him to entertain. The approaching war was indicated by the
mutual recriminations of the hostile powers. Russia accused
the Porte of an endeavour to cause a revolution in the
Caucasus, and of a violation of treaties by closing the
Bosphorus against Russian ships, and by its conduct towards
its Christian subjects. There was no inconsiderable foundation
for such a complaint, and especially for the latter part of
it. … Both sides immediately prepared for the struggle, which
a variety of circumstances have proved that the Czar had long
contemplated, and only waited for a suitable opportunity of
entering upon. … In the month of May [1828] the [Russian]
force began to assemble on the banks of the Pruth, and crossed
that river at three different points. Being unopposed by the
Ottomans, the Russian forces almost immediately entered Jassy
and Bucharest, took possession of Galatz, and in a few weeks
had occupied the whole of the left bank of the Danube. To
accomplish as rapidly as possible the objects of the campaign,
as well as to avoid having their very wide]y extended line
exposed to the enemy, it was resolved by the leaders of the
Russian forces to cross the Danube at Brahilow, and thence to
advance with rapidity upon Silistria, Varna, and Schumla. This
resolution they immediately proceeded to carry into effect. …
About the middle of July, the Russian force under General
Rudiger on the right, and Generals Woinoff and Diebitcb on the
left wing, accompanied by the Emperor Nicholas, moved toward
Schumia; and the Ottoman army, whose instructions were to
avoid general actions, and to throw their whole energy upon
the defence of their fortifications, having engaged in battle
with the enemy, retired within the entrenched camp surrounding
that fortress, which now contained a force of 40,000 men. …
The Emperor … resolved … to leave a corps of observation of
30,000 men before Schumla, under General Wittgenstein, and to
direct the principal efforts of his army, in the first
instance, to the reduction of Varna. … On the 5th of
September, after having been absent at Odessa for about a
month, during which he was engaged making arrangements for
obtaining levies from Russia, and in negotiating loans in
Holland, the Emperor Nicholas arrived at Varna, to inspect the
progress and encourage the operations of the besiegers. … The
besieging force, towards the end of August, amounted to 40,000
men, which, on the arrival of the Emperor, were reinforced by
more than 20,000, with a great addition to the artillery
already possessed by the invading army. This large force was
further supported by the Russian fleet. … The details of the
siege exhibit a series of assaults repulsed with the utmost
valour and spirit by the besieged, and entailing an immense
loss upon the Russians, both in men and superior officers; but
the circumstance that the reinforcement sent to relieve the
garrison could not approach, so closely was the place
invested, and the destruction of a part of the walls by the
cannon of the Russians, led to a surrender, and Jussouf Pasha
delivered up the fortress to the Emperor on the 10th of
October, after a siege of more than two months. The utmost
efforts were made to reduce Silistria, after Varna had been
surrendered, but the advance of the season, and the
difficulties of the attempt, as well as the disastrous
circumstances of the Russian army before Schumla, soon proved
that nothing more could be attempted till the following
spring. The campaign, therefore, was brought to a conclusion,
and orders were issued for the Russians to retire beyond the
Danube, and take up their winter quarters in Wallachia. The
fall of Brahilow and Varna were the only important events of
the campaign of 1828 in Europe, and even these successes had
been attained at a vast expense of human life. Out of nearly
160,000 men who had crossed the Danube at the beginning of the
campaign, only about one-half remained. … In Asia operations
were carried on by the Russians with equal vigour and much
more success, in consequence, in a great measure, of the
military genius and experience of General Paskewitch, who
commanded the troops on the east of the Black Sea. … The first
attack of the Russians in Asia was made upon the fortress of
Anapa. … After a siege of about a month, the place was taken,
with 85 guns and 3,000 prisoners, and the fleet sailed
immediately to Varna. … After some other successes, General
Paskewitch resolved upon attacking the town and fortress of
Akhalzikh, a very important place in the pashalik of that
name, and which was not only strongly fortified by nature and
art, but had for its chief strength a resolute garrison of
10,000 Ottomans, besides the armed inhabitants of the place.
The Sultan's troops defended this important fortress with the
most undaunted resolution. … The surrender of Akhalzikh was
followed by that of other important places of strength, which
closed the campaign of 1828 in Asia. … The campaign of 1828
had rendered the most active preparations requisite on the
part of both belligerents for the commencement of hostilities
in the following spring.
{3150}
The Ottoman soldiers, according to their usual custom,
hastened from the garrisons to pass the winter in their homes,
but the utmost efforts were made by the Porte to gather an
adequate force to meet the exigencies of the struggle so soon
to be renewed. Although only 10,000 men were left in Schumla
during the winter, 40,000 assembled in that fortress early in
spring. They were, however, for the most part new levies. …
The Russians, on the other hand, were no less energetic in
their arrangements. … It was impossible, however, before the
month of May, from the condition of the Danube, to commence
the campaign with the whole force, but by the tenth of that
month the passage of the river was completed at Hirchova and
Kalavatsch, below Silistria, the siege of which was
immediately begun, while General Kouprianoff was stationed
with a force at Pravadi, a fortress on the east of Schumla,
and which, lying in the line of communication between
Silistria and Varna, was important to the Russians as the
means of keeping open a communication between the army of
General Roth near Varna and the troops destined to act upon
Silistria. Redschid Pasha, who on being recalled from Greece
had been appointed Grand Vizier, had arrived at Schumla on the
21st of March, and on perceiving the position of the invading
army, formed the well-conceived design of attacking Pravadi
and the force under General Roth. … This movement of the
Vizier became immediately known to General Roth, who by means
of a courier conveyed information of it to Count Diebitch.
That General was too acute not to perceive the purpose of his
adversary, and too enterprising not to endeavour immediately
to take advantage of it. The Count therefore adopted a
movement of the highest importance, and which, indeed, had the
effect of deciding the campaign. Instead of marching to attack
Redschid Pasha at Pravadi, he resolved to intercept his
communication with the fortress he had quitted, and thus
compel the Ottoman general either to come to a general
engagement, which could hardly fail to result to the advantage
of the Russians, or to fight his way towards Schumla through
the Russian army, or leave the fortress of Schumla to its
fate, which, feebly garrisoned as it was, could not be long
delayed. This skilful manœuvre was no sooner resolved upon
than it was carried into execution. … While the Russian force
were rapidly advancing towards Koulevscha, a village between
Pravadi and Schumla, and scarcely three miles from the latter,
the Grand Vizier remained wholly ignorant of the fact that
Diebitch had quitted Silistria, and persisted in the belief
that the only opponents of his retreat to Schumla were
Generals Roth and Rudiger. … The mistake was fatal. The
Ottoman cavalry attacked the infantry of the Russians, who
were overwhelmed by their charge; and Diebitch, having waited
in expectation that the Vizier would descend from the eminence
on which he was posted to complete his supposed victory, and
finding that he did not make this movement, broke from his
concealment among the hills, and suddenly attacked the Ottoman
troops with his whole force. The effect was instantaneous. A
universal panic seized the Vizier's forces, his cavalry and
infantry fled in confusion, every attempt to bring them to a
stand proved abortive, and he himself escaped with difficulty.
The artillery and baggage all fell into the hands of the
enemy. … The muster at Schumla on the return of the Vizier and
his remaining troops exhibited the magnitude of their loss.
Out of a fine army of 40,000 men, who a few days before had
marched from the fortress full of confidence, only 12,000 foot
and about 6,000 cavalry remained. After the fatal battle of
Koulevscha, the siege of Silistria was carried on with
redoubled vigour, and on the 30th of June the fortress
surrendered, when the whole garrison were made prisoners of
war, and to the number of 8,000, and the Russians found on the
ramparts 238 cannon, in addition to those on board the vessels
in the harbour. The fall of Silistria now determined the
Russian commander-in-chief to push across the Balkans. … After
defeating with great facility such troops as opposed their
advance, the Russian army pressed on with the utmost activity
towards Hadrianople, and entered the city not only unopposed,
but amidst the rejoicings of a multitude of the Greek
population. … The terror which this extraordinary event
inspired at Constantinople may easily be imagined to have been
extreme. The very heart of the empire had been assailed by the
victorious invaders in Europe, while the tidings from the
Asiatic provinces of the defeats sustained by the Sultan's
forces opposed to General Paskewitch, greatly contributed to
the public alarm. … In the midst of this tumult of public
feeling, the ambassadors of England and Austria exerted
themselves to the utmost to bring about a pacification; and …
the Sultan reluctantly agreed to the conclusion of a treaty of
peace. … The celebrated treaty of Hadrianople, which concluded
the war of 1828-29, … contained sixteen distinct articles, by
which, among other matters, the following conditions were
agreed upon:—The principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and
all the conquered places in Bulgaria and Roumelia, were
restored to the Porte, with the exception of the islands at
the mouth of the Danube, which were to remain the possession
of Russia. In Asia all the recent conquests were to revert to
the Porte, with the exception of Anapa, on the north-eastern
shore of the Black Sea, several important fortresses, together
with an extensive district situated to the north and east of a
line of demarcation supposed to be drawn from the then
existing boundary of the province of Gouriel, and thence by
that of Imeritia direct to the point where the frontiers of
Kars unite with those of Georgia. The conditions of the
treaties of Kainardji, Bucharest, and Ackerman were confirmed;
… the passage of the Dardanelles was declared open to all
Russian merchant ships, as well as the undisputed navigation
of the Black Sea; an indemnity for losses by Russian subjects
was fixed at £750,000, to be paid in eighteen months; and the
expenses of the war were to be paid to the Russian Government,
amounting to 10,000,000 ducats, about £5,000,000. … To this
treaty two separate acts were annexed, the provisions of which
are of scarcely less importance than the treaty itself.
{3151}
By these acts it was arranged that the Hospodars of Moldavia
and Wallachia should be elected for life instead of for seven
years; that no interference in the affairs of these provinces
by any of the officers of the Porte should take place; that no
fortified towns, nor any establishment of Muslims, should be
retained by the Porte on the left bank of the Danube; that the
Turkish towns on that bank of the river should belong to
Wallachia; and that the Mussulmans who possessed property in
such places should be required to sell it in the space of
eighteen months. … The conclusion of these treaties, on the
14th September 1829, terminated the war between Russia and the
Ottoman Empire."
_R. W. Fraser,
Turkey, Ancient and Modern,
chapters 30-31._
ALSO IN:
_Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, from 1815 to 1852,
chapter 15._
TURKS: A. D. 1830.
Recognition of the autonomy of Servia.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES:
14-19TH CENTURIES (SERVIA).
TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.
Rebellion of Mehemed Ali, Pasha of Egypt.
Intervention of Russia and the Western Powers.
Egypt made an hereditary pashalik.
"The peace of Adrianople (1829) had greatly discredited the
authority of the Porte; insurrections multiplied, and Turkish
armies had to enter Bosnia and Albania. In these and all other
matters by which the embarrassment of the Porte was increased,
the ambitious Mehemed Ali, Pasha of Egypt, had a hand. As
payment for his services against the Greeks, he had demanded
the pashalik of Damascus. Sultan Mahmoud II. had refused the
demand, and only given him the promised Candia. Hence, while
the Western powers were occupied with the consequences of the
July revolution [in France], and all Europe appeared to be on
the verge of a new upheaval, he undertook to seize his booty
for himself. In consequence of a quarrel with Abdallah, Pasha
of Acre, Ibrahim Pasha [son of Mehemed Ali], notorious for his
barbarous conduct of the war in Peloponnesus, crossed the
Egyptian frontier, October 20th, 1831, with an army organized
on the European system, took Gaza, Jaffa and Jerusalem without
resistance, and besieged Acre, which was resolutely defended
by Abdallah. Mehemed Ali now demanded both pashaliks—Damascus
and Acre. The sultan commanded him to evacuate Syria. The
demand was naturally refused; so Mehemed and his son Ibrahim
were outlawed. But the latter proceeded with his operations,
took Acre by storm May 25th, 1832, and entered Damascus. In
the mean time, a Turkish army, under Hussein Pasha, had
advanced into Syria. Mehemed Pasha, Hussein's lieutenant, was
defeated at Homs, July 9th. Hussein himself, attempting to
retrieve this loss, was defeated at Beylan July 27th, and his
army scattered. The sultan sent a new army against Ibrahim,
under Reshid Pasha, the Grand Vizier, who had displayed great
efficiency in the reduction of the Albanians and Bosnians.
Reshid … was utterly defeated at Konieh December 20th, and was
himself taken prisoner. The sultan was in a critical
situation. He could not at the moment bring together another
considerable army, while Ibrahim had 100,000 well-trained
troops, and the road to Constantinople lay open before him."
Russia, having no wish to see the energetic Pasha of Egypt in
possession of that coveted capital, offered her help to the
sultan and he was driven to accept it. "A Russian fleet
appeared in the Bosphorus, and landed troops at Scutari, while
a Russian army was on the march from the Danube to cover
Constantinople. … At length England and France perceived how
dangerous it was to forget the East in their study of the
Dutch-Belgian question. Their ambassadors had enough to do, by
a hasty peace, to make Russia's help unnecessary. As their
threats made no impression on the victorious Mehemed Ali, they
filled the sultan with distrust of Russia, and by representing
a cession of territory to his vassal as the lesser of the two
evils, persuaded him into the peace of Kutayah (May 6th,
1833), by which Mehemed Ali received the whole of Syria and
the territory of Adana, in south-eastern Asia Minor. Russia
had to retire with her object unattained, but had no sooner
been thrown out at the front door than she came in at the
back. She called the sultan's attention to the favor shown to
the insatiable pasha by England and France in the peace of
Kutayah, and concluded with him, July 8th, 1833, the treaty of
Unkiar-Skelessi, by which he entered into a defensive alliance
with Russia for eight years, and pledged himself to permit no
foreign vessel of war to pass through the Dardanelles. The
Western powers took this outwitting very ill, and from that
time on kept a sharp eye on Constantinople." Mehemed Ali was
meantime giving another direction to his ambition. "The west
coast of Arabia, as far as the English post at Aden, had been
in his possession since 1829. He now sought to extend his sway
over the eastern coast, and subdue the sultan of Muscat. … If
this were to continue, the two most important roads to the
East Indies, by Suez and by the Persian Gulf, would be in the
hands of Mehemed Ali. … With Egypt, Syria, and Arabia in his
hands, England's position in the East would receive a blow
that must be felt. So it was a foregone conclusion which side
England would take. In 1838 she concluded with the Porte a
commercial treaty by which the abolition of all monopolies, as
well as free exportation from all parts of the Turkish empire,
including Egypt and Syria, was secured to her. Mehemed Ali
hesitated about accepting this treaty; and Mahmoud, full of
hate against a vassal who threatened ultimately to devour him,
declared him a traitor, deprived him of all his dignities, and
caused an army to advance into Syria under Hasiz Pasha. But
again fortune was not favorable to the Turks. In their camp,
as military adviser of the commander-in-chief, was a Prussian
captain, Hellmuth von Moltke. For two years he had been
assisting the sultan in planning and putting into execution
military reforms. Recognizing the weakness and unreliable
character of the Turkish army, he advised Hasiz Pasha to fall
back on the strong camp at Biridshik, bring up the
re-enforcements which were under way, and then risk a battle.
But the Pasha would not listen to Moltke's advice, pronouncing
retreat a disgrace. He was completely routed at Nisib, on the
Euphrates, June 24th, 1839, and his army scattered. For the
second time the road to Constantinople lay open to Ibrahim.
Misfortunes fell thick and fast upon the Turks. Sultan Mahmoud
died June 30th, and the empire fell to a sixteen-year old
youth, his son Abdul Medshid. Five days later, Capudan Pasha,
with the Turkish fleet, sailed out of the Dardanelles under
orders to attack the Egyptians. Instead of this he went over
to Mehemed Ali with his whole fleet—in consequence of French
bribery, it was said. … In order to prevent Turkey from
casting herself a second time into Russia's arms, four great
powers—England, France, Austria, and Prussia—declared, July
27th, 1839, that they would themselves take the Eastern
question in hand.
{3152}
To save herself from being wholly left out, Russia had to give
her consent, and become a party to the treaty. But there were
very different views as to the way in which the question was
to be settled. France, which was striving after the control of
the Mediterranean, and which, since Napoleon's campaign, had
turned its eyes toward Egypt, wished to leave its friend
Mehemed Ali in full possession. England saw her interests
endangered by the pasha, thought France's occupation of
Algiers quite enough, and was afraid that if Turkey were too
weak she might become the defenceless prey of Russia. The
latter wished at no price to allow the energetic pasha to
enter upon the inheritance of Turkey, or even of a part of it,
and was pleased at seeing the cordial understanding between
France and England destroyed. Austria and Prussia supported
England and Russia, and so France was left alone. The
Anglo-Russian view found expression in the quadruple alliance
which the great powers, with the exception of France,
concluded in London, July 15th, 1840. By this the hereditary
possession of the pashalik of Egypt, and the possession for
life of a part of Syria, were secured to Mehemed Ali, in case
he submitted to the conclusions of the conference within ten
days. … The allied powers began hostilities against Mehemed
Ali, who, relying on French assistance, refused to submit. The
Anglo-Austrian fleet sailed to the Syrian coast, and took
Beirut and Acre; and Alexandria was bombarded by Commodore
Napier. This and the fall of the Thiers ministry brought
Mehemed Ali to a full realization of his mistake. He might
consider himself lucky in being allowed to hold Egypt as
hereditary pashalik upon evacuating Syria, Arabia, and Candia,
and restoring the Turkish fleet. For this favor he had to
thank England, which sought by this means to secure his
friendship and the Suez road to India. The catastrophe of the
'sick man' [the Turk] was again put off for a few years."
_W. Müller,
Political History of Recent Times,
section 11._
ALSO IN:
_A. A. Paton,
History of the Egyptian Revolution,
volume 2, chapters 1-20._
_C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 2, chapter 6._
_S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 16 (volume 3)._
TURKS: A. D. 1839.
Accession of Abdul Medjid.
TURKS: A. D. 1853-1856.
The Crimean War.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854, to 1854-1856.
A. D. 1861-1876.
The reign of Abd-ul-Aziz, and accession of Abd-ul-Hamid.
"Troubles broke out in the Lebanon in 1860, a French army was
dispatched to restore order, and in the adjustment of rival
claims an opportunity was afforded to Lord Dufferin for
displaying those diplomatic talents for which he is renowned.
In 1861 the Sultan Abd-ul-Mejid died, and with him passed away
the hope of regenerating Turkey. His brother and successor
Abd-ul-Aziz was an ignorant bigot, whose extravagance brought
his country to avowed insolvency (1875), and thus deprived her
of that sympathy which is seldom given to the impecunious. The
only remarkable thing he did was to travel. No Ottoman Sultan
had ever before left his own dominions, except on the war
path, but Abd-ul-Aziz ventured even as far as London, without,
however, awakening any enthusiasm on the part of his Allies.
In 1876 he was deposed, and—found dead. How he came by his
death is a matter of doubt, but his end is said to have turned
the brain of his successor, Murad V., a son of Abd-ul-Mejid,
who after three months was removed as an imbecile, and
succeeded by his brother, … Abd-ul-Hamid."
_S. Lane-Poole,
The Story of Turkey,
chapter 17._
TURKS: A. D. 1861-1877.
Union of Wallachia and Moldavia.
Revolt in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reforms demanded by the Great Powers.
War with Servia.
Conference at Constantinople.
Russian preparations for war.
"Before four years were over [after the termination of the
Crimean War by the Treaty of Paris], one of the chief
stipulations of the treaty was set aside. Wallachia and
Moldavia, which it had been the policy of the Powers to
separate, displayed a constant desire to join. Two of the
great Continental Powers—France and Russia—favoured the
junction. England, Austria, and Turkey, thinking that the
union would ultimately lead to their independence, opposed
their fusion under one prince. At last, after discussions,
which at one moment seemed likely to rekindle the flames of
war, an administrative union was arranged, which resulted, in
due course, in the formal union of the two provinces in 1861.
[In 1858, the two provinces chose the same prince, or
hospodar, in the person of Prince John Couza, who took the
title of Prince of Roumania. The Porte protested, but was
induced, in 1861, to recognize this union of the coronets.
Prince Couza aspired to absolutism, and was forced to abdicate
in 1866. Then a German, Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, was
chosen by the two provinces to be his successor.] Thus, five
years after the Peace of Paris, one of the stipulations on
which England had insisted was surrendered. In 1870 the
Franco-German War led to the obliteration of another of them.
In November, when the armies of France were either beaten or
besieged, Russia repudiated the clause of the Treaty of Paris
which had limited the forces of Russia and Turkey in the Black
Sea. The declaration of the Russian Government came as a
painful shock to the British people. The determination of a
great European state to tear up the clause of a treaty excited
indignation. It was recollected, moreover, that it was for the
sake of this clause that the Crimean War had been prolonged
after the Vienna negotiations; and that all the blood which
had been shed, and all the money which had been spent, after
the spring of 1855, were wasted in its abandonment. … All that
diplomacy was able to do was to lessen the shock by persuading
the Russian Government to submit its proposal for the
abrogation of the clause to a conference. … The conference
met. … It had practically nothing to do but to record its
assent to the Russian proposal. … For five years more the
Eastern Question remained undisturbed. In the spring of 1875
an insurrection broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two of
the northern provinces of European Turkey. The Porte failed to
quench the disturbance; and, its efforts to do so increasing
its pecuniary embarrassments, was forced in the autumn to
repudiate the claims of its many creditors. … In the meanwhile
the insurrection continued to spread, and attracted the
attention of the great European Powers.
{3153}
At the instigation of Austria a note was drawn up [by Count
Andrassy, and known, therefore, as the Andrassy Note], which
was at once signed by all the European Powers except England,
and which was ultimately accepted by England also, declaring
that 'the promises of reform made by the Porte had not been
carried into effect, and that some combined action by the
Powers of Europe was necessary to insist on the fulfilment of
the many engagements which Turkey had made and broken.' As the
note failed to effect its object, the representatives of the
Northern Powers—Germany, Austria, and Russia—met at Berlin,
proposed a suspension of arms for two months, and intimated
that if Turkey in the two months failed to fulfil her broken
promises, 'force would be used to compel her' to do so. The
British Government, unwilling to join in a threat, refused to
sign this new note. The insurrection went on; Servia,
sympathising with the insurgents, declared war against Turkey;
Russian officers and Russian troops fought in the Servian
battalions; and Russia herself, setting her legions in motion,
evidently prepared for hostilities. When these events
occurred, large numbers of the English people were prepared to
support the Turk. Though they had been partially estranged
from the cause of Turkey by the repudiation of the Ottoman
debt in the previous autumn, they recollected the sacrifices
of the Crimean War; they were irritated with the manner in
which one part of the Treaty of Paris had been torn up in
1870; and they were consequently prepared to resist any
further movement on the part of Russia. The Porte, however,
dreading the extension of revolt, allowed its officers to
anticipate disorder by massacre. The atrocious cruelty with
which this policy was executed [especially in Bulgaria—see
BALKAN and DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1875-1878] excited a general
outburst of indignation in this country [England]; and the
British Ministry, whose leader had hitherto displayed much
sympathy with the Turks, found himself forced to observe a
strict neutrality. In the short war which ensued in the autumn
of 1876, the Servian troops proved no match for the Turkish
battalions. At the request or command of Russia the Porte was
forced to grant an armistice to the belligerents; and, on the
suggestion of the British Ministry, a Conference of the Great
Powers was held at Constantinople to provide for the better
government of the Turkish provinces. The Constantinople
Conference, held at the beginning of 1877, formed in many
respects an exact parallel to the Vienna Conference held in
the summer of 1855. … The Porte rejected all the proposals on
which the other Powers were agreed. … In each case the failure
of the Conference was followed by war. But the parallel ends
at this point. … In the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878, Turkey
was left to fight her own battle alone."
_S. Walpole,
Foreign Relations,
chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_E. Ollier,
Cassell's Illustrated History of the Russo-Turkish War,
volume 1, chapters 1-10._
_Duke of Argyll,
The Eastern Question,
volume 1, chapters 3-9._
_S. Menzies,
Turkey Old and New,
book 4. chapter 4 (volume 2)._
TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.
War with Russia.
Heroic defense of Plevna.
Defeat and surrender.
"Russia had already massed large numbers of troops on her
frontier, and Turkey was also engaged in the work of
mobilization. On the 24th April the Emperor of Russia issued a
manifesto to his subjects, in which he recited the interest of
the empire in the Christian population of the Balkan
peninsula, and the general desire that their condition should
be ameliorated. He declared that all efforts at peace had been
exhausted. … He had given the orders for the army to cross the
frontier, and the advance upon Turkey was begun without delay.
… The Turks had not been idle, though their preparations were
by no means as complete as those of Russia. They had massed
heavy bodies of troops along the Danube, and were prepared to
resist the movements of the Russians south of that stream. …
The first crossing [of the Russians] was made at Galatz, on
the 22d June, by General Zimmermann, who went over with two
regiments in pontoons and drove out the Turks who were posted
on the heights on the opposite shore. Having obtained a
footing in the Dobrudja, as the peninsula between the Danube
and Black Sea is called, the Russians were able to throw
bridges over the great stream, by which the whole left wing of
the army moved across. Meantime the right wing, on the 26th
June, sent a pontoon force over the Danube from Simnitza,
under command of General Skobeleff, who drove out the small
force of Turks posted there, though not without hard fighting.
More pontoons followed, and then a bridge was thrown across on
which the army could march. … By the first week of July the
whole Russian army was safely encamped on the southern bank of
the Danube, and getting in readiness to assume the offensive.
… The advance did not begin in force until after the middle of
the month. But before that time General Gourko … had pushed
forward on the road to the Balkans, heading first for Tirnova.
… On the 5th July the cavalry occupied Biela, … and on the 7th
Gourko was in possession of Tirnova. … The Emperor joined the
army at Biela on the 8th or 9th. Gourko was soon reported past
the Balkans. … The first check of the Russians was at Plevna.
They had previously captured Nicopolis with its garrison of
7,000 men, having themselves lost about 1,300 officers and men
killed and wounded. Orders had been given to occupy Plevna as
soon as possible, and Baron Krudener sent forward General
Schilder-Schuldner to carry out the orders. …
Schilder-Schuldner had 6,500 men and 46 guns in the division
with which he went to capture Plevna; he was attacked by a
vastly superior force of Turks before he had reached his
objective point, and the first battle of Plevna was disastrous
to the Russians. … Nearly 3,000 men and 74 officers were
killed or wounded. … The Russians retired to Nicopolis, and
the Turks set to work to strengthen Plevna. … From the 20th to
the 30th of July the Russians were engaged in bringing up
reinforcements and getting ready for another attack. An order
came for the assault of the Turkish position; Baron Krudener
did not believe the assault advisable, but the command of the
Grand Duke Nicholas left him no discretion." The assault was
made on the 31st of July, and was repulsed, with a loss to the
Russians of 170 officers and 7,136 men. "There was nothing for
the Russians to do but send for reinforcements, and wait until
they arrived. The advance into Turkey had received a severe
check, from which recovery was not easy. From the offensive
the Russians were thrown upon the defensive, and all as the
result of a single battle of six or eight hours' duration.
Happily for Russia, the Turkish army had no competent leader,
or the army of the Czar might have been captured or drowned in
the Danube.
{3154}
The Turks had three armies in the field. … Mehemet Ali was at
Shumla with 65,000 men; Osman Pasha at Plevna, with 50,000;
and Suleiman Pasha at Yeni Zagra, with 40,000. … The order of
the Czar for reinforcements was quickly issued, and resulted
in the despatch of 120,000 regulars and 180,000 militia for
the front. With these reinforcements went 460 pieces of
artillery. … General Gourko took up his position in the Shipka
Pass whence Suleiman Pasha sought in vain to dislodge him. …
Towards the end of August the Russian reinforcements were
assembled in such numbers that an advance could again be
ventured. … The total Russian and Roumanian force for the
attack of Plevna amounted to 90,000 men and 440 guns, while
the Turks were estimated to have about 56,000 men—and Osman
Pasha. … The attack began with a bombardment on the 6th
September," which was kept up until the 11th, when the
Russians again endeavored to carry the Turkish works by
assault. Skobeleff, conspicuous, as he always was, in daring
and in success, took one of the redoubts and held it until the
next day, waiting vainly for reinforcements which were not
sent. Elsewhere the assault failed. "The Russian killed and
wounded were estimated at 18,000 to 20,000, and the Turkish
about 5,000 less than the Russian. The capture by assault
having been given up, the Russians sat down to invoke the aid
of that engine, more powerful than all their batteries, the
engine of starvation. … One by one the roads leading into
Plevna were occupied, but it was nearly two months from the
terrible battle of the 11th September before the routes for
supplies and reinforcements destined for Osman Pasha could be
secured. The investment was completed on the 3d November;
120,000 Russians and Roumanians were around Plevna." On the
morning of December 10 the beleaguered Turks made a desperate
sortie, attempting to break the line of investment, having
failed in which their stout-hearted commander surrendered
unconditionally. "With the fall of Plevna and the surrender of
its garrison of 40,000 men, the Turkish opposition practically
ceased. Within a month from that event General Gourko had
captured Sophia, and General Radetsky took the village of
Shipka, in the Shipka Pass, and compelled the surrender of a
Turkish army of 23,000 men. … Gourko and Skobeleff advanced
upon Philippopolis by different routes and narrowly missed
capturing Suleiman Pasha with his entire force. Skobeleff
advanced upon Adrianople, which the Turks abandoned, and
Slivno and Yeni-Zagra were occupied, all inside of thirty
days. Plevna had made the Russians the masters of the
situation, and they advanced upon Constantinople, the Turks
retiring before them, and occasionally making a feeble
resistance. Turkey asked the mediation of England, and
finally, despairing of her aid, signed an armistice that
became the basis of the treaty of San Stefano."
_T. W. Knox,
Decisive Battles Since Waterloo,
chapter 21._
The campaign of the Russians in Bulgaria was accompanied by
another in Asiatic Turkey, where they, likewise, met with a
temporary check, after pushing their first advance too
confidently, and with an insufficient force. They invested
Kars and advanced against Erzeroum, in May, 1877; but were
defeated at Sevin and withdrew from both undertakings. Having
received reinforcements, they resumed the offensive in
October, attacking the main Turkish army, under Mukhtar Pasha,
in its strong position at Aladsha, or on the Little Yahni and
Great Yahni hills. Their first attack, on the 2d, was
repulsed; they repeated it on the 15th with success, driving
one wing of the enemy into Kars and forcing the other to
surrender. Kars was then besieged and taken by assault
November 17. The Turks suffered another defeat at Deve-Boyun,
near Erzeroum, November 4, and they evacuated Erzeroum itself
in February, 1878.
_E. Ollier,
Cassell's Illustrated History of the Russo-Turkish War._
ALSO IN;
_V. Baker,
The War in Bulgaria._
_F. V. Greene,
The Russian Army and its Campaign in Turkey._
TURKS: A. D. 1878.
Excitement in England over the Russian advance.
The British fleet sent through the Dardanelles.
Arrangement of the Berlin Congress.
"At the opening of 1878 the Turks were completely prostrate.
The road to Constantinople was clear. Before the English
public had time to recover their breath and to observe what
was taking place, the victorious armies of Russia were almost
within sight of the minarets of Stamboul. Meanwhile the
English Government were taking momentous action. … Parliament
was called together at least a fortnight before the time usual
during recent years. The Speech from the Throne announced that
her Majesty could not conceal from herself that, should the
hostilities between Russia and Turkey unfortunately be
prolonged, 'some unexpected occurrence may render it incumbent
on me to adopt measures of precaution.' This looked ominous to
those who wished for peace, and it raised the spirits of the
war party. There was a very large and a very noisy war party
already in existence. It was particularly strong in London. It
embraced some Liberals as well as nearly all Tories. It was
popular in the music-halls and the public-houses of London. …
The men of action got a nickname. They were dubbed the Jingo
Party. … Some Tyrtæus of the tap-tub, some Körner of the
music-halls, had composed a ballad which was sung at one of
these caves of harmony every night amidst the tumultuous
applause of excited patriots. The refrain of this war-song
contained the spirit-stirring words:
'We don't want to fight,
but, by Jingo, if we do,
We've got the ships,
we've got the men,
we've got the money too.'
Some one whose pulses this lyrical outburst of national pride
failed to stir called the party of its enthusiasts the
Jingoes. … The name was caught up at once, and the party were
universally known as the Jingoes. … The Government ordered the
Mediterranean fleet to pass the Dardanelles and go up to
Constantinople. The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that
he would ask for a supplementary estimate of six millions for
naval and military purposes. Thereupon Lord Carnarvon, the
Colonial Secretary, at once resigned. … Lord Derby was also
anxious to resign, and indeed tendered his resignation, but he
was prevailed upon to withdraw it. The fleet meanwhile was
ordered back from the Dardanelles to Besika Bay. It had got as
far as the opening of the Straits when it was recalled.
{3155}
The Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons kept on
protesting against the various war measures of the Government,
but with little effect. … While all this agitation in and out
of Parliament was going on … the news came that the Turks,
utterly broken down, had been compelled to sign an armistice,
and an agreement containing a basis of peace, at Adrianople.
Then, following quickly on the heels of this announcement,
came a report that the Russians, notwithstanding the
armistice, were pushing on towards Constantinople with the
intention of occupying the Turkish capital. A cry of alarm and
indignation broke out in London. One memorable night a sudden
report reached the House of Commons that the Russians were
actually in the suburbs of Constantinople. The House for a
time almost entirely lost its head. The lobbies, the
corridors, St. Stephen's Hall, the great Westminster Hall
itself, and Palace Yard beyond it, became filled with wildly
excited and tumultuous crowds. If the clamour of the streets
at that moment had been the voice of England, nothing could
have prevented a declaration of war against Russia. Happily,
however, it was proved that the rumour of Russian advance was
unfounded. The fleet was now sent in good earnest through the
Dardanelles, and anchored a few miles below Constantinople.
Russia at first protested that if the English fleet passed the
Straits Russian troops ought to occupy the city. Lord Derby
was firm, and terms of arrangement were found—English troops
were not to be disembarked, and the Russians were not to
advance. Russia was still open to negotiation. Probably Russia
had no idea of taking on herself the tremendous responsibility
of an occupation of Constantinople. She had entered into a
treaty with Turkey, the famous Treaty of San Stefano, by which
she secured for the populations of the Christian provinces
almost complete independence of Turkey, and was to create a
great new Bulgarian State with a seaport on the Egean Sea. The
English Government refused to recognise this Treaty. Lord
Derby contended that it involved an entire readjustment of the
Treaty of Paris, and that that could only be done with the
sanction of the Great Powers assembled in Congress. Lord
Beaconsfield openly declared that the Treaty of San Stefano
would put the whole south-east of Europe directly under
Russian influence. Russia offered to submit the Treaty to the
perusal, if we may use the expression, of a Congress; but
argued that the stipulations which merely concerned Turkey and
herself were for Turkey and herself to settle between them.
This was obviously an untenable position. … Turkey meanwhile
kept feebly moaning that she had been coerced into signing the
Treaty. The Government determined to call out the Reserves, to
summon a contingent of Indian troops to Europe, to occupy
Cyprus, and to make an armed landing on the coast of Syria. …
The last hope of the Peace Party seemed to have vanished when
Lord Derby left his office [which he did on the 28th of
March]. Lord Salisbury was made Foreign Minister. … Lord
Salisbury's first act in the office of Foreign Secretary was
to issue a circular in which he declared that it would be
impossible for England to enter a Congress which was not free
to consider the whole of the provisions of the Treaty of San
Stefano. … Prince Bismarck had often during these events shown
an inclination to exhibit himself in the new attitude of a
peaceful mediator. He now interposed again and issued
invitations for a congress to be held in Berlin to discuss the
whole contents of the Treaty of San Stefano. After some delay,
discussion, and altercation, Russia agreed to accept the
invitation on the conditions proposed, and it was finally
resolved that a Congress should assemble in Berlin on the
approaching June 13. To this Congress it was supposed by most
persons that Lord Salisbury would be sent to represent
England. Much to the surprise of the public, Lord Beaconsfield
announced that he himself would attend, accompanied by Lord
Salisbury, and conduct the negotiations in Berlin. The event
was, we believe, without precedent. … The Congress was held in
the Radzivill Palace, a building with a plain unpretending
exterior in one of the principal streets of Berlin, and then
in the occupation of Prince Bismarck. The Prince himself
presided. … The Congress discussed the whole or nearly the
whole of the questions opened up by the recent war. … The
great object of most of the statesmen who were concerned in
the preparation of the Treaty which came of the Congress, was
to open for the Christian populations of the south-east of
Europe a way into gradual self-development and independence.
But on the other hand it must be owned that the object of some
of the Powers, and especially, we are afraid, of the English
Government, was rather to maintain the Ottoman Government than
to care for the future of the Christian races. These two
influences, acting and counteracting on each other, produced
the Treaty of Berlin."
_J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Time,
chapter 65 (volume 4)._
_ALSO IN: J. A. Froude,
Lord Beaconsfield,
chapter 16._
_H. D. Traill,
The Marquis of Salisbury,
chapter 11._
_R. Wilson,
Life and Times of Queen Victoria,
volume 2, chapter 21._
TURKS: A. D. 1878.
The Treaties of San Stefano and Berlin.
"The First Article of the Treaty of San Stefano had reference
to the new boundaries to be assigned to Montenegro. The
accession of territory, which was not very large, was taken
from the provinces of Bosnia and Albania, and lay to the
north, east, and south of the original State. … It gave to the
mountaineers their much-coveted admission to the sea. It was
next provided that a European Commission, on which the Sublime
Porte and the Government of Montenegro were to be represented,
should be charged with fixing the definite limits of the
Principality. … By Article II., the Sublime Porte recognized
definitively the independence of the Principality of
Montenegro. … Article III. dealt with Servia, which was
recognized as independent. The new frontier of this
Principality was to follow the course of the Drina, the
Dezevo, the Raska, the Ibar, the Morava, and some other
streams, and was drawn so as to give Little Zwornik, Zakar,
Leskovatz, Ak Palanka, and Nisch, to the Servians. … In
Article V., the Sublime Porte undertook to recognize the
independence of Roumania, which would thus acquire a right to
an indemnity, to be hereafter discussed between the two
countries. The most important sections of the Treaty were of
course those which had relation to Bulgaria. They commenced
with Article VI., which set forth that Bulgaria was
constituted an autonomous, tributary Principality, with a
Christian Government and a national militia.
{3156}
The definitive frontiers of the new Principality were to be
traced by a special Russo-Turkish Commission before the
evacuation of Roumelia by the Russian army. … The new Bulgaria
was of very considerable dimensions. It extended from the
Danube in the north to the Ægean in the south; and from the
borders of Albania in the west to the Black Sea in the east.
All that was left to Turkey in this part of her Empire was an
irregular and somewhat narrow territory, running westward from
Constantinople along the shores of the Sea of Marmora and the
Ægean until it touched the limits of the new Principality, and
extending no farther north than was sufficient to include
Adrianople and its immediate neighbourhood. By this
arrangement, the territory so left to the Sultan was
completely separated from Thessaly and Albania. … According to
Article VII., the Prince of Bulgaria was to be freely elected
by the people, and confirmed by the Sublime Porte with the
assent of the Powers. No member of the reigning dynasties of
the Great European Powers should be capable of being elected
Prince of Bulgaria. … The introduction of the new system into
Bulgaria, and the superintendence of its working, would be
entrusted for two years to an Imperial Russian Commissioner. …
By Article VIII., the Ottoman army would no longer remain in
Bulgaria, and all the ancient fortresses would be razed at the
expense of the local Government. … Until the complete
formation of a native militia, the country would be occupied
by Russian troops. … Article IX. declared that the amount of
the annual tribute which Bulgaria was to pay the Suzerain
Court would be determined by an agreement between Russia, the
Ottoman Government, and the other Cabinets. … By Article X.,
the Sublime Porte was to have the right to make use of
Bulgaria for the transport, by fixed routes, of its troops,
munitions, and provisions, to the provinces beyond the
Principality, and vice versa. … Article XII. provided that all
the Danubian fortresses should be razed, and that in future
there should be no strongholds on the banks of the Danube, nor
any men-of-war in the waters of Roumania, Servia, or Bulgaria.
… Article XIV. imposed on Turkey the obligation to introduce
reforms into Bosnia and the Herzegovina." Articles XV. and
XVI. stipulated reforms in government of Crete, Epirus,
Thessaly, Armenia, and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. "The
question of the war-indemnities was arranged in Article XIX.,
which set forth that the Emperor of Russia claimed, in all,
1,410,000,000 roubles for losses imposed on Russia during the
contest. … The Emperor, however, did not desire to receive the
whole of this indemnity in the form of money-payments, but,
taking into consideration the financial embarrassments of
Turkey, and acting in accordance with the wishes of the
Sultan, was willing to substitute for the greater part of the
sums enumerated certain territorial cessions, consisting of
the Sandjak of Tultcha, on the Danube (including the Delta
Islands and the Isle of Serpents), and, in Asia, Ardahan,
Kars, Batoum, Bayazid, and the territory extending as far as
the Soghanli Dagh. With respect to the Sandjak of Tultcha and
the Delta Islands, Russia, not wishing to annex that
territory, reserved to herself the right of exchanging it for
the part of Bessarabia detached from her by the Treaty of
1856. … The ceded territories in Europe and Asia were to be
taken as an equivalent for the sum of 1,100,000,000 roubles."
The remaining Articles of the Treaty of San Stefano related to
details of minor importance. "The Treaty of Berlin, signed by
the Plenipotentiaries on the 13th of July, 1878, and of which
the ratifications were exchanged on the 3rd of August, was the
Treaty of San Stefano, with additions, subtractions, and
amendments. … Speaking generally, it may be said that the
objects of the Treaty of Berlin, as distinguished from its
predecessor, were to place the Turkish Empire in a position of
independence, and to protect the jeopardised rights of Europe.
These ends it accomplished, or partially accomplished, by
several important provisions. It divided the so-called
Bulgaria into two provinces, of which the one to the north of
the Balkans was formed into a tributary Principality, while
the one to the south, which was to be designated Eastern
Roumelia, was to remain under the direct authority of the
Sultan, with administrative autonomy and a Christian
Governor-General. It left to the Sultan the passes of the
mountains, and the right of sending troops into the interior
of Eastern Roumelia whenever there might be occasion. It
reduced the stay of the Russian army in European Turkey. … It
secured to Roumania, as compensation for the loss of that
portion of Bessarabia which had been annexed to Moldavia by
the Treaty of Paris (1856), a larger amount of territory,
south of the Danube, than had been granted at San Stefano. It
restored to Turkey the whole of the northern shores of the
Ægean, a wide extent of country in Europe, and, in Asia, the
valley of Alashgerd and the town of Bayazid. … It gave far
ampler guarantees for religious liberty than had entered into
the projects of the Czar."
_E. Ollier,
Cassell's Illustrated History of the Russo-Turkish War,
volume 2, chapter 9 and 21._
"In her private agreement with Russia, England had consented
to the cession of Batoum, but she now sought to diminish the
value of that post by stipulating that the fortifications
should be demolished and the port declared free. The dispute,
which at one time assumed a serious character, was finally
settled by a declaration on the part of the Czar that Batoum
should be a free port. Kars, Ardahan, and Batoum were ceded to
Russia, the district of Khotur to Persia, and the Sultan
pledged himself to carry out the requisite reforms in Armenia
without loss of time, and to protect the inhabitants against
the Kurds and Circassians. At the same time a secret treaty
was made known which had been contracted between England and
Turkey on the 4th of June. By this treaty the Porte pledged
itself to carry out reforms in Asia Minor, and England, on her
part, guaranteed the integrity of the Sultan's Asiatic
possessions. To put England in a position to fulfil her part
of the treaty, and as a pledge for the execution of the
promised reforms, the Porte surrendered Cyprus to England as a
naval and military station, the latter agreeing to regard the
island as an integral part of the Turkish empire, and to make
over the surplus revenue to the Sultan. This treaty, which had
received the consent of Germany and Russia at the time of its
execution, aroused great indignation in France and Italy. … To
pacify the former state, Beaconsfield and Salisbury entered
into a secret arrangement with Waddington, in accordance with
which England was to put no obstacles in the way of a French
occupation of Tunis—an arrangement of which the French
government finally took advantage in the year 1881.
{3157}
The English representatives had also entered into an
arrangement with Austria in reference to Bosnia and
Herzegovina. In the sitting of June 29th Andrassy read a
memorandum in which he set forth that Austria had been
disturbed for a whole year by the insurrection in those
provinces, and had been compelled to receive and provide for
over 150,000 Bosnian fugitives, who positively refused again
to submit to the hardships of Turkish misrule; that Turkey was
not in a position to restore order in the disturbed districts.
… Thereupon the Marquis of Salisbury moved that Austria be
charged with the occupation and administration of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and … the congress … decided to hand over those
two provinces to Austro-Hungary. … The independence of Servia
and Montenegro was recognized on condition that full freedom
and political equality were accorded to the members of all
religions. Servia received an addition to her population of
280,000 souls, her most important acquisition being the city
and fortress of Nish. She also assumed a part of the Turkish
debt. The recognition of Roumanian independence was
conditioned on the cession of Bessarabia to Russia, and the
admission to political equality of the members of all
religions—a condition which had special reference to the Jews.
In compensation for Bessarabia Roumania was to receive the
Dobrudsha and the islands at the mouth of the Danube. …
Austria took possession of her share of the booty at once, but
not without the most obstinate resistance."
_W. Müller,
Political History of Recent Times,
section 30._
ALSO IN:
_Sir E. Hertslet,
The Map of Europe by Treaty,
volume 4, Numbers 518, 524-532._
_Duke of Argyll,
The Eastern Question,
volume 2, chapter 13._
See, also, BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1878.
TURKS: A. D. 1894.
Reported Atrocities in Armenia.
A disturbance of some nature—the causes and extent of which
have not yet been ascertained—occurring in Turkish Armenia
during the late weeks of summer or early part of autumn, gave
occasion for what is claimed to have been more horrible
atrocities on the part of the Turkish soldiery than were
committed in Bulgaria during the year 1877. The scene of
alleged massacres is in the mountainous district of Sassoun,
near the western end of Lake Van, where 6,000 men, women and
children are said to have been slain. The Christian world
having been roused, though not very promptly, by the reports
of this fresh outbreak of barbarism, the Porte has been forced
by pressure from the Powers to consent to the formation of a
commission to investigate the affair. England, France and
Russia are to be represented on the commission.
----------TURKS: End--------
TURLUPINS, The.
See BEGUINES.
TURNER, Nat, The Insurrection of.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1828-1832.
TURONES, The.
A tribe in ancient Gaul who gave their name to Touraine, the
district which they inhabited, and to Tours, the chief town of
that district.
See GAULS; also, VENETI OF WESTERN GAUL.
----------TUSCANY:Start--------
TUSCANY: A. D. 685-1115.
The founding of the duchy.
The reign of Countess Matilda.
The rise of the free cities.
"The first Lombard duke of whom any sure record remains is a
certain 'Alovisino' who flourished about the year 685; and the
last, though of more doubtful existence, is 'Tachiputo,' in
the 8th century, when Lucca was the principal seat of
government, with the privilege of coining, although her Counts
were not always Dukes and Marquises of Tuscany. About the year
800, the title of Duke seems to have changed to that of Count,
and although both are afterwards used the latter is most
common: Muratori says, that this dignity was in 813 enjoyed by
a certain Boniface whom Sismondi believes to be the ancestor
of Countess Matilda; but her father, the son of Tedaldo,
belonged to another race: he was the grandson to Attone, Azzo,
or Adelberto, Count of Cannosa. … The line of Boniface I.
finished in 1001 by the death of Hugo the Great. … After him,
on account of the civil wars between Ardoino and Henry, there
was no permanent Duke until 1014, when the latter appointed
Ranieri, whom Conrad the Salique deposed in 1027, making room
for Boniface the father of Countess Matilda. This heroine died
in 1115 after a reign of active exertion for herself and the
Church against the Emperors, which generated the infant and as
yet nameless factions of Guelph and Ghibeline. …
See 'War of Investitures,'
PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122]
The fearless assertion of her own independence by successful
struggles with the Emperor was an example not overlooked by
the young Italian communities under Matilda's rule. … These
seeds of liberty began first to germinate amongst the Lombard
plains, but quickly spreading over the Apennines were welcomed
throughout Tuscany. …
See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.
It seems probable that in Tuscany, towards the commencement of
the 12th century, the Count's authority had passed entirely
into the principal communities, leaving that of the Marquis as
yet untouched; but there are reasons for believing that the
Countess Matilda in some of her difficulties was induced to
sell or cede a portion of her power, and probably all that of
the Count's. … Altogether, there appears little reason to
doubt the internal freedom of most Tuscan cities very early in
the 11th century."
_H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_P. Villari,
The Two First Centuries of Florentine History,
volume I, chapter 2._
TUSCANY: A. D. 925-1020.
The rise of Pisa.
See PISA.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1063-1200.
Cultivation of architecture at Pisa.
See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1077-1115.
Countess Matilda and her Donation to the Holy See.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1215.
Beginning of the wars of Guelfs and Ghibellines.
See ITALY: A. D. 1215.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1248-1278.
The Guelf and Ghibelline wars.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1250-1293.
Development of the popular constitution
of the Florentine Commonwealth.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1250-1293.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1282-1293.
War between Pisa and Genoa.
Battle of Meloria.
War of Florence and Lucca against Pisa.
See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.
{3158}
TUSCANY: A. D. 1300-1313.
The new factions of Florence.
Bianchi and Neri.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1295-1300; and 1301-1313.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1310-1313.
The visitation of the Emperor, Henry VII.
His war with the Guelfic cities.
See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1313-1328.
The wars of Florence and Pisa.
The subjection of Lucca to Castruccio Castracani
and his war with the Florentines.
The hostile visitation of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria.
See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.
TUSCANY: A. D 1336-1338.
War of Florence with Mastino della Scala, of Verona.
See VERONA: A. D. 1260-1338.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1341-1343.
Defeat of the Florentines by the Pisans before Lucca.
Brief tyranny of the Duke of Athens at Florence.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1341-1343.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1353-1359.
Sufferings and deliverance from "the Great Company."
See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1378-1427.
The democratizing of Florence.
The Tumult of the Ciompi.
First appearances of the Medici.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1378-1427.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1390-1402.
Resistance of Florence to the conquests of the Duke of Milan.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1390-1402.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1433-1464.
The ascendancy of Cosimo de' Medici at Florence.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1433-1464.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1452-1454.
War of Florence and Milan against Venice, Naples,
Siena and other states.
See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1469-1492.
The government of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent,
at Florence.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1469-1492.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1494-1509.
The French deliverance of Pisa.
The long struggle and reconquest by Florence.
See PISA: A. D. 1494-1509.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1502-1569.
Restoration of the Medici in Florence and
their creation of the grand duchy of Tuscany.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1725.
Reversion of the grand duchy pledged to the Infant of Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725;
and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1735.
Reversion of the duchy secured to the ex-Duke of Lorraine.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735;
and ITALY: A. D.1715-1735.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1796.
Seizure of Leghorn by the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).
TUSCANY: A. D. 1801.
The grand duchy transformed into the Kingdom of Etruria
and given to the son of the Duke of Parma.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1807.
End of the Kingdom of Etruria.
Cession and annexation to France.
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1814-1815.
Restored to Ferdinand III.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF;
and ITALY: A. D. 1814-1815.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1848-1849.
Revolution.
Expulsion of the Grand Duke.
Proclamation of a Republic and union with Rome.
The old order restored.
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
TUSCANY: A. D. 1859-1861.
Flight of the Grand Duke.
Formation of a provisional government.
Annexation to Sardinia.
Absorption in the new Kingdom of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.
----------TUSCANY: End--------
TUSCARORAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY,
and IROQUOIS TRIBES OF THE SOUTH.
TUSCULAN VILLAS.
"In Cicero's time the number of country-houses which a wealthy
Roman considered it necessary to possess had evidently become
considerable, and the amount spent upon them very great. The
orator himself had villas at Tusculum, Antium, Formiæ, Bairn,
and Pompeii, besides his town-house on the Palatine, and his
family seat at Arpinum. … The Tusculanum of Cicero had
formerly been in the possession of Sylla. … Close to the Villa
of Cicero, and so near that he could go across to fetch books
from the library, was the Villa of Lucullus. … Many other
Roman villas, lay on the Tusculan hills."
_R. Burn,
Rome and the Campagna,
chapter 14, part 3._
TUSCULUM.
"In the times of the Latin League, from the fall of Alba to
the battle of Lake Regillus, Tusculum was the most prominent
town in Latium. It suffered, like the other towns in Latium, a
complete eclipse during the later Republic and the Imperial
times; but in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth
centuries, under the Counts of Tusculum, it became again a
place of great importance and power, no less than seven popes
of the house of Tusculum having sat in the chair of St.
Peter." The ruins of Tusculum, about fifteen miles from Rome,
on the Alban hills, have been considerably explored.
_R. Burn,
Rome and the Campagna,
chapter 14, part 2._
See, also, ALBA.
TUTELOES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.
TUTTLINGEN,
DÜTLINGEN, Battle of (1643).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1643-1644.
TWEED RING, The.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1863-1871.
TWELVE APOSTLES OF IRELAND.
See CLONARD, MONASTERY OF.
TWELVE CÆSARS, The.
See ROME: A. D. 68-96.
TWELVE PEERS OF FRANCE.
The Twelve Peers of France were the nobles and prelates "who
held the great fiefs immediately from the Crown. … Their
number had been fixed by Louis VII. at twelve; six lay and six
ecclesiastical. They were the Dukes of Normandy, Burgundy,
Guienne, the Counts of Champagne, Flanders, Toulouse; the
Archbishop of Rheims, and the Bishops of Laon, Noyon, Châlons,
Beauvais and Langres. … The immediate vassals of the Duchy of
France, who held of the King as Duke, not as King, were not
Peers of France."
_G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
volume 1, book 3, chapter 6, with foot-note._
TWELVE TABLES OF THE LAW, The.
See ROME: B. C. 451-449.
TWENTY-SECOND PRAIRIAL, Law of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (JUNE-JULY).
TWIGGS, General, Treacherous surrender of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1860-1861 (DECEMBER-FEBRUARY).
TWIGHTWEES, OR MIAMIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY,
also ILLINOIS AND MIAMIS, and SACS, ETC.
TWILLER, Wouter Van, The governorship of.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1638-1647.
{3159}
TWO SICILIES, The Kingdom of the.
The kingdom founded in Southern Italy and Sicily by the Norman
conquest in the 11th century (see ITALY: A. D. 1000-1090, and
1081-1194) maintained its existence until recent times,
sometimes as a unit, and sometimes divided into the two
dominions, insular and peninsular, of Sicily and Apulia, or
Naples. The division occurred first after the rising against
the French and the massacre known as "the Sicilian Vespers".
See ITALY: A. D. 1282-1300.
The crown of Sicily was then acquired by Peter, king of
Aragon, succeeded by his son Frederick. Charles of Anjou and
his successors were left in possession of the kingdom of
Naples, alone, although still claiming Sicily in union with
it. "As the king who reigned at Naples would not give up his
right to Sicily, … his kingdom is often called Sicily as well
as the Island Kingdom; and so when at last the two kingdoms
became one [again-see ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447], the strange
name of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies arose."
_W. Hunt,
History of Italy,
page 93._
See, also, NAPLES, and SICILY.
TYCHE.
One of the variously named parts of the ancient city of
Syracuse, Sicily. Its position was northwest of Achradina.
TYCOON,
SHOGUN.
See JAPAN: SKETCH OF HISTORY.
TYLER. John:
Vice-Presidential election.
Succession to the Presidency.
Administration.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840, to 1845.
TYLER, Wat, The Rebellion of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1381.
TYLIS, Celtic Empire of.
"The empire of Tylis in the Haemus, which the Celts, not long
after the death of Alexander [the Great], and nearly at the
same time with their permanent settlement in Asia Minor, had
founded in the Moeso-Thracian territory, destroyed the seed of
Greek civilisation within its sphere, and itself succumbed
during the Hannibalic war to the assaults of the Thracians,
who extirpated these intruders to the last man."
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 7._
TYNDARIS, Naval battle at (B. C. 257).
See PUNIC WARS: THE FIRST.
TYNWALD, Court of.
See MANX KINGDOM;
and, also, THING.
TYRANTS, Greek.
"A 'tyranny,' in the Greek sense of the word, was the
irresponsible dominion of a single person, not founded on
hereditary right, like the monarchies of the heroic ages and
of many barbarian nations, nor on a free election, like that
of a dictator or æsymnete, but on force. It did not change its
character when transmitted through several generations, nor
was any other name invented to describe it when power, which
had been acquired by violence, was used for the public good;
though Aristotle makes it an element in the definition of
tyranny, that it is exercised for selfish ends. But, according
to the ordinary Greek notions, and the usage of the Greek
historians, a mild and beneficent tyranny is an expression
which involves no contradiction."
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 10._
"In spite of the worst which has been said against them, the
tyrants hold a legitimate place in the progress of Greek
constitutional history. They were the means of breaking down
the oligarchies in the interests of the people. … It was at
Sicyon that the first tyrannis arose. … About the year 670 B.
C. a certain Orthagoras, who is said to have been a cook,
succeeded in establishing himself as tyrant in Sicyon. Of his
reign no incident is recorded. He was succeeded by his son
Myron."
_E. Abbott,
History of Greece,
part 1, chapter 12._
ALSO IN:
_J. P. Mahaffy,
Problems in Greek History,
chapter 4._
See, also, DESPOTS.
TYRAS, The.
The ancient name of the river Dniester.
TYRCONNEL'S DOMINATION IN IRELAND.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1685-1688.
----------TYRE: Start--------
TYRE.
"Justin represents Tyre as having been founded a year before
the Capture of Troy, thus apparently reducing by about 1,500
years the date assigned to it by the priests of the temple of
Hercules. … Josephus places the settlement of Tyre 240 years
before the building of Solomon's Temple. He refers no doubt to
the same event as Justin, the occupation of the island by the
Sidonians, as he cannot have been ignorant of the mention of
Tyre in the Old Testament more than 240 years before Solomon.
The date of the building of Solomon's Temple is itself
disputed, estimates varying from 1012 B. C. to 969 B. C. …
Tyre consisted of two parts, an island about three-quarters of
a mile in length, separated from the mainland by a strait four
stadia, about half a mile, in width at its northern end, and a
town on the shore. The latter was distinguished as Palæ-Tyrus,
or Ancient Tyre, and was the chief seat of the population,
till the wars of the Assyrian monarchs against Phœnicia. It
extended along the shore from the river Leontes in the north
to the fountain of Rusel-Ain in the south, a distance of seven
miles, great part of which would be suburb rather than city.
Pliny, who wrote when its boundaries could still be traced,
computes the circuit of Palæ-Tyrus and the island together at
nineteen Roman miles, that of the island town being 22 stadia.
… Though called Old Tyre, because it lay in ruins, when the
younger city on the island was in the height of its
prosperity, it was from the first connected with it; and the
name of Tyre (Tsour), 'a rock,' would hardly be appropriate,
except to the island. … It is probable that, from the first,
the island, from the excellence of its natural harbour, was a
naval station to the city on the mainland, and, as a place of
security, the seat of the worship of the national deities,
Astarte, Belus, Hercules. … The situation of Palæ-Tyrus was
one of the most fertile spots on the coast of Phœnicia. The
plain is here about five miles wide, the soil is dark, and the
variety of its productions excited the wonder of the
Crusaders. Near the southern extremity of the city was a
fountain, which, communicating with some natural receptacle in
the mountains above, poured forth copious and perennial
streams of pure and cool water. An aqueduct distributed them
through the town. … Whatever may have been the relative
importance of Palæ-Tyrus and the island, previous to the great
migration from Sidon, occasioned by the victory of the
Ascalonites, there can be no doubt that from this time the
population of the island greatly increased. The colonization
of Gades took place about a century later. But we have no
connected history of Tyre till near the age of Solomon."
_J. Kenrick,
Phœnicia: History,
chapter 1._
See, also, PHŒNICIANS.
TYRE:
The founding of the colony of Carthage.
See CARTHAGE: THE FOUNDING OF.
TYRE: B. C. 598-585.
Siege by Nebuchadnezzar.
See PHŒNICIANS: B. C. 850-538.
{3160}
TYRE: B. C. 332.
Siege and capture by Alexander the Great.
After defeating the Persians at Issus (see MACEDONIA: B. C.
334-330), Alexander turned his attention to the tributary
Phœnician cities, whose fleets gave to the Great King a naval
power more formidable than the hosts of the nations which
marched at his command. Sidon, Byblus, and other towns
submitted promptly to the conqueror. Tyre offered a qualified
surrender, which did not satisfy the haughty Macedonian, and
he instantly laid siege to the city. Having no adequate fleet
with which to reach the island-town, he resolved to carry a
causeway across the channel which separated the island from
Old Tyre, on the mainland, and he demolished the buildings of
the latter to provide materials for the work. It was an
undertaking of immense magnitude and difficulty, and the
ingenious Tyrians found many modes of interfering with it.
They succeeded in destroying the mole when half of it had been
built; but Alexander, with obstinate perseverance, began his
work anew, on a larger scale than before. He also collected a
strong fleet of war-galleys, from Cyprus and from the
Phœnicians who had submitted to him, with which the opposition
of the enemy was checked and his own operations advanced.
After seven months of prodigious labor and incessant battle,
the strong walls of Tyre were beaten down and the city taken.
"It soon became a scene of unresisted carnage and plunder. The
Macedonians, exasperated by the length and labours of the
siege, which had lasted seven months, and by the execution of
their comrades [Greek prisoners, whom the Tyrians had put to
death on the walls, before the eyes of the besiegers, and cast
into the sea], spared none that fell into their hands. The
king—whom the Greeks call Azelmicus—with the principal
inhabitants, and some Carthaginian envoys who had been sent
with the usual offerings to Melkart, took refuge in his
sanctuary: and these alone, according to Arrian, were exempted
from the common lot of death or slavery. It was an act of
clemency, by which the conqueror at the same time displayed
his piety to the god. Of the rest, 8,000 perished in the first
slaughter, and 30,000, including a number of foreign
residents, were sold as slaves. But if we may believe Curtius,
15,000 were rescued by the Sidonians [of Alexander's navy],
who first hid them in their galleys, and afterwards
transported them to Sidon—not, it must be presumed, without
Alexander's connivance or consent. It sounds incredible, that
he should have ordered 2,000 of the prisoners to be crucified.
… Tyre was still occupied as a fortress, and soon recovered
some measure of her ancient prosperity."
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 50._
ALSO IN:
_Arrian,
Anabasis of Alexander,
book 2, chapters 15-24._
TYRE: B. C. 332-A. D. 638.
Under Greek and Roman domination.
"The Carians, with whom Alexander repeopled the city [of Tyre]
fell into the habits of the former population, and both Tyre
and Sidon recovered much of their commercial greatness. After
a long struggle be·tween the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria,
Phœnicia was finally secured to the latter by Antiochus the
Great (B. C. 198). But the commercial rivalry of Egypt proved
more serious even than political subjection; and the
foundation of Berenice on the Red Sea diverted to Alexander
much of the oriental commerce that had previously flowed
through Tyre and Sidon. But still they did not succumb to
their younger rival. Under the Romans, to whom Phœicia was
subjected with Syria [by Pompeius the Great, B. C. 64], Tyre
was still the first commercial city of the world."
_P. Smith,
History of the World: Ancient,
chapter 24._
TYRE: A. D. 638.
Capture by the Moslems.
After the taking of Jerusalem by the Caliph Omar, the Moslems
made themselves masters of the remainder of Palestine very
quickly. Tripoli was first won by treachery, and then the same
traitor who had delivered it, making his way to Tyre,
succeeded in bringing about the betrayal of that place. Many
of the inhabitants were put to the sword; but many others are
said to have saved their lives by accepting the religion of
the victors. The fall of Tyre was followed by the flight from
Cæsarea of Constantine, son of the Emperor Heraclius, who
commanded in Syria, and the entire abandonment of that rich
province to the Moslems.
_S. Ockley,
History of the Saracens,
pages 251-253 (Bohn ed.)._
TYRE: A. D. 1124.
Siege and Conquest by the Venetians and Crusaders.
The Venetians took little or no part in the First Crusade,
being largely engaged in commerce with the Saracens. But in
1124—a full quarter of a century after the taking of
Jerusalem—they found it wise to obtain an interest in the
Christian conquests that were spreading along the Levantine
coasts. They accordingly sent their doge, with a formidable
fleet, to offer aid to the Latin king of Jerusalem—then
Baldwin II.—for the reduction of either Ascalon or Tyre, both
of which cities were still held by the Moslems. Finding it
difficult to make choice between the two places, a solemn
drawing of lots took place, at the altar of the Holy
Sepulchre, as a means of ascertaining the will of God. The lot
decided that Tyre should be attacked, and operations were
accordingly begun. But "the Venetians, more devoted to the
interests of their commerce and of their nation than to those
of a Christian kingdom, demanded, before beginning the siege
of Tyre, that they should enjoy a church, a street, a common
oven, and a national tribunal in every city in Palestine. They
further demanded other privileges and the possession of a
third of the conquered city." The demands of the Venetians
were complied with, and Tyre, after a siege of over five
months, beleaguered by land and sea, was taken. The
capitulation was an honorable one and honorably respected. The
Moslem inhabitants were permitted to leave the city; the
Christians entered it triumphally, and the day on which the
news reached Jerusalem was made a festival.
_J. F. Michaud,
History of the Crusades,
book 5._
----------TYRE: End--------
TYROL:
Origin of the county and its name.
"Tyrol freed herself from the suzerainty of Bavaria in very
early times. She was divided among a number of princes, lay
and ecclesiastical. The principal of these were the counts of
the Adige or of the Tyrol, and the counts of Andechs, who
obtained the title of duke from Frederick I. [1152-1190], and
called themselves dukes of Meran. Their race came to an end in
1248, and their domains were united to those of the counts of
Tyrol who thus be·came possessed of the larger part of the
lands between the Inn and the Adige. Tyrol takes its name from
the castle of Tirol, which was built on the site of the Roman
station Teriolis, not far from Meran, on the upper waters of
the Adige."
_L. Leger,
History of Austro-Hungary,
page 144, footnote._
{3161}
"After the dissolution of the classic Roman Empire, the
Province of Rætia split up into parcels. … It is impossible,
in a sketch like this, to follow the various dynastic and
other changes, most of them extremely perplexed and obscure,
which ensued between the 5th and 10th centuries. At the end of
this period, the main constituents of the old province had
assumed something like the shape which they now bear. That is
to say, Rætia Secunda was separated from Rætia Prima, which
had also lost what formerly belonged to it south of the Alpine
ridge. … Tirol again had been detached from Rætia Prima, and
had begun to form a separate entity. Meanwhile a power of
first rate importance in the future history of Graubünden [the
Grisons] had arisen: namely the Bishopric of Chur. … The
Bishops of Chur took rank as feudal lords of the first class.
… Originally an insignificant house, exercising … the
functions of Bailies to the See of Chur, the Counts of Tirol
acquired influence and territory under the shadow of distant
ecclesiastical superiors."
_J. A. Symonds,
History of Graubünden
(In Strickland's "The Engadine"),
pages 23-27._
TYROL: A. D. 1363.
Acquired by the House of Austria.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1330-1364.
TYROL: A. D. 1805.
Taken from Austria and annexed to Bavaria.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806.
TYROL: A. D. 1809.
Heroic rising under Hofer, against the Bavarians and the French.
The crushing of the revolt.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1809-1810 (APRIL-FEBRUARY).
TYROL: A. D. 1814-1815.
Restored to Austria.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE);
and VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
----------TYROL: End--------
TYRONE'S REBELLIONS.
The Wars of the O'Neils.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.
TYRRHENIANS.
TYRRHENIAN SEA.
The ancient race of people in western Italy whom the Romans
called Etrusci, and who called themselves the Rasenna, were
known to the Greeks as the Turrhenoi, or Tyrrhenians. They
were an enterprising maritime people, and hence the Greeks
called that part of the Mediterranean which washes the western
Italian coast the Tyrrhenian Sea.
See ETRUSCANS.
TZAR,
CZAR.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1547.
TZOMBOR, Battle of (1849).
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.
U.
U. C.,
A. U. C.,
A. U.
Anno Urbis Conditæ: the "Year of Rome," reckoned from the
founding of the city.
See ROME: B. C. 753.
U. E. LOYALISTS.
See TORIES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
UAUPE, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.
UBERTI FAMILY, The.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.
UCHEES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: UCHEAN FAMILY.
UCLES,
Battle of (1108).
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.
Battle of (1809).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (DECEMBER-MARCH).
UDAIPORE,
OODEYPOOR.
See RAJPOOTS.
UDHA-NALA, Battle of (1763).
See INDIA: A. D. 1757-1772.
UGANDA.
"It was in 1858 that the travellers Burton and Speke, starting
from Zanzibar, first made Europe acquainted with the existence
of that vast inland sea, the Victoria Lake, of which Rebmann
and Ernhardt had already heard native reports. Four years
later Speke and Grant, passing round the western shore,
reached Uganda; and they found here, if I may employ the
paradox, a singular, barbaric civilisation. Combined with the
most barbarous usages and the grossest superstition were many
of those advances in the scale of humanity which we are wont
to accept as indications of civilisation. There was an appeal
to law, and cases were decided after a formal hearing. The
administration was vested in the king,—an absolute despot,
—and from him downwards there existed a regular chain of
delegated power and control. Well-made roads, kept constantly
in repair, intersected the country in all directions. Rough
bridges were constructed across river swamps. An army was
maintained, and also a fleet of canoes on the waters of the
lake. The arts of building, smith-work, &c., were very far in
advance of anything to be found between Uganda and the coast.
The ideas of decency, the use of clothing, and the planting of
trees, were indications of long years of development, of which
the intricate customs and etiquettes surrounding the Court
were an additional proof. Speke traces the earliest
developments of this civilisation to Unyoro and its shepherd
kings, descendants of a nomadic, pastoral race—the Wahuma—whom
he supposes to be an offshoot from the Abyssinians or Gallas.
Uganda and the countries lying along the lake shore, being the
richest province of this Wahuma empire—called Kitara—had to
bring large quantities of produce to Unyoro for the king's
use, and their inhabitants were looked on as slaves. The
legend relates that a hunter named Uganda headed a revolt, and
was proclaimed king under the name of Kimera. Mtesa was the
seventh of the dynasty, according to Speke, which shows it to
be of some little antiquity. Speke was enthusiastic about the
fertility of Uganda, and the development of its people as
compared with the savage tribes of Africa. The next European
to visit the country was Colonel Chaillé Long, who was sent by
Gordon in the summer of 1874. Stanley followed in 1875, and
simultaneously Linant arrived in the country. In 1876 Gordon
sent Emin with a party of soldiers to Mtesa's capital. They
were for some time quartered there, and Gordon had views of
annexing Uganda to the Egyptian Sudan. … Stanley was even
louder in his praises of Uganda than Speke had been, and
described it as the 'Pearl of Africa.' In consequence of his
appeal on behalf of the people, a fund was started, and
missionaries were despatched to Uganda. These arrived in June
1877. … Some two years later—February 1879—the French (Roman
Catholic) Algerian Mission despatched a party of 'White
Fathers' to begin mission-work in Uganda.
{3162}
The religious differences between these two conflicting
creeds, which marked the very inauguration of the Roman
Catholic mission, much puzzled and confused Mtesa, since both
alike called themselves 'Christians.' The Arabs from the coast
had already settled in Uganda, and brought with them the
religion of Islam. … Mtesa showed great toleration to all
creeds, though at one time he had leaned to Mohammedanism, and
had ordered all Uganda to embrace that creed. Shortly after,
however, as the followers of Islam refused to eat the king's
meat because it was not killed in the orthodox way according
to the Koran, he ordered the massacre of all Mohammedans.
Mtesa died in the autumn of 1884, and Mwanga, then about
eighteen years old, succeeded him—being selected from among
Mtesa's sons on account of his personal likeness to the late
king, since in Uganda paternity is often difficult to prove.
At this time the three religions had made great progress, and
their disintegrating influences on the old customs began to be
more and more apparent. This was especially the case with
regard to the Christians, who no longer regarded the king as
divine, nor his acts, however gross and cruel, as having a
divine sanction. They owned a Higher allegiance, though they
remained obedient subjects, and distinguished themselves by
bravery in war. Such an attitude was, of course, intolerable
to a cruel despot like Mwanga. … There was still a further
reason for suspicion and fear of the white men. … The Egyptian
flag had been hoisted at Mruli and Fauvera in Unyoro, only
just beyond the borders of Uganda, and Gordon's envoys—Colonel
Long and Emin—and his troops had penetrated to Mtesa's
capital. The Arabs also told of the doings of the Belgians on
the Congo. At a later period reports reached Mwanga of German
annexations in Usagara on the East Coast. Last, and most
disturbing of all, was the news of Mr. Thomson's arrival near
Usoga in the East—the route from the coast by which native
tradition said that the conquerors of Uganda would come.
Mwanga had succeeded his father in November 1884. Early in
1885 he determined to stamp out those dangerous religions,
Mohammedan and Christian alike, which were disintegrating his
country. The missionaries Mackay and Ashe, were seized, and
their followers persecuted. But the religion spread the more.
A plot to depose Mwanga was discovered and crushed. With
varying fortunes—sometimes treated leniently, sometimes the
victims of violent persecution—the missionaries held their own
till the autumn of 1885. Then came news of Bishop Hannington's
approach." Unhappily the Bishop came by the forbidden Usoga
route, and Mwanga ordered that he be killed, with all his men,
which was done in October, 1885. "After this the position of
the Europeans was very precarious, but not till the following
May (1886) did the storm burst. Mwanga then threw aside all
restraint, and butchered the Christian converts wholesale. …
But in spite of the martyrdom by torture and burning, the
religion grew. … The heroism inspired by religion in the early
history of our own Church was repeated here in the heart of
Africa." At length, in 1888, there was a revolt, in which
Christians and Mohammedans seem to have combined, and Mwanga
fled to an island at the south of the Lake. His brother Kiwewa
was made king, and for a time, the Christians were in control
of affairs. But the Mohammedans grew jealous, and by a sudden
rising drove the Christians out. Kiwewa refusing to accept the
creed of Islam, was deposed, and another brother, Karema, was
raised to the throne. The exiled Christians now made overtures
to Mwanga, and an alliance was concluded, which resulted in
the overthrow of the Mohammedan or Arab party, and the
restoration of Mwanga to the throne, in October, 1889. The two
Christian factions, Catholic and Protestant, or French and
English, divided the country and all the offices of government
between them, but were bitterly jealous of each other and
perpetually quarreled, while the defeated Mohammedans were
still strong and unsubdued. Affairs were in this state when
Dr. Peters, the explorer in command of the German "Emin Relief
Expedition," came to Uganda, having learned of the rescue of
Emin Pasha by Stanley. Dr. Peters, with the aid of the French
party, succeeded in arranging some kind of treaty with Mwanga,
and this alarmed the Imperial British East Africa Company (see
AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1891) when news of it had been received.
That alarm was soon increased by intelligence that Emin Pasha
had entered the German service and was about to conduct a
strong expedition to the south of Lake Victoria Nyanza. These
and other circumstances led to the despatching of Captain
Lugard with a small force to Uganda to represent the British
East Africa Company and establish its influence there. Captain
Lugard arrived at Mengo, the capital of Uganda, on the 18th of
December, 1890. Meantime Great Britain and Germany, by the
Anglo-German Agreement of July 1, 1890 (see AFRICA: A. D.
1884-1891) had settled all questions between them as to their
respective "spheres of influence," and Uganda had been
definitely placed within the British "sphere." This enabled
Captain Lugard to secure the signing of a treaty which
recognized the suzerainty of the Company, established its
protectorate over Uganda, and conceded to it many important
commercial and political powers. He remained in the country
until June, 1892, during which time he was driven to take part
in a furious war that broke out between the Catholic and
Protestant parties. The war ended in a partition of territory
between the factions, and three small provinces were, at the
same time, assigned to the Mohammedans. After maintaining
Captain Lugard and his force in the country for eighteen
months, the Company found the cost so heavy and the prospect
of returns so distant, that it came to a resolution to
withdraw; but was induced by a subscription of £16,000 from
the Church Missionary Society to remain for another year in
the exercise of the control which it had acquired. At the end
of 1892 the Company renewed its resolution to evacuate the
region west of Lake Victoria, and the British Government was
urgently pressed to take upon itself the administration of the
country. It was only persuaded, however, to assume the cost of
a further occupation of Uganda for three months by the
Company's officers, in order to give more time for ensuring
the safety of missionaries and other Europeans. It consented,
moreover, to despatch a Commissioner to investigate the
situation and report upon it. The official selected for that
duty was Sir Gerald Porter, Consul-General at Zanzibar.
{3163}
Sir Gerald returned to England with his report in December,
1893, and died of typhoid fever in the month following. His
report urged the maintenance of an effective control over the
government of Uganda, to be exercised directly by the British
Government, in the form of a Protectorate, keeping the king on
his throne, with a Commissioner at his side to direct his
action in all important particulars. After much discussion,
the decision of the Government was announced at the beginning
of June, 1894. It determined to establish the proposed
Protectorate in Uganda, not extending to Unyoro, and to place
a Sub-Commissioner on duty between Lake Victoria and the sea,
for the purpose of watching over communications, and
apparently without political powers. The Government declined
to undertake the building of the railway from Mombassa on the
coast to the Lake, for which the Imperial British East Africa
Company had made surveys.
_Captain F. D. Lugard,
The Rise of our East African Empire._
ALSO IN:
_Sir Gerald Porter,
The British Mission to Uganda in 1893._
_P. L. McDermott,
British East Africa, or Ibea.
The Spectator, June 9, 1894._
See, also, AFRICAN EXPLORATION, &c., in Supplement.
UGRI.
See HUNGARIANS.
UGRO-FINNISH RACES.
See TURANIAN.
UHILCHES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.
UIRINA, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.
UKASE.
An edict of the Russian government, deriving the force of law
from the absolute authority of the Czar.
UKRAINE, The.
See RUSSIA, GREAT, &c.;
also COSSACKS.
ULADISLAUS I.,
King of Poland, A. D. 1083-1102.
Uladislaus II., King of Bohemia, 1471-1516.
Uladislaus II., Duke of Poland, 1138-1146.
Uladislaus III., Duke of Poland, 1296-1333.
Uladislaus IV. (Jagellon), King of Bohemia, 1471-1516;
V. of Hungary, 1490-1516.
Uladislaus V. (Jagellon), King of Poland
and Duke of Lithuania, 1385-1434.
Uladislaus VI., King of Poland, 1434-1444.
Uladislaus VII., King of Poland, 1632-1648.
ULCA, Battle of the (A. D. 488).
See Rom:: A. D. 488-526.
ULEMA.
See SUBLIME PORTE.
----------ULM: Start--------
ULM: A. D. 1620.
Treaty of the Evangelical Union with the Catholic League.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620.
ULM: A. D. 1702-1704.
Taken by the Bavarians and French,
and recovered by Marlborough.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1702; and 1704.
ULM: A. D. 1805.
Mack's capitulation.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (MARCH-DECEMBER).
----------ULM: End--------
ULMENES.
See CHILE: THE ARAUCANIANS.
ULSTER, The Plantation of.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1607-1611.
ULSTER TENANT-RIGHT.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1848-1852.
ULTIMA THULE.
See THULE.
ULTRA VIRES.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1846.
ULTRAMONTANE.
ULTRAMONTANISM.
The term ultramontane (beyond the mountain) has been used for
so long a time in France and Germany to indicate the extreme
doctrines of Papal supremacy maintained beyond the Alps—that
is, in Italy, and especially at Rome—that it has come to have
no other meaning. The ultramontanists in each country are
those who make themselves partisans of these doctrines, in
opposition to the more independent division of the Roman
Catholic Church.
UMBRIANS, The.
"The Umbrians at one time possessed dominion over great part
of central Italy. Inscriptions in their language also remain,
and manifestly show that they spoke a tongue not alien to the
Latin. The irruption of the Sabellian and of the Etruscan
nations was probably the cause which broke the power of the
Umbrians, and drove them back to a scanty territory between
the Æsis, the Rubicon, and the Tiber."
_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
introduction, section 2._
See, also, ITALY: ANCIENT.
UNALACHTIGOS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: DELAWARES, and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
UNAMIS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: DELAWARES, and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
UNCIA, The.
See As;
also, FOOT, THE ROMAN.
UNCTION.
See CORONATION.
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D, 1840-1860.
UNELLI, The.
The Unelli were one of the Armorican tribes of ancient Gaul.
Their country was "the Cotantin of the ante-revolutionary
period, the present department of Manche."
_G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 4, chapter 6._
UNIFORMITY, Acts of.
Two Acts of Uniformity were passed by the English Parliament
in the reign of Edward VI. (1548 and 1552), both of which were
repealed under Mary. In 1559, the second year of Elizabeth, a
more thorough-going law of the same nature was enacted, by the
provisions of which, "
(1) the revised Book of Common Prayer as established by Edward
VI. in 1552, was, with a few alterations and additions,
revised and confirmed.
(2) Any parson, vicar, or other minister, whether beneficed or
not, wilfully using any but the established liturgy, was to
suffer, for the first offence, six months' imprisonment, and,
if beneficed, forfeit the profits of his benefice for a year;
for the second offence, a year's imprisonment; for the third,
imprisonment for life.
(3) All persons absenting themselves, without lawful
or reasonable excuse, from the service at their parish church
on Sundays and holydays, were to be punished by ecclesiastical
censures and a fine of one shilling for the use of the poor."
_T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
chapter 12._
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1559.
In 1662 soon after the Restoration, another Act of Uniformity
was passed, the immediate effect of which was to eject about
2,000 ministers from the established Church.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1662-1665.
UNIGENITUS, The Bull.
See PORT ROYAL, AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D.1702-1715.
UNION, The German Protestant (17th Century).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1608-1618.
UNION JACK.
The national flag of Great Britain and Ireland, uniting the
red cross of St. George and the diagonal crosses of St. Andrew
and St. Patrick, on a blue ground.
{3164}
UNION LEAGUE, The.
A secret political society formed in the United States soon
after the outbreak of the American Civil War, having for its
object a closer and more effective organization of the
supporters of the national government. It was very large in
numbers for a time, but declined as the need of such an
organization disappeared.
UNION OF BRUSSELS.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581.
UNION OF CALMAR, The.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1018-1397; and 1397-1527.
UNION OF HEILBRONN, The.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1632-1634.
UNION OF UTRECHT, The.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581.
UNITARIANISM.
"In its restricted sense Unitarianism means belief in the
personal unity of God instead of in a community of divine
persons. … Among the articles of Unitarian faith so
understood, besides the doctrine of one supreme divine person,
may be enumerated belief in human nature, in moral freedom, in
human reason, in character as of more worth than ritual or
creed, in the equal justice not to say mercy of God, in the
unreality of a devil, not to say of evil, and in the ultimate
salvation, or evolution into something better, of all souls.
Without being in any sense the first article of the faith,
either in the historical order as having been the
starting-point, or in the logical order as underlying the
whole system, or in the order of importance as being with us
the doctrine of doctrines, it has happened in spite of a
thousand protests that belief in God's personal unity has
given its name to the entire confession. The movement first
called Socinian, then Arminian, and finally Unitarian, began
as a protest of the 'natural man' against two particularly
hateful doctrines of Calvinism, that of total depravity and
that of predestination."
_S. C. Beach,
Unitarianism and the Reformation
(Unitarianism: its Origin and History)._
"The establishment of distinct Unitarian churches in England
dates back to 1774, when Theophilus Lindsey left the Church of
England and went up to London to start the first avowedly
Unitarian place of worship in the country. But that was not
the beginning of Unitarianism. Centuries before this,
Unitarianism began in England as an individual opinion, had
first its martyr-age, then a period when it was a great
ferment of controversy, and finally the distinct development
of it which stands today in our English Unitarian body. The
names of some of the Unitarian martyrs on the continent of
Europe are comparatively well known,—Servetus, burned by
Calvin; Valentine Gentilis the Italian; and other isolated
students here and there, who had been stirred up by the
Reformation spirit to read the Bible for themselves, and who
could not stop where Luther and Calvin stopped. … What is
called the 'era of toleration' began immediately after the
overthrow of the Stuarts in 1688. The sects were now at
liberty to go quietly on in their own way. On the one hand
there was the great established Episcopal Church,—at a pretty
low ebb in religious life, for its most earnest life had gone
out of it on that 'black Bartholomew's Day, 1662,' when the
two thousand Puritan clergy were ejected.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1662-1665.
On the other hand were these Puritans,—'Dissenters' they began
now to be called,—divided into three great sects, Baptists,
Independents, and English Presbyterians. Now, these were all
free. They could build churches, and they did. From 1693 to
1720 was the great 'chapel'-building time. … But now, in this
great development of chapel-building by these three
denominations, a curious thing took place, which unexpectedly
affected their after history. That curious thing was, that
while the Baptists and Independents (or Congregationalists)
tied down all these new chapels to perpetual orthodox uses by
rigid doctrinal trust-deeds, … the English Presbyterians left
theirs free. It seems strange that they should do so; for the
Presbyterians had begun by being the narrowest sect of the
Puritans, and the Scotch Presbyterians always remained so. But
the English Presbyterians had very little to do with the
Scotch ones, and through all the changes and sufferings they
had had to go through they had become broadened; and so it
carne to pass that now, when they were building their churches
or chapels up and down the country, they left them free. … The
English Presbyterians, thus left free, began to grow more
liberal. … A general reverence for Christ took the place of
the old distinct belief in his deity. … They opened the
communion to all; they no longer insisted on the old
professions of 'church-membership,' but counted all who
worshipped with them 'the church.' Thus things were going on
all through the middle of the last century. Of course it was
not the same everywhere; some still held the old views. … One
man among them, … Dr. Joseph Priestley, … was one of the
leading scientists of his time,—a restless investigator, and
at the same time an earnest religious thinker and student,
just as eager to make out the truth about religion as to
investigate the properties of oxygen or electricity. So he
investigated Christianity, studied the creeds of the churches,
came to the conclusion that they were a long way from the
Christianity of Christ, and gradually came to be a
thoroughgoing Unitarian. When he came to this conclusion he
did not hide it; he proclaimed it and preached it. … The
upshot of it was, that at length he aroused a large part of
the body to the consciousness that they were really
Unitarians. They still did not take the name; they disliked
sect-names altogether. … And so, though they mostly continued
to call themselves English Presbyterians, or simply
Presbyterians, all the world began to call them Unitarians;
and more and more the Baptists and Independents, or
Congregationalists, who had formerly fellowshipped and worked
with them, drew apart, and left them, as they are to-day, in
the reluctant isolation of a separate Unitarian body. Two
other movements of thought of a somewhat similar kind
increased and strengthened this development of a separate
Unitarian body,—one among the General Baptists, the other in
the great Episcopal Church itself."
_B. Herford,
Unitarianism in England
(Unitarianism: its Origin and History)._
{3165}
"It is hard to trace the early history of Unitarianism in New
England. The name was seldom used, yet not omitted with any
view to concealment; for we have abundant proof that the
ministers to whom it belonged preached what they believed
clearly and fully. … But a marvellous change had taken place
in the last century, at the beginning of which the denial of
the Trinity would have seemed no better than blasphemy; while
at its close nearly all the clergy of Boston and its vicinity
and many others in Massachusetts were known to dissent from
the ancestral creed, to have ceased to use Trinitarian
doxologies, and to preach what was then known as Arianism,
regarding Jesus Christ as the greatest and oldest of created
beings, but in no proper sense as God. At the same time, so
little stress was laid on the Trinity by its professed
believers that, with two or three exceptions, these Arians
remained in full church fellowship with those of the orthodox
faith. In the territory now within the limits of Boston there
were, a century ago, but two professedly Trinitarian
ministers, one of them being Dr. Thacher, of the liberal
Brattle Square Church, while Dr. Eckley, of the Old South
Church, was known to entertain doubts as to the deity of
Christ."
_A. P. Peabody,
Early New England Unitarians
(Unitarianism: its Origin and History)._
UNITED BRETHREN (Unitas Fratrum).
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1434-1457, and 1621-1648;
also MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN.
UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS.
See TORIES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
UNITED IRISHMEN, The Society of.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1793-1798.
UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN, Formation of the.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707.
UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, Creation of the.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1798-1800.
UNITED NETHERLANDS,
or United Provinces, or United States of the Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581, 1581-1584,
1584-1585, and after.
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, The.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1843.
----------UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Start--------
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1492-1620.
Discovery and exploration of the Atlantic coast.
See AMERICA.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1607-1752.
First settlement and organization of the
thirteen original English colonies.
The earliest attempts at European settlement (as distinct from
exploration) within the present limits of the United States
were made by French Huguenots, under the patronage of Admiral
Coligny; first at Port Royal, on Beaufort River, Florida,
where Jean Ribaut, in 1562, placed a few colonists who soon
abandoned the spot, and, two years later, at Fort Caroline, on
St. John's River, in the same peninsula. The second colony,
commanded by René de Laudonnière, was considerable in numbers
but unpromising in character, and not likely to gain a footing
in the country, even if it had been left in peace. It was
tragically extinguished, however, by the Spaniards in
September, 1565. The Spaniards had then established themselves
in a fortified settlement at St. Augustine. It was surprised
and destroyed in 1567 by an avenging Huguenot, but was
promptly restored, and has survived to the present day,—the
oldest city in the United States. (See FLORIDA.)—The first
undertakings at colonization from England were inspired and
led by Sir Walter Raleigh. After unsuccessful attempts, in
conjunction with his elder half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
to establish settlements in Newfoundland, Raleigh obtained a
grant from Queen Elizabeth, in 1584, under which he planted a
colony of 108 settlers, commanded by Ralph Lane, on Roanoke
Island, within the boundaries of the present State of North
Carolina. In honor of the virgin queen of England, the name
Virginia was given to the region at large. Lane's colonists
had expected to find gold, silver and pearls, and lost
interest in the country when none could be discovered. In
June, 1586, they persuaded Sir Francis Drake, who had touched
at Roanoke with his fleet, to carry them home. Soon
afterwards, several ships, sent out by Raleigh with
reinforcements and supplies, arrived at the island, to find it
deserted. They left fifteen men to hold the ground; but a year
passed before another expedition reached the place. The fort
was then found in ruins; the fifteen men had disappeared, and
nothing of their fate could be learned. The new colony
perished in the same way—its fate an impenetrable secret of
the savage land. This was Raleigh's last venture in
colonization. His means were exhausted; England was absorbed
in watching and preparing for the Spanish Armada; the time had
not come to "plant an English nation in America." Sir Walter
assigned his rights and interests in Virginia to a company of
merchant adventurers, which accomplished nothing permanently.
Twenty years passed before another vigorous effort of English
colonization was made. In 1606 King James issued a royal
charter to a company singularly formed in two branches or
divisions, one having its headquarters at London, and known as
the London Company, the other established at Plymouth and
known as the Plymouth Company. Between them they were given
authority to occupy territory in America from the 34th to the
45th degree of latitude; but the two grants overlapped in the
middle, with the intention of giving the greater domain to the
company which secured it by the earliest actual occupation.
The London Company, holding the southward grant, despatched to
Virginia a company of 105 emigrants, who established at
Jamestown, on the northerly bank of James River (May 13,
1607), the first permanent English settlement in America, and
founded there the colony and the subsequent State of Virginia.
The colony survived many hardships and trials, owing its
existence largely to the energy and courage of the famous
Captain John Smith, who was one of its chief men from the
beginning. Its prosperity was secured after a few years by the
systematic cultivation of tobacco, for which the demand in
England grew fast. In 1619, negro slavery was introduced; and
by that time the white inhabitants of Virginia had increased
to nearly 4,000 in number, divided between eleven settlements.
See VIRGINIA.
{3166}
Meantime, the Plymouth Company had done nothing effectively in
the northward region assigned to it. Bartholomew Gosnold, in
1602, had examined the coast from Maine to Cape Cod, and built
a lonely house on the island of Cuttyhunk; Martin Pring, in 1603,
had loaded two ships with sassafras in Massachusetts Bay; a
colony named in honor of the chief justice of England, Sir
John Popham, had shivered through the winter of 1607-8 near
the mouth of Kennebec River and then gone home; Captain John
Smith, in 1614, had made a voyage to the country, in the
interest of London merchants, and had named it New England;
but no lasting English settlement had been made anywhere
within the bounds of King James' grant to the Plymouth
Company, at the waning of the year 1620, when Virginia was
well grown. It was then by chance, rather than by design, that
the small ship Mayflower landed a little company of religious
exiles on the Massachusetts coast, at Plymouth (December 21,
1620), instead of bearing them farther south. Driven from
England into Holland by persecutions, twelve years before,
this congregation of Independents, or Separatists, now sought
liberty of conscience in the New World. They came with a
patent from the London, or South Virginia Company, and
expected to plant their settlement within that company's
territorial bounds. But circumstances which seemed adverse at
the time bent their course to the New England shore, and they
accepted it for a home, not doubting that the proprietors of
the land, who desired colonists, would permit them to stay.
The next year they received a patent from the Council for New
England, which had succeeded to the rights of the Plymouth
Company. Of the hardships which these Pilgrim Fathers endured
in the first years of their Plymouth Plantation, who does not
know the story! Of the courage, the constancy and the prudence
with which they overcame their difficulties, who has not
admired the spectacle! For eight years they remained the only
successful colony in New England. Then came the memorable
movement of Puritans out of Old England into New England,
beginning with the little settlement at Salem, under John
Endicott; expanding next year into the "Governor and Company
of Massachusetts Bay"; founding Dorchester, Roxbury,
Charlestown, Watertown, and Boston, in 1630, and rapidly
possessing and putting the stamp of the stern, strong Puritan
character on the whole section of America which it planted
with towns. In the Puritan colony of Massachusetts Bay a
cleavage soon occurred, on lines between democratic and
aristocratic or theocratic opinion, and democratic seceders
pushed southwestwards into the Connecticut Valley, where Dutch
and English were disputing possession of the country. There
they settled the question decisively, in 1635 and 1636, by
founding the towns of Hartford, Windsor, Wethersfield and
Springfield. Three years later the three towns first named
confederated themselves in a little republic, with a frame of
government which is the first known written constitution, and
so gave birth to the future State of Connecticut. In 1638 New
Haven was founded by a company of wealthy nonconformists from
England, under the lead of their minister, John Davenport, and
was a distinct colony until 1662, when it was annexed to
Connecticut by a royal charter. Another State, the smallest of
the New England commonwealths, was taking form at this same
time, in a little wedge of territory on Narragansett Bay,
between Connecticut and Massachusetts. Roger Williams, the
great apostle of a tolerant Christianity, driven from Salem by
the intolerant Puritanism of the Bay, went forth with a few
followers into the wilderness, bought land from the
Narragansett Indians, and laid the foundations (1636) of the
town of Providence. In that same year another small company of
people, banished from Boston for receiving the teachings of
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, bought the island of Aquidneck or
Aquetnet from the Indians and settled at its northern end.
This community was soon divided, and part of it removed to the
southern end of the island, beginning a settlement which grew
to be the town of Newport. The island as a whole received the
name of the Isle of Rhodes, or Rhode Island; and in 1644 its
two settlements were united with Providence, under a charter
procured in England by Roger Williams, forming the colony of
Providence Plantations. In 1643 the colonies of Massachusetts,
Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven, entered into a
confederation, from which Rhode Island was excluded, calling
themselves "The United Colonies of New England." The object of
the confederation was common action in defence against the
Indians and the Dutch on the Hudson. It was the beginning of
the cementing of New England. Before this time, small
settlements had been planted here and there in northern New
England, within territory covered by grants made to Sir
Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason. The province claimed
by Gorges was subsequently called Maine, and that of Mason,
New Hampshire; but Maine never rose to an independent colonial
existence. After years of dispute and litigation, between
1651, and 1677, the jurisdiction of Massachusetts was extended
over the province, and it remained the "District of Maine"
until 1820, when Massachusetts yielded the separation which
made it a sovereign state in the American Union. The New
Hampshire settlements were also annexed to Massachusetts, in
1641, after Captain Mason's death; were separated in 1679, to
be organized as a royal province; were temporarily reclaimed
without royal authority in 1685; but finally parted from
Massachusetts in 1692, from which time until the Revolution
they remained a distinct colony.
See NEW ENGLAND;
also MASSACHUSETTS, CONNECTICUT, RHODE ISLAND,
NEW HAMPSHIRE, and MAINE.
While the English were thus colonizing New England at the
north and Virginia at the south, the Dutch, not recognizing
their claims to the country between, had taken possession of
the important valley of the Hudson River and the region around
its mouth, and had named the country "New Netherland." The
river had been discovered in 1609 by Henry Hudson, an English
sailor, but exploring in the service of the Dutch. Trading
with the Indians for furs was begun the next year; the coast
and the rivers of the region were actively explored; a New
Netherland Company was chartered; a trading-house, called Fort
Nassau, was built on the Hudson as far to the north, or nearly
so, as Albany; but no real colonization was undertaken until
1623. The New Netherland Company had then been superseded by
the Dutch West India Company, with rights and powers extending
to Africa as well as the West Indies and the North American
coasts. It bought Manhattan Island and large tracts of land
from the Indians, but had little success for several years in
settling them. In 1629 it introduced a strange experiment,
creating a kind of feudal system in the New World, by
conveying great estates to individuals, called Patroons, or
Patrons, who would undertake to colonize them, and who
received with their territorial grant much of the powers and
many of the characteristics of a feudal lord.
{3167}
Several Patroon colonies were established on a baronial scale;
but, generally, the system did not produce satisfactory
results, and in 1640 the Company tried the better experiment
of making the trade of New Netherland free to all comers,
offering small independent grants of land to settlers, and
limiting the Patroons in their appropriation of territory. The
Company government, however, as administered by the directors
or governors whom it sent out, was too arbitrary to permit a
colonial growth at all comparable with that of New England.
Collisions with the English in Connecticut arose, over
questions of boundary, but the latter held their ground.
Southward, on the Delaware, the Swedes made a settlement where
the city of Wilmington now stands, and refused to be warned
off by the Dutch, who claimed the region. This Swedish colony
prospered and enlarged itself during sixteen years, but was
overcome by Director Stuyvesant of New Netherland in 1654. A
little later than the appearance of the Swedes on the
Delaware, certain colonists from New Haven bought lands from
the Indians on both banks of the Delaware and made attempts at
settlement, in what is now New Jersey and on the site of the
future city of Philadelphia. The Dutch and Swedes combined
against them and they failed. In 1664 the whole situation in
this middle region was changed by the English conquest of New
Netherland. The territory so acquired—or regained, if the
original English claim had been good—passed then, by royal
grant, to the Duke of York (afterwards King James II.), and
became the proprietary province of New York.
See NEW YORK.
The Duke of York, in turn, the same year, transferred to Lord
John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret the part of his domain
which lay between the Hudson and the Delaware, and it received
the name of New Cæsarea, or New Jersey. Under encouragement
from Berkeley and Carteret the New Haven colonization was
resumed. Ten years later Berkeley sold his rights to a party
of Quakers who were seeking a refuge for their persecuted sect
in the New World. A division of the province was made and the
Quaker proprietors received West Jersey, while East Jersey
remained to Carteret.
See NEW JERSEY.
Before this time, William Penn had become the principal owner
of the West Jersey interest. Not long afterwards (1681), by
surrendering a claim which his father held against the British
government, Penn procured from King Charles II. a much greater
proprietary domain, on the western side of the Delaware, being
no less than the vast tract, 40,000 square miles in extent,
which received the name of Pennsylvania. To his title from the
king he added a deed of purchase from the Indians. Penn's
scheme of colonization was very liberally framed, and it was
conducted with marked success. Philadelphia, first laid out in
1683, had 2,000 inhabitants in 1685, and Pennsylvania at large
had 8,000. Penn himself did not find peace or happiness in his
position as a princely proprietor; but he founded a great and
prosperous commonwealth on noble lines.
See PENNSYLVANIA.
In order to possess one bank of the Delaware River and Bay to
the sea, William Penn, after securing his grant from the king,
bought additionally from the Duke of York the claims of the
latter to that strip of territory which the Swedes had settled
on and struggled for with the Dutch, and which took an
independent political form in later days as the State of
Delaware. The Delaware "territories," as they were called,
never accepted their dependent relationship to Pennsylvania,
and as early as 1702 it was found necessary to concede them a
separate legislature, though they continued under Penn's
proprietary government.
See DELAWARE.
Adjoining Penn's province on the south was the domain of
another great proprietor, Lord Baltimore, whose title deed,
from the same royal source as that of Penn, but prior in time
by half a century, gave rise to conflicts which troubled the
whole life of the peaceful Friend. The first Lord Baltimore
(George Calvert) received from James I. in 1632 a patent which
gave him territory on the northerly side of the Potomac River,
stretching to the Delaware Bay and River and to the 40th
parallel of north latitude. By its terms it did undoubtedly
take in Delaware and part of Pennsylvania; but the intervening
occupation by the Swedes and Dutch, the English conquest, and
the royal grant to the Duke of York, confused the title. The
controversy was not settled until 1761-7, when "Mason and
Dixon's line" was run as the accepted boundary between
Maryland and Pennsylvania. The lords proprietary of Maryland
had been in conflict long before Penn's time with their
neighbors at the south, in Virginia, and had many difficulties
to encounter and many troubles in their undertaking to found a
state. The powers they had received with their grant from the
king were the largest that royalty could concede to a subject,
and gave to their province the character of a palatine
principality. But they exercised their substantial sovereignty
with an admirable moderation. They were Catholics, and the
early settlers in Maryland were largely though not wholly of
that faith. But they introduced a policy of tolerance which
was strange at the time to every other part of the New World
except Rhode Island, and made their province free to all
religions. Numerous Puritans entered it, especially from
Virginia, where they were unwelcome; and these, it can hardly
be denied, made ill returns for the tolerant hospitality they
received. During the time of the Civil War, the Commonwealth
and the Protectorate in England, the Maryland Puritans were
hostile, not only to the proprietary government, but to its
tolerant principles, and used the ascendancy which they
frequently gained in a spirit that does not compare favorably
with that of their adversaries. Subsequently the ascendancy of
the Puritans gave way to that of the Anglican Church, without
restoring the toleration which Catholicism in power had
established—a rare instance in history—and which Protestantism
in power had suppressed.
See MARYLAND.
Beyond the Virginia plantations, in the South, the coasts to
which Raleigh had sent his first colonists, and to which the
virgin queen had intended to give her name, waited long for
settlement. The first durable colony within that territory
which took its name in time from a less worthy sovereign was
planted in 1653, at Albemarle, on the Chowan River, by a small
company of dissenters from Virginia.
{3168}
In 1665 a considerable party of emigrants from the Barbadoes,
headed by a wealthy planter of that island, Sir John Yeamans,
established themselves on Cape Fear River, near its mouth, in
the district which was afterwards called Clarendon. Two years
before this time, in 1663, King Charles II. had discharged
some part of his heavy obligations to his loyal supporters by
granting that whole section of the American continent which
lies between the 31st and 36th parallels of latitude to a
company of courtiers, including Clarendon, Monk, Shaftesbury,
and others, and the province was named Carolina. It was
divided into two great counties, Albemarle and Clarendon, and
these corresponded somewhat nearly to the North Carolina and
South Carolina of the present day. In 1670 the lords
proprietors sent out a colony under William Sayle, which
settled first at Port Royal; but Sayle died soon after
landing, and the colonists were induced to migrate northwards
to the Ashley River, where Sir John Yeamans met them with a
considerable part of his Clarendon colony, and became the head
of the united settlements. There they founded "Old
Charleston," and, after a few years, shifting the site to the
confluence of the Ashley and the Cooper, they began the
building of the present city of Charleston. This became the
nucleus of the subsequently distinct colony of South Carolina,
as Albemarle did of that of North Carolina. The division was
made in 1729, when the rights of the Proprietors were bought
by the Crown, and the Carolinas became crown colonies. Until
that time, the southern colony had made far greater progress
than its northern twin. It had received a considerable
immigration of Huguenots from France and of Scotch-Irish from
the north of Ireland, as well as of English, and Charleston
was becoming an important port, especially frequented by
buccaneers. But after the displacement of the proprietary
government, North Carolina began quickly to receive more than
its share of the Scotch-Irish immigration and no small number
of Highland Scotch. The colony was developed almost wholly in
the agricultural direction, with few and small towns. Slavery
was introduced at an early day, and rooted itself in the
industrial system, as it did in that of all the southern
settlements.
See NORTH CAROLINA and SOUTH CAROLINA.
The last of the "Thirteen Colonies" to come into existence was
the colony of Georgia, founded so late as 1733 by General
James Oglethorpe. It occupied territory too close in
neighborhood to the Spaniards of Florida to be attractive to
settlers in the 17th century. Its colonization was undertaken
by General Oglethorpe primarily as a philanthropic enterprise
for the benefit of unfortunate English debtors, who were
released from prison and permitted to emigrate under his care;
but secondarily to strengthen the defence of the English
colonies against the Spaniards. He obtained his grant from
George II. "in trust for the poor," and the colony was
governed by trustees until 1752, when it was surrendered to
the crown. The first emigrants left England in the fall of
1732, and early in the next year Savannah was laid out by
Oglethorpe in person. His scheme of colonization proved highly
attractive, not only in England but on the continent, and
numbers of Protestant Germans came over to become part of the
original population of Georgia. At the outset, slavery was
strictly prohibited; but the settlers thought themselves
grievously oppressed by the denial of slaves, and their
discontent became so great that in 1749 the trustees rescinded
the prohibition.
See GEORGIA.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1620-1776.
Constitutional relations of the colonies to the English Crown
and Parliament.
The working of the leaven of independence
in New England Puritanism.
The history of the development of the question between England
and her colonies, as to their constitutional relations to one
another, "falls naturally into two periods: first, from the
beginning of English colonization in America to the Revolution
of 1688; second, from 1688 to the Declaration of Independence.
… Passing now to the history of the first period, it is to be
observed that the leading institution in the English
government at that time was the King in Council. … But in the
17th century, owing to a combination of very strong political
and religious forces, the struggle between the King in
Parliament and the King in Council was … opened and pushed
with vigor. It continued with alternations of success, but on
the whole with results favorable to Parliament, till 1688.
Then the King in Parliament finally gained the ascendancy, and
this result was so secured by statute as never afterwards to
be seriously called in question. The supremacy of Parliament
was established by a series of royal concessions. The
parliamentary party viewed these as compromises between
Parliament and king. This gave color to the theory of social
contract, which was now given new impulse and form by the
parliamentarian writers of the 16th and 17th centuries. … It
naturally follows from what has been said that the
administration of colonial affairs previous to 1688 was in the
hands of the King in Council. Such was the fact. The
enterprises of discovery were fitted out under the patronage
of the crown; the territories discovered or visited were taken
possession of in its name; and grants of land, of rights of
government and trade, were made to actual settlers by the
kings. Every colonial charter is a proof of this. As the king
was by the theory of English law feudal proprietor of England,
so he became proprietor of colonial territory, though that
territory was granted out in socage, one of the freest forms
of English tenure. Certain superficial distinctions were
introduced in the form of colonial governments, as royal,
proprietary, and charter; but they all emanated from the
crown. Its supremacy extended around and beneath them all. The
fact that they were established by grant is proof of this,
even though there had been no subsequent acts to enforce the
control. They were colonies of the English crown; their
inhabitants were its subjects. The true doctrine of
sovereignty and allegiance necessitates this conclusion. …
Parliament passed few statutes affecting the colonies. Yet,
not to mention others, there were five such of very great
importance which fall within this period: the Act of Supremacy
(I Eliz. cap. I), and the four Navigation acts. In all these
the colonies were expressly mentioned. But the relative
position of crown and Parliament is illustrated by the fact
that when in 1624 the Council was proceeding to annul the
third Virginia charter, the House tried to interfere but was
warned off—because the business concerned only the king and
his advisers.
{3169}
Moreover there was no lack of precedents for the extension not
only of common law but of royal ordinances and statute law
outside of the original realm of England. … Such in outline
was the status of English colonial law previous to 1688. It
was in the process of formation and adaptation to the new
empire. There were ample precedents for the exercise of the
rights of British sovereignty in America, but those rights had
not yet been called into the fullest operation. Their
legitimacy however was in general fully acknowledged by the
colonists. They had been allowed great liberty in establishing
their governments, erecting courts, levying taxes, organizing
and calling out their militia for defence against the Indians.
Colonial society had been allowed to develop freely in all
lines and the product was far different from anything which
existed in the mother country. It was democratic rather than
aristocratic; it was also extremely particularistic, and too
remote from England to feel much interest in the general
concerns of the empire. In this divergence of social
organization and interests, as between the colonies and the
mother country, lay the germ which might develop into
resistance on the part of the plantations, if at any time
England should attempt to enforce her rightful supremacy over
them. But as yet there was too little of the spirit of union
among the colonists to make possible any combined action. Also
those dynasties whose government had been most arbitrary in
England, the Tudors and Stuarts, had, till the reign of James
II, treated the colonies with great leniency. But the
statements just made do not cover the whole ground. They
describe the attitude of the colonies in general toward the
mother country, but they do not describe the special
conditions which prevailed in New England. If we wish to know
how the theory of colonial independence originated, we must
look in that direction. The American revolution cannot be
explained without reference to the political character and
tendencies of Puritanism. … Puritanism then was a political as
well as a religious movement. On the one hand its doctrines
contained a strong democratic leaven; on the other they
contained principles which might lead to the separation of
church and state. How the former tendency worked itself out in
New England is familiar; how the latter failed of
accomplishment there is equally well known. The Puritans of
Massachusetts were not opposed to the union of church and
state or to the employment of the secular power to enforce
religious conformity. … What they were opposed to was every
other form of state church except their own. … In order to
maintain her peculiar system, Massachusetts had to be on her
guard against all interference from outside. … The
Massachusetts charter was brought over to this country. A few
years later the Plymouth company was dissolved, and
representation of the colony in England, except by such agents
as she might send, ceased. The terms of the charter were very
liberal; but like all the others it was a royal grant, and
expressly stated that the inhabitants of the colony were to be
subjects of England and were to enjoy all the liberties and
immunities of such, as if they were in the realm of England.
The oaths of supremacy and allegiance were to be administered
to all who should go to the colony. The company was made a
'body corporate and politic' and was given ample powers of
government; but its laws, statutes, and ordinances were not to
be contrary to the laws of England. The admission of freemen
was left in the hands of the corporation. How did the Puritan
oligarchy make use of this charter for serving the purposes of
their government? In a word, they interpreted the expression
'body corporate and politic' to mean an independent state, and
virtually abandoned all legal connection with England except
an empty acknowledgment of allegiance. The oath of allegiance
was not administered, but instead an oath of fidelity to the
government of Massachusetts. An ecclesiastical system wholly
different from that of England was established. Only those
were admitted to political rights, made freemen, who were
members of a Congregational church. … The colony also
exercised full legislative and judicial powers, and denied the
right of appeal both practically and theoretically. The proof
of this is most direct and convincing. To illustrate: in 1646
the General Court refused to permit the appeal of Dr. Child
and others who, as Presbyterians, desired to lay before
Parliament the wrongs they suffered in Massachusetts. Not only
was the right denied, but the petitioners were prevented by
force from carrying their case to England. The same course was
pursued in reference to appeals in ordinary judicial cases.
During the discussion of the affair just mentioned it was
boldly affirmed in the General Court that subjects were bound
by English laws only so long as they lived in England; that
neither statutes nor royal ordinances were in force beyond the
seas. A little later than this both the magistrates and the
elders were called upon to give their views on the legal
relations between the colony and England. Both agreed that by
their charter they 'had absolute power of government'; that
their government was perfect and sufficient in all its parts,
not needing the help of any superior to make it complete. They
acknowledged that they had received the charter from England,
and 'depended upon that state for protection and immunities as
freeborn Englishmen'; but the duties which were correlative to
those immunities, and which are necessary to a true conception
of allegiance, were not mentioned. This position was
consistently maintained by the Puritans of Massachusetts as
long as they remained in power. In their correspondence with
the home government and its officials between 1664 and 1684
the right of appeal was always denied. Its exercise was never
allowed. If we add to this the further statements that
Massachusetts coined money; strove to enlarge the bounds of
her patent, not only without consulting the king, but in
defiance of his absolute prohibition; taxed English imports;
and, without the consent of the home government, entered the
New England confederation, some notion can be formed of the
degree of independence claimed and exercised by that colony.
The exercise of this independence however did not make it
legal. It only illustrates the fact that the roots of the
American revolution extend back into the times of which we are
speaking. … It was to be expected that England would interfere
to bring Massachusetts within the bounds of constitutional
dependence. Complaints against the colony, on the part of
Gorges and of those who had been banished by the Puritans,
began very early.
{3170}
These led to 'quo warranto' proceedings for the recall of the
charter in 1635. But civil strife at home compelled the
government of Charles I to abandon the project. Then came the
period of the Commonwealth, when the views of the English
government were so fully in harmony with those of the New
England leaders that the practical independence of the colony
was ignored. … From the restoration dates the beginning of a
more comprehensive colonial policy." With the fall of the
Massachusetts charter, in 1684, "closes the first stage in the
development of the idea of colonial independence. The struggle
between the Puritans of Massachusetts and the crown is the
most significant fact in American history previous to 1760.
The Puritans were defeated; the authority of England was
reasserted. … But for our purpose the important result is that
the Puritans left behind them an armory full of precedents and
arguments in favor of colonial independence. They had
constructed the American theory on that subject. That was the
chief permanent result of their experiment. They had from
first to last adhered to the theory which expediency taught
them to adopt. They taught the colonists how to resist the
exercise of the ecclesiastical and judicial supremacy of the
crown. If now at any time in the future the Americans should
consider themselves aggrieved by the acts of the English
government, the Puritan spirit and theory would be likely to
appear. Such was the aspect of affairs at the close of the
first period of colonial history. After the revolution of
1688, Parliament assumes more and more the control of American
concerns. Statutes on those subjects multiply. The
administration of the colonies becomes a branch of the
ministerial government of Great Britain. The development of an
imperial as distinguished from an insular policy is begun. The
interference of England in colonial affairs became more
frequent and the control asserted more extensive than
heretofore. … The attitude of the colonists during this period
was one of passive rather than active resistance.
Parliamentary restrictions were so far evaded as not to be
burdensome. … The records show that the burden of opinion in
the colonies was jealousy of all government, so far as it
operated as a restraint. The interference of government,
whether colonial or imperial, was welcomed by the colonists,
when it could be used for the advancement of their private or
local interests; when larger objects were aimed at, it was if
possible ignored or resisted. … The political condition of the
colonies was for the first time clearly revealed during the
French and Indian war. The history of Germany can furnish no
more vivid spectacle of the evils of particularism than does
that struggle. … The condition of anarchy and helplessness
revealed by the war was such as to convince all the servants
of the crown in America that active parliamentary interference
was necessary, if the colonies were to be defended and
retained as an integral part of the British empire. The fact
that the British government, within a reasonable time after
the close of the war, proceeded to put this suggestion into
execution, implies nothing arbitrary or unreasonable. It had
the undoubted constitutional right to do so; and so far as
could be seen at the time, expediency prompted in the same
direction. But during the century since the Puritan oligarchy
of Massachusetts yielded to the supremacy of the crown, the
theory of social contract had been fully developed. It had
formulated the needs of the opposition in all the European
countries to the system of absolutism. It was the theory of
government very generally held by the Puritans in both England
and America. … This theory, as soon as it was understood,
would naturally find general acceptance in the colonies. … The
American revolution, as truly as the French, was the outgrowth
of the doctrine of natural rights and social contract. By this
I mean simply that the doctrine in question formed the
theoretical basis of both movements. So far as the American
revolution is concerned the proof of this statement is
contained in the writings of the patriot leaders at the time,
the various state papers that were issued, and the doctrine
that was held respecting the right of imperial taxation. No
man contributed so much to bringing about the revolution as
Samuel Adams; and his mind was saturated with the theory of
social contract. He made it the basis of all his reasonings. …
The reason why New England became the leader of the movement
clearly appears. The process of development through which the
colonies passed was a natural, and therefore a necessary one.
It was slow and obscure, and therefore could not be clearly
recognized at the time. But that it was nevertheless
revolutionary becomes evident when we compare the views and
aims of the colonists with the constitution of the British
empire. When the two systems came into collision the colonists
adopted a theory which was 'in the air' at the time, but one
under which no government can be successfully carried on. When
they came to erect a government of their own, they had to
abandon it. It is not claimed that the doctrine of natural
rights ever found such general acceptance in America as in
France. The character of the people and the absence of a
despotic government prevented that. But that the American
revolution cannot be explained without assigning it a
prominent place is evident. It is not intended to convey the
impression that the colonists had no grievances. There were
causes for complaint, but they were doubtless greatly
exaggerated. A mind filled with the democratic theories of the
times, and with the loose notions concerning sovereignty and
allegiance which then prevailed, could easily imagine that
Parliament, unless resisted, would establish a despotic
government in America."
_Professor H. L. Osgood,
England and the Colonies
(Political Science Quarterly, September, 1887)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672.
The Navigation Acts and the colonies.
Spirit and objects of the English restrictive commercial system.
To the Act of Navigation, passed in 1651 (see NAVIGATION LAWS)
is due a change in the relations of the colonies to the
mother-country. "Henceforth they were regarded mainly as
feeders to its carrying-trade, as consumers of its
manufactures, as factories for the distribution of its
capital, and, in a word, as mere commercial appendages of what
was now the great commercial power. Dominion became
subordinate to trade. … Beginning … with the re-enactment of
the Navigation Act after the Restoration, we find that the new
system which is to regulate colonial trade and define the
relations of the colonies to the parent, is contained in three
Acts of Parliament.
{3171}
First, in the re-enactment itself of the Act of Navigation in
1660; secondly, in an act, passed in 1663, entitled 'an Act
for the encouragement of trade'; and, thirdly, in an act,
passed in 1672, and entitled 'an Act for the encouragement of
the Greenland and Eastland fisheries, and for the better
securing the plantation trade.' … The three acts which created
the system, were all passed in the reign of Charles II.; the
others followed rapidly, and in great numbers, for a century,
until the failure of the attempt to transform this system of
trade into one of trade and revenue, by means of what is known
as the Stamp Act. St. John's Navigation Act was reenacted in
1660, under Charles II., as the first-fruits of the
Restoration. This act forbade importation into or exportation
out of the colonies, save what came and went in English ships,
and its object was, to shut the doors of the colonies against
foreign trade. In 1663 another step was taken, and an act was
passed with the object, openly avowed in its fifth section, of
keeping the colonies in 'a firmer dependence' upon England,
and of making that kingdom the staple, or place of
distribution, not only of colonial produce, 'but also of the
commodities of other countries and places, for the supplying
of them.' To effect this, the Act of 1663 went beyond that of
1660, and exacted, that no European products or manufactures
should be imported into any colony, except what had been
actually laden and shipped in an English port, and carried
'directly thence' to the importing colony. This act forced the
colonists to get such supplies as they could not themselves
furnish in England only, and thus not only could none but
mariners of whom three fourths were English transport
merchandise to and from the colonies, but the colonists
themselves were not suffered to go anywhere but to England for
that which they could not get at home. … This position of
factor between the colonies and foreign markets was a
lucrative one. But the spirit of trade is such, that it
regards much as only a stepping-stone to more, and the next
enactment concerning colonial trade, or that of 1672, betrays
this characteristic. The existing factorage was maintained
only between the colonial and foreign trade; it had no place
in intercolonial traffic. … As this intercolonial trade
developed, it attracted the observation of the English
merchants, who at last demanded the control of it. In
compliance with this demand, an act was passed in 1672,
subjecting any enumerated commodity to a duty specified in the
statute—and thus was destroyed the freedom, and, to a great
extent, the incentive of intercolonial traffic. This act was
well entitled 'an Act for the encouragement of the Greenland
and Eastland fisheries, and for the better securing of the
plantation trade.' History is silent respecting the fisheries,
but it has been very outspoken concerning its effect on the
plantations. The effect was this: if Rhode Island wished to be
supplied by Massachusetts with one of the enumerated
commodities, and Massachusetts desired to furnish Rhode Island
with that commodity, the delivery of the goods could not be
made by the producer to the consumer, but the article would
have to be sent to England first, and landed there, and then
be sent back from England to Rhode Island before the consumer
could touch it. A line drawn from Boston, in Massachusetts, to
Bristol, in England, and thence back to Newport, in Rhode
Island, will show the course which such article must take, if
sold by Massachusetts to Rhode Island, before the demands of
English commerce were satisfied; it will in all probability
likewise show the least angle with the longest sides ever
subtended on the chart of trade. Should, however, the parties
to the transaction desire to avoid the risk and delay incident
to this phenomenal voyage, they could do so by paying the
certain rates and duties prescribed by this statute."
_E. G. Scott,
The Development of Constitutional Liberty
in the English Colonies of America,
chapter 8 (with corrections by the author)._
"Unfortunately there does not exist any history of the
commerce of the American colonies, from the Commonwealth to
1774, as affected by navigation laws, acts of trade, and
revenue measures. No one who has read the 29 acts which
comprise this legislation will recommend their perusal to
another; for, apart from their volume, the construction of
these acts is difficult,—difficult even to trained lawyers
like John Adams, whose business it was to advise clients in
respect to them. Nor have special students, like Bancroft,
stated their effect with exact precision."
_M. Chamberlain,
The Revolution Impending: Critical Essay
(Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 6),
page 64._
ALSO IN:
_G. L. Beer,
The Commercial Policy of England toward the American Colonies
(Columbia College Studies, volume 3, number 2)._
_W. B. Weeden,
Economic and Social History of New England,
chapter 7 (volume 1)._
_J. E. T. Rogers,
Economic Interpretation of History,
chapter 15._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690.
The First American Congress.
King William's War.
"After the accession [in England, A. D. 1689] of William and
Mary, hostilities were declared between France and England,
which extended to America; and thus began the first
inter-colonial war [commonly known in American history as King
William's War]. The French soon planned an invasion of Boston
and New York. … On the 8th of February, 1690, a war-party, who
had come stealthily from Canada, entered the open gates of the
town of Schenectady, when it was snowing, and broke the
stillness of midnight with the terrible yell and whoop of the
savages. Men, women, and children, for two hours, were
mercilessly butchered. Their dwellings were burned. The whole
town was sacked. … The intelligence flew through the colonies.
… Schenectady was the Fort Sumter of that day. The event had a
political effect. It shamed the factions in New York at least
into a truce. It roused a spirit of patriotism. The governor
of Massachusetts urged, in letters to other colonies, the
necessity for immediate action to provide for the common
defence. … The General Court [of Massachusetts], in view of
organizing a joint effort of the colonies, proposed to hold a
congress. The call for a meeting is dated the 19th of March,
1690. It relates, that their majesties' subjects had been
invaded by the French and Indians; that many of the colonists
had been barbarously murdered, and were in danger of greater
mischiefs; and it proposed, as a measure of prevention, that
the neighboring colonies, and Virginia, Maryland, and the
parts adjacent, should be invited to meet at New York, and
conclude on suitable methods for assisting each other for the
safety of the whole land. The governor of New York was desired
to transmit this invitation to the southern colonies. Such was
the first call for a general congress in America.
{3172}
It is free from narrowness. It is liberal in its spirit,
simple in its terms, and comprehensive in its object. … The
call elicited from several colonies interesting replies.
Governor Hinckley, of Plymouth, entered with zeal into the
measure, and, though the General Court was not in session,
appointed a commissioner. The Quaker-governor of Rhode Island,
Henry Bull, replied in an excellent spirit. … Though the time
was too short to convene the assembly for the appointment of
commissioners, he promised the aid of that colony to the
utmost of its ability to resist the French and Indians. The
head of the convention of Maryland wrote, that it was the
design of the assembly to send arms and men to aid in the
general defence. … President Bacon, of Virginia, replied, that
the proposition would require the action of the assembly, and
that nothing would be done until the arrival of the daily
expected governor. The replies to the invitation were cordial.
The commissioners of four colonies [Massachusetts, Plymouth,
Connecticut, and New York] met at New York. … The
deliberations led to a unanimous result. On the 1st of May, an
agreement was signed by the delegates, in behalf of the five
colonies [including Maryland under its promise], to raise a
force of 855 men for the strengthening of Albany, and, 'by the
help of Almighty God, subduing the French and Indian enemies.'
It was agreed, that the lieutenant-governor of New York should
name the commander of this force; that it should not be
employed on any other service without the consent of the five
colonies; and that the officers should be required to preserve
among their men good order, punish vice, keep the Sabbath, and
maintain the worship of God. No proposition appears to have
been entertained for a permanent organization. … Efforts were
made to obtain additional aid from New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and Rhode Island. … I need only state, as the result of this
congress, that it was resolved to attempt the reduction of
Canada by two lines of attack,—one to conquer Acadia, and then
to move on Quebec; and the other, by the route of Lake
Champlain, to assault Montreal. The New England forces under
Sir William Phips, assigned to the first route, captured
Acadia and Port Royal, and sailed for Quebec, in the
expectation of being aided by the other forces who marched by
the Champlain route. But they, under Fitz-John Winthrop, with
the title of major, were not successful. Leisler [see NEW
YORK: A. D. 1689-1691], with characteristic rashness, accused
the commander of treachery; while the officers charged the
commissary, Jacob Milborne, of New York, with inefficiency in
procuring supplies. The failure of Winthrop occasioned the
retreat of Phips."
_R. Frothingham,
The Rise of the Republic of the United States,
chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_Doc. History of New York,
volume 2 (Leisler's administration)._
_Documents relating to Colonial History of New York,
volume 3._
See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1697.
The Board of Trade for the Supervision of the Colonies.
Plans of Colonial Union by Penn and others.
"The king attempted a more efficient method of administering
the colonies; and, in May 1696, a Board of Commissioners for
Trade and Plantations, consisting of the chancellor, the
president of the privy council, the keeper of the privy seal,
the two secretaries of state, and eight special commissioners,
was called into being. To William Blathwayte, who had drafted
the new charter of Massachusetts, John Locke, and the rest of
the commission, instructions were given by the crown 'to
inquire into the means of making the colonies most useful and
beneficial to England; into the staples and manufactures which
may be encouraged there, and the means of diverting them from
trades which May prove prejudicial to England; to examine into
and weigh the acts of the assemblies; to set down the
usefulness or mischief of them to the crown, the kingdom, or
the plantations themselves; to require an account of all the
moneys given for public uses by the assemblies of the
plantations, and how the same are employed.' The
administration of the several provinces had their unity in the
person of the king, whose duties with regard to them were
transacted through one of the secretaries of state; but the
Board of Trade was the organ of inquiries and the centre of
colonial information. Every law of a provincial legislature,
except in some of the charter governments, if it escaped the
veto of the royal governor, might be arrested by the
unfavorable opinion of the law officer of the crown, or by the
adverse report of the Board of Trade. Its rejection could come
only from the king in council. … The Board of Trade was hardly
constituted before it was summoned to plan unity in the
military efforts of the provinces; and Locke with his
associates despaired, on beholding them 'crumbled into little
governments, disunited in interests, in an ill posture and
much worse disposition to afford assistance to each other for
the future.' The Board, in 1697, 'after considering with their
utmost care,' could only recommend the appointment of 'a
captain-general of all the forces and all the militia of all
the provinces on the continent of North America, with power to
levy and command them for their defence, under such
limitations and instructions as to his majesty should seem
best.' … With excellent sagacity—for true humanity perfects
the judgment—William Penn matured a plan of a permanent
union, by a national representation of the American States. On
the 8th day of February 1697, he delivered his project for an
annual 'congress,' as he termed it, of two delegates from each
province. … But the ministry adopted neither the military
dictatorship of Locke and his associates, nor the peaceful
congress of William Penn."
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
part 3, chapter 4 (volume 2)._
The following is the Plan of Union drafted by Penn: "A Briefe
and Plaine Scheam how the English Colonists in the North parts
of America, viz.: Boston, Connecticut, Road Island, New York,
New Jerseys, Pensilvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina may
be made more usefull to the Crowne, and one another's peace
and safty with an universall concurrence.
1st. That the severall Colonies before mentioned do meet once
a year, and oftener if need be, during the war, and at least
once in two years in times of peace by their stated and
appointed Deputies, to debate and resolve of such measures as
are most adviseable for their better understanding, and the
public tranquility and safety.
{3173}
2d. That in order to it two persons well qualified for sence,
sobriety and substance be appointed by each Province, as their
Representatives or Deputies, which in the whole make the
Congress to consist of twenty persons.
3d. That the King's Commissioner for that purpose specially
appointed shall have the chaire and preside in the said
Congresse.
4th. That they shall meet as near as conveniently may be to
the most centrall Colony for use of the Deputies.
5th. Since that may in all probability, be New York both
because it is near the Center of the Colonies and for that it
is a Frontier and in the King's nomination, the Governor of
that Colony may therefore also be the King's High Commissioner
during the Session after the manner of Scotland.
6th. That their business shall be to hear and adjust all
matters of Complaint or difference between Province and
Province.
As,
1st, where persons quit their own Province and goe to another,
that they may avoid their just debts, tho they be able to pay
them,
2nd, where offenders fly Justice, or Justice cannot well be
had upon such offenders in the Provinces that entertaine them,
3dly, to prevent or cure injuries in point of Commerce,
4th, to consider of ways and means to support the union and
safety of these Provinces against the public enemies. In which
Congresse the Quotas of men and charges will be much easier,
and more equally sett, then it is possible for any
establishment made here to do; for the Provinces, knowing
their own condition and one another's, can debate that matter
with more freedome and satisfaction and better adjust and
ballance their affairs in all respects for their common safty.
7ly. That in times of war the King's High Commissioner shall
be generall or chief Commander of the severall Quotas upon
service against a common enemy as he shall be advised, for the
good and benefit of the whole."
_H. W. Preston,
Documents illustrative of American History,
page 146._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1749.
Growing despotism of the English mercantile policy.
Systematic suppression of colonial manufactures.
"By the erection, in 1696, of a new Standing Council, or Board
of Trade, under the denomination of 'The Lords Commissioners
for Trade and Plantations,' the interests of British commerce
and the affairs of Colonial trade and government were confided
to that body, which thenceforward became the repository of all
official intelligence upon those subjects, and the medium of
communication with the several governors and assemblies of the
Colonies. Yearly reports of the state of the Provinces were
required from the governors, in answer to queries addressed to
them by the Board. An Act of Parliament of the same year still
further restricted commercial intercourse, by limiting trade
between England and her Colonies to English, Irish and
Colonial built vessels, and by prohibiting Colonial produce
from going to the ports of Ireland or Scotland. … The feeble
attempts of the Colonists to make a portion of their own
clothing from their abundant materials had not been unnoticed
in England. Three years after—the Board of Trade having
received complaints from English merchants and manufacturers,
that the wool and woolen manufactures of Ireland and the North
American plantations began to be exported to foreign markets
formerly supplied by England—an Act passed the British
Parliament, … dictated by that sleepless vigilance which
guarded the staple manufacture of England. It prohibited the
exportation of any wool or woolen manufacture from Ireland,
except to certain ports in England; but, by way of
compensation, virtually surrendered to Ireland the linen
manufacture, then little regarded in comparison with the
woolen interests. In reference to the Colonies, it was enacted
that 'After the first day of December, 1699, no wool,
woolfels, yarn, cloth, or woolen manufactures of the English
plantations in America shall be shipped in any of the said
English plantations, or otherwise loaden, in order to be
transported thence to any place whatsoever, under the penalty
of forfeiting ship and cargo, and £500 for each offence.' … A
letter from New England to the Board of Trade [in 1715] …
reiterates the necessity of employing the New England people
in producing naval stores, to turn them from manufactures. …
The discouragement of American manufactures, from this time,
became the settled and avowed policy of the government, and,
three years later, the Bill prohibiting the erection of forges
and iron mills was introduced, and declared that the erecting
of Manufactories in the Colonies 'tends to lessen their
dependence upon Great Britain.' … The company of Feltmakers,
in London, petitioned Parliament, in February, 1731, to
prohibit the exportation of hats from the American Colonies,
representing that foreign markets were almost altogether
supplied from thence, and not a few sent to Great Britain. The
petition was referred to a special committee, who reported
that, in New York and New England, beaver hats were
manufactured to the number, it was estimated, of 10,000
yearly. … The exports were to the Southern plantations, the
West Indies, and Ireland. In consequence of this evidence, and
that furnished by the Board of Trade in the same session, an
act was passed (5 George II. c. 22) that 'no hats or felts,
dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished, shall be put on board
any vessel in any place within any of the British plantations;
nor be laden upon any horse or other carriage to the intent to
be exported from thence to any other plantation, or to any
other place whatever, upon forfeiture thereof, and the
offender shall likewise pay £500 for every such offence.' …
This severe and stringent law continued in force in the
Colonies until the Revolution. It aimed at the prostration of
one of the oldest and, on account of the abundance and
cheapness of beavers and other furs, one of the most
profitable branches of industry."
_J. L. Bishop,
History of American Manufactures,
volume 1, chapter 14._
In 1749 an act of Parliament was passed "to encourage the
importation of pig and bar iron from his majesty's colonies in
America, and to prevent the erection of any mill or other
engine for slitting or rolling of iron, or any plateing forge
to work with a tilt hammer, or any furnace for making steel in
any of the said colonies." "Pig iron was allowed to be
imported free to all parts of the kingdom, so as to secure
cheap bar iron. But bar iron could not be imported at any port
but London, and carried no further than ten miles from that
city. This clause was intended to aid the owners of woods. In
order to protect the nail trade, all slitting-mills in the
colonies were ordered to be destroyed."
_J. B. Pearse,
Concise History of the Iron Manufacture
of the American Colonies,
page 121._
ALSO IN:
_W. B. Weeden,
Economic and Social History of New England,
volume 2._
G. L. Beer,
Commercial Policy of England toward the Colonies
(Col. Col. Studies, volume 3).
See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763 and 1764.
{3174}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:A. D. 1704-1729.
The first colonial newspapers.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1704-1729.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1748-1754.
First collisions with the French in the Ohio Valley.
"As the year 1750 approached, there came upon the colonies two
changes, destined to lead to a new political life. In the
first place, the colonies at last began to overrun the
mountain barrier which had hemmed them in on the west, and
thus to invite another and more desperate struggle with the
French. The first settlement made west of the mountains was on
a branch of the Kanawha (1748); in the same season several
adventurous Virginians hunted and made land-claims in Kentucky
and Tennessee. Before the close of the following year (1749)
there had been formed the Ohio Company, composed of wealthy
Virginians, among whom were two brothers of Washington. King
George granted them 500,000 acres, on which they were to plant
100 families and build and maintain a fort. The first attempt
to explore the region of the Ohio brought the English and the
French traders into conflict; and troops were not long in
following, on both sides.
See OHIO VALLEY: A. D. 1748-1754.
At the same time the home government was awaking to the fact
that the colonies were not under strict control. In 1750 the
Administration began to consider means of stopping unlawful
trade."
_R. G. Thwaites,
The Colonies, 1492-1750
(Epochs of American History),
chapter 14, section 130._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1749-1755.
Unsettled boundary disputes of England and France.
Preludes of the last French War.
See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755;
CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753; 1755;
and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1750-1753.
The eve of the great French war.
Attitude of the colonies.
"The quarrel in which the French and English now engaged was
exclusively a colonial one. The possession and defence of the
Americans had already cost, over and over again, a larger sum
than the whole produce of their trade would have produced. The
English had the mortification of observing that the colonists
claimed an the security of Englishmen against attack, and
repudiated their obligation to take a share of the burdens
which their defence occasioned. Were they attacked by the
French,—they were Englishmen, and had a right to the ægis
which that name throws over all subjects of the crown; were
they called upon for a subscription in aid of the war,—they
were men who would not submit to be taxed without their own
consent; were they taken at their word, and requested through
their own assemblies to tax themselves,—they sometimes
refused, and sometimes doled out a minute supply, taking care
to mix up with their money bill some infringement on the royal
prerogative, which rendered it impossible, except under severe
exigency of the public service, for the governor to accept the
terms offered. … The action of the colonies at this crisis was
in accordance with their invariable policy. As soon as they
perceived that the French meditated a war of aggression in
America, a chorus of complaint and apprehension came at once
from the colonists. Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, and
Clinton, Governor of New York, had convened an assembly at
Albany during the last year of the last war, to concert
measures for uniting an the colonies for common defence;
Massachusetts and the other New England States were, of
course, anxious that the union should be carried out. They
were the barrier between the Canadas and the southern
colonies, and if any attack was made they must bear the brunt
of it. … The Congress of Albany, and especially the
Legislature of Massachusetts, advocated the erection of a line
of detached forts which might be so arranged as to overawe the
French frontier, and defend the New England colonies from
attack. … It was all in vain; every colony, with the exception
of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina, refused to
contribute one farthing towards the expense. … Even in 1753,
when the French were actually on the Ohio, and Washington had
brought back certain intelligence of their intentions and
views, the Virginians refused supplies to Dinwiddie because
they declared themselves 'easy on account of the French.' When
at last the French had actually established themselves in
fortified posts at Niagara, at Le Bœuf, and at Venango, when
Contrecœur had driven a colonial officer out of a post which
he held on the forks of the Monongahela, when Fort du Quesne
had arisen on the ruins of an English stockade, they could no
longer close their eyes to the danger which was actually
within the boundaries of their State. They granted £10,000 of
their currency; but Dinwiddie wrote home that the bill was so
clogged with encroachments on the prerogative, that he would
not have given his assent had not the public service rendered
the supply imperatively necessary."
_Viscount Bury,
Exodus of the Western Nations,
volume 2, chapter 7._
"The attitude of these various colonies towards each other is
hardly conceivable to an American of the present time. They
had no political tie except a common allegiance to the British
Crown. Communication between them was difficult and slow, by
rough roads traced often through primeval forests. Between
some of them there was less of sympathy than of jealousy
kindled by conflicting interests or perpetual disputes
concerning boundaries. The patriotism of the colonist was
bounded by the lines of his government, except in the compact
and kindred colonies of New England, which were socially
united, though politically distinct. The country of the New
Yorker was New York, and the country of the Virginian was
Virginia. The New England colonies had once confederated; but,
kindred as they were, they had long ago dropped apart. … Nor
was it this segregation only that unfitted them for war. They
were all subject to popular legislatures, through whom alone
money and men could be raised; and these elective bodies were
sometimes factious and selfish, and not always either
far-sighted or reasonable. Moreover, they were in a state of
ceaseless friction with their governors, who represented the
king, or, what was worse, the feudal proprietary. These
disputes, though varying in intensity, were found everywhere
except in the two small colonies which chose their own
governors; and they were premonitions of the movement towards
independence which ended in the war of Revolution. The
occasion of difference mattered little. Active or latent, the
quarrel was always present. … Divided in government; divided
in origin, feelings, and principles; jealous of each other,
jealous of the Crown; the people at war with the executive,
and, by the fermentation of internal politics, blinded to an
outward danger that seemed remote and vague,—such were the
conditions under which the British colonies drifted into a war
that was to decide the fate of the continent."
_F. Parkman,
Montcalm and Wolfe,
chapter 1 (volume 1)._
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.
The Congress at Albany and its Plans of Union.
Franklin's account.
"In 1754, war with France being again apprehended, a congress
of commissioners from the different colonies was, by an order
of the Lords of Trade, to be assembled at Albany, there to
confer with the chiefs of the Six Nations concerning the means
of defending both their country and ours. Governor Hamilton
[of Pennsylvania], having received this order, acquainted the
House with it, requesting they would furnish proper presents
for the Indians, to be given on this occasion; and naming the
speaker (Mr. Norris) and myself to join Mr. Thomas Penn and
Mr. Secretary Peters as commissioners to act for Pennsylvania.
(The House approved the nomination, and provided the goods for
the present, and tho' they did not much like treating out of
the provinces;) and we met the other commissioners at Albany
about the middle of June. In our way thither, I projected and
drew a plan for the union of all the colonies under one
government, so far as might be necessary for defense, and
other important general purposes. As we passed thro' New York,
I had there shown my project to Mr. James Alexander and Mr.
Kennedy, two gentlemen of great knowledge in public affairs,
and, being fortified by their approbation, I ventured to lay
it before the Congress. It then appeared that several of the
commissioners had formed plans of the same kind. A previous
question was first taken, whether a union should be
established, which passed in the affirmative unanimously. A
committee was then appointed, one member from each colony, to
consider the several plans and report. Mine happened to be
preferred, and, with a few amendments, was accordingly
reported. … The debates upon it in Congress went on daily,
hand in hand with the Indian business. Many objections and
difficulties were started, but at length they were all
overcome, and the plan was unanimously agreed to, and copies
ordered to be transmitted to the Board of Trade and to the
assemblies of the several provinces. Its fate was singular:
the assemblies did not adopt it, as they all thought there was
too much 'prerogative' in it, and in England it was judged to
have too much of the 'democratic.' The Board of Trade
therefore did not approve of it, nor recommend it for the
approbation of his majesty; but another scheme was formed,
supposed to answer the same purpose better, whereby the
governors of the provinces, with some members of their
respective councils, were to meet and order the raising of
troops, building of forts, etc., and to draw on the treasury
of Great Britain for the expense, which was afterwards to be
refunded by an act of Parliament laying a tax on America. …
The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan makes
me suspect that it was really the true medium; and I am still
of opinion it would have been happy for both sides the water
if it had been adopted. The colonies, so united, would have
been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves; there
would then have been no need of troops from England; of
course, the subsequent pretence for taxing America, and the
bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided."
_B. Franklin,
Autobiography
(edited by John Bigelow)
volume 1, pages 308-310._
"When the members assembled at the Court House in Albany on
the 19th of June, it was found that Pennsylvania, was not
alone in appointing a distinguished citizen to represent her.
On the roll of the congress were the names of
Lieutenant-governor De Lancey, of New York, who presided; and
from the same province William Smith, the historian, and the
future Sir William Johnson, not yet made a baronet. From the
proprietary provinces of Pennsylvania and Maryland were the
well known officials, John Penn, grandson of the founder;
Richard Peters; and Benjamin Tasker. From the province of New
Hampshire were her future governor, Meshech Weare, and
Theodore Atkinson; and from the province of Massachusetts Bay,
the late Lieutenant-governor, Thomas Hutchinson, Colonel John
Chandler, of Worcester, and Oliver Partridge, a man of
commanding influence in western Massachusetts. Lastly, the two
colonies which had so tenaciously preserved their charter
governments through the vicissitudes of more than a
century,—Connecticut and Rhode Island,—had acceded to the
repeated solicitations of the home government, and with
unfeigned reluctance, we may be sure, had sent as
representatives men of such wide experience in their colonial
concerns as Roger Wolcott, Jr., and Stephen Hopkins,
'America,' says Mr. Bancroft, 'had never seen an assembly so
venerable for the states that were represented, or for the
great and able men who composed it.' They were detained in
this hospitable old Dutch town for more than three weeks. …
Franklin's plan … was not approved by a single one of the
colonial assemblies before which it was brought; and … no
action was ever taken on it in England. Yet there is no
contribution to constructive statesmanship preceding the year
1776, which had a profounder effect on the subsequent growth
and development of the idea of American nationality. Even in
the amended form in which it was 'approved' by the congress,
it was, says a recent writer, 'in advance of the Articles [of
Confederation] in its national spirit, and served as the
prototype of the constitution itself.'"
_W. E. Foster,
Stephen Hopkins: a Rhode Island Statesman,
chapter 6 (part 1)._
The Plan of Union, as adopted by the Congress at Albany, was
accompanied by a "Representation of the Present State of the
Colonies." The following is the full text of the
Representation, followed by that of the Plan of Union:
"That His Majesty's Title to the Northern Continent of
America, appears to be founded on the Discovery thereof first
made, and the Possession thereof first taken in 1497, under a
Commission from Henry the VIIth, of England, to Sebastian
Cabot. That the French have possessed themselves of several
Parts of this Continent, which by Treaties, have been ceded
and confirmed to them: That the Rights of the English to the
whole Sea Coast, from Georgia, on the South, to the River St.
Lawrence, on the North, excepting the Island of Cape-Breton,
in the Bay of St. Lawrence, remains plain and indisputable.
{3176}
That all the Lands or Countries Westward from the Atlantic
Ocean to the South Sea, between 48 and 34 Degrees of North
Latitude, were expressly included in the Grant of King James
the First, to divers of his Subjects, so long since, as the
Year 1606, and afterwards confirmed in 1620; and under this
Grant, the Colony of Virginia claims an Extent as far West as
to the South Sea; and the antient Colonies of the
Massachusetts-Bay and Connecticut, were by their respective
Charters, made to extend to the said South Sea; so that not
only the Right to the Sea Coast, but to all the Inland
Countries, from Sea to Sea, have at all Times been asserted by
the Crown of England. That the Province of Nova Scotia or
Accadia, hath known and determinate Bounds, by the original
Grant from King James the First; and that there is abundant
Evidence of the same, [and of the Knowledge] which the French
had of these Bounds, while they were in Possession of it; and
that these Bounds being thus known, the said Province by the
Treaty of Utrecht, according to its antient Limits, was ceded
to Great-Britain, and remained in Possession thereof, until
the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, by which it was confirmed; but
by said Treaty it is stipulated, That the Bounds of the said
Province shall be determined by Commissioners, &c. That by the
Treaty of Utrecht, the Country of the Five Cantons of the
Iroquoise, is expressly acknowledged to be under the Dominion
of the Crown of Great-Britain. That the Lake Champlain,
formerly called Lake Iroquoise, and the Country Southward of
it, as far as the Dutch or English Settlements, the Lake
Ontario, Erie, and all the Countries adjacent, have by all
antient Authors, French and English, been allowed to belong to
the Five Cantons or Nations; and the whole of those Countries,
long before the said Treaty of Utrecht, were by the said
Nations, put under the Protection of the Crown of
Great-Britain. That by the Treaty of Utrecht, there is a
Reserve to the French, a Liberty of frequenting the Countries
of the Five Nations, and other Indians in Friendship with
Great-Britain, for the Sake of Commerce; as there is also to
the English, a Liberty of frequenting the Countries of those
in Friendship with France, for the same Purpose. That after
the Treaty of Utrecht, the French built several Fortresses in
the Country of the Five Nations, and a very strong one at a
Place called Crown-Point, to the South of the Lake Champlain.
That the French Court have evidently, since the Treaty of Aix
la Chapelle, made this Northern Continent more than ever, the
Object of its Attention. That the French have most unjustly
taken Possession of a Part of the Province of Nova-Scotia; and
in the River St. John's, and other Parts of said Province,
they have built strong Fortresses; and from this River they
will have, during the Winter and Spring Season, a much easier
Communication between France and Canada, than they have
heretofore had, and will be furnished with a Harbour more
commodiously situated for the Annoying the British Colonies by
Privateers and Men of War, than Louisbourg itself. That they
have taken Possession of, and begun a Settlement at the Head
of the River Kennebeck, within the Bounds of the Province of
Main, the most convenient Situation for affording Support, and
a safe Retreat, to the Eastern Indians, in any of their
Attempts upon the Governments of New England. That it appears
by the Information of the Natives, the French have been making
Preparations for another Settlement, at a Place called Cohass,
on Connecticut River, near the Head thereof, where 'tis but
about ten Miles distant from a Branch of Merrimack River; and
from whence, there is a very near and easy Communication with
the Abnekais Indians, who are settled on the River St.
Francois, about forty Miles from the River St. Lawrence; and
it is certain, the Inhabitants of New-Hampshire, in which
Province this Cohass is supposed to lie, have been interrupted
and impeded by the French Indians, from making any Settlement
there. That since the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, the French
have increased the Number of their Forts in the Country of the
great Lakes, and on the Rivers which run into the Mississippi,
and are securing a Communication between the two Colonies of
Louisiana and Canada, and at the same Time, putting themselves
into a Capacity of annoying the Southern British Colonies, and
preventing any further Settlements of His Majesty's Dominions.
That they have been gradually increasing their Troops in
America, transporting them in their Ships of War, which return
to France with a bare Complement of Men, leaving the rest in
their Colonies; and by this Means, they are less observed by
the Powers of Europe, than they would be, if Transports as
usual heretofore, were provided for this Purpose. That they
have taken Prisoners diverse of His Majesty's Subjects,
trading in the Country of the Iroquoise, and other inland
Parts, and plundered such Prisoners of several Thousand Pounds
Sterling; and they are continually exciting the Indians to
destroy or make Prisoners the Inhabitants of the Frontiers of
the British Colonies; which Prisoners are carried to Canada,
and a Price equal to what Slaves are sold in the Plantations,
is demanded for their Redemption and Release. That they are
continually drawing off the Indians from the British Interest,
and have lately perswaded one Half of the Onondago Tribe, with
many from the other Nations along with them, to remove to a
Place called Oswegachie, on the River Cadaracqui, where they
have built them a Church and Fort; and many of the Senecas,
the most numerous Nation, appear to be wavering, and rather
inclined to the French. And it is a melancholy Consideration,
that not more than 150 Men of all the several Nations, have
attended this Treaty, altho' they had Notice, that all the
Governments would be here by their Commissioners, and that a
large Present would be given. That it is the evident Design of
the French to surround the British Colonies, to fortify
themselves on the Back thereof, to take and keep Possession of
the Heads of all the important Rivers, to draw over the
Indians to their Interest, and with the Help of such Indians,
added to such Forces as are already arrived, and may be
hereafter sent from Europe, to be in a Capacity of making a
general Attack upon the several Governments; and if at the
same Time, a strong Naval Force be sent from France, there is
the utmost Danger, that the whole Continent will be subjected
to that Crown: And that the Danger of such a Naval Force is
not merely imaginary, may be argued from past Experience. For
had it not been by the most extraordinary Interposition of
Heaven, every Sea Port Town on the Continent, in the Year
1746, might have been ravaged and destroyed, by the Squadron
under the Command of the Duke D'Anville, notwithstanding the
then declining State of the French, and the very flourishing
State of the British Navy, and the further Advantage accruing
to the English, from the Possession of Cape-Breton.
{3177}
That the French find by Experience, they are able to make
greater and more secure Advantages upon their Neighbours, in
Peace than in War. What they unjustly possessed themselves of,
after the Peace of Utrecht, they now pretend they have a Right
to hold, by Virtue of the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, until the
true Boundary between the English and French be settled by
Commissioners; but their Conquests made during War, they have
been obliged to restore. That the French Affairs relative to
this Continent, are under one Direction, and constantly
regarded by the Crown and Ministry, who are not insensible how
great a Stride they would make towards an Universal Monarchy,
if the British Colonies were added to their Dominions, and
consequently the whole Trade of North-America engrossed by
them. That the said Colonies being in a divided, disunited
State, there has never been any joint Exertion of their Force,
or Council, to repel or defeat the Measures of the French; and
particular Colonies are unable and unwilling to maintain the
Cause of the whole. That there has been a very great Neglect
of the Affairs of the Iroquoise, as they are commonly called,
the Indians of the Six Nations, and their Friendship and
Alliance has been improved to private Purposes, for the Sake
of the Trade with them, and the Purchase or Acquisition of
their Lands, more than the Public Services. That they are
supplied with Rum by the Traders, in vast and almost
incredible Quantities; the Laws of the Colonies now in Force,
being insufficient to restrain the Supply. And the Indians of
every Nation, are frequently drunk, and abused in their Trade,
and their Affections thereby alienated from the English; they
often wound and murder one another in their Liquor, and to
avoid Revenge, fly to the French; and perhaps more have been
lost by these Means than by the French Artifice. That
Purchases of Land from the Indians by private Persons, for
small trifling Considerations, have been the Cause of great
Uneasiness and Discontents; and if the Indians are not in fact
imposed on and injured, yet they are apt to think they have
been; and indeed, they appear not fit to be entrusted at
Large, with the Sale of their own Lands: And the Laws of some
of the Colonies, which make such Sales void, unless the
Allowance of the Government be first obtained, seem to be well
founded. That the Granting or Patenting vast Tracts of Land to
private Persons or Companies, without Conditions of speedy
Settlements, has tended to prevent the Strengthening the
Frontiers of the particular Colony where such Tracts lie, and
been Prejudicial to the rest. That it seems absolutely
necessary, that speedy and effectual Measures be taken, to
secure the Colonies from the Slavery they are threatened with:
that any farther Advances of the French should be prevented;
and the Encroachments already made, removed. That the Indians
in Alliance or Friendship with the English, be constantly
regarded under some wise Direction or Superintendency. That
Endeavours be used for the Recovery of those Indians who are
lately gone over to the French, and for securing those that
remain. That some discreet Person or Persons be appointed to
reside constantly among each Nation of Indians; such Person to
have no Concern in Trade, and duly to communicate all Advices
to the Superintendents. That the Trade with the said Indians
be well regulated, and made subservient to the Public
Interest, more than to private Gain. That there be Forts built
for the Security of each Nation, and the better carrying on
the Trade with them. That warlike Vessels be provided,
sufficient to maintain His Majesty's Right to a free
Navigation on the several Lakes. That all future Purchases of
Lands from the Indians be void, unless made by the Government
where such Lands lie, and from the Indians in a Body, in their
public Councils. That the Patentees or Possessors of large
unsettled Territories, be enjoined to cause them to be settled
in a reasonable Time, on Pain of Forfeiture. That the
Complaints of the Indians, relative to any Grants or
Possessions of their Lands, fraudulently obtained, be inquired
into, and all Injuries redressed. That the Bounds of those
Colonies which extend to the South Seas, be contracted and
limited by the Alleghenny or Apalachian Mountains; and that
Measures be taken, for settling from time to time, Colonies of
His Majesty's Protestant Subjects, Westward of said Mountains,
in convenient Cantons, to be assigned for that Purpose. And
finally, that there be an Union of His Majesty's several
Governments on the Continent, that so their Councils,
Treasure, and Strength, may be employed in due Proportion,
against their common Enemy."
The Plan of Union, adopted on the 10th of July, was as
follows:
"Plan of a proposed Union of the several Colonies of
Massachusetts-Bay, New-Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode-Island,
New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia,
North-Carolina, and South Carolina, for their mutual Defence
and Security, and for the Extending the British Settlements in
North-America. That humble Application be made for an Act of
the Parliament of Great-Britain, by Virtue of which One
General Government may be formed in America, including all the
said Colonies; within and under which Government, each Colony
may retain its present Constitution, except in the Particulars
wherein a Change may be directed by the said Act, as hereafter
follows. That the said General Government be administered by a
President General, to be appointed and supported by the Crown;
and a Grand Council, to be chosen by the Representatives of
the People of the several Colonies, met in their respective
Assemblies. That within Months after the Passing of such Act,
the House of Representatives in the several Assemblies, that
happen to be sitting within that Time, or that shall be
especially for that Purpose convened, may and shall chuse
Members for the Grand Council, in the following Proportions;
that is to say: Massachusetts-Bay, 7; New-Hampshire, 2;
Connecticut, 5; Rhode-Island, 2; New-York, 4; New-Jersey, 3;
Pennsylvania, 6; Maryland, 4; Virginia, 7, North-Carolina, 4;
South Carolina, 4: = 48. Who shall meet for the first Time at
the City of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, being called by the
President General, as soon as conveniently may be, after his
Appointment. That there shall be a new Election of Members for
the Grand Council every three Years; and on the Death or
Resignation of any Member, his Place shall be supplied by a
new Choice, at the next Sitting of the Assembly of the Colony
he represented.
{3178}
That after the first three Years, when the Proportion of Money
arising out of each Colony to the General Treasury, can be
known, the Number of Members to be chosen for each Colony,
shall from time to time, in all ensuing Elections, be
regulated by that Proportion (yet so as that the Number to be
chosen by any one Province, be not more than seven, nor less
than two). That the Grand Council shall meet once in every
Year, and oftener if Occasion require, at such Time and Place
as they shall adjourn to at the last preceding Meeting, or as
they shall be called to meet at by the President General on
any Emergency; he having first obtained in writing, the
Consent of seven of the Members to such Call, and sent due and
timely Notice to the whole. That the Grand Council have Power
to chuse their Speaker, and shall neither be dissolved,
prorogued, nor continue sitting longer than six Weeks at one
Time, without their own Consent, or the special Command of the
Crown. That the Members of the Grand Council shall be allowed
for their Service, Ten Shillings Sterling per Diem, during
their Session and Journey to and from the Place of Meeting,
twenty Miles to be reckoned a Day's Journey. That the Assent
of the President General be requisite to all Acts of the Grand
Council; and that it be his Office and Duty to cause them to
be carried into Execution. That the President General, with
the Advice of the Grand Council, hold or direct all Indian
Treaties, in which the general Interest or Welfare of the
Colonies may be concerned; and to make Peace or declare War
with Indian Nations. That they make such Laws as they judge
necessary for regulating all Indian Trade. That they make all
Purchases from Indians for the Crown, of the Lands now not
within the Bounds of particular Colonies, or that shall not be
within their Bounds, when some of them are reduced to more
convenient Dimensions. That they make new Settlements on such
Purchases, by granting Lands in the King's Name, reserving a
Quit-Rent to the Crown for the Use of the General Treasury.
That they make Laws for regulating and governing such new
Settlements, 'till the Crown shall think fit to form them into
particular Governments. That they may raise and pay Soldiers,
and build Forts for the Defence of any of the Colonies, and
equip Vessels of Force to guard the Coast, and protect the
Trade on the Ocean, Lakes, or great Rivers; but they shall not
impress Men in any Colony, without the Consent of its
Legislature. That for those Purposes, they have Power to make
Laws, and lay and levy such general Duties, Imposts, or Taxes,
as to themselves appear most equal and just, considering the
Ability and other Circumstances of the Inhabitants in the
several Colonies, and such as may be collected with the least
Inconvenience to the People; rather discouraging Luxury, than
loading industry with unnecessary Burthens. That they may
appoint a general Treasurer and a particular Treasurer in each
Government, when necessary; and from time to time, may order
the Sums in the Treasuries of each Government, into the
General Treasury, or draw on them for special Payments, as
they find most convenient; yet no Money to issue, but by joint
Orders of the President General and Grand Council, except
where Sums have been appropriated to particular Purposes, and
the President General is previously impowered by an Act, to
draw for such Sums. That the general Accounts shall be yearly
settled, and reported to the several Assemblies. That a Quorum
of the Grand Council, impowered to act with the President
General, do consist of Twenty-five Members; among whom there
shall be one or more from a Majority of the Colonies. That the
Laws made by them for the Purposes aforesaid, shall not be
repugnant, but as near as may be agreeable, to the Laws of
England, and shall be transmitted to the King in Council, for
Approbation, as soon as may be, after their passing; and if
not disapproved within three Years after Presentation, to
remain in Force. That in Case of the Death of the President
General, the Speaker of the Grand Council for the Time being,
shall succeed, and be vested with the same Power and
Authorities, and continue 'till the King's Pleasure be known.
That all Military Commission Officers, whether for Land or Sea
Service, to act under this General Constitution, be nominated
by the President General, but the Approbation of the Grand
Council is to be obtained, before they receive their
Commissions. And all Civil Officers are to be nominated by the
Grand Council, and to receive the President General's
Approbation, before they officiate. But in Case of Vacancy, by
Death or Removal of any Officer, Civil or Military, under this
Constitution, the Governor of the Provinces in which such
Vacancy happens, may appoint, 'till the Pleasure of the
President General and Grand Council can be known. That the
particular Military as well as Civil Establishments in each
Colony, remain in their present State, this General
Constitution notwithstanding; and that on sudden Emergencies,
any Colony may defend itself, and lay the Accounts of Expense
thence arisen, before the President General and Grand Council,
who may allow and order Payment of the same, as far as they
judge such Accounts just and reasonable."
_Stephen Hopkins,
A True Representation of the Plan formed at Albany in 1754,
for uniting all the British Northern Colonies;
with introduction and notes by S. S. Rider
(Rhode Island Historical Tracts, Number 9)._
ALSO IN:
_Proceedings of Commissioners at Albany
(Doc. Hist. of New York, volume 2, pages 545-617)._
_T. C. Haliburton,
Rule and Misrule of the English in America,
pages 253-258._
_J. R. Brodhead, editor,
Documents relative to Colonial History of New York,
volume 6, pages 853-905._
_Journal of Congress at Albany in 1754
(Massachusetts Historical Society Collection,
series 3, volume 5)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1755.
Demand of the royal governors in America for taxation
of the colonies by act of Parliament.
At the congress of American governors which General Braddock
convened at Alexandria, in April, 1755, on his first arrival
in America as commander-in-chief of the British forces,
"Braddock directed their attention, first of all, to the
subject of a colonial revenue, on which his instructions
commanded him to insist, and his anger kindled 'that no such
fund was already established.' The governors present,
recapitulating their strifes with their assemblies, made
answer: 'Such a fund can never be established in the colonies
without the aid of parliament. Having found it impracticable
to obtain in their respective governments the proportion
expected by his majesty toward defraying the expense of his
service in North America, they are unanimously of opinion that
it should be proposed to his majesty's ministers to find out
some method of compelling them to do it, and of assessing the
several governments in proportion to their respective
abilities.'
{3179}
This imposing document Braddock sent forthwith to the
ministry, himself urging the necessity of laying some tax
throughout his majesty's dominions in North America. … I have
had in my hands vast masses of correspondence, including
letters from servants of the crown in every royal colony in
America; from civilians, as well as from Braddock and Dunbar
and Gage; from Delancey and Sharpe, as well as from Dinwiddie
and Shirley; and all were of the same tenor. The British
ministry heard one general clamor from men in office for
taxation by act of parliament. … In England, the government
was more and more inclined to enforce the permanent authority
of Great Britain."
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last Revision),
volume 2, pages. 416-417._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1755-1760.
The French and Indian War, known in Europe
as the Seven Years War:
The English conquest of Canada.
See CANADA: A. D. 1750-1773, to 1760;
NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755; 1755;
OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, to 1755;
CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760;
also, for an account of the accompanying Cherokee War.
See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1759-1761.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775.
Crown, Parliament and Colonies.
The English theory and the American theory of their relations.
"The people of every colony were subject to two jurisdictions,
one local and one general, that must be adjusted to each
other. To effect such adjustment caused no little friction;
and the Colonies and the Mother Country got on peaceably as
long as they did, only because neither one pushed its theory
of colonial relations to an extreme, each yielding something
to the other and thus effecting a compromise. The Colonies
held that the dominion which the Cabots discovered in America
belonged to the King, rather than to the Kingdom, of England.
Englishmen adventuring into this dominion to plant colonies
were entitled to all the privileges of free-born Englishmen at
home; trial by jury, habeas corpus, and exemption from taxes
that their own representatives had not voted. The British
Empire was not one dominion, but several dominions. Everyone
of these dominions had, or should have, its own legislature to
enact laws for its government. The Colonies were not one
dominion, but 13 dominions; and in everyone the legislature
was as supreme as Parliament was in England. Parliament,
therefore, had nothing more to do with Massachusetts or
Virginia than the legislatures of those colonies had to do
with England. The King, who alone had a voice in the matter,
had, in their charters, guaranteed to the Colonies the common
law so far as this was applicable to their condition, and he
was now powerless to withdraw what he had thus conceded. Such,
in outline, was the American theory of colonial relations.
Still, no one pretended that this theory had ever been fully
carried out in practice. It must also be said that it did not
appear fully formed at once, but grew up gradually. The
British theory was that Englishmen continued Englishmen when
they emigrated to the American dominions of the King; that the
power of Parliament, to which they were subject in the old
home, followed them to the new one; and that Parliament could
yield them more or fewer powers of self-government for a time,
and then withdraw them. It was also claimed that the Colonies
were already represented in the House of Commons; since the
several members of that body did not represent particular
districts or constituencies, but the whole British Empire.
Besides, it was asserted that the Colonies themselves had
repeatedly acknowledged the authority of Parliament by
submitting to its legislation. Still no one pretended that
this theory had ever been fully carried out."
_B. A. Hinsdale,
The American Government,
sections 92-93._
ALSO IN:
_R. Frothingham,
Life and Times of Joseph Warren,
pages 30-32._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1761.
Enforcement of revenue laws in Massachusetts.
The Writs of Assistance and Otis' speech.
"Immediately after the conquest of Canada was completed,
rumors were widely circulated … that the charters would be
taken away, and the colonies reduced to royal governments. The
officers of the customs began at once to enforce with
strictness all the acts of parliament regulating the trade of
the colonies, several of which had been suspended, or become
obsolete, and thus had never been executed at all. The good
will of the colonists or their legislatures, was no longer
wanted in the prosecution of the war; and the commissioners of
the customs were permitted and directed to enforce the
obnoxious acts. Governor Bernard [of Massachusetts], who was
always a supporter of the royal prerogative, entered fully
into these views, and shewed by his opinion, his appointments
and his confidential advisers, that his object would be, to
extend the power of the government to any limits, which the
ministry might authorize. The first demonstration of the new
course intended to be pursued, was the arrival of an order in
Council to carry into effect the Acts of trade, and to apply
to the supreme judicature of the Province [Massachusetts], for
Writs of Assistance, to be granted to the officers of the
customs. In a case of this importance there can be no doubt,
that Mr. Paxton, who was at the head of the customs in Boston,
consulted with the Government and all the crown officers, as
to the best course to be taken. The result was, that he
directed his deputy at Salem, Mr. Cockle, in November, 1760,
to petition the Superior Court, then sitting in that town, for
'writs of assistance.' Stephen Sewall who was the Chief
Justice, expressed great doubt of the legality of such a writ,
and of the authority of the Court to grant it. None of the
other judges said a word in favour of it; but as the
application was on the part of the Crown, it could not be
dismissed without a hearing, which after consultation was
fixed for the next term of the Court, to be held in February,
1761, at Boston, when the question was ordered to be argued.
In the interval, Chief Justice Sewall died, and Lieutenant
Governor Hutchinson was made his successor, thereby uniting in
his person, the office of Lieutenant Governor with the
emoluments of the commander of the castle, a member of the
Council, Judge of Probate and Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court! … The mercantile part of the community was in a state
of great anxiety as to the result of this question. The
officers of the Customs called upon Otis for his official
assistance, as Advocate General, to argue their cause.
{3180}
But, as he believed these writs to be illegal and tyrannical,
be refused. He would not prostitute his office to the support
of an oppressive act; and with true delicacy and dignity,
being unwilling to retain a station, in which he might be
expected or called upon to argue in support of such odious
measures, he resigned it though the situation was very
lucrative, and if filled by an incumbent with a compliant
spirit, led to the highest favours of government. The
merchants of Salem and Boston, applied to Mr. Pratt to
undertake their cause, who was also solicited to engage on the
other side; but he declined taking any part, being about to
leave Boston for New York, of which province he had been
appointed Chief Justice. They also applied to Otis and
Thacher, who engaged to make their defence, and probably both
of them without fees, though very great ones were offered. The
language of Otis was, 'in such a cause, I despise all fees.' …
The trial took place in the Council Chamber of the Old Town
House, in Boston. … The judges were five in number, including
Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson, who presided as Chief Justice.
The room was filled with all the officers of government, and
the principal citizens, to hear the arguments in a cause that
inspired the deepest solicitude. The case was opened by Mr.
Gridley, who argued it with much learning, ingenuity, and
dignity, urging every point and authority; that could be found
after the most diligent search, in favour of the Custom house
petition; making all his reasoning depend on this
consideration—'if the parliament of Great Britain is the
sovereign legislator of the British Empire.' He was followed
by Mr. Thacher on the opposite side, whose reasoning was
ingenious and able, delivered in a tone of great mildness and
moderation. 'But,' in the language of President Adams, 'Otis
was a flame of fire; with a promptitude of classical
allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical
events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a
prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid
torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before
him. American Independence was then and there born. The seeds
of patriots and heroes, to defend the 'Non sine Diis animosus
infans'; to defend the vigorous youth, were then and there
sown. Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me
to go away as I did, ready to take arms against Writs of
Assistance. Then and there, was the first scene of the first
act of opposition, to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain.
Then and there, the child Independence was born. In fifteen
years, i. e. in 1776, he grew up to manhood and declared
himself free.' 'There were no stenographers in those days,' to
give a complete report of this momentous harangue. How gladly
would be exchanged for it, a few hundred verbose speeches on
some of the miserable, transient topics of the day, that are
circulated in worthless profusion. Yet on this occasion, 'the
seeds were sown,' and though some of them doubtless fell by
the wayside or on stony places, others fell on good ground,
and sprang up and increased and brought forth in due season,
thirty, sixty and an hundred fold. … After the close of his
argument, the Court adjourned for consideration, and at the
close of the term, Chief Justice Hutchinson pronounced the
opinion: 'The Court has considered the subject of writs of
assistance, find can see no foundation for such a writ; but as
the practice in England is not known, it has been thought best
to continue the question to the next term, that in the
meantime opportunity may be given to know the result.' No
cause in the annals of colonial jurisprudence had hitherto
excited more public interest; and none had given rise to such
powerful argument. … An epoch in public affairs may be dated
from this trial. Political parties became more distinctly
formed, and their several adherents were more marked and
decided. The nature of ultra-marine jurisdiction began to be
closely examined; the question respecting raising a revenue
fully discussed. The right of the British parliament to impose
taxes was openly denied. 'Taxation without representation is
tyranny,' was the maxim, that was the guide and watch word of
all the friends of liberty. The crown officers and their
followers adopted openly the pretensions of the British
ministry and parliament, and considering their power to be
irresistible, appealed to the selfishness of those who might
be expectants of patronage, and to the fears of all quiet and
timid minds, to adopt a blind submission, as the only safe or
reasonable alternative. Otis took the side of his country, and
as has been shewn, under circumstances that made his decision
irrevocable. He was transferred at once from the ranks of
private life, not merely to take the side, but to be the guide
and leader of his country, in opposition to the designs of the
British ministry. 'Although' says President Adams, 'Mr. Otis
had never before interfered in public affairs, his exertions
on this single occasion secured him a commanding popularity
with the friends of their country, and the terror and
vengeance of her enemies; neither of which ever deserted him.'
His popularity was instantaneous, and universal; and the
public were impatient for the approaching election, when they
could make him a representative of Boston."
_W. Tudor,
Life of James Otis,
chapters 5-7._
See also, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1761.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763.
The Treaty of Paris.
Acquisition of Florida and Eastern Louisiana
(as well as Canada) by Great Britain.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763.
The King's proclamation excluding settlers from the
Western territory lately acquired from France.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763.
General effects, economically and politically,
of the English trade regulations.
"Economically the general results of the trade regulations
were important. Robert Giffen has repeatedly pointed out how
difficult it is, even with modern comparatively accurate
methods, to obtain reliable results from the use of export and
import statistics. This difficulty is immeasurably enhanced
when we have to rely on the meagre figures of a century and a
half ago. For we neither know how these statistics were taken,
nor at all how accurate they are; while their inadequacy
becomes clearly evident when we consider the large amount of
smuggling carried on both in England and the colonies. One
general proposition, however, can be formulated from the
examination of these statistics, and that is the balance of
trade between England and the colonies was unfavorable to the
latter. And this was an inherent consequence of the mercantile
system, by which England regulated these commercial relations.
{3181}
The colonies were unable to pay England for her manufactures
entirely in raw materials, and the residue was paid in coin
obtained from the favorable trade with Spain, Portugal, and
the West Indies. All metal had to be sent to England; it was,
as De Foe says, 'snatched up for returns to England in
specie.' An important consequence followed from this
continuous drain of specie. The colonies could with difficulty
retain coin, and hence were forced either to fall back on
barter, or to issue paper money. … While, on the one hand, the
acts of trade and navigation are partially responsible for
many sad passages in the fiscal history of the colonies, on
the other hand they conduced to the development of a most
important colonial industry. This industry was ship-building,
for which the colonies were especially adapted on account of
the cheapness of lumber. In developing this natural fitness,
the protection afforded to English and colonial shipping by
the Navigation Acts was an important factor. As a rule England
did not discriminate against colonial and in favor of English
ships, although the colonies frequently attempted by
legislation to secure advantages for their own shipping. As a
result of this policy ship building and the carrying trade
increased rapidly, especially in the New England colonies. …
So important did this industry become that in 1724 the ship
carpenters of the Thames complained to the King, 'that their
trade was hurt and their workmen emigrated since so many
vessels were built in New England.' Massachusetts built ships
not only for England, but also for European countries, and for
the West Indies. … Politically the commercial regulations were
not so important. Up to 1763 only slight political importance
attaches to the system, for only in a negative way did it
affect the political ideas of the colonists. The colonies were
peopled by men of varied race and religion, who had little
common consciousness of rights and wrongs and few common
political ideals. The centrifugal forces among them were
strong. Among centripetal forces, such as a common sovereign
and a common system of private law, must be reckoned the fact
that their commerce was regulated by a system which, as a
rule, was uniform for all the colonies. When the acts of trade
worked to their advantage, the colonists reaped common
benefits; when they inflicted hardships, the colonists made
common complaint. Moreover, the fact that England was unable
to enforce certain of her acts, especially the Molasses Act,
caused contempt for parliamentary authority. The continued
and, by the very nature of things, the necessary violation of
this law lead to a questioning of its sanction, while the open
favoritism shown in it towards the West India colonies
naturally aroused disaffection in those of the continent. The
colonial system, as it was administered before 1763,
contributed but slightly in bringing about the revolution of
1776. As Mr. Ramsay has said, 'if no other grievances had been
superadded to what existed in 1763, they would have been soon
forgotten, for their pressure was neither great, nor
universal. It was only when the fundamental basis of the acts
was changed from one of commercial monopoly to one of revenue,
that the acts became of vital political importance."
_G. L. Beer,
The Commercial Policy of England toward
the American Colonies
(Columbia College Studies in History, etc.,
volume 3, number 2), chapter 7, section 2._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763-1764.
Pontiac's War.
See PONTIAC'S WAR.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763-1764.
Determination in England to tax the colonies.
The Sugar (or Molasses) Act.-"
It did not take four years after the peace of 1763 to show how
rapidly the new situation of affairs was bearing fruit in
America. … The overthrow of their ancient enemy [the French in
Canada], while further increasing the self-confidence of the
Americans, at the same time removed the principal check which
had hitherto kept their differences with the British
government from coming to an open rupture. Formerly the dread
of French attack had tended to make the Americans complaisant
toward the king's ministers, while at the same time it made
the king's ministers unwilling to lose the good will of the
Americans. Now that the check was removed, the continuance or
revival of the old disputes at once foreboded trouble; and the
old occasions for dispute were far from having ceased. On the
contrary the war itself had given them fresh vitality. If
money had been needed before, it was still more needed now.
The war had entailed a heavy burden of expense upon the
British government as well as upon the colonies. The national
debt of Great Britain was much increased, and there were many
who thought that, since the Americans shared in the benefits
of the war, they ought also to share in the burden which it
left behind it. People in England who used this argument did
not realize that the Americans had really contributed as much
as could reasonably be expected to the support of the war, and
that it had left behind it debts to be paid in America as well
as in England. But there was another argument which made it
seem reasonable to many Englishmen that the colonists should
be taxed. It seemed right that a small military force should
be kept up in America, for defence of the frontiers against
the Indians, even if there were no other enemies to be
dreaded. The events of Pontiac's war now showed that there was
clearly need of such a force; and the experience of the royal
governors for half a century had shown that it was very
difficult to get the colonial legislatures to vote money for
any such purpose. Hence there grew up in England a feeling
that taxes ought to be raised in America as a contribution to
the war debt and to the military defence of the colonies; and
in order that such taxes should be fairly distributed and
promptly collected, it was felt that the whole business ought
to be placed under the direct supervision and control of
parliament. … It was in 1763 that George Grenville became
prime minister, a man of whom Macaulay says that he knew of
'no national interests except those which are expressed by
pounds, shillings, and pence.' Grenville proceeded to
introduce into Parliament two measures which had consequences
of which he little dreamed. The first of these measures was
the Molasses Act [often called the Sugar Act], the second was
the Stamp Act. Properly speaking, the Molasses Act was an old
law which Grenville now made up his mind to revive and
enforce. The commercial wealth of the New England colonies
depended largely upon their trade with the fish which their
fishermen caught along the coast and as far out as the banks
of Newfoundland. The finest fish could be sold in Europe, but
the poorer sort found their chief market in the French West
Indies.
{3182}
The French government, in order to ensure a market for the
molasses raised in these islands, would not allow the planters
to give any thing else in exchange for fish. Great quantities
of molasses were therefore carried to New England, and what
was not needed there for domestic use was distilled into rum,
part of which was consumed at home, and the rest carried
chiefly to Africa wherewith to buy slaves to be sold to the
southern colonies. All this trade required many ships, and
thus kept up a lively demand for New England lumber, besides
finding employment for thousands of sailors and shipwrights.
Now in 1733 the British government took it into its head to
'protect' its sugar planters in the English West Indies by
compelling the New England merchants to buy all their molasses
from them; and with this end in view it forthwith laid upon
all sugar and molasses imported into North America from the
French islands a duty so heavy that, if it had been enforced,
it would have stopped all such importation. … It proved to be
impossible to enforce the act without causing more disturbance
than the government felt prepared to encounter. Now in 1764
Grenville announced that the act was to be enforced, and of
course the machinery of writs of assistance was to be employed
for that purpose. Henceforth all molasses from the French
islands must either pay the prohibitory duty or be seized
without ceremony. Loud and fierce was the indignation of New
England over this revival of the Molasses Act. Even without
the Stamp Act, it might very likely have led that part of the
country to make armed resistance, but in such case it is not
so sure that the southern and middle colonies would have come
to the aid of New England. But in the Stamp Act, Grenville
provided the colonies with an issue which concerned one as
much as another."
_J. Fiske,
The War of Independence,
chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_J. G. Palfrey,
History of New England,
book 6, chapters 2-3 (volume 5)._
_W. B. Weeden,
Economic and Social History of New England,
chapter 19 (volume 2)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1764.
The climax of the mercantile colonial policy of England,
and its consequences.
"Historians, in treating of the American rebellion, have
confined their arguments too exclusively to the question of
internal taxation, and the right or policy of exercising this
prerogative. The true source of the rebellion lay deeper, in
our traditional colonial policy. Just as the Spaniards had
been excited to the discovery of America by the hope of
obtaining gold and silver, the English merchants utilized the
discovery by the same fallacious method, and with the same
fallacious aspirations. … A hundred years ago the commercial
classes believed that the prime object of their pursuits was
to get as much gold and silver into England as they could.
They sought, therefore, to make their country, as nearly as
they might, a solitary centre of the exportation of
non-metallic commodities, that so she might be also the great
reservoir into which the precious metals would flow in a
return stream. On this base their colonial policy was erected.
… So long as the colonies remained in their infancy the
mercantile policy was less prejudicial to their interests. The
monopoly of their commerce, the limitation of their markets,
the discouragement of their manufactures, in some cases
amounting to absolute prohibition, were all less fatal in a
country where labour was dear, than they would be in a state
where population was more fully developed and land had become
scarcer. … A contraband trade sprung up between them and the
colonies of Spain. Our settlers imported goods from England,
and re-exported them to the Spanish colonies, in return for
bullion and other commodities. The result of this was that the
Spanish colonists had access to useful commodities from which
they would otherwise have been debarred, that the American
colonists could without distress remit the specie which was
required by the nature of their dealings with England, and
that a large market was opened for English products. This
widely beneficial trade was incontinently suppressed in 1764,
by one of those efforts of short-sighted rigour which might be
expected from any government where George Grenville's
influence was prominent. All smuggling was to be put down, and
as this trade was contraband, it must be put down like the
rest. The Government probably acted as they did in answer to
the prayers of the mercantile classes, who could not see that
they were cutting off the streams that fed their own
prosperity. They only saw that a colonial trade had sprung up,
and their jealousy blinded them to the benefits that accrued
to themselves as a consequence of it. Their folly found them
out. The suppression of the colonial trade was entrusted to
the commanders of men-of-war. … We may be sure that the
original grievance of the colonists was not softened by the
manners of the officers who had to put the law into execution.
The result of the whole transaction was the birth of a very
strong sense in the minds of the colonists that the mother
country looked upon them as a sponge to be squeezed. This
conviction took more than a passing hold upon them. It was
speedily inflamed into inextinguishable heat, first by the
news that they were to be taxed without their own consent, and
next by the tyrannical and atrocious measures by which it was
proposed to crush their resistance. The rebellion may be
characterised as having first originated in the blind
greediness of the English merchants, and as having then been
precipitated by the arbitrary ideas of the patricians, in the
first instance, and afterwards of the King and the least
educated of the common people. If the severe pressure of the
mercantile policy, unflinchingly carried out, had not first
filled the colonists with resentment and robbed them of their
prosperity, the imperial claim to impose taxes would probably
have been submitted to without much ado. And if the
suppression of their trade in 1764 had not been instantly
followed by Grenville's plan for extorting revenue from them,
they would probably in time have been reconciled to the blow
which had been dealt to their commerce. It was the conjunction
of two highly oppressive pieces of policy which taught them
that they would certainly lose more by tame compliance than
they could possibly lose by an active resistance."
_J. Morley,
Edmund Burke,
chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_W. Massey,
History of England, Reign of George III.,
volume 1, chapter 5._
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1764-1767.
Patriotic self-denials.
"Upon the news of the intention to lay [the Stamp Tax] … on
the colonies, many people, the last year, had associated, and
engaged to forbear the importation, or consumption, of English
goods; and particularly to break off from the custom of
wearing black clothes, or other mourning [it being generally
of British manufacture—Foot-note], upon the death of
relations. This agreement was then signed by some of the
council, and representatives, and by great numbers of people
in the town of Boston, and the disuse of mourning soon became
general. This was intended to alarm the manufacturers in
England. And now [in 1765], an agreement was made, and signed
by a great proportion of the inhabitants of Boston, to eat no
lamb during the year. This was in order to increase the
growth, and, of course, the manufacture of wool in the
province. Neither of these measures much served the purpose
for which they were professedly intended, but they served to
unite the people in an unfavourable opinion of parliament."
_T. Hutchinson,
History of the province of Massachusetts Bay, 1749-1774,
pages 116-117._
The movement thus started in Boston before the passage of the
Stamp Act spread rapidly through the other provinces after the
Act had been passed, and continued to be for several years a
very serious expression of colonial patriotism and opposition
to the oppressive policy of the mother country.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765.
The Stamp Act.
"The scheme of the imposition by Parliament of a tax on the
American colonists to be collected by stamps was not a new
one. Nearly forty years before this time, 'Sir William Keith,
the late Governor of Pennsylvania, presented an elaborate
disquisition to the King … proposing the extension of the
stamp duties to the Colonies by Act of Parliament.' It had
been one of the projects of the factious Dunbar, during his
short career of turbulence and intrigue in New Hampshire.
Governor Sharpe of Maryland and Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia
had recommended a resort to it at the time of the abortive
movement for a union of the Colonies. Its renewal at this time
has been said to have been especially due to Charles
Jenkinson, then only private secretary to Lord Bute, but who
rose afterwards to be Earl of Liverpool. The project, as now
resolved upon, was pursued with inconsiderate obstinacy,
though it encountered a spirited debate when it was brought
into the House of Commons [February, 1765]. … The bill was
pending in the House between three and four weeks, at the end
of which time it was passed, the largest number of votes which
had been given against it in any stage of its progress not
having amounted to fifty. It was concurred in by the House of
Lords, where it appears to have met no resistance, and in due
course [March 22] received the royal assent. No apprehension
of consequences counselled a pause. The Stamp Act—as it has
ever since been called by eminence—provided … for the payment,
by British subjects in America to the English Exchequer, of
specified sums, greater or less, in consideration of obtaining
validity for each of the common transactions of business."
_J. G. Palfrey,
History of New England,
book 6, chapter 3 (volume 5)._
The following is the text of the Stamp Act:
Whereas, by an act made in the last session of parliament,
several duties were granted, continued, and appropriated,
towards defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and
securing the British colonies and plantations in America: and
whereas, it is first necessary, that provision be made for
raising a further revenue within your majesty's dominions in
America, towards defraying the said expenses; we, your
majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the commons of
Great Britain, in parliament assembled, have therefore
resolved, to give and grant unto your majesty the several
rites and duties hereinafter mentioned; and do most humbly
beseech your majesty that it may be enacted, And be it
enacted, by the king's most excellent majesty, by and with the
advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and
commons in this present parliament assembled, and by the
authority of the same, That from and after the first day of
November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty five, there
shall be raised, levied, collected and paid, unto his majesty,
his heirs and successors, throughout the colonies and
plantations in America, which now are, or hereafter may be,
under the dominion of his majesty, his heirs and successors.
1. For every skin of vellum or parchment, or sheet or piece of
paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or printed, any
declaration, plea, replication, rejoinder, demurrer, or other
pleading, or any copy thereof, in any court of law within the
British colonies and plantations in America, a stamp duty of
three pence.
2. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or
piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any special bail, and appearance upon such bail in
any such court, a stamp duty of two shillings.
3. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or
piece of paper, on which may be engrossed, written or printed,
any petition, bill, or answer, claim, plea, replication,
rejoinder, demurrer, or other pleading, in any court of
chancery or equity, within the said colonies and plantations,
a stamp duty of one shilling and six pence.
4. For every skin or piece of vellum, or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any copy of any petition, bill, answer, claim, plea,
replication, rejoinder, demurrer, or other pleading, in any
such court, a stamp duty of three pence.
5. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or
piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any monition, libel, answer, allegation, inventory,
or renunciation, in ecclesiastical matters, in any court of
probate, court of the ordinary, or other court exercising
ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the said colonies and
plantations, a stamp duty of one shilling.
6. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or
piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any copy of any will, (other than the probate
thereof,) monition, libel, answer, allegation, inventory, or
renunciation, in ecclesiastical matters, in any such court, a
stamp duty of six pence.
7. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or
piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any donation, presentation, collation or institution,
of or to any benefice, or any writ or instrument for the like
purpose, or any register, entry, testimonial or certificate of
any degree taken in any university, academy, college, or seminary
of learning, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp
duty of two pounds.
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8. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or
piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any monition, libel, claim, answer, allegation,
information, letter of request, execution, renunciation,
inventory, or other pleading, in any admiralty court within
the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of one
shilling.
9. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet or
piece of paper, on which any copy of any such monition, libel,
claim, answer, allegation, information, letter of request,
execution, renunciation, inventory or other pleading, shall be
engrossed, written or printed, a stamp duty of six pence.
10. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any appeal, writ of error, writ of dower, 'ad quod
damnum,' certiorari, statute merchant, statute staple,
attestation, or certificate, by any officer, or
exemplification of any record or proceeding, in any court
whatsoever within the said colonies and plantations, (except
appeals, writs of error, certiorari, attestations,
certificates, and exemplifications, for, or relating to the
removal of any proceedings from before a single justice of the
peace,) a stamp duty of ten shillings.
11. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any writ of covenant for levying fines, writ of entry
for suffering a common recovery, or attachment issuing out of,
or returnable into any court within the said colonies and
plantations, a stamp duty of five shillings.
12. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
of piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any judgment, decree, or sentence, or dismission, or
any record of nisi prius or postea, in any court within the
said colonies or plantations, a stamp duty of four shillings.
13. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any affidavit, common bail, or appearance,
interrogatory, deposition, rule, order or warrant of any
court, or any 'dedimus potestatem,' capias, subpæna, summons,
compulsory citation, commission, recognisance, or any other
writ, process, or mandate, issuing out of, or returnable into,
any court, or any office belonging thereto, or any other
proceeding therein whatsoever, or any copy thereof, or of any
record not herein before charged, within the said colonies and
plantations, (except warrants relating to criminal matters,
and proceedings thereon, or relation thereto,) a stamp duty of
one shilling.
14. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any note or bill of lading, which shall be signed for
any kind of goods, wares, or merchandize, to be exported from,
or any docket or clearance granted within the said colonies
and plantations, a stamp duty of four pence.
15. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, letters of mart or commission for private ships of
war, within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of
twenty shillings.
16. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any grant, appointment, or admission of or to any
public beneficial office or employment, for the space of one
year, or any lesser time, of or above twenty pounds per annum,
sterling money, in salary, fees, and perquisites, within the
said colonies and plantations, (except commissions and
appointments of officers of the army, navy, ordnance, or
militia, of judges, and of justices of the peace,) a stamp
duty of ten shillings.
17. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which any grant of any liberty,
privilege, or franchise, under the seal or sign manual, of any
governor, proprietor, or public officer, alone, or in
conjunction with any other person or persons, or with any
council, or any council and assembly, or any exemplification
of the same, shall be engrossed, written, or printed, within
the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of six pounds.
18. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or' piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any license for retailing of spirituous liquors, to
be granted to any person who shall take out the same, within
the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of twenty
shillings.
19. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any license for retailing of wine, to be granted to
any person who shall not take out a license for retailing of
spirituous liquors, within the said colonies and plantations,
a stamp duty of four pounds.
20. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any license for retailing of wine, to be granted to
any person who shall take out a license for retailing of
spirituous liquors, within the said colonies and plantations,
a stamp duty of three pounds.
21. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any probate of wills, letters of administration, or
of guardianship for any estate above the value of twenty
pounds sterling money, within the British colonies [and]
plantations upon the continent of America, the islands
belonging thereto, and the Bermuda and Bahama islands, a stamp
duty of five shillings.
22. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any such probate, letters of administration or of
guardianship, within all other parts of the British dominions
in America, a stamp duty of ten shillings.
23. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any bond for securing the payment of any sum of
money, not exceeding the sum of ten pounds sterling money,
within the British colonies and plantations upon the continent
of America, the islands belonging thereto, and the Bermuda and
Bahama islands, a stamp duty of six pence.
{3185}
24. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any bond for securing the payment of any sum of money
above ten pounds, and not exceeding twenty pounds sterling
money, within such colonies, plantations and islands, a stamp
duty of one shilling.
25. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any bond for securing the payment of any sum of money
above twenty pounds, and not exceeding forty pounds sterling
money, within such colonies, plantations and islands, a stamp
duty of one shilling and six pence.
26. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any order or warrant for surveying or setting out any
quantity of land, not exceeding one hundred acres, issued by
any governor, proprietor, or any public officer, alone, or in
conjunction with any other person or persons, or with any
council, or any council and assembly, within the British
colonies and plantations in America, a stamp duty of six
pence.
27. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any such order or warrant for surveying or setting
out any quantity of land above one hundred and not exceeding
two hundred acres, within the said colonies and plantations, a
stamp duty of one shilling.
28. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any such order or warrant for surveying or setting
out any quantity of land above two hundred and not exceeding
three hundred and twenty acres, and in proportion for every
such order or warrant for surveying or setting out every other
three hundred and twenty acres, within the said colonies and
plantations, a stamp duty of one shilling and six pence.
29. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any original grant or deed, mesne conveyance, or
other instrument whatever, by which any quantity of land, not
exceeding one hundred acres, shall be granted, conveyed, or
assigned, within the British colonies and plantations upon the
continent of America, the islands belonging thereto, and the
Bermuda and Bahama islands (except leases for any term not
exceeding the term of twenty-one years) a stamp duty of one
shilling and six pence.
30. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne
conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, by which any
quantity of land, above one hundred and not exceeding two
hundred acres, shall be granted, conveyed, or assigned, within
such colonies, plantations and islands, a stamp duty of two
shillings.
31. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne
conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, by which any
quantity of land, above two hundred, and not exceeding three
hundred and twenty acres, shall be granted, conveyed, or
assigned, and in proportion for every such grant, deed, mesne
conveyance, or other instrument, granting, conveying or
assigning every other three hundred and twenty acres, within
such colonies, plantations and islands, a stamp duty of two
shillings and six pence.
32. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne
conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, by which any
quantity of land, not exceeding one hundred acres, shall be
granted, conveyed, or assigned, within all other parts of the
British dominions in America, a stamp duty of three shillings.
33. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written or
printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne
conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, by which any
quantity of land, above one hundred and not exceeding two
hundred acres, shall be granted, conveyed, or assigned, within
the same parts of the said dominions, a stamp duty of four
shillings.
34. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any such original grant, or any such deed, mesne
conveyance, or other instrument whatsoever, by which any
quantity of land, above two hundred and not exceeding three
hundred and twenty acres, shall be granted, conveyed, or
assigned, and in proportion for every such grant, deed, mesne
conveyance, or other instrument, granting, conveying, or
assigning every other three hundred and twenty acres, within
the same parts of the said dominions, a stamp duty of five
shillings.
35. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any grant, appointment, or admission, of or to any
beneficial office or employment, not hereinbefore charged,
above the value of twenty pounds per annum sterling money, in
salary, fees, or perquisites, or any exemplification of the
same, within the British colonies and plantations upon the
continent of America, the islands belonging thereto, and the
Bermuda and Bahama islands, (except commissions of officers of
the army, navy, ordnance, or militia, and of justices of the
peace,) a stamp duty of four pounds.
36. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any such grant, appointment, or admission, of or to
any such public beneficial office or employment, or any
exemplification of the same, within all other parts of the
British dominions in America, a stamp duty of six pounds.
37. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any indenture, lease, conveyance, contract,
stipulation, bill of sale, charter party, protest, articles of
apprenticeship or covenant, (except for the hire of servants
not apprentices, and also except such other matters as
hereinbefore charged,) within the British colonies and
plantations in America, a stamp duty of two shillings and six
pence.
{3186}
38. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which any warrant or order for auditing
any public accounts, beneficial warrant, order, grant, or
certificate, under any public seal, or under the seal or sign
manual of any governor, proprietor, or public officer, alone,
or in conjunction with any other person or persons, or with
any council, or any council and assembly, not herein before
charged, or any passport or let pass, surrender of office, or
policy of assurance, shall be engrossed, written, or printed,
within the said colonies and plantations, (except warrants or
orders for the service of the army, navy, ordnance, or
militia, and grants of offices under twenty pounds per annum,
in salary, fees, and perquisite,) a stamp duty of five
shillings.
39. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any notarial act, bond, deed, letter of attorney,
procuration, mortgage, release, or other obligatory
instrument, not herein before charged, within the said
colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of two shillings and
three pence.
40. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any register, entry, or enrolment of any grant, deed,
or other instrument whatsoever, herein before charged, within
the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of three
pence.
41. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which shall be engrossed, written, or
printed, any register, entry, or enrolment of any grant, deed,
or other instrument whatsoever not herein before charged,
within the said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of two
shillings.
42. And for and upon every pack of playing cards, and all
dice, which shall be sold or used within the said colonies and
plantations, the several stamp duties following: (that is to
say,)
43. For every pack of such cards, one shilling.
44. And for every pair of such dice, ten shillings.
45. And for and upon every paper called a pamphlet, and upon
every newspaper, containing public news, or occurrences, which
shall be printed, dispersed, and made public, within any of
the said colonies and plantations, and for and upon such
advertisements as are hereinafter mentioned, the respective
duties following; (that is to say,)
46. For every such pamphlet and paper, contained in a half
sheet, or any lesser piece of paper, which shall be so
printed, a stamp duty of one half penny for every printed copy
thereof.
47. For every such pamphlet and paper, (being larger than half
a sheet, and not exceeding one whole sheet,) which shall be so
printed, a stamp duty of one penny for every printed copy
thereof.
48. For every pamphlet and paper, being larger than one whole
sheet, and not exceeding six sheets in octavo, or in a lesser
page, or not exceeding twelve sheets in quarto, or twenty
sheets in folio, which shall be so printed, a duty after the
rate of one shilling for every sheet of any kind of paper
which shall be contained in one printed copy thereof.
49. For every advertisement to be contained in any gazette,
newspaper, or other paper, or any pamphlet which shall be so
printed, a duty of two shillings.
50. For every almanac or calendar, for any one particular
year, or for any time less than a year, which shall be written
or printed on one side only of any one sheet, skin, or piece
of paper, parchment, or vellum, within the said colonies and
plantations, a stamp duty of two pence.
51. For every other almanac, or calendar, for any one
particular year, which shall be written or printed within the
said colonies and plantations, a stamp duty of four pence.
52. And for every almanac or calendar, written or printed in
the said colonies and plantations, to serve for several years,
duties to the same amount respectively shall be paid for every
such year.
53. For every skin or piece of vellum or parchment, or sheet
or piece of paper, on which any instrument, proceeding, or
other matter or thing aforesaid, shall be engrossed, written,
or printed, within the said colonies and plantations, in any
other than the English language, a stamp duty of double the
amount of the respective duties before charged thereon.
54. And there shall be also paid, in the said colonies and
plantations, a duty of six pence for every twenty shillings,
in any sum not exceeding fifty pounds sterling money, which
shall be given, paid, contracted, or agreed for, with or in
relation to any clerk or apprentice, which shall be put or
placed to or with any master or mistress, to learn any
profession, trade, or employment. 2. And also a duty of one
shilling for every twenty shillings, in any sum exceeding
fifty pounds, which shall be given, paid, contracted, or
agreed for, with, or in relation to, any such clerk or
apprentice.
55. Finally, the produce of all the aforementioned duties
shall be paid into his majesty's treasury; and there held in
reserve, to be used, from time to time, by the parliament, for
the purpose of defraying the expenses necessary for the
defense, protection, and security of the said colonies and
plantations.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765.
News of the Stamp Act in the Colonies.
Colonel Barre's speech and the Sons of Liberty.
Patrick Henry's speech in the Virginia Assembly.
Formal protests and informal mob-doings in Philadelphia,
New York and Boston.
In the course of the debate in the British House of Commons,
on the Stamp Act, February 6, 1765, Charles Townshend, after
discussing the advantages which the American colonies had
derived from the late war, asked the question: "And now will
these American children, planted by our care, nourished up to
strength and opulence by our indulgence, and protected by our
arms, grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the
heavy burden under which we lie?" This called to his feet
Colonel Isaac Barre who had served in America with Wolfe, and
who had a knowledge of the country and people which most
members of Parliament lacked. "They planted by your care!"
exclaimed Barré. "No: your oppressions planted them in
America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated,
unhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost
all the hardships to which human nature is liable; and, among
others, to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle,
and, I will take upon me to say, the most formidable of any
people upon the face of God's earth; and yet, actuated by
principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships
with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own
country from the hands of those who should have been their
friends.
{3187}
They nourished up by your indulgence! They grew by your
neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that
care was exercised in sending persons to rule them in one
department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of
deputies to some members of this house, sent to spy out their
liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon
them; men whose behavior on many occasions has caused the
blood of those sons of Liberty to recoil within them; men
promoted to the highest seats of justice, some who, to my
knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape
being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own.
They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in
your defence; have exerted a valor amidst their constant and
laborious industry, for the defence of a country whose
frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts
yielded all its little savings to your emolument. And believe
me—remember I this day told you so—the same spirit of freedom
which actuated that people at first will accompany them still.
But prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God knows I
do not at this time speak from motives of party heat; what I
deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However
superior to me in general knowledge and experience the
respectable body of this house may be, yet I claim to know
more of America than most of you, having seen and been
conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are as
truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but a people jealous
of their liberties, and who will vindicate them, if ever they
should be violated. But the subject is too delicate; I will
say no more." Notes of Colonel Barré's speech were taken by a
Mr. Ingersoll, one of the agents for Connecticut, who sat in
the gallery. He sent home a report of it, which was published
in the newspapers at New London, and soon the name of the
"Sons of Liberty," which the eloquent defender of the
resisting colonists had given to them, was on every lip.
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 3, chapter 8._
"Meantime [in 1765], 'The Sons of Liberty'—a term that grew
into use soon after the publication of Barre's speech—were
entering into associations to resist, by all lawful means, the
execution of the Stamp Act. They were long kept secret, which
occasioned loyalists to say that there was a private union
among a certain sect of republican principles from one end of
the continent to the other. As they increased in numbers, they
grew in boldness and publicity, announcing in the newspapers
their committees of correspondence, and interchanging solemn
pledges of support."
_R. Frothingham,
The Rise of the Republic of the United States,
page 183._
The Stamp Act was passed March 22, 1765. A copy of it was
printed in the 'Pennsylvania Gazette' on April 18th, but this
must necessarily have been in advance of news of its passage.
The people of Philadelphia began at once to show their
determination to make it [the Stamp Act] a nullity so far as
revenue was concerned. An enforced frugality was the first
step. … In the 'Pennsylvania Gazette' of April 18th there was
an article against expensive and ostentatious funerals, the
writer saying that often £70 or £100 were squandered on such
occasions. August 15th, when Alderman William Plumsted was
buried at St. Peter's Church, the funeral, by his own wish,
was conducted in the plainest way, no pall, no mourning worn
by relatives. In March, the Hibernia Fire Company resolved,
'from motives of economy, and to reduce the present high price
of mutton and encourage the breweries of Pennsylvania, not to
purchase any lamb this season, nor to drink any foreign beer:
Other fire companies and many citizens copied this example. …
On October 25th the merchants and traders of Philadelphia
subscribed to a non-importation agreement, such as were then
being signed all over the country. In this article the
subscribers agreed that, in consequence of the late acts of
Parliament and the injurious regulations accompanying them,
and of the Stamp Act, etc., in justice to themselves and in
hopes of benefit from their example
(1) to countermand all orders for English goods until the
Stamp Act should be repealed;
(2) a few necessary articles, or shipped under peculiar
circumstances, are excepted;
(3) no goods received for sale on commission to be disposed of
until the Stamp Act should be repealed; and this agreement to
be binding on each and all, as a pledge of word of honor."
_J. T. Scharf and T. Westcott,
History of Philadelphia,
chapter 10 (volume 1)._
The first stern note of defiance came from Virginia. Patrick
Henry had lately been elected to the colonial assembly. Having
waited in vain for the older leaders of the house to move in
the matter of expressing the feeling of the colony on the
subject, on the 29th of May, when the session was within three
days of its expected close, "Mr. Henry introduced his
celebrated resolutions on the stamp act. I will not withhold
from the reader a note of this transaction from the pen of Mr.
Henry himself. It is a curiosity, and highly worthy of
preservation. After his death, there was found among his
papers one sealed, and thus endorsed: 'Enclosed are the
resolutions of the Virginia assembly in 1765, concerning the
stamp act. Let my executors open this paper.' Within was found
the following copy of the resolutions, in Mr. Henry's
handwriting:—'Resolved, That the first adventurers and
settlers of this, his majesty's colony and dominion, brought
with them, and transmitted to their posterity, and all other
his majesty's subjects, since inhabiting in this, his
majesty's said colony, all the privileges, franchises, and
immunities, that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and
possessed by the people of Great Britain. Resolved, That by
two royal charters, granted by King James I., the colonists,
aforesaid, are declared entitled to all the privileges,
liberties, and immunities of denizens and natural-born
subjects, to all intents and purposes, as if they had been
abiding and born within the realm of England. Resolved, That
the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen
by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes
the people are able to bear, and the easiest mode of raising
them, and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, is
the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and
without which the ancient constitution cannot subsist.
{3188}
Resolved, That his majesty's liege people of this most ancient
colony, have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus
governed by their own assembly, in the article of their taxes
and internal police, and that the same hath never been
forfeited, or any other way given up, but hath been constantly
recognised by the king and people of Great Britain. Resolved,
therefore, That the general assembly of this colony have the
sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the
inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to vest
such power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the
general assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy
British as well as American freedom.' On the back of the paper
containing these resolutions, is the following endorsement,
which is also in the handwriting of Mr. Henry himself:—'The
within resolutions passed the house of burgesses in May, 1765.
They formed the first opposition to the stamp act, and the
scheme of taxing America by the British parliament. All the
colonies, either through fear, or want of opportunity to form
an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other, had
remained silent. I had been for the first time elected a
burgess, a few days before, was young, inexperienced,
unacquainted with the forms of the house, and the members that
composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to opposition,
and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person
was likely to step forth, I determined to venture, and alone,
unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law-book
wrote the within. Upon offering them to the house, violent
debates ensued. Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast
on me, by the party for submission. After a long and warm
contest, the resolutions passed by a very small majority,
perhaps of one or two only. The alarm spread throughout
America with astonishing quickness, and the ministerial party
were overwhelmed. The great point of resistance to British
taxation was universally established in the colonies. This
brought on the war, which finally separated the two countries,
and gave independence to ours. Whether this will prove a
blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make
of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If
they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a
contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness
alone can exalt them as a nation. Reader! whoever thou art,
remember this; and in thy sphere, practise virtue thyself, and
encourage it in others.—P. Henry.' Such is the short, plain,
and modest account which Mr. Henry has left of this
transaction. … It is not wonderful that even the friends of
colonial rights who knew the feeble and defenceless situation
of this country should be startled at a step so bold and
daring. That effect was produced; and the resolutions were
resisted, not only by the aristocracy of the house, but by
many of those who were afterward distinguished among the
brightest champions of American liberty. The following is Mr.
Jefferson's account of this transaction: 'Mr. Henry moved and
Mr. Johnston seconded these resolutions successively. They
were opposed by Messrs. Randolph, Bland, Pendleton, Wythe, and
all the old members, whose influence in the house had, till
then, been unbroken. They did it, not from any question of our
rights, but on the ground that the same sentiments had been,
at their preceding session, expressed in a more conciliatory
form, to which the answers were not yet received. But torrents
of sublime eloquence from Henry, backed by the solid reasoning
of Johnston, prevailed. The last, however, and strongest
resolution was carried but by a single vote. The debate on it
was most bloody. I was then but a student, and stood at the
door of communication between the house and the lobby (for as
yet there was no gallery) during the whole debate and vote;
and I well remember that, after the numbers on the division
were told and declared from the chair, Peyton Randolph (the
attorney-general) came out at the door where I was standing,
and said, as he entered the lobby: "By God, I would have given
500 guineas for a single vote": for one would have divided the
house, and Robinson was in the chair, who he knew would have
negatived the resolution. Mr. Henry left town that evening;
and the next morning, before the meeting of the house, Colonel
Peter Randolph, then of the council, came to the hall of
burgesses, and sat at the clerk's table till the house-bell
rang, thumbing over the volumes of journals, to find a
precedent for expunging a vote of the house. … Some of the
timid members, who had voted for the strongest resolution, had
become alarmed; and as soon as the house met, a motion was
made and carried to expunge it from the journals.' … The
manuscript journal of the day is not to be found; whether it
was suppressed, or casually lost, must remain a matter of
uncertainty; it disappeared, however, shortly after the
session. … In the interesting fact of the erasure of the fifth
resolution, Mr. Jefferson is supported by the distinct
recollection of Mr. Paul Carrington, late a judge of the court
of appeals of Virginia. and the only surviving member, it is
believed, of the house of burgesses of 1765. The statement is
also confirmed, if indeed further confirmation were necessary,
by the circumstance that instead of the five resolutions, so
solemnly recorded by Mr. Henry, as having passed the house,
the journal of the day exhibits only … four. … 'By these
resolutions,' says Mr. Jefferson, 'and his manner of
supporting them, Mr. Henry took the lead out of the hands of
those who had, theretofore, guided the proceedings of the
house; that is to say, of Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, Randolph.'
It was, indeed, the measure which raised him to the zenith of
his glory. He had never before had a subject which entirely
matched his genius, and was capable of drawing out all the
powers of his mind. … It was in the midst of this magnificent
debate, while he was descanting on the tyranny of the
obnoxious act, that he exclaimed in a voice of thunder, and
with the look of a god: 'Cesar had his Brutus—Charles the
First, his Cromwell—and George the Third—('Treason!' cried the
speaker—'Treason, treason!' echoed from every part of the
house. It was one of those trying moments which is decisive of
character. Henry faltered not for an instant; but rising to a
loftier attitude, and fixing on the speaker an eye of the most
determined fire, he finished his sentence with the firmest
emphasis)—may profit by their example. If this be treason,
make the most of it.' This was the only expression of defiance
which escaped him during the debate. He was, throughout life,
one of the most perfectly and uniformly decorous speakers that
ever took the floor of the house. … From the period of which
we have been speaking, Mr. Henry became the idol of the people
of Virginia; nor was his name confined to his native state.
His light and heat were seen and felt throughout the
continent; and he was every where regarded as the great
champion of colonial liberty."
_W. Wirt,
Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry,
section 2._
{3189}
"The publication of Mr. Henry's resolutions against the Stamp
Act created a widespread and intense excitement. They were
hailed as the action of the oldest, and hitherto the most
loyal of the colonies; and as raising a standard of resistance
to the detested Act. Mr. Otis pronounced them treasonable, and
this was the verdict of the Government party. But, treasonable
or not, they struck a chord which vibrated throughout America.
Hutchinson declared that, 'nothing extravagant appeared in the
papers till an account was received of the Virginia resolves.'
Soon the bold exclamation of Mr. Henry in moving them was
published, and he was hailed as the leader raised up by
Providence for the occasion. The 'Boston Gazette' declared:
'The people of Virginia have spoken very sensibly, and the
frozen politicians of a more northern government say they have
spoken treason.' But the people were no longer to be held down
by 'the frozen politicians,' north or south. They commenced to
form secret societies pledged to the resistance of the Act by
all lawful means, which we called 'The Sons of Liberty.'"
_W. W. Henry,
Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches,
volume 1, pages 93-94._
At New York, "in May articles began to appear in the papers
congratulating the public on the patriotic and frugal spirit
that was beginning to reign in the Province of New York. The
principal gentlemen of the city clad themselves in country
manufactures or 'turned clothes.' Weyman printed in large type
in his paper, the New York Gazette, the patriotic motto 'It is
better to wear a homespun coat than lose our liberty.'
Spinning was daily in vogue; materials being more wanting than
industrial hands; a need the farmers were endeavoring to
remedy by sewing more flax seed and keeping more sheep, and
finally we notice the odd statement 'that little lamb came to
market as no true lovers of their country or whose sympathetic
breasts feel for its distresses will buy it, and that
sassafras, balm and sage were greatly in use instead of tea
and allowed to be more wholesome.' Funerals and mourning,
which were then expensive luxuries, were modified and their
extravagance curtailed. The Society for promoting Arts and
Manufactures resolved to establish a bleaching field and to
erect a flax spinning school where the poor children of the
city should be taught the art. They also ordered large numbers
of spinning wheels to be made and loaned to all who would use
them. In September we find it announced that women's shoes
were made, cheaper and better than the renowned Hoses,' by
Wells, Lasher, Bolton, and Davis, and that there was a good
assortment on hand; that boots and men's shoes were made, in
every quarter of the city, better than the English made for
foreign sale; wove thread stockings in sundry places; the
making of linen, woolen, and cotton stuffs was fast
increasing; gloves, hats, carriages, harness and cabinet work
were plenty. The people were now self dependent; cards now
appeared recommending that no true friend of his country
should buy or import English goods, and the dry goods men were
warned that their importations would lie on hand to their cost
and ruin. There being now a sufficiency of home made goods it
was proposed on the 19th October to establish a market for all
kinds of Home Manufactures; and a market was opened under the
Exchange in Broad Street on the 23d. From the shortness of the
notice the design was not sufficiently known in the country
and there was neither plenty nor variety; but numbers of
buyers appeared and everything went off readily at good
prices. The gentlemen merchants of the city, as they were
styled, were not behind any class in patriotism or sacrifice.
A meeting was called for Monday 28th October at Jones' house
in the Fields, 'The Freemasons Arms,' but the attendance,
owing to the short notice, not being sufficient to enter upon
business, they were again summoned on the 30th October to meet
the next day at four o'clock at Mr. Burns' long room at the
City Arms to fall upon such methods as they shall then think
most advisable for their reciprocal interest. On the 31st
there was a general meeting of the principal merchants at this
tavern, which was known under the various names of the City
Arms, the Province Arms, the New York Arms, and stood on the
upper corner of Broadway and Stone, now Thames street, on the
site later occupied by the City Hotel. Resolutions were
adopted and subscribed by upwards of two hundred of the
principal merchants; 1st, to accompany all orders to Great
Britain for goods or merchandize of any nature kind or quality
whatever with instructions that they be not shipped unless the
Stamp Act be repealed; 2nd, to countermand all outstanding
orders unless on the conditions mentioned in the foregoing
resolution; 3rd, not to vend any goods sent on commission,
shipped after the 1st January succeeding, unless upon the same
condition. In consequence of these resolutions the retailers
of goods subscribed a paper obliging themselves not to buy any
goods, wares or merchandize after the 1st January unless the
Stamp Act were repealed. This was the first of the famous Non
Importation Agreement, the great commercial measure of offense
and defense against Great Britain. It punished friends and
foes alike and plunged a large portion of the English people
into the deepest distress; at the same time it taught the
Colonies the value and extent of their own resources."
_J. A. Stevens,
The Stamp Act in New York
(Magazine of American History, June, 1877)._
The Stamp Act was reprinted in New York "with a death's-head
upon it in place of the royal arms, and it was hawked about
the streets under the title of 'The Folly of England and the
Ruin of America.' In Boston, the church-bells were tolled, and
the flags on the shipping put at half-mast. But formal
defiance came first from Virginia." Patrick Henry had just
been elected to the colonial assembly. "In a committee of the
whole house, he drew up a series of resolutions, declaring
that the colonists were entitled to all the liberties and
privileges of natural-born subjects, and that 'the taxation of
the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves
to represent them, … is the distinguishing characteristic of
British freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot
exist.'
{3190}
It was further declared that any attempt to vest the power of
taxation in any other body than the colonial assembly was a
menace to British no less than to American freedom; that the
people of Virginia were not bound to obey any law enacted in
disregard of these fundamental principles; and that anyone who
should maintain the contrary should be regarded as a public
enemy. It was in the lively debate which ensued upon these
resolutions, that Henry uttered those memorable words
commending the example of Tarquin and Cæsar and Charles I. to
the attention of George III. Before the vote had been taken
upon all the resolutions, Governor Fauquier dissolved the
assembly; but the resolutions were printed in the newspapers,
and hailed with approval all over the country. Meanwhile, the
Massachusetts legislature, at the suggestion of Otis, had
issued a circular letter to all the colonies, calling for a
general congress, in order to concert measures of resistance
to the Stamp Act. The first cordial response came from South
Carolina, at the instance of Christopher Gadsden, a wealthy
merchant of Charleston and a scholar learned in Oriental
languages, a man of rare sagacity and most liberal spirit. …
The first announcement of the Stamp Act had called into
existence a group of secret societies of workingmen known as
'Sons of Liberty,' in allusion to a famous phrase in one of
Colonel Barre's speeches. These societies were solemnly
pledged to resist the execution of the obnoxious law. On the
14th of August, the quiet town of Boston witnessed some
extraordinary proceedings. …
See LIBERTY TREE.
Twelve days after, a mob sacked the splendid house of Chief
Justice Hutchinson, threw his plate into the street, and
destroyed the valuable library which he had been thirty years
in collecting, and which contained many manuscripts, the loss
of which was quite irreparable. As usual with mobs, the
vengeance fell in the wrong place, for Hutchinson had done his
best to prevent the passage of the Stamp Act. In most of the
colonies, the stamp officers were compelled to resign their
posts. Boxes of stamps arriving by ship were burned or thrown
into the sea. … In New York, the presence of the troops for a
moment encouraged the lieutenant-governor, Colden, to take a
bold stand in behalf of the law. He talked of firing upon the
people, but was warned that if he did so he would be speedily
hanged on a lamp-post, like Captain Porteous of Edinburgh. A
torchlight procession, carrying images of Colden and of the
devil, broke into the governor's coach-house, and, seizing his
best chariot, paraded it about town with the images upon it,
and finally burned up chariot and images on the Bowling Green,
in full sight of Colden and the garrison, who looked on from
the Battery, speechless with rage, but afraid to interfere.
Gage did not dare to have the troops used, for fear of
bringing on a civil war; and the next day the discomfited
Colden was obliged to surrender all the stamps to the common
council of New York, by whom they were at once locked up in
the City Hall. Nothing more was needed to prove the
impossibility of carrying the Stamp Act into effect."
_J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 1._
In Connecticut the stamp agent, Mr. Ingersoll, was compelled
by a body of armed citizens to resign.
See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1765.
ALSO IN:
_D. R. Goodloe,
The Birth of the Republic,
chapter 1,
(a compilation of accounts of proceedings in the
several colonies)._
_W. Tudor,
Life of James Otis,
chapter 14._
_W. V. Wells,
Life of Samuel Adams,
volume 1, chapter 2._
_I. W. Stuart,
Life of Jonathan Trumbull,
chapters. 7-8._
_T. Hutchinson,
History of Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1749-1774,
pages 117-141. _
_H. S. Randall,
Life of Jefferson,
volume 1, chapter 2._
_M. C. Tyler,
Patrick Henry,
chapter 5._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765.
The Stamp Act Congress.
The delegates chosen, on the invitation of Massachusetts, to
attend a congress for consultation on the circumstances of the
colonies, met, October 7, 1765, in the City Hall at New York.
"In no place were the Sons of Liberty more determined, or were
their opponents more influential. It was the headquarters of
the British force in America, the commander of which, General
Gage, wielded the powers of a viceroy. A fort within the city
was heavily mounted with cannon. Ships of war were moored near
the wharves. The executive, Lieutenant-governor Colden, was
resolved to execute the law. When the Massachusetts delegates
called on him, he remarked that the proposed congress would be
unconstitutional, and, unprecedented, and he should give it no
countenance. The congress consisted of twenty-eight delegates
from nine of the colonies; four, though sympathizing with the
movement, not choosing representatives. Here several of the
patriots, who had discussed the American question in their
localities, met for the first time. James Otis stood in this
body the foremost speaker. His pen, with the pens of the
brothers Robert and Phillip Livingston, of New York, were
summoned to service in a wider field. John Dickinson, of
Pennsylvania, was soon to be known through the colonies by
'The Farmer's Letters.' Thomas McKean and Cæsar Rodney were
pillars of the cause in Delaware. Edward Tilghman was an
honored name in Maryland. South Carolina, in addition to the
intrepid Gadsden, had, in Thomas Lynch and John Rutledge, two
patriots who appear prominently in the subsequent career of
that colony. Thus this body was graced by large ability,
genius, learning, and common sense. It was calm in its
deliberations, seeming unmoved by the whirl of the political
waters. The congress organized by the choice, by one vote, of
Timothy Ruggles, a Tory,—as the chairman,—and John Cotton,
clerk. The second day of its session, it took into
consideration the rights, privileges, and grievances of the
British American colonists.' After eleven days' debate, it
agreed—each colony having one vote—upon a declaration of
rights and grievances and ordered it to be inserted in the
journal. [The following is the 'Declaration': 'The members of
this congress, sincerely devoted, with the warmest sentiments
of affection and duty, to his majesty's person and government,
inviolably attached to the present happy establishment of the
protestant succession, and with minds deeply impressed by a
sense of the present and impending misfortunes of the British
colonies on this continent; having considered, as maturely as
time will permit, the circumstances of the said colonies,
esteem it our indispensable duty to make the following
declarations of our humble opinion, respecting the most
essential rights and liberties of the colonists, and of the
grievances under which they labor by reason of several late
acts of parliament.
{3191}
1. That his majesty's subjects in these colonies owe the same
allegiance to the crown of Great Britain that is owing from
his subjects born within the realm, and all due subordination
to that august body the parliament of Great Britain.
2. That his majesty's liege subjects in these colonies are
entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his
natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain.
3. That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a
people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes
be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given
personally, or by their representatives.
4. That the people of these colonies are not, and from their
local circumstances cannot be, represented in the house of
commons of Great Britain.
5. That the only representatives of these colonies are persons
chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been
or can be constitutionally imposed upon them, but by their
respective legislatures.
6. That all supplies to the crown being free gifts from the
people, it is unreasonable and inconsistent with the
principles and spirit of the British constitution for the
people of Great Britain to grant to his majesty the property
of the colonists.
7. That trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of
every British subject in these colonies.
8. That the late act of parliament entitled 'an act for
granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties,
in the British colonies and plantations in America,' &c., by
imposing taxes on the inhabitants of these colonies; and the
said act, and several other acts, by extending the
jurisdiction of the court of admiralty beyond its ancient
limits, have a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and
liberties of the colonists.
9. That the duties imposed by several late acts of parliament,
from the peculiar circumstances of these colonies, will be
extremely burdensome and grievous; and from the scarcity of
specie, the payment of them absolutely impracticable.
10. That as the profits of the trade of these colonies
ultimately center in Great Britain, to pay for the
manufactures which they are obliged to take from thence, they
eventually contribute very largely to all supplies granted to
the crown.
11. That the restrictions imposed by several late acts of
parliament on the trade of these colonies, will render them
unable to purchase the manufactures of Great Britain.
12. That the increase, prosperity, and happiness of these
colonies depend on the full and free enjoyment of their rights
and liberties, and an intercourse with Great Britain mutually
affectionate and advantageous.
13. That it is the right of the British subjects in these
colonies to petition the king, or either house of parliament.
14. That it is the indispensable duty of these colonies, to
the best of sovereigns, to the mother country, and to
themselves, to endeavor, by a loyal and dutiful address to his
majesty, and humble application to both houses of parliament,
to procure the repeal of the act for granting and applying
certain stamp duties, of all clauses of any other acts of
parliament whereby the jurisdiction of the admiralty is
extended as aforesaid, and of the other late acts for the
restriction of American commerce.'] …
The delegates present from only six of the colonies—except
Ruggles and Ogden—signed the petition; those from New York,
Connecticut, and South Carolina not being authorized to sign.
On the 25th of October, the congress adjourned. Special
measures were taken to transmit the proceedings to the
unrepresented colonies. The several assemblies, on meeting,
heartily approved of the course of their delegates who
concurred in the action of congress; but Ruggles, of
Massachusetts, was reprimanded by the speaker, in the name of
the House, and Ogden, of New Jersey, was hung in effigy by the
people. The action of the assemblies was announced in the
press. Meanwhile the Sons of Liberty, through their committees
of correspondence, urged a continental Union; pledged a mutual
support in case of danger; in some instances stated the
numbers of armed men that might be relied on; and thus evinced
a common determination to resist the execution of the Stamp
Act."
_R. Frothingham,
Rise of the Republic of the United States,
chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_T. Pitkin,
History of the United States,
volume 1, appendices 5-9._
_H. Niles,
Principles and Acts of the Revolution (edition of 1876),
pages 155-168._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.
Treaties with the Indians at German Flats and Fort Stanwix.
Cession of Iroquois claims to western Pennsylvania,
West Virginia and Kentucky.
The drawing of the Indian boundary line.
"After the success of Bradstreet and Bouquet [see PONTIAC'S
WAR], there was no difficulty in concluding a treaty with all
the Western Indians; and late in April, 1765, Sir William
Johnson, at the German Flats, held a conference with the
various nations, and settled a definite peace. At this meeting
two propositions were made; the one to fix some boundary line,
west of which the Europeans should not go; and the savages
named, as this line, the Ohio or Alleghany and Susquehannah;
but no definite agreement was made, Johnson not being
empowered to act. The other proposal was, that the Indians
should grant to the traders, who had suffered in 1763, a tract
of land in compensation for the injuries then done them, and
to this the red men agreed. … During the very year that
succeeded the treaty of German Flats, settlers crossed the
mountains and took possession of lands in western Virginia and
along the Monongahela. The Indians, having received no pay for
these lands, murmured, and once more a border war was feared.
… And not only were frontier men thus passing the line tacitly
agreed on, but Sir William himself was even then meditating a
step which would have produced, had it been taken, a general
Indian war again. This was the purchase and settlement of an
immense tract south of the Ohio River, where an independent
colony was to be formed. How early this plan was conceived we
do not learn, but, from Franklin's letters, we find that it
was in contemplation in the spring of 1766. At that time
Franklin was in London, and was written to by his son,
Governor Franklin of New Jersey, with regard to the proposed
colony. The plan seems to have been to buy of the Six Nations
the lands south of the Ohio, a purchase which it was not
doubted Sir William might make, and then to procure from the
King a grant of as much territory as the Company which it was
intended to form would require. Governor Franklin,
accordingly, forwarded to his father an application for a
grant, together with a letter from Sir William, recommending
the plan to the ministry; all of which was duly communicated
to the proper department. But at that time there were various
interests bearing upon this plan of Franklin. The old Ohio
Company [see OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754] was still suing,
through its agent, Colonel George Mercer, for a perfection of
the original grant. …
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General Lyman, from Connecticut we believe, was soliciting a
new grant similar to that now asked by Franklin; and the
ministers themselves were divided as to the policy and
propriety of establishing any settlements so far in the
interior,—Shelburne being in favor of the new colony,
Hillsborough opposed to it. The Company was organized,
however, and the nominally leading man therein being Mr.
Thomas' Walpole, a London banker of eminence, it was known as
the Walpole Company. … Before any conclusion was come to, it
was necessary to arrange definitely that boundary line which
had been vaguely talked of in 1765, and with respect to which
Sir William Johnson had written to the ministry, who had
mislaid his letters and given him no instructions. The
necessity of arranging this boundary was also kept in mind by
the continued and growing irritation of the Indians, who found
themselves invaded from every side. … Franklin, the father,
all this time, was urging the same necessity upon the
ministers in England; and about Christmas of 1767, Sir
William's letters on the subject having been found, orders
were sent him to complete the proposed purchase from the Six
Nations, and settle all differences. But the project for a
colony was for the time dropped, a new administration coming
in which was not that way disposed. Sir William Johnson having
received, early in the spring, the orders from England
relative to a new treaty with the Indians, at once took steps
to secure a full attendance. Notice was given to the various
colonial governments, to the Six Nations, the Delawares, and
the Shawanese, and a Congress was appointed to meet at Fort
Stanwix during the following October. It met upon the 24th of
that month, and was attended by representatives from New
Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania; by Sir William and his
deputies; by the agents of those traders who had suffered in
the war of 1763; and by deputies from all of the Six Nations,
the Delawares, and the Shawanese. The first point to be
settled was the boundary line which was to determine the
Indian lands of the West from that time forward; and this line
the Indians, upon the 1st of November, stated should begin on
the Ohio at the mouth of the Cherokee (or Tennessee) river;
thence go up the Ohio and Alleghany to Kittaning; thence
across to the Susquehannah, &c.; whereby the whole country
south of the Ohio and Alleghany, to which the Six Nations had
any claim, was transferred to the British. One deed, for a
part of this land, was made on the 3d of November to William
Trent, attorney for twenty-two traders, whose goods had been
destroyed by the Indians in 1763. The tract conveyed by this
was between the Kenhawa and Monongahela, and was by the
traders named 'Indiana.' Two days afterward, a deed for the
remaining western lands was made to the King, and the price
agreed on paid down. These deeds were made upon the express
agreement, that no claim should ever be based upon previous
treaties, those of Lancaster, Logstown, &c.; and they were
signed by the chiefs of the Six Nations, for themselves, their
allies and dependents, the Shawanese, Delawares, Mingoes of
Ohio, and others; but the Shawanese and Delaware deputies
present did not sign them. Such was the treaty of Stanwix,
whereon rests the title by purchase to Kentucky, western
Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It was a better foundation,
perhaps, than that given by previous treaties, but was
essentially worthless; for the lands conveyed were not
occupied or hunted on by those conveying them. In truth, we
cannot doubt that this immense grant was obtained by the
influence of Sir William Johnson, in order that the new
colony, of which he was to be governor, might be founded
there. … The white man could now quiet his conscience when
driving the native from his forest home, and feel sure that an
army would back his pretensions. … Meantime more than one bold
man had ventured for a little while into the beautiful valleys
of Kentucky, and, on the 1st of May, 1769, there was one going
forth from his 'peaceable habitation on the Yadkin river in
North Carolina,' whose name has since gone far and wide over
this little planet of ours, he having become the type of his
class. This was Daniel Boone. He crossed the mountains, and
spent that summer and the next winter in the West. But, while
he was rejoicing in the abundance of buffalo, deer, and
turkeys among the cane-brakes, longer heads were meditating
still that new colony, the plan of which had been lying in
silence for two years and more. The Board of Trade was again
called on to report upon the application, and Lord
Hillsborough, the President, reported against it. This called
out Franklin's celebrated 'Ohio Settlement,' a paper written
with so much ability, that the King's Council put by the
official report, and granted the petition, a step which
mortified the noble lord so much that he resigned his official
station. The petition now needed only the royal sanction,
which was not given until August 14th, 1772; but in 1770, the
Ohio Company was merged in Walpole's, and, the claims of the
soldiers of 1756 being acknowledged both by the new Company
and by government, all claims were quieted. Nothing was ever
done, however, under the grant to Walpole, the Revolution soon
coming upon America. After the Revolution, Mr. Walpole and his
associates petitioned Congress respecting their lands, called
by them 'Vandalia,' but could get no help from that body. What
was finally done by Virginia with the claims of this and other
companies, we do not find written, but presume their lands
were all looked on as forfeited."
_J. H. Perkins,
English Discoveries in the Ohio Valley
(North American Review, July, 1839)._
ALSO IN:
_W. L. Stone,
Life and Times of Sir William Johnson,
volume 2, chapter 16._
_B. Franklin, Works,
(edited by Sparks),
volume 4, pages 233-241, and 302-380._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766.
Examination of Dr. Franklin before Parliament.
On the 28th of January, 1766, while the bill for the repeal of
the Stamp Act was pending in Parliament, Dr. Franklin was
examined before the House of Commons, in Committee. The
questions and answers of this very interesting examination, as
reported in the Parliamentary History, were as follows:
Q. What is your name, and place of abode?
A. Franklin, of Philadelphia.
Q. Do the Americans pay any considerable taxes among
themselves?
A. Certainly many, and very heavy taxes.
Q. What are the present taxes in Pennsylvania,
laid by the laws of the colony?
A. There are taxes on all estates real and personal, a
poll-tax, a tax on all offices, professions, trades, and
businesses, according to their profits; an excise on all wine,
rum, and other spirit; and a duty of ten pounds per head on all
negroes imported, with some other duties.
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Q. For what purposes are those taxes laid?
A. For the support of the civil and military establishments
of the country, and to discharge the heavy debt contracted
in the last war.
Q. How long are those taxes to continue?
A. Those for discharging the debt are to continue till 1772,
and longer, if the debt should not be then all discharged. The
others must always continue.
Q. Was it not expected that the debt would have been sooner
discharged?
A. It was, when the peace was made with France and Spain; but
a fresh war breaking out with the Indians, a fresh load of
debt was incurred, and the taxes, of course, continued longer
by a new law.
Q. Are not all the people very able to pay those taxes?
A. No. The frontier counties, all along the continent, having
been frequently ravaged by the enemy, and greatly
impoverished, are able to pay very little tax. And therefore,
in consideration of their distresses, our late tax laws do
expressly favour those counties, excusing the sufferers; and I
suppose the same is done in other governments.
Q. Are not you concerned in the management of the post office
in America?
A. Yes; I am deputy post-master general of North America.
Q. Don't you think the distribution of stamps, by post, to all
the inhabitants, very practicable, if there was no opposition?
A. The posts only go along the sea coasts; they do not, except
in a few instances, go back into the country; and if they did,
sending for stamps by post would occasion an expense of
postage, amounting, in many cases, to much more than that of
the stamps themselves.
Q. Are you acquainted with Newfoundland?
A. I never was there.
Q. Do you know whether there are any post-roads on that
island?
A. I have heard that there are no roads at all; but that the
communication between one settlement and another is by sea
only.
Q. Can you disperse the stamps by post in Canada?
A. There is only a post between Montreal and Quebec. The
inhabitants live so scattered and remote from each other, in
that vast country, that posts cannot be supported among them,
and therefore they cannot get stamps per post. The English
colonies too, along the frontiers, are very thinly settled.
Q. From the thinness of the back settlements,
would not the Stamp Act be extremely inconvenient
to the inhabitants if executed?
A. To be sure it would; as many of the inhabitants could not
get stamps when they had occasion for them, without taking
long journeys, and spending, perhaps, three or four pounds,
that the crown might get sixpence.
Q. Are not the colonies, from their circumstances, very able
to pay the stamp duty?
A. In my opinion, there is not gold and silver enough in the
colonies to pay the stamp duty for one year.
Q. Don't you know that the money arising from the stamps was
all to be laid out in America?
A. I know it is appropriated by the act to the American
service; but it will be spent in the conquered colonies, where
the soldiers are, not in the colonies that pay it.
Q. Is there not a balance of trade due from the colonies where
the troops are posted, that will bring back the money to the
old colonies?
A. I think not. I believe very little would come back. I know
of no trade likely to bring it back. I think it would come
from the colonies where it was spent directly to England; for
I have always observed, that in every colony the more plenty
of means of remittance to England, the more goods are sent
for, and the more trade with England carried on.
Q. What number of white inhabitants do you think there are in
Pennsylvania?
A. I suppose there may be about 160,000.
Q. What number of them are Quakers?
A. Perhaps a third.
Q. What number of Germans?
A. Perhaps another third; but I cannot speak with certainty.
Q. Have any number of the Germans seen service, as soldiers,
in Europe?
A. Yes, many of them, both in Europe and America.
Q. Are they as much dissatisfied with the stamp duty as the
English?
A. Yes, and more; and with reason, as their stamps are, in
many cases, to be double.
Q. How many white men do you suppose there are in North
America?
A. About 300,000, from 16 to 60 years of age.
Q. What may be the amount of one year's imports into
Pennsylvania from Britain?
A. I have been informed that our merchants compute the imports
from Britain to be above 500,000_l_.
Q. What may be the amount of the produce of your province
exported to Britain?
A. It must be small, as we produce little that is wanted
in Britain. I suppose it cannot exceed 40,000_l_.
Q. How then do you pay the balance?
A. The balance is paid by our produce carried to the West
Indies, and sold in our own islands, or to the French,
Spaniards, Danes, and Dutch; by the same carried to other
colonies in North America, as to New England, Nova Scotia,
Newfoundland, Carolina, and Georgia; by the same carried to
different parts of Europe, as Spain, Portugal and Italy. In
all which places we receive either money, bills of exchange,
or commodities that suit for remittance to Britain; which,
together with all the profits on the industry of our merchants
and mariners, arising in those circuitous voyages, and the
freights made by their ships, centre finally in Britain to
discharge the balance, and pay for British manufactures
continually used in the province, or sold to foreigners by our
traders.
Q. Have you heard of any difficulties lately laid on the
Spanish trade?
A. Yes, I have heard that it has been greatly obstructed by
some new regulations, and by the English men of war and
cutters stationed all along the coast in America.
Q. Do you think it right, that America should be protected by
this country, and pay no part of the expense?
A. That is not the case. The colonies raised, clothed and
paid, during the last war, nearly 25,000 men, and spent many
millions.
Q. Were you not reimbursed by parliament? A. We were only
reimbursed what, in your opinion, we had advanced beyond our
proportion, or beyond what might reasonably be expected from
us; and it was a very small part of what we spent.
Pennsylvania, in particular, disbursed about 500,000_l_,
and the reimbursements, in the whole, did not exceed
60,000_l_.
Q. You have said that you pay heavy taxes in Pennsylvania;
what do they amount to in the pound?
A. The tax on all estates, real and personal, is eighteen
pence in the pound, fully rated; and the tax on the profits of
trades and professions, with other taxes, do, I suppose, make
full half a crown in the pound.
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Q. Do you know any thing of the rate of exchange in
Pennsylvania, and whether it has fallen lately?
A. It is commonly from 170 to 175. I have heard that it has
fallen lately from 175 to 162 and a half, owing, I suppose, to
their lessening their orders for goods; and when their debts
to this country are paid, I think the exchange will probably
be at par.
Q. Do not you think the people of America would submit to pay
the stamp duty, if it was moderated?
A. No, never, unless compelled by force of arms.
Q. Are not the taxes in Pennsylvania laid on unequally, in
order to burden the English trade, particularly the tax on
professions and business?
A. It is not more burdensome in proportion than the tax on
lands. It is intended, and supposed to take an equal
proportion of profits.
Q. How is the assembly composed? Of what kinds of people are
the members, landholders or traders?
A. It is composed of landholders, merchants, and artificers.
Q. Are not the majority landholders?
A. I believe they are.
Q. Do not they, as much as possible, shift the tax off from
the land, to ease that; and lay the burthen heavier on trade?
A. I have never understood it so. I never heard such a thing
suggested. And indeed an attempt of that kind could answer no
purpose. The merchant or trader is always skilled in figures,
and ready with his pen and ink. If unequal burdens are laid on
his trade, he puts an additional price on his goods; and the
consumers, who are chiefly landholders, finally pay the
greatest part, if not the whole.
Q. What was the temper of America towards Great Britain before
the year 1763?
A. The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the
government of the crown, and paid, in all their courts,
obedience to acts of parliament. Numerous as the people are in
the several old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts,
citadels, garrisons or armies, to keep them in subjection.
They were governed by this country at the expense only of a
little pen, ink, and paper. They were led by a thread. They
had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain,
for its laws, its customs and manners, and even a fondness for
its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of
Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an
Old-England man was, of itself, a character of some respect,
and gave a kind of rank among us.
Q. And what is their temper now?
A. O, very much altered.
Q. Did you ever hear the authority of parliament to make laws
for America questioned till lately?
A. The authority of parliament was allowed to be valid in all
laws, except such as should lay internal taxes. It was never
disputed in laying duties to regulate commerce.
Q. In what proportion hath population increased in America?
A. I think the inhabitants of all the provinces together,
taken at a medium, double in about 25 years. But their demand
for British manufactures increases much faster, as the
consumption is not merely in proportion to their numbers, but
grows with the growing abilities of the same numbers to pay
for them. In 1723, the whole importation from Britain to
Pennsylvania, was but about 15,000_l_. sterling; it is
now near half a million.
Q. In what light did the people of America use to consider the
parliament of Great Britain?
A. They considered the parliament as the great bulwark and
security of their liberties and privileges, and always spoke
of it with the utmost respect and veneration. Arbitrary
ministers, they thought, might possibly, at times, attempt to
oppress them; but they relied on it, that the parliament, on
application, would always give redress. They remembered, with
gratitude, a strong instance of this, when a bill was brought
into parliament, with a clause to make royal instructions laws
in the colonies, which the House of Commons would not pass,
and it was thrown out.
Q. And have they not still the same respect for parliament?
A. No; it is greatly lessened.
Q. To what causes is that owing?
A. To a concurrence of causes; the restraints lately laid on
their trade, by which the bringing of foreign gold and silver
into the colonies was prevented; the prohibition of making
paper money among themselves; and then demand a new and heavy
tax by stamps; taking away at the same time, trials by juries,
and refusing to receive and hear their humble petitions.
Q. Don't you think they would submit to the Stamp Act, if it
was modified, the obnoxious parts taken out, and the duty
reduced to some particulars, of small moment?
A. No; they will never submit to it.
Q. What do you think is the reason that the people of America
increase faster than in England?
A. Because they marry younger, and more generally.
Q. Why so?
A. Because any young couple that are industrious, may easily
obtain land of their own, on which they can raise a family.
Q. Are not the lower rank of people more at their ease in
America than in England?
A. They may be so, if they are sober and diligent, as they
are better paid for their labour.
Q. What is your opinion of a future tax, imposed on the same
principle with that of the Stamp Act, how would the Americans
receive it?
A. Just as they do this. They would not pay it.
Q. Have not you heard of the resolution of this House, and of
the House of Lords, asserting the right of parliament relating
to America, including a power to tax the people there?
A. Yes, I have heard of such resolutions.
Q. What will be the opinion of the Americans on those
resolutions?
A. They will think them unconstitutional and unjust.
Q. Was it an opinion in America before 1763, that the
parliament had no right to lay taxes and duties there?
A. I never heard any objection to the right of laying duties
to regulate commerce; but a right to lay internal taxes was
never supposed to be in parliament, as we are not represented
there.
Q. On what do you found your opinion, that the people in
America made any such distinction?
A. I know that whenever the subject has occurred in
conversation where I have been present, it has appeared to be
the opinion of every one, that we could not be taxed in a
parliament where we were not represented. But the payment of
duties laid by act of parliament, as regulations of commerce,
was never disputed.
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Q. But can you name any act of assembly, or public act of
any of your governments, that made such distinction?
A. I do not know that there was any; I think there was never
an occasion to make any such act, till now that you have
attempted to tax us: that has occasioned resolutions of
assembly, declaring the distinction, in which I think every
assembly on the continent, and every member in every assembly,
have been unanimous.
Q. What then could occasion conversations on that subject
before that time?
A. There was, in 1754, a proposition made (I think it came
from hence) that in case of a war, which was then apprehended,
the governors of the colonies should meet, and order the
levying of troops, building of forts, and taking every other
necessary measure for the general defence; and should draw on
the treasury here, for the sums expended, which were
afterwards to be raised in the colonies by a general tax, to
be laid on them by act of parliament. This occasioned a good
deal of conversation on the subject, and the general opinion
was, that the parliament neither would, nor could lay any tax
on us, till we were duly represented in parliament, because it
was not just, nor agreeable to the nature of an English
constitution.
Q. Don't you know there was a time in New York, when it was
under consideration to make an application to parliament, to
lay taxes on that colony, upon a deficiency arising from the
assembly's refusing or neglecting to raise the necessary
supplies for the support of the civil government?
A. I never heard of it.
Q. There was such an application under consideration in New
York; and do you apprehend they could suppose the right of
parliament to lay a tax in America was only local, and
confined to the case of a deficiency in a particular colony,
by a refusal of its assembly to raise the necessary supplies?
A. They could not suppose such a case, as that the assembly
would not raise the necessary supplies to support its own
government. An assembly that would refuse it, must want common
sense, which cannot be supposed. I think there was never any
such case at New York, and that it must be a
misrepresentation, or the fact must be misunderstood. I know
there have been some attempts, by ministerial instructions
from hence, to oblige the assemblies to settle permanent
salaries on governors, which they wisely refused to do; but I
believe no assembly of New York, or any other colony, ever
refused duly to support government, by proper allowances, from
time to time, to public officers.
Q. But in case a governor, acting by instruction, should call
on an assembly to raise the necessary supplies, and the
assembly should refuse to do it, do you not think it would
then be for the good of the people of the colony, as well as
necessary to government, that the parliament should tax them?
A. I do not think it would be necessary. If an assembly could
possibly be so absurd as to refuse raising the supplies
requisite for the maintenance of government among them, they
could not long remain in such a situation; the disorders and
confusion occasioned by it, must soon bring them to reason.
Q. If it should not, ought not the right to be in Great
Britain of applying a remedy?
A. A right only to be used in such a case, I should have no
objection to, supposing it to be used merely for the good of
the people of the colony.
Q. But who is to judge of that, Britain or the colony?
A. Those that feel can best judge.
Q. You say the colonies have always submitted to external
taxes, and object to the right of parliament only in laying
internal taxes; now can you shew that there is any kind of
difference between the two taxes to the colony on which they
may be laid?
A. I think the difference is very great. An external tax is a
duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the
first cost, and other charges on the commodity, and when it is
offered to sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do
not like it at that price, they refuse it: they are not
obliged to pay it. But an internal tax is forced from the
people without their consent, if not laid by their own
representatives. The Stamp Act says, we shall have no
commerce, make no exchange of property with each other,
neither purchase nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall
neither marry nor make our wills, unless we pay such sums, and
thus it is intended to extort our money from us, or ruin us by
the consequences of refusing to pay it.
Q. But supposing the internal tax or duty to be laid on the
necessaries of life imported into your colony, will not that
be the same thing in its effects as an internal tax?
A. I do not know a single article imported into the northern
colonies, but what they can either do without or make
themselves.
Q. Don't you think cloth from England absolutely necessary to
them?
A. No, by no means absolutely necessary; with industry and
good management, they may very well supply themselves with all
they want.
Q. Will it not take a long time to establish that manufacture
among them; and must they not in the mean while suffer
greatly?
A. I think not. They have made a surprising progress already.
And I am of opinion, that before their old clothes are worn
out, they will have new ones of their own making.
Q. Can they possibly find wool enough in North America?
A. They have taken steps to increase the wool. They entered
into general combination to eat no more lamb, and very few
lambs were killed last year. This course persisted in, will
soon make a prodigious difference in the quantity of wool. And
the establishing of great manufactories, like those in the
clothing towns here, is not necessary, as it is where the
business is to be carried on for the purposes of trade. The
people will all spin and work for themselves, in their own
houses.
Q. Can there be wool and manufacture enough in one or two
years?
A. In three years, I think, there may.
Q. Does not the severity of the winter, in the northern
colonies, occasion the wool to be of bad quality?
A. No, the wool is very fine and good.
Q. In the more southern colonies, as in Virginia, don't you
know that the wool is coarse, and only a kind of hair?
A. I don't know it. I never heard it. Yet I have been
sometimes in Virginia. I cannot say I ever took particular
notice of the wool there, but I believe it is good, though I
cannot speak positively of it; but Virginia, and the colonies
south of it, have less occasion for wool; their winters are
short, and not very severe, and they can very well clothe
themselves with linen and cotton of their own raising for the
rest of the year.
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Q. Are not the people in the more northern colonies obliged to
fodder their sheep all the winter?
A. In some of the most northern colonies they may be obliged
to do it some part of the winter.
Q. Considering the resolutions of parliament as to the right,
do you think, if the Stamp Act is repealed, that the North
Americans will be satisfied?
A. I believe they will.
Q. Why do you think so?
A. I think the resolutions of right will give them very little
concern, if they are never attempted to be carried into
practice. The colonies will probably consider themselves in
the same situation, in that respect, with Ireland; they know
you claim the same right with regard to Ireland, but you never
exercise it. And they may believe you never will exercise it
in the colonies, any more than in Ireland, unless on some very
extraordinary occasion.
Q. But who are to be the judges of that extraordinary
occasion? Is not the parliament?
A. Though the parliament may judge of the occasion, the people
will think it can never exercise such right, till
representatives from the colonies are admitted into
parliament, and that whenever the occasion arises,
representatives will be ordered.
Q. Did you never hear that Maryland, during the last war, had
refused to furnish a quota towards the common defence?
A. Maryland has been much misrepresented in that matter.
Maryland, to my knowledge, never refused to contribute, or
grant aids to the crown. The assemblies every year, during the
war, voted considerable sums, and formed bills to raise them.
The bills were, according to the constitution of that
province, sent up to the council, or upper house, for
concurrence, that they might be presented to the governor, in
order to be enacted into laws. Unhappy disputes between the
two houses, arising from the defects of that constitution
principally, rendered all the bills but one or two abortive.
The proprietary's council rejected them. It is true, Maryland
did not contribute its proportion, but it was, in my opinion,
the fault of the government, not of the people.
Q. Was it not talked of in the other provinces as a proper
measure to apply to parliament to compel them?
A. I have heard such discourse: but as it was well known that
the people were not to blame, no such application was ever
made, or any step taken towards it.
Q. Was it not proposed at a public meeting?
A. Not that I know of.
Q. Do you remember the abolishing of the paper currency in New
England, by act of assembly?
A. I do remember its being abolished in the Massachusetts Bay.
Q. Was not lieutenant governor Hutchinson principally
concerned in that transaction?
A. I have heard so.
Q. Was it not at that time a very unpopular law?
A. I believe it might, though I can say little about it, as I
lived at a distance from that province.
Q. Was not the scarcity of gold and silver an argument used
against abolishing the paper?
A. I suppose it was.
Q. What is the present opinion there of that law? Is it as
unpopular as it was at first?
A. think it is not
.
Q. Have not instructions from hence been sometimes sent over
to governors, highly oppressive and unpolitical?
A. Yes.
Q. Have not some governors dispensed with them for that
reason?
A. Yes, I have heard so.
Q. Did the Americans ever dispute the controuling
power of parliament to regulate the commerce?
A. No.
Q. Can any thing less than a military force carry the Stamp
Act into execution?
A. I do not see how a military force can be applied to that
purpose.
Q. Why may it not?
A. Suppose a military force sent into America, they
will find nobody in arms; what are they then to do?
They cannot force a man to take stamps who chuses
to do without them. They will not find a rebellion;
they may indeed make one.
Q. If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the
consequences?
A. A total loss of the respect and affection the people of
America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that
depends on that respect and affection.
Q. How can the commerce be affected?
A. You will find, that if the act is not repealed, they will
take very little of your manufactures in a short time.
Q. Is it in their power to do without them?
A. I think they may very well do without them.
Q. Is it their interest not to take them?
A. The goods they take from Britain are either necessaries,
mere conveniencies, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, &c.
with a little industry they can make at home: the second they
can do without, till they are able to provide them among
themselves; and the last, which are much the greatest part,
they will strike off immediately. They are mere articles of
fashion, purchased and consumed, because the fashion in a
respected country, but will now be detested and rejected. The
people have already struck off, by general agreement, the use
of all goods fashionable in mournings, and many thousand
pounds worth are sent back as unsaleable.
Q. Is it their interest to make cloth at home?
A. I think they may at present get it cheaper from Britain, I
mean of the same fineness and neatness of workmanship; but
when one considers other circumstances, the restraints on
their trade, and the difficulty of making remittances, it is
their interest to make every thing.
Q. Suppose an act of internal regulations connected with the
tax, how would they receive it?
A. I think it would be objected to.
Q. Then no regulation with a tax would be submitted to?
A. Their opinion is, that when aids to the crown are wanted,
they are to be asked of the several assemblies according to
the old established usage, who will, as they have always done,
grant them freely. And that their money ought not to be given
away, without their consent, by persons at a distance,
unacquainted with their circumstances and abilities. The
granting aids to the crown, is the only means they have of
recommending themselves to their sovereign, and they think it
extremely hard and unjust, that a body of men, in which they
have no representatives, should make a merit to itself of
giving and granting what is not its own, but theirs, and
deprives them of a right they esteem of the utmost value and
importance, as it is the security of all their other rights.
Q. But is not the post office, which they have long received,
a tax as well as a regulation?
A. No; the money paid for the postage of a letter is not of
the nature of a tax; it is merely a quantum meruit for a
service done; no person is compellable to pay the money, if he
does not chuse to receive the service. A man may still, as
before the act, send his letter by a servant, a special
messenger, or a friend, if he thinks it cheaper and safer.
{3197}
Q. But do they not consider the regulations of the
post-office, by the act of last year, as a tax?
A. By the regulations of last year the rate of postage was
generally abated near thirty per cent. through all America;
they certainly cannot consider such abatement as a tax.
Q. If an excise was laid by parliament, which they might
likewise avoid paying, by not consuming the articles excised,
would they then not object to it?
A. They would certainly object to it, as an excise is
unconnected with any service done, and is merely an aid which
they think ought to be asked of them, and granted by them if
they are to pay it, and can be granted for them, by no others
whatsoever, whom they have not impowered for that purpose.
Q. You say they do not object to the right of parliament, in
laying duties on goods to be paid on their importation; now,
is there any kind of difference between a duty on the
importation of goods and an excise on their consumption?
A. Yes; a very material one; an excise, for the reasons I have
just mentioned, they think you can have no right to lay within
their country. But the sea is yours; you maintain, by your
fleets, the safety of navigation in it, and keep it clear of
pirates; you may have therefore a natural and equitable right
to some toll or duty on merchandizes carried through that part
of your dominions, towards defraying the expense you are at in
ships to maintain the safety of that carriage.
Q. Does this reasoning hold in the case of a duty laid on the
produce of their lands exported? And would they not then
object to such a duty?
A. If it tended to make the produce so much dearer abroad as
to lessen the demand for it, to be sure they would object to
such a duty; not to your right of laying it, but they would
complain of it as a burden, and petition you to lighten it.
Q. Is not the duty paid on the tobacco exported a duty of that
kind?
A. That, I think, is only on tobacco carried coastwise from
one colony to another, and appropriated as a fund for
supporting the college at Williamsburgh, in Virginia.
Q. Have not the assemblies in the West Indies the same natural
rights with those in North America?
A. Undoubtedly.
Q. And is there not a tax laid there on their sugars exported?
A. I am not much acquainted with the West Indies, but the duty
of four and a half per cent., on sugars exported, was, I
believe, granted by their own assemblies.
Q. How much is the poll tax in your province laid on unmarried
men?
A. It is, I think, fifteen shillings, to be paid by every
single freeman, upwards of twenty one years old.
Q. What is the annual amount of all the taxes in Pennsylvania?
A. I suppose about 20,000_l_. sterling.
Q. Supposing the Stamp Act continued, and enforced, do you
imagine that ill humour will induce the Americans to give as
much for worse manufactures of their own and use them,
preferably to better of ours?
A. Yes, I think so. People will pay as freely to gratify one
passion as another, their resentment as their pride.
Q. Would the people at Boston discontinue their trade?
A. The merchants are a very small number compared with the
body of the people, and must discontinue their trade, if
nobody will buy their goods.
Q. What are the body of the people in the colonies?
A. They are farmers, husbandmen or planters.
Q. Would they suffer the produce of their lands to rot?
A. No; but they would not raise so much. They would
manufacture more, and plough less.
Q. Would they live without the administration of justice in
civil matters, and suffer all the inconveniencies of such a
situation for any considerable time, rather than take the
stamps, supposing the stamps were protected by a sufficient
force, where everyone might have them?
A. I think the supposition impracticable, that the stamps
should be so protected as that everyone might have them. The
Act requires sub-distributors to be appointed in every county
town, district, and village, and they would be necessary. But
the principal distributors, who were to have had a
considerable profit on the whole, have not thought it worth
while to continue in the office, and I think it impossible to
find sub-distributors fit to be trusted, who, for the trifling
profit that must come to their share, would incur the odium,
and run the hazard that would attend it; and if they could be
found, I think it impracticable to protect the stamps in so
many distant and remote places.
Q. But in places where they could be protected, would not the
people use them rather than remain in such a situation, unable
to obtain any right, or recover, by law, any debt?
A. It is hard to say what they would do. I can only judge what
other people will think, and how they will act, by what I feel
within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America,
and I had rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law
than submit to the Stamp Act. They will be debts of honour. It
is my opinion the people will either continue in that
situation, or find some way to extricate themselves, perhaps
by generally agreeing to proceed in the courts without stamps.
Q. What do you think a sufficient military force to protect
the distribution of the stamps in every part of America?
A. A very great force; I cannot say what, if the disposition
of America is for a general resistance.
Q. What is the number of men in America able to bear arms, or
of disciplined militia?
A. There are, I suppose, at least—[Question objected to. He
withdrew. Called in again.]
Q. Is the American Stamp Act an equal tax on that country?
A. I think not.
Q. Why so?
A. The greatest part of the money must arise from lawsuits for
the recovery of debts, and be paid by the lower sort of
people, who were too poor easily to pay their debts. It is
therefore a heavy tax on the poor, and a tax upon them for
being poor.
Q. But will not this increase of expense be a means of
lessening the number of lawsuits?
A. I think not; for as the costs all fall upon the debtor, and
are to be paid by him, they would be no discouragement to the
creditor to bring his action.
Q. Would it not have the effect of excessive usury?
A. Yes, as an oppression of the debtor.
{3198}
Q. How many ships are there laden annually in
North America with flax seed for Ireland?
A. I cannot speak to the number of ships, but I know that in
1752, 10,000 hogsheads of flax seed, each containing seven
bushels, were exported from Philadelphia to Ireland. I suppose
the quantity is greatly increased since that time; and it is
understood that the exportation from New York is equal to that
from Philadelphia.
Q. What becomes of the flax that grows with that flax seed?
A. They manufacture some into coarse, and some into a middling
kind of linen.
Q. Are there any slitting mills in America?
A. I think there are three, but I believe only one at present
employed. I suppose they will all be set to work, if the
interruption of the trade continues.
Q. Are there any fulling mills there?
A. A great many.
Q. Did you never hear that a great quantity of stockings were
contracted for, for the army, during the war, and manufactured
in Philadelphia?
A. I have heard so.
Q. If the Stamp Act should be repealed, would not the
Americans think they could oblige the parliament to repeal
every external tax law now in force?
A. It is hard to answer questions what people at such a
distance will think.
Q. But what do you imagine they will think were the motives of
repealing the Act?
A. I suppose they will think that it was repealed from a
conviction of its inexpediency; and they will rely upon it,
that while the same inexpediency subsists, you will never
attempt to make such another.
Q. What do you mean by its inexpediency?
A. I mean its inexpediency on several accounts; the poverty
and inability of those who were to pay the tax; the general
discontent it has occasioned; and the impracticability of
enforcing it. If the Act should be repealed, and the
legislature should shew its resentment to the opposers of the
Stamp Act, would the colonies acquiesce in the authority of
the legislature?
Q. What is your opinion they would do?
A. I don't doubt at all, that if the legislature repeal the
Stamp Act, the colonies will acquiesce in the authority.
Q. But if the legislature should think fit to ascertain its
right to lay taxes, by any act laying a small tax, contrary to
their opinion, would they submit to pay the tax?
A. The proceedings of the people in America have been
considered too much together. The proceedings of the
assemblies have been very different from those of the mobs,
and should be distinguished, as having no connection with each
other. The assemblies have only peaceably resolved what they
take to be their rights; they have not built a fort, raised a
man, or provided a grain of ammunition, in order to such
opposition. The ringleaders of riot they think ought to be
punished; they would punish them themselves, if they could.
Every sober, sensible man would wish to see rioters punished,
as otherwise peaceable people have no security of person or
estate. But as to an internal tax, how small soever, laid by
the legislature here on the people there, while they have no
representatives in this legislature, I think it will never be
submitted to.—They will oppose it to the last.—They do not
consider it as at all necessary for you to raise money on them
by your taxes, because they are, and always have been, ready
to raise money by taxes among themselves, and to grant large
sums, equal to their abilities, upon requisition from the
crown.—They have not only granted equal to their abilities,
but, during all the last war, they granted far beyond their
abilities, and beyond their proportion with this country, you
yourselves being judges, to the amount of many hundred
thousand pounds, and this they did freely and readily, only on
a sort of promise from the secretary of state, that it should
be recommended to parliament to make them compensation. It was
accordingly recommended to parliament, in the most honourable
manner, for them. America has been greatly misrepresented and
abused here, in papers, and pamphlets, and speeches, as
ungrateful, and unreasonable, and unjust, in having put this
nation to immense expense for their defence, and refusing to
bear any part of that expense. The colonies raised, paid, and
clothed, near 25,000 men during the last war, a number equal
to those sent from Britain, and far beyond their proportion;
they went deeply into debt in doing this, and all their taxes
and estates are mortgaged, for many years to come, for
discharging that debt. Government here was at that time very
sensible of this; The colonies were recommended to parliament.
Every year the King sent down to the House a written message
to this purpose, That his Majesty, being highly sensible of
the zeal and vigour with which his faithful subjects in North
America had exerted themselves, in defence of his Majesty's
just rights and possessions, recommended it to the House to
take the same into consideration, and enable him to give them
a proper compensation. You will find those messages on your
own journals every year of the war to the very last, and you
did accordingly give 200,000_l_. annually to the crown,
to be distributed in such compensation to the colonies. This
is the strongest of all proofs that the colonies, far from
being unwilling to bear a share of the burden, did exceed
their proportion; for if they had done less, or had only
equalled their proportion, there would have been no room or
reason for compensation. Indeed the sums reimbursed them, were
by no means adequate to the expense they incurred beyond their
proportion; but they never murmured at that; they esteemed
their sovereign's approbation of their zeal and fidelity, and
the approbation of this House, far beyond any other kind of
compensation; therefore there was no occasion for this act, to
force money from a willing people; they had not refused giving
money for the purposes of the act; no requisition had been
made: they were al ways willing and ready to do what could
reasonably be expected from them, and in this light they wish
to be considered.
Q. But suppose Great Britain should be engaged in a war in
Europe, would North America contribute to the support of it?
A. I do think they would, as far as their circumstances would
permit. They consider themselves as a part of the British
empire, and as having one common interest with it; they may be
looked on here as foreigners, but they do not consider
themselves as such. They are zealous for the honour and
prosperity of this nation, and while they are well used, will
always be ready to support it, as far as their little power
goes. In 1739 they were called upon to assist in the
expedition against Carthagena, and they sent 3,000 men to join
your army. It is true Carthagena is in America, but as remote
from the northern colonies as if it had been in Europe. They
make no distinction of wars, as to their duty of assisting in
them.
{3199}
I know the last war is commonly spoke of here as entered into
for the defence, or for the sake of the people of America. I
think it is quite misunderstood. It began about the limits
between Canada and Nova Scotia, about territories to which the
crown indeed laid claim, but were not claimed by any British
colony; none of the lands had been granted to any colonist; we
had therefore no particular concern or interest in that
dispute. As to the Ohio, the contest there began about your
right of trading in the Indian country, a right you had by the
treaty of Utrecht, which the French infringed; they seized the
traders and their goods, which were your manufactures; they
took a fort which a company of your merchants, and their
factors and correspondents, had erected there to secure that
trade. Braddock was sent with an army to re-take that fort
(which was looked on here as another incroachment on the
King's territory) and to protect your trade. It was not till
after his defeat that the colonies were attacked. They were
before in perfect peace with both French and Indians; the
troops were not therefore sent for their defence. The trade
with the Indians, though carried on in America, is not an
American interest. The people of America are chiefly farmers
and planters; scarce any thing that they raise or produce is
an article of commerce with the Indians. The Indian trade is a
British interest; it is carried on with British manufactures,
for the profit of British merchants and manufacturers;
therefore the war, as it commenced for the defence of
territories of the crown, the property of no American, and for
the defence of a trade purely British, was really a British
war—and yet the people of America made no scruple of
contributing their utmost towards carrying it on, and bringing
it to a happy conclusion.
Q. Do you think then that the taking possession of the King's
territorial rights, and strengthening the frontiers, is not an
American interest?
A. Not particularly, but conjointly a British and an American
interest.
Q. You will not deny that the preceding war, the war with
Spain, was entered into for the sake of America; was it not
occasioned by captures made in the American seas?
A. Yes; captures of ships carrying on the British trade there,
with British manufactures.
Q. Was not the late war with the Indians, since the peace with
France, a war for America only?
A. Yes: it was more particularly for America than the former,
but it was rather a consequence or remains of the former war,
the Indians not having been thoroughly pacified, and the
Americans bore by much the greatest share of the expense. It
was put an end to by the army under general Bouquet; there
were not above 300 regulars in that army, and above 1,000
Pennsylvanians.
Q. Is it not necessary to send troops to America, to defend
the Americans against the Indians?
A. No, by no means; it never was necessary. They defended
themselves when they were but a handful, and the Indians much
more numerous. They continually gained ground, and have driven
the Indians over the mountains, without any troops sent to
their assistance from this country. And can it be thought
necessary now to send troops for their defence from those
diminished Indian tribes, when the colonies are become so
populous, and so strong? There is not the least occasion for
it; they are very able to defend themselves.
Q. Do you say there were no more than 300 regular troops
employed in the late Indian war?
A, Not on the Ohio, or the frontiers of Pennsylvania, which
was the chief part of the war that affected the colonies.
There were garrisons at Niagara, Fort Detroit, and those
remote posts kept for the sake of your trade; I did not reckon
them, but I believe that on the whole the number of Americans,
or provincial troops, employed in the war, was greater than
that of the regulars. I am not certain, but I think so.
Q. Do you think the assemblies have a right to levy money on
the subject there, to grant to the crown?
A. I certainly think so; they have always done it.
Q. Are they acquainted with the Declaration of Rights; and do
they know that by that statute, money is not to be raised on
the subject but by consent of parliament?
A. They are very well acquainted with it.
Q. How then can they think they have a right to levy money for
the crown, or for any other than local purposes?
A. They understand that clause to relate to subjects only
within the realm; that no money can be levied on them for the
crown, but by consent of parliament. The colonies are not
supposed to be within the realm; they have assemblies of their
own, which are their parliaments, and they are, in that
respect, in the same situation with Ireland. When money is to
be raised for the crown upon the subject in Ireland, or in the
colonies, the consent is given in the parliament of Ireland,
or in the assemblies of the colonies. They think the
parliament of Great Britain cannot properly give that consent
till it has representatives from America; for the Petition of
Right expressly says, it is to be by common consent in
parliament, and the people of America have no representatives
in parliament, to make a part of that common consent.
Q. If the Stamp Act should be repealed, and an act should
pass, ordering the assemblies of the colonies to indemnify the
sufferers by the riots, would they obey it?
A. That is a question I cannot answer.
Q. Suppose the King should require the colonies to grant a
revenue, and the parliament should be against their doing it,
do they think they can grant a revenue to the King, without
the consent of the parliament of Great Britain?
A. That is a deep question. As to my own opinion I should
think myself at liberty to do it, and should do it, if I liked
the occasion.
Q, When money has been raised in the colonies, upon
requisitions, has it not been granted to the King?
A. Yes, always; but the requisitions have generally been for
some service expressed, as to raise, clothe, and pay troops,
and not for money only.
Q. If the act should pass, requiring the American Assemblies
to make compensation to the sufferers, and they should disobey
it, and then the parliament should, by another act, lay an
internal tax, would they obey it?
A. The people will pay no internal tax: and I think an act to
oblige the assemblies to make compensation is unnecessary, for
I am of opinion, that as soon as the present heats are abated,
they will take the matter into consideration, and if it is
right to be done, they will do it of themselves.
{3200}
Q. Do not letters often come into the post offices in America,
directed into some inland town where no post goes?
A. Yes.
Q. Can any private person take up those letters, and carry
them as directed?
A. Yes; any friend of the person may do it, paying the postage
that has accrued.
Q. But must not he pay an additional postage for the distance
to such an inland town?
A. No.
Q. Can the post-master answer delivering the letter, without
being paid such additional postage?
A. Certainly he can demand nothing, where he does no service.
Q. Suppose a person, being far from home, finds a letter in a
post office directed to him, and he lives in a place to which
the post generally goes, and the letter is directed to that
place, will the post-master deliver him the letter, without
his paying the postage received at the place to which the
letter is directed?
A. Yes; the office cannot demand postage for a letter that it
does not carry, or farther than it does carry it.
Q. Are not ferrymen in America obliged, by act of parliament,
to carry over the posts without pay?
A. Yes.
Q. Is not this a tax on the ferrymen?
A. They do not consider it as such, as they have an advantage
from persons travelling with the post.
Q. If the Stamp Act should be repealed, and the crown should
make a requisition to the colonies for a sum of money, would
they grant it?
A. I believe they would.
Q. Why do you think so?
A. I can speak for the colony I live in; I had it in
instruction from the assembly to assure the ministry, that as
they always had done, so they should always think it their
duty to grant such aids to the crown as were suitable to their
circumstances and abilities, whenever called upon for the
purpose, in the usual constitutional manner; and I had the
honour of communicating this instruction to that honorable
gentleman then minister.
Q. Would they do this for a British concern; as suppose a war
in some part of Europe, that did not affect them?
A. Yes, for any thing that concerned the general interest.
They consider themselves as a part of the whole.
Q. What is the usual constitutional manner of calling on the
colonies for aids?
A. A letter from the secretary of state.
Q. Is this all you mean, a letter from the secretary of state?
A. I mean the usual way of requisition, in a circular letter
from the secretary of state, by his Majesty's command,
reciting the occasion, and recommending it to the colonies to
grant such aids as became their loyalty, and were suitable to
their abilities.
Q. Did the secretary of state ever write for money for the
crown?
A. The requisitions have been to raise clothe, and pay men,
which cannot be done without money.
Q. Would they grant money alone, if called on?
A. In my opinion they would, money as well as men, when they
have money, or can procure it.
Q. If the parliament should repeal the Stamp Act, will the
assembly of Pennsylvania rescind their resolutions?
A. I think not.
Q. Before there was any thought of the Stamp Act, did they
wish for a representation in parliament?
A. No.
Q. Don't you know that there is, in the Pennsylvania charter,
an express reservation of the right of parliament to lay taxes
there?
A. I know there is a clause in the charter, by which the King
grants that he will levy no taxes on the inhabitants, unless
it be with the consent of the assembly, or by an act of
parliament.
Q. How then could the assembly of Pennsylvania assert, that
laying a tax on them by the Stamp Act was an infringement of
their rights?
A. They understand it thus: by the same charter, and
otherwise, they are entitled to all the privileges and
liberties of Englishmen; they find in the Great Charters, and
the Petition and Declaration of Rights, that one of the
privileges of English subjects is, that they are not to be
taxed but by their common consent; they have therefore relied
upon it, from the first settlement of the province, that the
parliament never would, nor could, by colour of that clause in
the charter, assume a right of taxing them, till it had
qualified itself to exercise such right, by admitting
representatives from the people to be taxed, who ought to make
a part of that common consent.
Q. Are there any words in the charter that justify that
construction?
A. The common rights of Englishmen, as declared by Magna
Charta, and the Petition of Right, all justify it.
Q. Does the distinction between internal and external taxes
exist in the words of the charter?
A. No, I believe not.
Q. Then may they not, by the same interpretation, object to
the parliament's right of external taxation?
A. They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been lately
used here to shew them that there is no difference, and that
if you have no right to tax them internally, you have none to
tax them externally, or make any other law to bind them. At
present they do not reason so, but in time they may possibly
be convinced by these arguments.
Q. Do not the resolutions of the Pennsylvania assemblies say,
all taxes?
A. If they do, they mean only internal taxes; the same words
have not always the same meaning here and in the colonies. By
taxes they mean internal taxes; by duties they mean customs;
these are the ideas of the language.
Q. Have you not seen the resolutions of the Massachusetts Bay
assembly?
A. I have.
Q. Do they not say, that neither external nor internal taxes
can be laid on them by parliament?
A. I don't know that they do; I believe not.
Q. If the same tax should say neither tax nor imposition could
be laid, does not that province hold the power of parliament
can lay neither?
A. I suppose that by the word imposition, they do not intend
to express duties to be laid on goods imported, as regulations
of commerce.
Q. What can the colonies mean then by imposition as distinct
from taxes?
A. They may mean many things, as impressing of men, or of
carriages, quartering troops on private houses, and the like;
there may be great impositions that are not properly taxes.
Q. Is not the post-office rate an internal tax laid by act of
parliament?
A. I have answered that.
Q. Are all parts of the colonies equally able to pay taxes?
A. No, certainly; the frontier parts, which have been ravaged
by the enemy, are greatly disabled by that means, and
therefore, in such cases, are usually favoured in our tax
laws.
{3201}
Q. Can we, at this distance, be competent judges of what
favours are necessary?
A. The parliament have supposed it, by claiming a right to
make tax laws for America; I think it impossible.
Q. Would the repeal of the Stamp Act be any discouragement of
your manufactures? Will the people that have begun to
manufacture decline it?
A. Yes, I think they will; especially if, at the same time,
the trade is opened again, so that remittances can be easily
made. I have known several instances that make it probable. In
the war before last, tobacco being low, and making little
remittance, the people of Virginia went generally into family
manufactures. Afterwards, when tobacco bore a better price,
they returned to the use of British manufactures. So fulling
mills were very much disused in the last war in Pennsylvania,
because bills were then plenty, and remittances could easily
be made to Britain for English cloth and other goods.
Q. If the Stamp Act should be repealed, would it induce the
assemblies of America to acknowledge the right of parliament
to tax them, and, would they erase their resolutions?
A. No, never.
Q. Is there no means of obliging them to erase those
resolutions?
A. None, that I know of; they will never do it, unless
compelled by force of arms.
Q. Is there a power on earth that can force them to erase
them?
A. No power, how great soever, can force men to change their
opinions.
Q. Do they consider the post office as a tax, or as a
regulation?
A. Not as a tax, but as a regulation and conveniency; every
assembly encouraged it, and supported it in its infancy, by
grants of money, which they would not otherwise have done; and
the people have always paid the postage.
Q. When did you receive the instructions you mentioned?
A. I brought them with me, when I came to England, about 15
months since.
Q. When did you communicate that instruction to the minister?
A. Soon after my arrival, while the stamping of America was
under consideration, and before the Bill was brought in.
Q. Would it be most for the interest of Great Britain, to
employ the hands of Virginia in tobacco, or in manufactures?
A. In tobacco, to be sure.
Q. What used to be the pride of the Americans?
A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great
Britain.
Q. What is now their pride?
A. To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make
new ones.
Withdrew.
_Parliamentary History of England,
volume 16, pages 138-160._
"Mr. Sparks very justly says that there was no event in
Franklin's life more creditable to his talents and character,
or which gave him so much celebrity, as this examination
before the House of Commons. His further statement, however,
that Franklin's answers were given without premeditation and
without knowing beforehand the nature or form of the question
that was to be put, is a little too sweeping. In a memorandum
which Franklin gave to a friend who wished to know by whom the
several questions were put, he admitted that many were put by
friends to draw out in answer the substance of what he had
before said upon the subject."
_J. Bigelow,
Life of Benjamin Franklin,
volume 1, page 507, foot-note._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766.
The repeal of the Stamp Act and passage of the
Declaratory Act.
Speech of Pitt.
"The Grenville Ministry had fallen in July [1765], and had
been succeeded by that of Rockingham; and Conway, who had been
one of the few opponents of the Stamp Act, was now Secretary
of State for the Colonies. … The Stamp Act had contributed
nothing to the downfall of Grenville; it attracted so little
attention that it was only in the last days of 1765 or the
first days, of 1766 that the new ministers learnt the views of
Pitt upon the subject; it was probably a complete surprise to
them to learn that it had brought the colonies to the verge of
rebellion, and in the first months of their power they appear
to have been quite uncertain what policy they would pursue. …
Parliament met on December 17, 1765, and the attitude of the
different parties was speedily disclosed. A powerful
Opposition, led by Grenville and Bedford, strenuously urged
that no relaxation or indulgence should be granted to the
colonists. … Pitt, on the other hand, rose from his sick-bed,
and in speeches of extraordinary eloquence, and which produced
an amazing effect on both sides of the Atlantic, he justified
the resistance of the colonists."
_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 12 (volume 3)._
The following is the main part of the speech delivered by Pitt
(not yet made Lord Chatham) on the 14th of January, 1766, as
imperfectly reported: "It is my opinion, that this kingdom has
no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time, I
assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be
sovereign and supreme, in every circumstance of government and
legislation whatsoever. They are the subjects of this kingdom;
equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of
mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen; equally
bound by its laws, and equally participating in the
constitution of this free country, The Americans are the sons,
not the bastards of England! Taxation is no part of the
governing or legislative power. The taxes are a voluntary gift
and grant of the Commons alone. In legislation the three
estates of the realm are alike concerned; but the concurrence
of the peers and the Crown to a tax is only necessary to
clothe it with the form of a law. The gift and grant is of the
Commons alone. … When … in this House, we give and grant, we
give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what
do we do? 'We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give
and grant to your Majesty'—what? Our own property! No! 'We
give and grant to your Majesty' the property of your Majesty's
Commons of America! It is an absurdity in terms. … There is an
idea in some that the colonies are virtually represented in
the House. I would fain know by whom an American is
represented here. Is he represented by any knight of the
shire, in any county in this kingdom? Would to God that
respectable representation was augmented to a greater number!
Or will you tell him that he is represented by any
representative of a borough? a borough which, perhaps, its own
representatives never saw! This is what is called the rotten
part of the Constitution. It cannot continue a century. If it
does not drop, it must be amputated. The idea of a virtual
representation of America in this House is the most
contemptible idea that ever entered into the head of a man. It
does not deserve a serious refutation. The Commons of America
represented in their several assemblies, have ever been in the
possession of this, their constitutional right, of giving and
granting their own money.
{3202}
They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it! At the
same time, this kingdom, as the supreme governing and
legislative power, has always bound the colonies by her laws,
by her regulations, and restrictions in trade, in navigation,
in manufactures, in every thing, except that of taking their
money out of their pockets without their consent. Here I would
draw the line. … Gentlemen, sir, have been charged with giving
birth to sedition in America. They have spoken their
sentiments with freedom against this unhappy act, and that
freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty
of speech in this House imputed as a crime. But the imputation
shall not discourage me. It is a liberty I mean to exercise.
No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a
liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might have
profited. He ought to have desisted from his project. The
gentleman tells us America is obstinate; America almost in
open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three
millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as
voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit
instruments to make slaves of the rest. … Since the accession
of King William, many ministers, some of great, others of more
moderate abilities, have taken the lead of government. … None
of these thought or even dreamed, of robbing the colonies of
their constitutional rights. That was reserved to mark the era
of the late administration. Not that there were wanting some,
when I had the honor to serve his Majesty, to propose to me to
burn my fingers with an American stamp act. With the enemy at
their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in the day of
their distress, perhaps the Americans would have submitted to
the imposition; but it would have been taking an ungenerous,
an unjust advantage. The gentleman boasts of his bounties to
America! Are not these bounties intended finally for the
benefit of this kingdom? If they are not, he has misapplied
the national treasures! I am no courtier of America. I stand
up for this kingdom. I maintain that the Parliament has a
right to bind, to restrain America. Our legislative power over
the colonies is sovereign and supreme. I would advise every
gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that
country. When two countries are connected together like
England and her colonies, without being incorporated, the one
must necessarily govern. The greater must rule the less. But
she must so rule it as not to contradict the fundamental
principles that are common to both. … The gentleman asks, When
were the colonies emancipated? I desire to know, when were
they made slaves? But I dwell not upon words. When I had the
honor of serving his Majesty, I availed myself of the means of
information which I derived from my office. I speak,
therefore, from knowledge. My materials were good. I was at
pains to collect, to digest, to consider them; and I will be
bold to affirm, that the profits to Great Britain from the
trade of the colonies through all its branches, is two
millions a year. This is the fund that carried you
triumphantly through the last war. The estates that were
rented at two thousand pounds a year, three-score years ago,
are at three thousand at present. Those estates sold then from
fifteen to eighteen years purchase; the same may now be sold
for thirty. You owe this to America. This is the price America
pays you for her protection. And shall a miserable financier
come with a boast, that he can bring 'a pepper-corn' into the
exchequer by the loss of millions to the nation? I dare not
say how much higher these profits may be augmented. … I am
convinced on other grounds that the commercial system of
America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where
you ought to have encouraged. You have encouraged where you
ought to have prohibited. Improper restraints have been laid
on the continent in favor of the islands. You have but two
nations to trade with in America. Would you had twenty! Let
acts of Parliament in consequence of treaties remain; but let
not an English minister become a custom-house officer for
Spain, or for any foreign power. Much is wrong! Much may be
amended for the general good of the whole! … A great deal has
been said without doors of the power, of the strength of
America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled
with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this
country can crush America to atoms. I know the valor of your
troops. I know the skill of your officers. There is not a
company of foot that has served in America, out of which you
may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and experience to
make a governor of a colony there. But on this ground, on the
Stamp Act, which so many here will think a crying injustice, I
am one who will lift up my hands against it. In such a cause
your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would
fall like the strong man; she would embrace the pillars of the
State, and pull down the Constitution along with her. Is this
your boasted peace—not to sheathe the sword in its scabbard,
but to sheathe it in the bowels of your countrymen? … The
Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and
temper: they have been wronged: they have been driven to
madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you
have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first
from this side. I will undertake for America that she will
follow the example. … Upon the whole I will beg leave to tell
the House what is my opinion. It is that the Stamp Act be
repealed absolutely, totally and immediately. That the reason
for the repeal be assigned, viz., because it was founded on an
erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign
authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as
strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every
point of legislation whatsoever; that we may bind their trade,
confine their manufactures, and exercise every power
whatsoever except that of taking their money out of their
pockets without their consent."
_Representative British Orations,
pages 98-119._
The views of Pitt "were defended in the strongest terms by
Lord Camden, who pledged his great legal reputation to the
doctrine that taxation is not included under the general right
of legislation, and that taxation and representation are
morally inseparable. … The task of the ministers in dealing
with this question was extremely difficult. The great majority
of them desired ardently the repeal of the Stamp Act; but the
wishes of the King, the abstention of Pitt, and the divided
condition of parties had compelled Rockingham to include in
his Government Charles Townshend, Barrington, and Northington,
who were all strong advocates of the taxation of America. …
{3203}
In addition to all these difficulties the ministers had to
deal with the exasperation which was produced in Parliament by
the continual outrages and insults to which all who
represented the English Government in America were exposed.
Their policy consisted of two parts. They asserted in the
strongest and most unrestricted form the sovereignty of the
British Legislature, first of all by resolutions and then by a
Declaratory Act affirming the right of Parliament to make laws
binding the British colonies 'in all cases whatsoever,' and
condemning as unlawful the votes of the colonial Assemblies
which had denied to Parliament the right of taxing them. Side
by side with this measure they brought in a bill repealing the
Stamp Act. … The great and manifest desire of the commercial
classes throughout England had much weight; the repeal was
carried [March, 1766] through the House of Commons, brought up
by no less than 200 members to the Lords, and finally carried
amid the strongest expressions of public joy. Burke described
it as 'an event that caused more universal joy throughout the
British dominions than perhaps any other that can be
remembered.'"
_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 12 (volume 3)._
ALSO IN:
_Parliamentary History,
volume 16, pages 112-205._
_B. Franklin,
Works (Sparks' editor),
volume 4._
_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England 1713-1783,
chapter 45._
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1765-1768.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766-1767.
The Townshend measures.
"The liberal Rockingham administration, after a few months of
power, disappeared [July, 1766], having signalized itself as
regarded America by the repeal of the Stamp Act, and by the
Declaratory Act. Of the new ministry the leading spirit was
Charles Townshend, a brilliant statesman, but unscrupulous and
unwise. His inclinations were arbitrary; he regretted the
repeal of the Stamp Act, as did also the king and Parliament
in general, who felt themselves to have been humiliated. Pitt,
indeed, now Earl of Chatham, was a member of the government;
but, oppressed by illness, he could exercise no restraint upon
his colleague, and the other members were either in sympathy
with Townshend's views, or unable to oppose him. Townshend's
three measures affecting America, introduced on the 13th of
May, 1767, were: a suspension of the functions of the
legislature of New York for contumacy in the treatment of the
royal troops; the establishment of commissioners of the
customs, appointed with large powers to superintend laws
relating to trade; and lastly an impost duty upon glass, red
and white lead, painters' colors, paper, and tea [see ENGLAND:
A. D. 1765-1768]. This was an 'external' duty to which the
colonists had heretofore expressed a willingness to submit;
but the grounds of the dispute were shifting. Townshend had
declared that he held in contempt the distinction sought to be
drawn between external and internal taxes, but that he would
so far humor the colonists in their quibble as to make his tax
of that kind of which the right was admitted. A revenue of
£40,000 a year was expected from the tax, which was to be
applied to the support of a 'civil list,' namely, the paying
the salaries of the new commissioners of customs, and of the
judges and governors, who were to be relieved wholly or in
part from their dependence upon the annual grants of the
Assemblies; then, if a surplus remained, it was to go to the
payment of troops for protecting the colonies. To make more
efficient, moreover, the enforcement of the revenue laws, the
writs of assistance, the denunciation of which by James Otis
had formed so memorable a crisis, were formally legalized. The
popular discontent, appeased by the repeal of the Stamp Act,
was at once awake again, and henceforth in the denial of the
right of Parliament to tax, we hear no more of acquiescence in
commercial restrictions and in the general legislative
authority of Parliament. … The plan for resistance adopted by
the cooler heads was that of Samuel Adams, namely, the
non-importation and the non-consumption of British products.
From Boston out, through an impulse proceeding from him,
town-meetings were everywhere held to encourage the
manufactures of the Province and reduce the use of
superfluities, long lists of which were enumerated. Committees
were appointed everywhere to procure subscriptions to
agreements looking to the furtherance of home industries and
the disuse of foreign products. … Before the full effects of
the new legislation could be seen, Townshend suddenly died;
but in the new ministry that was presently formed Lord North
came to the front, and adopted the policy of his predecessor,
receiving in this course the firm support of the king, whose
activity and interest were so great in public affairs that he
'became his own minister.'"
_J. K. Hosmer,
Samuel Adams,
chapter 7._
ALSO IN:
_R. Frothingham,
Life and Times of Joseph Warren,
chapter 3._
_W. Belsham,
Memoirs of the Reign of George III.,
volume 1, page 139-142._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1767-1768.
The Farmer's Letters of John Dickinson.
The Circular Letter of Massachusetts,
and the "Unrescinding Ninety-two."
"The English ministry was probably misled by the strong
emphasis which had been laid here during the controversies
concerning the Stamp Act upon the alleged distinction between
external and internal taxation. We had refused to submit to
the latter, but admitted that the former might be binding upon
the whole empire as a commercial regulation. In form the
duties levied on paints, glass, tea, etc., were undoubtedly
such a regulation, but it was at once contended here that, in
point of fact and of principle, this was as much an exercise
of the alleged right of Parliamentary taxation for the purpose
of raising a revenue for imperial purposes as the Stamp Act
itself. Although it was passed by the opponents of the Stamp
Act, and by the Rockingham ministry, who professed to be our
friends, the act met at once with opposition here. Late in
October, 1767, it was denounced by a public meeting in Boston,
which suggested a non-importation agreement as the best means
of rendering its operations ineffective. These agreements were
favorite expedients for manifesting political discontent in
those days, but, as they were voluntary, their obligation sat
somewhat loosely upon those who signed them. The truth is,
that those who were most decided in opposition to the course
of the ministry were somewhat puzzled as to the plan they
should adopt to exhibit the earnestness of their discontent. …
While the leaders of the opposition throughout the country
were doubtful and hesitating, there appeared in the
Pennsylvania Chronicle for the 2d of December, 1767, the first
of a series of letters on the political situation, afterwards
known as the 'Farmer's Letters.'
{3204}
… The letters, fourteen in number, followed one another in
quick succession, and they were read by men of all classes and
opinions throughout the continent as no other work of a
political kind had been hitherto read in America. It was, of
course, soon known that John Dickinson was their author, and
people remembered that he was the person who had formulated
what was a genuine Bill of Rights in the Stamp Act Congress.
The more these letters were read, the more convinced people
became that in the comprehensive survey they took of our
political relations with the mother-country, especially as
these were affected by the last obnoxious act of Parliament,
and in the plans which were proposed to remedy the evil, Mr.
Dickinson had struck the true key-note of the opposition to
the ministerial measures. He appeared at this crisis, as he
did in the Stamp Act Congress, as the leader and guide in the
controversy. From this time until the Declaration of
Independence the Pennsylvania idea, which was embodied by Mr.
Dickinson in these Farmer's Letters, 'controlled the destinies
of the country;' and Mr. Bancroft only does justice to Mr.
Dickinson's position when he recognizes fully his commanding
influence during that period. We may say with pardonable pride
(and it is one of those truths which many of our historians
have managed in various ways to relegate to obscurity), that,
as the leading spirit in the Stamp Act Congress, Dickinson
gave form and color to the agitation in this country which
brought about the repeal of that act, and that the arguments
by which the claim of the ministry to tax us for revenue by
such an act of Parliament as that levying duties on glass,
paints, etc. was answered in the 'Farmer's Letters' first
convinced the whole body of our countrymen, groping blindly
for a cure for their grievances, that there was a legal
remedy, and then forced the ministry to consent in a measure
to the demand for a repeal of some of its most obnoxious
provisions. It is worth remarking that when the ministry
yielded at all it yielded to argument, and not to the boastful
threats which were so common. The 'Farmer's Letters' gave
courage and force to those who in February denounced the law
in Pennsylvania; they formed the mainspring of the movement
which resulted in the circular letter sent by the legislature
of Massachusetts on the 17th of that month to the Assemblies
of the other Colonies; in short, they had the rare good
fortune not only of convincing those who suffered that the
remedy was in their own hands, but also of pursuading those
who had the power to abandon, or at least to modify their
arbitrary measures. … Mr. Dickinson begins these grave essays
with an air of simplicity as charming as it is calculated to
attract the attention of the reader. 'I am a farmer,' he says,
'settled, after a variety of fortunes, near the banks of the
river Delaware, in the Province of Pennsylvania. I received a
liberal education, and have been engaged in the busy scenes of
life, but am now convinced that a man may be as happy without
bustle as with it. Being generally master of my time, I spend
a good deal of it in my library, which I think the most
valuable part of my small estate. I have acquired, I believe,
a greater knowledge of history and of the laws and
constitution of my country than is generally attained by men
of my class,' etc. He then explains the nature of the
controversy with the mother-country, making it so clear that
the points in dispute are comprehensible by a child. … As to
our method of asserting our rights, he says, with an elevation
of sentiment which reminds one of Edmund Burke more than of
any other political writer, 'The cause of liberty is a cause
of too much dignity to be sullied by turbulence and tumult. It
ought to be maintained in a manner suitable to her nature.
Those who engage in it should breathe a sedate yet fervent
spirit, animating them to actions of prudence, justice,
modesty, bravery, humanity, and magnanimity.' He shrinks,
evidently with terror, from speaking of what may be the
consequences of the persistent refusal of England to change
her oppressive measures. … After showing in the most striking
manner the nature of our wrongs, the letters turn gladly to
the remedy that lies open to us. That remedy is based upon a
cultivation of the spirit of conciliation on both sides, and
Mr. Dickinson urges again and again upon his English readers
the folly of their policy, by showing them the value of the
American Colonies to them, and especially how the trade and
wealth of the English merchants are bound up in the adoption
of a liberal policy towards us. This is one of the most
interesting and important topics discussed in these letters,
and the subject is treated with elaborate skill, leading to
convincing conclusions drawn from our history. It must not be
forgotten that prior to the Revolution an impression widely
prevailed among the most thoughtful of our own people, as well
as among our friends in England, that if the English people
could be made to understand the frightful losses they would
suffer in case of a war in which we should be fighting for our
independence, or even during a short interruption of the trade
between the two countries, they would force the government to
yield rather than run the risk of the consequences. … Even Dr.
Franklin in London, who had had so many proofs of the
indifference and contempt with which the representations of
the Colonies in England were regarded … thought the appeal of
the Farmer to Englishmen so irresistible that, although no
friend of Dickinson's, he arranged that these letters should
be reprinted in London."
_C. J. Stillé,
The Life and Times of John Dickinson,
chapter 4._
In February, 1768, "the Legislature of Massachusetts sent a
Circular Letter [ascribed to Samuel Adams] to the Assemblies
of the other colonies, in which was set forth the necessity of
all acting together harmoniously, and of freely communicating
the mind of each to the others. The course Massachusetts had
pursued was described, with the contents of the petition and
letters which had been written, and with the hope expressed
that she would have their cordial co-operation in resistance
to the ministerial measures. The notion that political
independence was aimed at was strenuously denied, and the
trust was entertained that what had been done would meet the
approval of their 'common head and father,' and that the
liberties of the colonies would be confirmed. This letter
elicited response from some, others returned none officially,
but all who answered replied favorably. It gave, however, the
greatest offence to the ministry, and particularly to Lord
Hillsborough, the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
{3205}
It seems that he read it entirely by the light which a letter
from Governor Bernard to Lord Barrington had shed upon it.
This epistle declared the real motive of the colonies to be a
determination to be independent. Hillsborough, filled with
this idea, communicated it to the other members of the
cabinet, and thus the Circular Letter was laid before them,
prejudged. It was determined that it merited consideration,
but that the only notice to be given it should be one of
censure, and, on the spur of the moment, they resolved upon
two things: to require the Massachusetts Assembly to rescind
the Letter, and to require the other legislatures before whom
it had been laid to reject it. This was done, and the
consequences were, that the General Court, or Legislature, of
Massachusetts voted, by ninety-two to seventeen, that they
would do nothing of the kind, and that the other legislatures
gave the outcast a hearty welcome. As for the people, they
showed their approval of their representatives by toasting,
from one end of the country to the other, 'The unrescinding
Ninety-two,' with whom was coupled the number Forty-five, or
that of the famous' North Briton'; while the Bostonians added
fuel to the flame by a riot on the score of the sloop Liberty,
in which they attacked the houses of the Commissioners of the
Customs, and made a bonfire of the Collector's boat. Shortly
afterward, (but not by reason of the riot), four ships of war
anchored in Boston harbor, and two regiments of soldiers were
quartered on the town."
_E. G. Scott,
The Development of Constitutional Liberty,
chapter 10 (with corrections by the author)._
ALSO IN:
_R. Frothingham,
The Rise of the Republic of the United States,
chapter 6._
_W. Thornton,
The Pulpit of the Revolution,
page 150._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1768-1770.
The quartering of troops in Boston.
The Massacre, and the removal of the troops.
See BOSTON: A. D. 1768; and 1770.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1769.
Massachusetts threatened, and Virginia roused to her support.
"The proceedings in Massachusetts attracted in England the
greatest attention, elicited the severest comment, and,
because a military force had been ordered to Boston to support
the stand of the administration, created the greatest
solicitude. … The king, on opening parliament, characterized
the action of Boston as a subversion of the Constitution and
evincing a disposition to throw off dependence on Great
Britain. The indictment against the colonies was presented in
sixty papers laid before parliament. Both Houses declared that
the proceedings of the Massachusetts assembly in opposition to
the revenue acts were unconstitutional, and derogatory to the
rights of the crown and the parliament; that the Circular
Letter tended to create unlawful combinations; that the call
of a convention by the selectmen of Boston was proof of a
design of setting up an independent authority; and both Houses
proposed to transport the originators of the obnoxious
proceedings to England for trial and condign punishment, under
the cover of an obsolete act of Henry VIII. … The
administration determined to make an example of Massachusetts,
as the ring-leading province in political mischief, by
transporting its popular leaders to England to be tried for
their lives in the king's bench. Such was the purport of an
elaborate despatch which Lord Hillsborough sent to Governor
Bernard, directing an inquiry to be instituted into the
conduct of any persons who had committed any overt act of
resistance to the laws. … Thus a great issue was created that
affected all the colonies. … There was no adequate step taken
to meet the threatened aggression until the House of Burgesses
of Virginia convened in May."
_R. Frothingham,
The Rise of the Republic of the United States,
chapter 6._
"On the day of the prorogation of parliament [May 9, 1769] the
legislature of Virginia assembled at Williamsburg. Great men
were there; some who were among the greatest—Washington,
Patrick Henry, and, for the first time, Jefferson. Botetourt
[the governor], who opened the session in state, was in
perfect harmony with the council, received from the house of
burgesses a most dutiful address, and entertained fifty-two
guests at his table on the first day, and as many more on the
second. … But the assembly did not forget its duty, and
devised a measure which became the example for the continent.
It claimed the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants
of Virginia. With equal unanimity, it asserted the lawfulness
and expediency of a concert of the colonies in defence of the
violated rights of America. It laid bare the flagrant tyranny
of applying to America the obsolete statute of Henry VIII.;
and it warned the king of 'the dangers that would ensue' if
any person in any part of America should be seized and carried
beyond sea for trial. It consummated its work by communicating
its resolutions to every legislature in America, and asking
their concurrence. The resolves were concise, simple, and
effective; so calm in manner and so perfect in substance that
time finds no omission to regret, no improvement to suggest.
The menace of arresting patriots lost its terrors; and
Virginia's declaration and action consolidated union. … The
next morning, the assembly had just time to adopt an address
to the king, when the governor summoned them, and said: 'I
have heard of your resolves, and augur ill of their effects;
you have made it my duty to dissolve you, and you are
dissolved accordingly.' Upon this, the burgesses met together
as patriots and friends, with their speaker as moderator. They
adopted the resolves which "Washington had brought with him
from Mount Vernon, and which formed a well-digested,
stringent, and practicable scheme of non-importation, until
all the 'unconstitutional' revenue acts should be repealed. …
The voice of the Old Dominion roused the merchants of
Pennsylvania to approve what had been done. The assembly of
Delaware adopted the Virginia resolves word for word; and
every colony south of Virginia followed the example."
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States (Author's last revision),
pages 347-348._
ALSO IN:
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 1, chapter 29._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1770.
Repeal of the Townshend duties except on Tea.
On the 5th of March, 1770—the same day on which the tragical
encounter of the king's troops with citizens of Boston
occurred—Lord North introduced a motion in Parliament for the
partial repeal of Townshend's revenue act; "not on the
petitions of America, because they were marked by a denial of
the right, but on one from merchants and traders of London.
'The subject,' said he, 'is of the highest importance.
{3206}
The combinations and associations of the Americans for the
temporary interruption of trade have already been called
unwarrantable in an address of this house; I will call them
insolent and illegal. The duties upon paper, glass, and
painters' colors bear upon the manufacturers of this country,
and ought to be taken off. It was my intention to have
extended the proposal to the removal of the other duties; but
the Americans have not deserved indulgence. The preamble to
the act and the duty on tea must be retained, as a mark of the
supremacy of parliament and the efficient declaration of its
right to govern the colonies.' … Thomas Pownall moved the
repeal of the duty on tea. The house of commons, like Lord
North in his heart, was disposed to do the work of
conciliation thoroughly. … Had the king's friends remained
neutral, the duty on tea would have been repealed; with all
their exertions, in a full house, the majority for retaining
it was but 62. Lord North seemed hardly satisfied with his
success; and reserved to himself liberty to accede to the
repeal, on some agreement with the East India Company. The
decision came from the king."
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 3, pages 381-382._
ALSO IN:
_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 48 (volume 5.)_
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1771.
Suppression of the Regulators of North Carolina.
See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1766-1771.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1772.
The Watauga Association.
The founding of the State of Tennessee.
See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1769-1772.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1772.
The burning of the Gaspe.
"One of the first overt acts of resistance that took place in
this celebrated struggle [in the war of independence] occurred
in 1772, in the waters of Rhode Island. A vessel of war had
been stationed on the coast to enforce the laws, and a small
schooner, with a light armament and twenty-seven men, called
the Gaspé, was employed as a tender, to run into the shallow
waters of that coast. On the 17th of June, 1772, a Providence
packet, that plied between New York and Rhode Island, named
the Hannah, and commanded by a Captain Linzee, hove in sight
of the man-of-war, on her passage up the bay. The Hannah was
ordered to heave-to, in order to be examined; but her master
refused to comply; and being favoured by a fresh southerly
breeze, that was fast sweeping him out of gunshot, the Gaspé
was signalled to follow. The chase continued for
five-and-twenty miles, under a press of sail, when the Hannah
coming up with a bar, with which her master was familiar, and
drawing less water than the schooner, Captain Linzee led the
latter on a shoal, where she struck. The tide falling, the
Gaspé … was not in a condition to be removed for several
hours. The news of the chase was circulated on the arrival of
the Hannah at Providence. A strong feeling was excited among
the population, and towards evening the town drummer appeared
in the streets, assembling the people in the ordinary manner.
As soon as a crowd was collected, the drummer led his
followers in front of a shed that stood near one of the
stores, when a man disguised as an Indian suddenly appeared on
the roof, and proclaimed a secret expedition for that night,
inviting all of 'stout hearts' to assemble on the wharf,
precisely at nine, disguised like himself. At the appointed
hour, most of the men in the place collected at the spot
designated, when sixty-four were selected for the bold
undertaking that was in view. This party embarked in eight of
the launches of the different vessels lying at the wharves,
and taking with them a quantity of paving stones, they pulled
down the river in a body. … On nearing the Gaspé, about two in
the morning, the boats were hailed by a sentinel on deck. This
man was driven below by a volley of the stones. The commander
of the Gaspé now appeared, and ordering the boats off, he
fired a pistol at them. This discharge was returned from a
musket, and the officer was shot through the thigh. By this
time, the crew of the Gaspé had assembled, and the party from
Providence boarded. The conflict was short, the schooner's
people being soon knocked down and secured. All on board were
put into the boats, and the Gaspé was set on fire. Towards
morning she blew up."
_J. F. Cooper,
Naval History of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_S. G. Arnold,
History of Rhode Island,
chapter 19 (volume 2)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1772-1173.
The instituting of the Committees of Correspondence.
The Tea Ships and "the Boston Tea-Party."
"The surest way to renew and cement the union [of the
colonies] was to show that the ministry had not relaxed in its
determination to enforce the principal of the Townshend acts.
This was made clear in August, 1772, when it was ordered that
in Massachusetts the judges should henceforth be paid by the
crown. Popular excitement rose to fever heat, and the judges
were threatened with impeachment should they dare accept a
penny from the royal treasury. The turmoil was increased next
year by the discovery in London of the package of letters
which were made to support the unjust charge against
Hutchinson and some of his friends that they had instigated
and aided the most extreme measures of the ministry. In the
autumn of 1772 Hutchinson refused to call an extra session of
the assembly to consider what should be done about the judges.
Samuel Adams then devised a scheme by which the towns of
Massachusetts could consult with each other and agree upon
some common course of action in case of emergencies. For this
purpose each town was to appoint a standing committee, and as
a great part of their work was necessarily done by letter they
were called 'committees of correspondence.' This was the step
that fairly organized the Revolution."
_J. Fiske,
The War of Independence,
chapter 5._
"The town records of Boston [November 2, 1772] say:—
'It was then moved by Mr. Samuel Adams that a Committee of
Correspondence be appointed, to consist of twenty-one persons,
to state the rights of the colonists and of this Province in
particular as men and Christians and as subjects; and to
communicate and publish the same to the several towns and to
the world as the sense of this town, with the infringements
and violations thereof that have been or from time to time may
be made.' The motion occasioned some debate and seems to have
been carried late at night; the vote in its favor, at last,
was nearly unanimous. The colleagues of Adams, who had left
him almost alone thus far, now declined to become members of
the committee, regarding the scheme as useless or trifling.
The committee was at last constituted without them; it was
made up of men of little prominence but of thorough
respectability. James Otis, in another interval of sanity, was
made chairman, a position purely honorary, the town in this
way showing its respect for the leader whose misfortunes they
so sincerely mourned.
{3207}
The Committee of Correspondence held its first meeting in the
representatives' chamber at the town-house, November 3, 1772,
where at the outset each member pledged himself to observe
secrecy as to their transactions, except those which, as a
committee, they should think it proper to divulge. According
to the motion by which the committee was constituted, three
duties were to be performed: 1st, the preparation of a
statement of the rights of the colonists, as men, as
Christians, and as subjects; 2d, a declaration of the
infringement and violation of those rights; 3d, a letter to be
sent to the several towns of the Province and to the world,
giving the sense of the town. The drafting of the first was
assigned to Samuel Adams, of the second to Joseph Warren, of
the third to Benjamin Church. In a few days tidings came from
the important towns of Marblehead, Roxbury, Cambridge, and
Plymouth, indicating that the example of Boston was making
impression and was likely to be followed. On November 20, at a
town-meeting in Faneuil Hall, the different papers were
presented: Otis sat as moderator, appearing for the last time
in a sphere where his career had been so magnificent. The
report was in three divisions, according to the motion. … In
the last days of 1772, the document, having been printed, was
transmitted to those for whom it had been intended, producing
at once an immense effect. The towns almost unanimously
appointed similar committees; from every quarter came replies
in which the sentiments of Samuel Adams were echoed. In the
library of Bancroft is a volume of manuscripts, worn and
stained by time, which have an interest scarcely inferior to
that possessed by the Declaration of Independence itself, as
the fading page hangs against its pillar in the library of the
State Department at Washington. They are the original replies
sent by the Massachusetts towns to Samuel Adams's committee
sitting in Faneuil Hall, during those first months of 1773.
One may well read them with bated breath, for it is the touch
of the elbow as the stout little democracies dress up into
line, just before they plunge into actual fight at Concord and
Bunker Hill. There is sometimes a noble scorn of the
restraints of orthography, as of the despotism of Great
Britain, in the work of the old town clerks, for they
generally were secretaries of the committees; and once in a
while a touch of Dogberry's quaintness, as the punctilious
officials, though not always 'putting God first,' yet take
pains that there shall be no mistake as to their piety by
making every letter in the name of the Deity a rounded
capital. Yet the documents ought to inspire the deepest
reverence. They constitute the highest mark the town-meeting
has ever touched. Never before and never since have
Anglo-Saxon men, in lawful folk-mote assembled, given
utterance to thoughts and feelings so fine in themselves and
so pregnant with great events. To each letter stand affixed
the names of the committee in autograph. This awkward scrawl
was made by the rough fist of a Cape Ann fisherman, on shore
for the day to do at town-meeting the duty his fellows had
laid upon him: the hand that wrote this other was cramped from
the scythe-handle, as its possessor mowed an intervale on the
Connecticut; this blotted signature, where smutted fingers
have left a black stain, was written by a blacksmith of
Middlesex, turning aside a moment from forging a barrel that
was to do duty at Lexington. They were men of the plainest;
but as the documents containing statements of the most
generous principles find the most courageous determination,
were read in the town-houses, the committees who produced
them, and the constituents for whom the committees stood, were
lifted above the ordinary level. Their horizon expanded to the
broadest; they had in view not simply themselves, but the
welfare of the continent; not solely their own generation, but
remote posterity. It was Samuel Adams's own plan, the
consequences of which no one foresaw, neither friend nor foe.
Even Hutchinson, who was scarcely less keen than Samuel Adams
himself, was completely at fault. 'Such a foolish scheme,' he
called it, 'that the faction must necessarily make themselves
ridiculous.' But in January the eyes of men were opening. One
of the ablest of the Tories, Daniel Leonard, wrote:—'This is
the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous serpent ever issued
from the egg of sedition. I saw the small seed when it was
implanted; it was a grain of mustard. I have watched the plant
until it has become a great tree.' It was the transformation
into a strong cord of what had been a rope of sand."
_J. K. Hosmer,
Samuel Adams,
chapter 13._
"In the spring of 1773, Virginia carried this work of
organization a long step further, when Dabney Carr suggested
and carried a motion calling for committees of correspondence
between the several colonies. From this point it was a
comparatively short step to a permanent Continental Congress.
It happened that these preparations were made just in time to
meet the final act of aggression which brought on the
Revolutionary War. The Americans had thus far successfully
resisted the Townshend acts and secured the repeal of all the
duties except on tea. As for tea they had plenty, but not from
England; they smuggled it from Holland in spite of
custom-houses and search-warrants. Clearly unless the
Americans could be made to buy tea from England and pay the
duty on it, the king must own himself defeated. Since it
appeared that they could not be forced into doing this, it
remained to be seen if they could be tricked into doing it. A
truly ingenious scheme was devised. Tea sent by the East India
Company to America had formerly paid a duty in some British
port on the way. This duty was now taken off, so that the
price of the tea for America might be lowered. The company's
tea thus became so cheap that the American merchant could buy
a pound of it and pay the threepence duty beside for less than
it cost him to smuggle a pound of tea from Holland. It was
supposed that the Americans would of course buy the tea which
they could get most cheaply, and would thus be beguiled into
submission to that principle of taxation which they had
hitherto resisted. Ships laden with tea were accordingly sent
in the autumn of 1773 to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and
Charleston; and consignees were appointed to receive the tea
in each of these towns. Under the guise of a commercial
operation, this was purely a political trick.
{3208}
It was an insulting challenge to the American people, and
merited the reception which they gave it. They would have
shown themselves unworthy of their rich political heritage had
they given it any other. In New York, Philadelphia, and
Charleston mass-meetings of the people voted that the
consignees should be ordered to resign their offices, and they
did so. At Philadelphia the tea-ship was met and sent back to
England before it had come within the jurisdiction of the
custom-house. At Charleston the tea was landed, and as there
was no one to receive it or pay the duty, it was thrown into a
damp cellar and left there to spoil. In Boston things took a
different turn."
_J. Fiske,
The War of Independence,
chapter 5._
"Acting upon the precedent of the time of the Stamp Act, when
Oliver, the stamp commissioner, had resigned his commission
under the Liberty Tree, a placard was posted everywhere on the
3d of November, inviting the people of Boston and the
neighboring towns to be present at Liberty Tree that day at
noon, to witness the resignation of the consignees of the tea,
and hear them swear to re-ship to London what teas should
arrive. The placard closed,—'Show me the man that dares take
this town.' At the time appointed, representatives Adams,
Hancock, and Phillips, the selectmen and town clerk, with
about five hundred more, were present at the Liberty Tree. But
no consignees arrived, whereupon Molineux and Warren headed a
party who waited upon them. The consignees, Clarke, a rich
merchant, and his sons, Benjamin Faneuil, Winslow, and the two
sons of Hutchinson, Thomas and Elisha, sat together in the
counting-house of Clarke in King Street. Admittance was
refused the committee, and a conversation took place through a
window, during which the tone of the consignees was defiant.
There was some talk of violence, and when an attempt was made
to exclude the committee and the crowd attending them from the
building, into the first story of which they had penetrated,
the doors were taken off their binges and threats uttered.
Molineux, generally impetuous enough, but now influenced
probably by cooler heads, dissuaded the others from violence.
… A town-meeting on November 5, in which an effort of the
Tories to make head against the popular feeling came to
naught, showed how overwhelming was the determination to
oppose the introduction of the tea. … When news arrived on the
17th that three tea-ships were on the way to Boston, for a
second time a town-meeting demanded through a committee, of
which Samuel Adams was a member, the resignation of the
consignees. They evaded the demand; the town-meeting voted
their answer not satisfactory, and at once adjourned without
debate or comment. The silence was mysterious; what was
impending none could tell. … On the 28th, the first of the
tea-ships, the Dartmouth, Captain Hall, sailed into the
harbor. Sunday though it was, the Committee of Correspondence
met, obtained from Benjamin Rotch, the Quaker owner of the
Dartmouth, a promise not to enter the vessel until Tuesday,
and made preparations for a mass-meeting at Faneuil Hall for
Monday forenoon, to which Samuel Adams was authorized to
invite the surrounding towns. A stirring placard the next
morning brought the townsmen and their neighbors to the place.
After the organization, Samuel Adams, arising among the
thousands, moved that: 'As the town have determined at a late
meeting legally assembled that they will to the utmost of
their power prevent the landing of the tea, the question be
now put,—whether this body are absolutely determined that the
tea now arrived in Captain Hall shall be returned to the place
from whence it came.' There was not a dissenting voice. … In
the afternoon, the meeting having resolved that the tea should
go back in the same ship in which it had come, Rotch, the
owner of the Dartmouth, protested, but was sternly forbidden,
at his peril, to enter the tea. Captain Hall also was
forbidden to enter any portion of it. 'Adams was never in
greater glory,' says Hutchinson. The next morning, November
30, the people again assembling, the consignees made it known
that it was out of their power to send the tea back; but they
promised that they would store it until word should come from
their 'constituents' as to its disposal. … The Dartmouth each
night was watched by a strong guard; armed patrols, too, were
established, and six couriers held themselves ready, if there
should be need to alarm the country. … During the first week
in December arrived the Eleanor and the Beaver, also
tea-ships, which were moored near the Dartmouth, and subjected
to the same oversight. The 'True Sons of Liberty' posted about
the town the most spirited placards. … The days flew by. At
length came the end of the time of probation. If the cargo of
the Dartmouth had not been 'entered' within that period, the
ship according to the revenue laws, must be confiscated.
Rotch, the Quaker owner, had signified his willingness to send
the ship back to England with the cargo on board, if he could
procure a clearance. The customs officials stood on
technicalities; under the circumstances a clearance could not
be granted. The grim British admiral ordered the Active and
the Kingfisher from his fleet to train their broadsides on the
channels, and sink whatever craft should try to go to sea
without the proper papers. The governor alone had power to
override these obstacles. It was competent for him to grant a
permit which the revenue men and the admiral must respect. If
he refused to do this, then on the next day the legal course
was for the revenue officers to seize the Dartmouth and land
the tea under the guns of the fleet. It was the 16th of
December. A crowd of seven thousand filled the Old South and
the streets adjoining. Nothing like it had ever been known.
Town-meeting had followed town-meeting until the excitement
was at fever heat. The indefatigable Committee of
Correspondence had, as it were, scattered fire throughout the
whole country. … Poor Quaker Rotch … felt himself, probably,
the most persecuted of men, when the monster meeting forced
him in the December weather to make his way out to Milton Hill
to seek the permit from Hutchinson. … Meantime darkness had
fallen upon the short winter day. The crowd still waited in
the gloom of the church, dimly lighted here and there by
candles. Rotch reappeared just after six, and informed the
meeting that the governor refused to grant the permit until
the vessels were properly qualified. As soon as the report had
been made, Samuel Adams arose, for it was he who had been
moderator, and exclaimed: 'This meeting can do nothing more to
save the country.'
{3209}
It was evidently a concerted signal, for instantly … the
famous war-whoop was heard, and the two or three score of
'Mohawks' rushed by the doors, and with the crowd behind them
hurried in the brightening moonlight to Griffin's wharf, where
lay the ships. The tea could not go back to England; it must
not be landed. The cold waters of the harbor were all that
remained for it. Three hundred and forty-two chests were cast
overboard. Nothing else was harmed, neither person nor
property. All was so quiet that those at a distance even could
hear in the calm air the ripping open of the thin chests as
the tea was emptied. The 'Mohawks' found helpers, so that in
all perhaps one hundred and fifty were actively concerned. Not
far off in the harbor lay the ships of the fleet, and the
Castle with the 'Sam Adams Regiments.' But no one interfered."
_J. K. Hosmer,
Samuel Adams,
chapter 16._
ALSO IN:
_W. V. Wells,
Life of Samuel Adams,
volume 1, pages 372-375, 495-512;
volume 2, pages 1-9, 24-29, 61-63, 80-81, 103-130._
_R. Frothingham,
Life of Joseph Warren,
chapter 9._
_Force's American Archives,
volume 1._
See, also, BOSTON: A. D. 1773;
and NEW YORK: A. D. 1773-1774.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (March-April).
The Boston Port Bill.
The Massachusetts Act and the Quebec Act.
"The spoken defiance of the other colonies had been quite as
efficient as the combination of threats and force to which
Boston was compelled to resort, but Lord North launched the
first retaliatory and punitive measure against that city. …
The first of Lord North's bills was the Boston Port Act, which
closed the harbor until indemnity for the tea there destroyed
should be paid and the king be satisfied that thereafter the
city would obey the laws. The demand for indemnity was fair
but the indefinite claim of obedience was not only infamous in
itself but, as Burke said, punished the innocent with the
guilty. … North's second bill was a virtual abrogation of the
Massachusetts charter. The council of twenty-eight had been
hitherto elected every year in joint session of the assembly.
The king might now appoint the whole body to any number, from
twelve to thirty-six, and remove them at pleasure. The men so
appointed were designated mandamus councillors. Thereafter
town-meetings could be held only by permission of the governor
and for the sole purpose of electing officers [General Gage
was made governor under this act, and four regiments were
placed in Boston for his support]. Sheriffs were to return all
juries, and were to be named by the governor and hold office
during his pleasure. The third bill was really a device of the
king's, and it is said that the ministry was confused and
shamefaced in presenting it. It ordained that magistrates,
revenue officers, or other officials indicted in Massachusetts
for capital offences were to be tried either in Nova Scotia or
Great Britain. Another measure made legal the billeting of
troops, against which Boston had hitherto striven with
success, and a fifth, known as the Quebec Act, though
depriving that province of the right of habeas corpus,
restored the French customary law ('coutume de Paris'),
established Roman Catholicism as the state religion, and by
extending its boundaries to the Ohio and Mississippi, shut off
the Northern English Colonies from westward extension. This
was intended as an arbitrary settlement of a vexed question.
The Puritans, however, … exclaimed that the next step would be
the establishment among them of English episcopacy."
_W. M. Sloane,
The French War and the Revolution,
chapter 14._
ALSO IN:
_A. Johnston,
The United States: its History and Constitution,
sections. 57-58._
_Parliamentary History,
volume 17._
_American Archives,
series 4, volume 1, pages 35-220._
_Lord Fitzmaurice,
Life of the Earl of Shelburne,
volume 2, chapter 8._
On the Quebec Act.
See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (April-October).
Lord Dunmore's War with the Indians.
The Western territorial claims of Virginia.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (May-June).
Effects of the Boston Port Bill.
The call for a Continental Congress.
"The Boston Port Bill was received in America with honors not
accorded even to the Stamp Act. It was cried through the
streets as 'A barbarous, cruel, bloody, and inhuman murder,'
and was burnt by the common hangman on a scaffold forty-five
feet high. The people of Boston gathered together in
town-meeting at Faneuil Hall, and expresses were sent off with
an appeal to all Americans throughout America. The responses
from the neighborhood came like snow-flakes. Marblehead
offered the use of its wharves to the Boston merchants; Salem
averred that it would be lost to all feelings of humanity were
it to raise its fortunes on the ruins of its neighbor.
Newburyport voted to break off trade with Great Britain, and
to lay up its ships. Connecticut, as her wont is, when moved
by any vital occurrence, betook herself to prayer and
humiliation, first, however, ordering an inventory to be taken
of her cannon and military stores. Virginia, likewise,
resolved to invoke the divine interposition, but, before
another resolution which called for a Congress could be
introduced, her House was precipitately dissolved; whereupon
the resolution was brought up and passed at a meeting called
in 'the Apollo,' where it was further declared that an attack
on one colony was an attack upon all. Two days later the
Massachusetts letter itself was received, upon which the
Virginians called a convention. From all parts contributions
in money poured into Boston, and resolutions were everywhere
passed, declaring that no obedience was due the late acts of
Parliament; that the right of imperial taxation did not exist;
that those who had accepted office under pay of the king had
violated their public duty; that the Quebec act establishing
Roman Catholicism in Canada was hostile to the Protestant
religion, and that the inhabitants of the colonies should use
their utmost diligence to acquaint themselves with the art of
war, and for that purpose should turn out under arms at least
once a week. In the fulness of time, a cordon of ships was
drawn around Boston, and six regiments and a train of
artillery were encamped on the Common—the only spot in the
thirteen colonies where the government could enforce an order.
The conflict between constitutional liberty and absolutism had
now reached that dangerous point where physical force became
one of its elements. … The situation was at once recognized
throughout the colonies, and the knowledge that in union there
is strength, manifested itself in one general impulse toward a
Colonial Congress. Committees of Correspondence were organized
in every county, and throngs attended the public meetings.
{3210}
'One great, wise, and noble spirit; one masterly soul
animating one vigorous body,' was the way John Adams described
this impulse. The Canadas alone remained inanimate. … But not
so those to whom constitutional liberty was as the breath of
life. On the 17th of June (1774) the Massachusetts Assembly,
which had been removed by a royal order to Salem, answered
Virginia by resolving on a call for a Continental Congress at
Philadelphia. The governor, hearing of what was going on, sent
the secretary of the colony to dissolve the Assembly, but,
finding the doors shut upon him, he had to content himself
with reading the message to the crowd outside. The House went
on with its work, while, at the same time, a great meeting,
with John Adams in the chair, was being held at Boston in
Faneuil Hall. Twelve colonies agreed to send delegates to a
Continental Congress to be held at Philadelphia in September."
_E. G. Scott,
The Development of Constitutional Liberty in the
English Colonies of America,
chapter 11 (with corrections by the author)._
ALSO IN:
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision)
volume 4, chapter 1._
See, also, BOSTON: A. D. 1774.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774(May-July).
Governor Hutchinson's departure for England.
His conversation with King George.
In May, 1774, Governor Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, who had
applied some months before for leave of absence to visit
England, was relieved by General Gage and took his departure.
General Gage was temporarily commissioned to be "Captain
General and Governor-in-Chief" of the Province of
Massachusetts, and "Vice-Admiral of the same," combining the
civil and military powers in himself. It was then supposed
that Hutchinson's absence would be brief; but, to his endless
grief, he never saw the country again. Soon after his arrival
in England he had an interview with the king, which is
reported at length in his Diary. The conversation is one of
great historical interest, exhibiting King George's knowledge
and ideas of American affairs, and representing the opinions
of a high-minded American loyalist. It is reprinted here
exactly as given in Governor Hutchinson's Diary, published by
his great-grandson in 1883:
"July 1st.—Received a card from Lord Dartmouth desiring to see
me at his house before one o'clock. I went soon after 12, and
after near an hour's conversation, his Lordship proposed
introducing me immediately to the King. I was not dressed as
expecting to go to Court, but his Lordship observing that the
King would not be at St. James's again until Wednesday [this
was Friday], I thought it best to go; but waited so long for
his Lordship to dress, that the Levée was over; but his
Lordship going in to the King, I was admitted, contrary, as
Lord Pomfret observed to me, to custom, to kiss His Majesty's
hand in his closet: after which, as near as I can recollect,
the following conversation passed.
K.—How do you do Mr. H. after y voyage?
H.—Much reduced Sir by sea-sickness; and unfit upon that
account, as well as my New England dress, to appear before
your Majesty. Lord D. observed—Mr. H. apologised to me for his
dress, but I thought it very well, as he is just come ashoar;
to which the K. assented.
K.—How did you leave your Government, and how did the people
receive the news of the late measures in Parliament?
H.—When I left Boston we had no news of any Act of Parliament,
except the one for shutting up the port, which was extremely
alarming to the people.
(Lord D. said, Mr. H. came from Boston the day that Act was to
take place, the first of June. I hear the people of Virginia
have refused to comply with the request to shut up their
ports, from the people of Boston, and Mr. H. seems to be of
opinion that no colony will comply with that request.)
K.—Do you believe, Mr. H., that the account from Virginia is
true?
H.—I have no other reason to doubt it, except that the
authority for it seems to be only a newspaper; and it is very
common for articles to be inserted in newspapers without any
foundation. I have no doubt that when the people of Rhode
Island received the like request, they gave this answer—that
if Boston would stop all the vessels they then had in port,
which they were hurrying away before the Act commenced, the
people of R. Island would then consider of the proposal. The
King smiled.
Lord D.—Mr. H., may it please your Majesty, has shewn me a
newspaper with an address from a great number of Merchants,
another from the Episcopal Clergy, another from the Lawyers,
all expressing their sense of his conduct in the most
favourable terms. Lord Dartmouth thereupon took the paper out
of his pocket and shewed it.
K.—I do not see how it could be otherwise. I am sure his
conduct has been universally approved of here by people of all
parties.
H.—I am very happy in your Majesty's favourable opinion of my
administration.
K.—I am intirely satisfied with it. I am well acquainted with
the difficulties you have encountered, and with the abuse &
injury offered you. Nothing could be more cruel than the
treatment you met with in betraying your private letters.
The K., turning to Lord D.—My Lord, I remember nothing in them
to which the least exception could be taken.
Lord D.—That appears, Sir, from the report of the Committee of
Council, and from your Majesty's orders thereon.
H.—The correspondence, Sir, was not of my seeking. It was a
meer matter of friendly amusement, chiefly a narrative of
occurrences, in relating of which I avoided personalities as
much as I could, and endeavoured to treat persons, when they
could not be avoided, with tenderness, as much as if my
letters were intended to be exposed; whereas I had no reason
to suppose they ever would be exposed.
K.—Could you ever find Mr. H. how those letters came to New
England?
H.—Doctor F., may it please your Majesty, has made a publick
declaration that he sent them, and the Speaker has
acknowledged to me that he received them: I do not remember
that he said directly from Doctor F., but it was understood
between us that they came from him. I had heard before that
they came either direct from him, or that he had sent them
through another channel, and that they were to be communicated
to six persons only, and then to be returned without suffering
any copies to be taken, I sent for the Speaker and let him
know what I had heard, which came from one of the six to a
friend, and so to me. The Speaker said they were sent to him,
and that he was at first restrained from shewing them to any
more than six persons.
{3211}
K.—Did he tell you who were the persons?
H.—Yes, sir. There was Mr. Bowdoin, Mr. Pitts, Doctor
Winthrop, Doctor Chauncy, Doctor Cooper, and himself. They are
not all the same which had been mentioned before. The two Mr.
Adamses had been named to me in the room of Mr. Pitts and
Doctor Winthrop.
K.—Mr. B. I have heard of Lord D.—I think he is father-in-law
to Mr. T. [Temple].
K.—Who is Mr. Pitts?
H.—He is one of the Council—married Mr. B.'s sister.
K.—I have heard of Doctor Ch. and Doctor Cooper, but who is
Doctor Winthrop?
H.—He is not a Doctor of Divinity, Sir, but of Law; a
Professor of Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy at the
College, and last year was chose of the Council.
K.—I have beard of one Mr. Adams, but who is the other?
H.—He is a Lawyer, Sir.
K.—Brother to the other?
H. No, Sir, a relation. He has been of the House, but is not
now. He was elected by the two Houses to be of the Council,
but negatived. The speaker further acquainted me that, after
the first letter, he received another, allowing him to shew
the Letters to the Committee of Correspondence; and afterwards
a third, which allowed him to shew them to such persons as he
could confide in, but always enjoined to send them back
without taking copies. I asked him how he could be guilty of
such a breach of trust as to suffer them to be made publick?
He excused it by saying that he was against their being
brought before the House, but was overruled; and when they had
been read there, the people abroad compelled their
publication, or would not be satisfied without it. Much more
passed with which I will not trouble your Majesty; but after
the use had been made of the Letters, which is so well known,
they were all returned.
K., turning to Lord D—This is strange:—where is Doctor F., my
lord?
Lord D.—I believe, Sir, he is in Town. He was going to
America, but I fancy he is not gone.
K.—I heard he was going to Switzerland, or to some part of the
Continent.
Lord D.—I think, Sir, there has been such a report.
K.—In such abuse, Mr. H., as you met with, I suppose there
must have been personal malevolence as well as party rage?
H.—It has been my good fortune, Sir, to escape any charge
against me in my private character. The attacks have been upon
my publick conduct, and for such things as my duty to your
Majesty required me to do, and which you have been pleased to
approve of. I don't know that any of my enemies have
complained of a personal injury.
K.—I see they threatened to pitch and feather you.
H.—Tarr & feather, may it please your Majesty; but I don't
remember that ever I was threatened with it.
Lord D.—Oh! yes, when Malcolm was tarred and feathered
[Almanac for 1770, May, MS. Note], the committee for tarring
and feathering blamed the people for doing it, that being a
punishment reserved for a higher person, and we suppose you
was intended.
H.—I remember something of that sort, which was only to make
diversion, there being no such committee, or none known by
that name.
K.—What guard had you, Mr. H.?
H.—I depended, Sir, on the protection of Heaven. I had no
other guard. I was not conscious of having done anything of
which they could justly complain, or make a pretence for
offering violence to my person. I was not sure, but I hoped
they only meant to intimidate. By discovering that I was
afraid, I should encourage them to go on. By taking measures
for my security I should expose myself to calumny, and being
censured as designing to render them odious for what they
never intended to do. I was, therefore, obliged to appear to
disregard all the menaces in the newspapers, and also private
intimations from my friends who frequently advised me to take
care of myself.
K.—I think you generally live in the country,
Mr. H.; what distance are you from town?
H.—I have lived in the country, Sir, in the summer for 20
years; but, except the winter after my house was pulled down,
I have never lived in the country in winter until the last. My
house is 7 or 8 miles from the Town, a pleasant situation, and
most gentlemen from abroad say it has the finest prospect from
it they ever saw, except where great improvements have been
made by art, to help the natural view. The longest way the
road is generally equal to the turnpike roads here; the other
way rather rough.
K.—Pray, what does Hancock do now? How will the late affair
affect him?
H.—I don't know to what particular affair your Majesty refers.
K.—Oh, a late affair in the city, his bills being refused.
(Turning to Lord D.) Who is that in the city, my Lord?
Lord D. not recollecting—
H.—I have heard, Sir, that Mr. Haley, a merchant in the city,
is Mr. Hancock's principal correspondent.
K.—Ay, that's the name.
H.—I heard, may it please your Majesty, before I came from New
England, that some small sums were returned, but none of
consequence.
K.—Oh, no, I mean within this month, large sums.
Lord D.—I have heard such rumours, but don't know the
certainty.
H.—Mr. Hancock, Sir, had a very large fortune left him by his
uncle, and I believe his political engagements have taken off
his attention from his private affairs. He was sensible not
long ago of the damage it was to him, and told me he was
determined to quit all publick business, but soon altered his
mind.
K.—Then there's Mr. Cushing: I remember his name a long time:
is not he a great man of the party?
H.—He has been many years Speaker, but a Speaker, Sir, is not
always the person of the greatest influence. A Mr. Adams is
rather considered as the opposer of Government, and a sort of
Wilkes in New England.
{3212}
K.—What gave him his importance?
H.—A great pretended zeal for liberty, and a most inflexible
natural temper. He was the first that publickly asserted the
Independency of the colonies upon the Kingdom, or the supreme
Authority of it.
K.—I have heard, Mr. H., that your ministers preach that, for
the sake of promoting liberty or the publick good, any
immorality or less evil may be tolerated?
H.—I don't know, Sir, that such doctrine has ever been
preached from the pulpit; but I have no doubt that it has been
publickly asserted by some of the heads of the party who call
themselves sober men, that the good of the publick is above
all other considerations, and that truth may be dispensed
with, and immorality is excusable, when this great good can be
obtained by such means.
K.—That's a strange doctrine, indeed. Pray, Mr. H., what is
your opinion of the effect from the new regulation of the
Council? Will it be agreeable to the people, and will the new
appointed Councillors take the trust upon them?
H.—I have not, may it please your Majesty, been able to inform
myself who they are. I came to Town late last evening, and
have seen nobody. I think much will depend upon the choice
that has been made.
K.—Enquiry was made and pains taken that the most suitable
persons should be appointed.
H.—The body of the people are Dissenters from the Church of
England; what are called Congregationalists. If the Council
shall have been generally selected from the Episcopalians, it
will make the change more disagreeable.
K.—Why are they not Presbyterians?
H.—There are very few Churches which call themselves
Presbyterians, and form themselves voluntarily into a
Presbytery without any aid from the civil government, which
the Presbyterian Church of Scotland enjoys.
Lord D.—The Dissenters in England at this day are scarce any
of them Presbyterians, but like those in New England,
Congregationalists, or rather Independents.
K.—Pray, what were your Ancestors, Mr. H.?
H.—In general, Sir, Dissenters.
K.—Where do you attend?
H.—With both, Sir. Sometimes at your Majesty's chapel, but
more generally at a Congregational church, which has a very
worthy minister, a friend to Government, who constantly prays
for your Majesty, and all in authority under you.
K.—What is his name?
H.—Doctor Pemberton.
K.—I have heard of Doctor Pemberton that he is a very good
man. Who is minister at the chapel?
H.—The Rector is Dr. Caner, a very worthy man also, who
frequently inculcates upon his hearers due subjection to
Government, and condemns the riotous violent opposition to it;
and besides the prayers in the Liturgy, generally in a short
prayer before sermon, expressly prays for your Majesty, and
for the chief Ruler in the Province.
K.—Why do not the Episcopal ministers in general do the same?
H.—In general, Sir, they use no other prayer before sermon
than a short collect out of the Liturgy.
K.—No—(turning to Lord D.) It is not so here, my Lord?
Lord D.—I believe it is, Sir. In your Majesty's Chapel they
always use such a prayer. It is a form adapted.
K.—I think you must be mistaken.
Lord D.—No, Sir. This prayer used to be printed formerly, but
of late it has not been printed with the service. In general
the ministers use a collect, as Mr. Hutchinson says; sometimes
the collect in the Communion service—'Prevent us, O Lord,'
&c., but I think oftener the collect for the second Sunday in
Advent.
H.—My education, Sir, was with the Dissenters. I conceive
there is no material difference between reading a prayer out
of a book, and saying it 'memoriter,' without book.
Lord D.—I think, Sir, it is not very material. The prayers of
the Dissenters are in substance very much the same with those
in the service of' the church.
K.—I see no material difference, if the prayers be equally
good, but will not that depend upon the minister? But, pray,
Mr. H., why do your ministers generally join with the people
in their opposition to Government?
H.—They are, Sir, dependent upon the people. They are elected
by the people, and when they are dissatisfied with them, they
seldom leave till they get rid of them.
K.—That must be very dangerous. If the people oblige them to
concur with them in their erroneous principles on Government,
they may do it in religion also, and this must have a most
fatal tendency.
H.—There is one check, Sir, upon the people. Unless a minister
be dismissed by a council of Churches, the Province law makes
provision for the recovery of the salary; but we have no
instance where a minister, for any length of time, has brought
suits for the recovery of his salary, after the people refuse
to hear him. They generally weary him, and sooner or later
they get clear of him.
Lord D.—That's a considerable tye, however.
K.—Pray, Mr. H., does population greatly increase in your
Province?
H.—Very rapidly, Sir. I used to think that Doctor F., who has
taken such pains in his calculations, carried it too far when
he supposed the inhabitants of America, from their natural
increase, doubled their number in 25 years; but I rather think
now that he did not; and I believe it will appear from the
last return I made to the Secretary of State, that the
Massachusets has increased in that proportion. And the
increase is supposed, including the importation of foreigners,
to be, upon the whole, greater in most of the Southern
Colonies than in the Massachusets. We import no settlers from
Europe, so as to make any sensible increase.
K.—Why do not foreigners come to your Province as well as to
the Southern Governments?
H.—I take it, Sir, that our long cold winters discourage
them. Before they can bring the land to such a state as to be
able in summer to provide for their support in winter, what
little substance they can bring with them is expended, and
many of them have greatly suffered. The Southern colonies are
more temperate.
K.—What is the reason you raise no wheat in your Province?
{3213}
H.—In most places, especially near the sea, it blasts.
K.—To what cause is that owing?
H.—It has been observed that when the grain is so forward as
to be out of the milk the beginning of July, it seldom blasts;
and that about the 8th or 10th of that month the weather
becomes exceeding hot, and what are called the honey dews of
the night are fixed upon the grains by the scalding sun in a
hot morning, and if the grain be then in the milk it shrivels
up, and the straw becomes rusty and black. This is a pretty
general opinion of the cause.
K.—To what produce is your climate best adapted?
H.—To grazing, Sir; your Majesty has not a finer Colony for
grass in all your dominions: and nothing is more profitable in
America that pasture, because labour is very dear.
K.—Then you import all your bread corn from the other
Colonies?
H.—No, Sir, scarce any, except for the use of the maritime
towns. In the country towns the people raise grain enough for
their own expending, and sometimes for exportation. They live
upon coarse bread made of rye and corn mixed, and by long use
they learn to prefer this to flour or wheat bread.
K.—What corn?
H.—Indian corn, or, as it is called in Authors, Maize.
K.—Ay, I know it. Does that make good bread?
H.—Not by itself, Sir; the bread will soon be dry and husky;
but the Rye keeps it moist, and some of our country people
prefer a bushel of Rye to a bushel of Wheat, if the price
should be the same.
K.—That's very strange.
Lord D.—In many parts of Scotland, Sir, Rye is much esteemed
as making good and wholesome bread.
The King enquired very particularly into many other parts of
the produce of the country, and the natural history of it, to
which I gave the best answers I was capable of.
K.—New York, I think, comes the next to Boston in their
opposition to Government?
H.—Does your Majesty think nearer than Pennsilvania?
K.—Why, I can't say that they do of late.
K.—Rhode Island, Mr. H., is a strange form of Government.
H.—They approach, Sir, the nearest to a Democracy of any of
your Colonies. Once a year all power returns to the people,
and all their Officers are new elected. By this means the
Governor has no judgment of his own, and must comply with
every popular prejudice.
K.—Who is their Governor now?
H.—His name, Sir, is Wanton, a Gentleman who I have reason to
think wishes to see Government maintained as much as any they
could find in the Colonies.
K.—How is it with Connecticut? are they much better?
H.—The constitutions, Sir, are much the same; but Connecticut
are a more cautious people; strive to make as little noise as
may be, and have in general retained a good share of that
virtue which is peculiarly necessary in such a form of
Government.
More was said upon the state of these and some of the other
Colonies. There being something of a pause about this time, I
turned to Lord Dartmouth and asked—Does your Lordship remember
when you had the first account of the Lieutenant Governor's
death, and whether it was before the Letters which I wrote by
Governor Tryon?
Lord D.—Oh, yes, I had a letter from you several weeks before
that, giving an account of it.
H.—There was a vessel sailed for Lisbon the day after he died,
and I gave a letter to the master in charge, to put it on
board the first Vessel for London, but was doubtful of the
conveyance.
K.—We never could find out which way that letter came. Is the
present L. Governor a relation to the late Mr. Oliver?
H.—No, Sir, not of the same family. I have no connection with
him, nor did I ever let him know that I had mentioned him as
one of the persons I thought might be proper for a Lieutenant
Governor.
K.—The Chief Justice, I think, is brother to the late
Lieutenant Governor?
H.—Yes, Sir.
K.—We had thought of him, but as he was not one of those you
had named, the present Gentleman, upon enquiry, appeared under
all circumstances the most proper.
H.—I had some particular inducement not to mention the Chief
Justice. He is related to me, and his appointment would have
increased the envy against both of us.
K.—How is he related to you?
H.—One of his sons, Sir, married one of my daughters. I was,
besides, uncertain whether the salary would be continued; and
if it should be, his salary as Chief Justice exceeded it,
except in case of my absence, and then the expense of living,
and the additional trouble from his post, I considered as more
than an equivalent. I considered further, that the controversy
in which he had been engaged as Chief Justice would render the
administration peculiarly difficult just at that time; and I
supposed it would immediately devolve upon him by my absence,
having then no expectation of being superseded. I never took
more pains to divest myself of all personal views than in
mentioning proper persons for this place. I should have been
more anxious, if I had not thought it not improbable that some
person might be appointed, and sent from England.
K.—What number of Indians had you in your Government?
H.—They are almost extinct. Perhaps there are 50 or 60
families at most upon the Eastern Frontier, where there is a
small fort maintained; tho' I conceive the inhabitants would
not be in the least danger. It looks, Sir, as if in a few
years the Indians would be extinct in all parts of the
Continent.
K.—To what is that owing?
H.—I have thought, Sir, in part to their being dispirited at
their low despicable condition among the Europeans, who have
taken possession of their country, and treat them as an
inferior race of beings; but more to the immoderate use of
spirituous liquors. There are near 100 families, perhaps more,
of Indians who are domiciliated, and live, some in other towns,
but most of them at a place called Mashpee, where they have a
church, and a Missionary to preach to them, and also an Indian
Minister who has been ordained, and preaches sometimes in
their own language.
K.—What, an Episcopal Minister?
H.—No, Sir, of the Congregational persuasion or form of
worship.
{3214}
The King was particular in many other enquiries relative to my
Administration, to the state of the Province, and the other
Colonies. I have minuted what remained the clearest upon my
mind, and as near the order in which they passed as I am able.
He asked also what part of my family I brought with me, and
what I left behind, and at length advised me to keep house a
few days for the recovery of my health. I then withdrew. I was
near two hours in the K. closet. Lord D. feared I was tired so
long standing. I observed that so gracious a reception made me
insensible of it."
_Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson.
chapter 5._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (September).
The meeting of the First Continental Congress.
"On the 5th day of September most of the delegates elected to
the congress were in Philadelphia. They were invited by the
speaker of the Pennsylvania assembly to hold their sessions in
the State House, but decided to meet in the hall owned by the
carpenters,—a fine brick building, having commodious rooms for
the use of the committees, and an excellent library in the
chambers. It is still in good preservation. At ten o'clock in
the morning the delegates met at the City Tavern, walked to
Carpenters' Hall, and began the sessions of the Continental
Congress. This assembly, when all the members had taken their
seats, consisted of 55 delegates, chosen by 12 colonies. They
represented a population of 2,200,000, paying a revenue of
£80,000 sterling. Georgia, which did not elect delegates, gave
a promise to concur with her 'sister colonies' in the effort
to maintain their right to the British Constitution. … In
general, the delegates elect were men of uncommon ability, who
had taken a prominent part in the political action of their
several localities. … New England presented, in John Sullivan,
vigor; in Roger Sherman, sterling sense and integrity; in
Thomas Cushing, commercial knowledge; in John Adams, large
capacity for public affairs; in Samuel Adams, a great
character, with influence and power to organize. The Middle
colonies presented, in Philip Livingston, the merchant prince
of enterprise and liberality; in John Jay, rare public virtue,
juridical learning, and classic taste; in William Livingston,
progressive ideas tempered by conservatism; in John Dickinson,
'The Immortal Farmer,' erudition and literary ability; in
Cæsar Rodney and Thomas McKean, working power; in James Duane,
timid Whiggism, halting, but keeping true to the cause; in
Joseph Galloway, downright Toryism, seeking control, and at
length going to the enemy. The Southern colonies presented, in
Thomas Johnson, the grasp of a statesman; in Samuel Chase,
activity and boldness; in the Rutledges, wealth and
accomplishment; in Christopher Gadsden, the genuine American;
and in the Virginia delegation, an illustrious group,—in
Richard Bland, wisdom; in Edmund Pendleton, practical talent;
in Peyton Randolph, experience in legislation; in Richard
Henry Lee, statesmanship in union with high culture; in
Patrick Henry, genius and eloquence; in Washington, justice
and patriotism. 'If,' said Patrick Henry, 'you speak of solid
information and sound judgment, Washington unquestionably is
the greatest man of them all.' … The congress was organized by
the choice of Peyton Randolph of Virginia for President, and
Charles Thomson of Philadelphia, not a member, for Secretary.
… A discussion … arose on the rules to be observed in
determining questions, … which was renewed the next day, when
it was agreed that each colony should have one vote."
_R. Frothingham,
The Rise of the Republic of the United States,
chapter 9._
ALSO IN:
_J. T. Scharf and. T. Westcott,
History of Philadelphia,
volume 1, chapter 16._
_C. J. Stillé,
Life and Times of John Dickinson,
chapter 5._
_V. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the! United States,
volume 3, chapter 13._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (September-October).
The action of the Congress.
"The Congress first resolved 'to state the rights of the
colonies in general, the several instances in which those
rights were violated or infringed, and the means most proper
for a restoration of them.' Next, 'to examine and report the
several statutes which affect the trade and manufactures of
the colonies,' not earlier than the last nine years. While
these subjects were under consideration, resolutions of Boston
and its neighbors [Middlesex and Suffolk counties] were laid
before them, stating their wrongs and merely defensive
measures to which they would adhere, 'as long as such conduct
may be vindicated by reason and the principles of
self-preservation, but no longer.' … Congress unanimously
approved and recommended 'a perseverance in this firm and
temperate conduct,' trusting a change in the councils of the
British nation. The merchants were urged not to order goods,
and to suspend those ordered; and it was resolved, that after
the first of next December there should be no importation of
British goods, and no consumption of, or traffic in them. A
loyal petition to the king was ordered, assuring him that by
abolishing the system of laws and regulations of which the
colonies complained, enumerating them, the jealousies they had
caused would be removed, and harmony restored. 'We ask but for
peace, liberty and safety. We wish not a diminution of the
prerogative, nor do we solicit the grant of any new right in
our favor. Your royal authority over us, and our connection
with Great Britain, we shall always carefully and zealously
endeavor to support and maintain.' General Gage was entreated
to discontinue the erection of the fortifications on Boston
Neck, and to prevent all injuries on the part of the troops;
and Massachusetts was asked 'temporarily to submit to a
suspension of the administration of justice where it could not
be procured in a legal and peaceable manner.' Persons
accepting office under the recent act, changing the form of
her government, were denounced, 'as the wicked tools of that
despotism which is preparing to destroy those rights which
God, nature, and compact have given to America.' A memorial
was next ordered to the inhabitants of the British colonies
there represented, exposing their common wrongs and urging a
united 'commercial opposition,' warning them to extend their
views 'to mournful events,' to be 'in all respects prepared
for every contingency, and to implore the favor of Almighty
God.'
{3215}
An appeal was made to the enlightened sympathies of the
British people. … Finally, an address was made to the
inhabitants of the Province of Quebec, inviting their
co-operation. In the meantime, the form of a non-exportation,
non-consumption association was adopted, and signed by each of
the delegates. … A declaration of the rights and injuries of
the colonies was made, in which the most difficult question
was disposed of. The right to participate in the legislative
council of their common country, was declared to be the
foundation of English liberty and of all free government. … Of
all these proceedings the language was that of peace, except
where other language was demanded. For they approved the
opposition of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay to the
execution of the late acts of Parliament, and declared, 'If
these acts shall be attempted to be carried into execution by
force, in such case all America ought to support them in their
opposition,' and 'that seizing or attempting to seize any
person in America, in order to transport such person beyond
the sea for trial of offences committed within the body of a
county in America, being against law, will justify, and ought
to meet with, resistance and reprisal.' These were the
essential resolutions. They bound the colonies to a common
resistance to acts of force against all, or any one of them.
They also declared their opinion of the necessity that another
Congress should be held in the ensuing month of May, unless
the redress of grievances which they had desired was obtained
before that time, and that all the colonies in North America
choose deputies, as soon as possible, to attend such Congress.
On the twenty-sixth of October, after a secret session of
fifty-one days, this body adjourned. The recommendations of
this Congress were received with marked respect among the
patriots of the colonies."
_J. C. Hamilton,
History of the United States as traced
in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton,
chapter 3 (volume 1)._
"Trained in all the theories of the mercantile system, America
had been taught to believe (1) that two countries could
continue to trade, though one of necessity did so at a loss;
(2) that in the trade between England and the colonies, the
former both through natural advantages and through law was the
party to which the profit accrued; (3) that England was 'a
shop-keeping nation,' whose very existence depended on her
trade and manufactures. A suspension of trade between England
and America therefore would mean misery, if not ruin, to the
mother country, while the colonies would 'both save and gain.'
With measures of non-importation, non-exportation and
non-consumption, accordingly, did this otherwise powerless
body hope to coerce the English people and government. Though
founded on an economic fallacy, this method of action was
certain to have a great effect in England. Twice already had
it been employed on a limited scale—against the Stamp Act and
against the revenue acts,—and each time with sufficient
success to warrant the belief that its wider application would
result in victory. Now the agents of the colonies in London
were writing home: 'If you have virtue enough to resolve to
stop, and to execute the resolution of stopping, your exports
and imports for one year, this country must do you justice.' …
In both England and America the temporary destruction of
British trade was viewed not merely as an effective weapon,
but as the only peaceful one which the colonies possessed. A
failure to unite in a non-importation agreement against
England would, according to a prominent English politician,
leave nothing for the colonies 'but to decide between ruin and
submission.' The question for the Congress was not, therefore,
a choice of remedies, but merely whether, and to how great an
extent, the dele·gates could be brought to agree to the only
one within their reach. For even while accepting the system as
effective against Great Britain, the delegates and their
constituents had so far progressed as to realize that it bore
with uneven force on the different colonies. The southern
colonies were really no more diversified in their industries
than the West India islands. South Carolina grew rice and
indigo; North Carolina depended largely on tar, pitch and
turpentine; Virginia raised tobacco. Unless these products
could be exported to Europe, those colonies might suffer for
the necessaries of life. … The first consideration of the
subject in the Congress revealed serious difficulties. The
Virginia delegation, 'to avoid the heavy injury that would
arise,' were prevented by their instructions from agreeing to
an immediate cessation of trade relations. Imports would cease
on November 1, 1774, but exports must continue till August 10,
1775. It was in vain they were told 'that a non-exportation at
a future day cannot avail,' and that at the Virginia date
non-exportation would not operate before the fall of 1776. The
Virginians had determined to cure and sell their tobacco crop
of 1774 before 'consideration of interest and of equality of
sacrifice should be laid aside.' So vital, however, did most
of the delegates consider the immediate enforcement, that it
was proposed to act without Virginia; for Boston and New
England, it was said, would need active support before that
date. This proposition was defeated by the refusal of the
delegates of North Carolina and Maryland to join unless
Virginia should also make the sacrifice. With sorry grace the
Congress had to accept the dictation of Virginia. But the
trouble did not end here. Virginia's selfish interest having
been triumphant, the South Carolina delegation sought for an
equal advantage, and demanded that the two great products of
that colony should be especially reserved from the
non-exportation clause. … Rather than yield, the Congress
preferred a cessation of business for several days, in order
'to give Our [South Carolina] deputies time to recollect
themselves.' But when the Association was ready for signing,
the South Carolina delegates, with but one exception, seceded
from the Congress, and their assent was only secured
eventually through a compromise, by virtue of which rice alone
was excluded from the agreement, while indigo was brought
under its terms. Such were the secret deliberations of the
Congress, in endeavoring to unite the colonies in the use of
their only weapon. The first public results appeared in the
form of a unanimous resolution, passed and published on
September 22, requesting 'the merchants and others in the
several colonies not to send to Great Britain any orders for
goods,' and to delay or suspend orders already sent. Five days
later it was unanimously resolved that after December 1, 1774,
'there should be no importation into British America from
Great Britain or Ireland, or from any other place,' of any
goods, wares or merchandise exported from Great Britain or
Ireland.
{3216}
Three days later, with no assertion of unanimity, a resolution
was announced to the effect 'that from and after the 10th day
of September, 1775, the exportation of all merchandise and
every commodity whatsoever to Great Britain, Ireland and the
West Indies ought to cease, unless the grievances of America
are redressed before that time,' and a committee was appointed
to draft a plan for carrying into effect these resolves. On
October 12 this committee brought in a report, which, after
consideration and amendment, was on the 18th of October agreed
to and ordered signed. On October 20 it was signed and ordered
to be printed. Possessed of no real power, the Congress relied
on the people to enforce this agreement. It was recommended
that in every county, city and town a committee be chosen
'whose business it shall be attentively to observe the conduct
of all persons touching this Association.' With hardly an
exception, this recommendation was adopted. … As America had
refused to trade with Great Britain and her colonies, the
government replied by acts prohibiting any such trade. The
policy of 'exhausting its opponent by injuring itself' was at
last to have a fair trial, but through British, not American
action. The colonies were by law interdicted from all
commerce, trade and fishing. But before the legislation went
into effect blood had been shed at Lexington. The contest
could no longer be fought with acts of Parliament and resolves
of Congress; 'blows must decide.' The Association was
distinctively a peace weapon. Had the Congress really expected
war, no action could have been more foolish. A garrison soon
to be beleaguered virtually shut its ports to supplies. No
better proof is needed of how little the delegates wished or
worked for separation."
_P. L. Ford,
The Association of the First Congress
(Political Science Quarterly, December, 1891.)_
'That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free
government, is a right in the people to participate in their
legislative council; and us the English colonists are not
represented, and from their local and other circumstances
cannot be properly represented in the British Parliament, they
are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in
their several provincial legislatures, where their rights of
representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of
taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of
their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used
and accustomed. But from the necessity of the case, and a
regard to the mutual interest of both countries, we cheerfully
consent to the operation of such acts of the British
Parliament as are bona fide restrained to the regulation of
our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the
commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother
country; and the commercial benefits of its respective
members; excluding every idea of taxation, internal or
external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America,
without their consent.' This was not precisely what John Adams
wanted, but it was much. When this declaration went forth, the
cause of Massachusetts, in whatever it might eventuate, was
the cause of the colonies. It was nationalized. This was John
Adams's greatest feat of statesmanship. On it the Success of
the impending war, and the Declaration of Independence
rested."
_M. Chamberlain,
John Adams, the Statesman of the
American Revolution,
pages 78-80._
"How far the authority of this first congress extended,
according to the instructions of the delegates, it is
impossible to determine with certainty at this distance of
time. But it is probable that the original intention was that
it should consult as to the ways and means best calculated to
remove the grievances and to guaranty the rights and liberties
of the colonies, and should propose to the latter a series of
resolutions, furthering these objects. But the force of
circumstances at the time compelled it to act and order
immediately, and the people, by a consistent following of its
orders, approved this transcending of their written
instructions. The congress was therefore not only a
revolutionary body from its origin, but its acts assumed a
thoroughly revolutionary character. The people, also, by
recognizing its authority, placed themselves on a
revolutionary footing, and did so not as belonging to the
several colonies, but as a moral person; for to the extent
that congress assumed power to itself and made bold to adopt
measures national in their nature, to that extent the
colonists declared themselves henceforth to constitute one
people, inasmuch as the measures taken by congress could be
translated from words into deeds only with the consent of the
people. This state of affairs essentially continued up to
March 1, 1781.
{3217}
Until that time, that is, until the adoption of the articles
of confederation by all the states, congress continued a
revolutionary body, which was recognized by all the colonies
as 'de jure' and 'de facto' the national government, and which
as such came in contact with foreign powers and entered into
engagements, the binding force of which on the whole people
has never been called in question. The individual colonies, on
the other hand, considered themselves, up to the time of the
Declaration of Independence, as legally dependent upon England
and did not take a single step which could have placed them
before the mother country or the world in the light of 'de
facto' sovereign states. They remained colonies until the
'representatives of the United States' 'in the name of the
good people of these colonies' solemnly declared 'these united
colonies' to be 'free and independent states.' The
transformation of the colonies into 'states' was, therefore,
not the result of the independent action of the individual
colonies. It was accomplished through the 'representatives of
the United States'; that is, through the revolutionary
congress, in the name of the whole people. Each individual
colony became a state only in so far as it belonged to the
United States and in so far as its population constituted a
part of the people."
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the
United States,
volume 1, chapter 1._
ALSO IN:
_W. V. Wells,
Life of Samuel Adams,
volume 2, pages 213-247._
_J. Adams,
Diary (Works, volume 2)
pages 358-401._
_Journal of the Congress which met at Philadelphia
September 5, 1774
(London: J. Almon)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774-1775.
Provincial Congress of Massachusetts and
Committee of Safety.
Military preparations.
"Governor Gage issued writs, dated September 1, convening the
General Court at Salem on the 5th of October, but dissolved it
by a proclamation dated September 28, 1774. The members
elected to it, pursuant to the course agreed upon, resolved
themselves into a Provincial Congress. This body, on the 26th
of October, adopted a plan for organizing the militia,
maintaining it, and calling it out when circumstances should
render it necessary. It provided that one quarter of the
number enrolled should be held in readiness to muster at the
shortest notice, who were called by the popular name of
minute-men. An executive authority—the Committee of
Safety—was created, clothed with large discretionary powers;
and another called the Committee of Supplies. On the 27th
Jedediah Preble, (who did not accept,) Artemas Ward, and Seth
Pomeroy, were chosen general officers; and on the 28th, Henry
Gardner was chosen treasurer of the colony, under the title of
Receiver-General. Among the energetic acts of this memorable
Congress, was one authorizing the collection of military
stores. It dissolved December 10. The committee of safety, as
early as November, authorized the purchase of materials for an
army, and ordered them to be deposited at Concord and
Worcester. These proceedings were denounced by General Gage,
in a proclamation dated November 10, as treasonable, and a
compliance with them was forbidden. In a short time the king's
speech and the action of Parliament were received, which
manifested a firm determination to produce submission to the
late acts, and to maintain 'the supreme authority' of Great
Britain over the colonies. General Gage regarded this
intelligence as having 'cast a damp upon the faction,' and as
having produced a happy effect upon the royalist cause.
However, a second Provincial Congress (February 1 to 16, 1775)
renewed the measures of its predecessor; and gave definiteness
to the duties of the committee of safety, by 'empowering and
directing' them (on the 9th of February) to assemble the
militia whenever it was required to resist the execution of
the two acts, for altering the government and the
administration of justice. At the same time it appointed two
additional generals, John Thomas, and William Heath, and made
it the duty of the five general officers to take charge of the
militia when called out by the committee of safety, and to
'effectually oppose and resist such attempt or attempts as
shall be made for carrying into execution by force' the two
acts. … The conviction was fast becoming general that force
only could decide the contest. Stimulated and sustained by
such a public opinion, the committees of safety and supplies
were diligent, through the gloomy months of winter, in
collecting and storing at Concord and Worcester materials for
the maintenance of an army."
_R. Frothingham, Jr.,
History of the Siege of Boston,
chapter 1. _
The following citizens composed the Committee of Public
Safety, viz., "John Hancock, Joseph Warren, Benjamin Church,
Richard Devens, Benjamin White, Joseph Palmer, Abraham Watson,
Azor Orne, John Pigeon, William Heath, and Thomas Gardner. The
following 'Committee of Supplies' was announced, viz.,
Elbridge Gerry, David Cheever, Benjamin Lincoln, Moses Gill,
and Benjamin Hall. … By the first day of January, 1775, the
garrison of Boston had been increased to thirty-five hundred
men, and mounted three hundred and seventy men as a daily
guard-detail, besides a field officers' guard of one hundred
and fifty men on Boston Neck. Three brigades were organized
and were officered, respectively by Generals Lord Percy,
Pigott and Jones. In November of 1774, General Gage had
advised the British government, that he, 'was confident, that
to begin with an army twenty thousand strong, would in the end
save Great Britain blood and treasure.' Meanwhile, the militia
drilled openly, rapidly completed company organizations, and
made many sacrifices to procure arms, powder and other
materials of war. The Home government, in view of the serious
aspect of affairs, ordered Generals Howe, Clinton, and
Burgoyne to join General Gage, and announced that 'ample
reinforcements would be sent out, and the most speedy and
effectual measures would be taken to put down the rebellion,'
then pronounced to already exist. On the eighth of April, the
Provincial Congress resolved to take effectual measures to
raise an army, and requested the cooperation of Rhode Island,
New Hampshire and Connecticut. On the thirteenth, it voted to
raise six companies of artillery, to pay them and keep them at
drill. On the fourteenth it advised citizens to leave Boston
and to remove to the country. On the fifteenth, it solemnly
appointed a day for 'Public Fasting and Prayer,' and adjourned
to the tenth day of May. The Committee of Public Safety at
once undertook the task of securing powder, cannon and small
arms. A practical embargo was laid upon all trade with Boston.
The garrison could obtain supplies only with great difficulty,
and, as stated by Gordon, 'nothing was wanting but a spark, to
set the whole continent in a flame.'"
_H. B. Carrington,
Battles of the American Revolution.
chapter 2._
ALSO IN:
_J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
chapter 3 (volume 1)._
{3218}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (January-March).
Vain efforts toward pacific statesmanship in the British
Parliament, by Chatham, Burke, and others.
A newly elected British Parliament "met on November 30, 1774;
but no serious measure relating to America was taken till
January 1775, when the House reassembled after the Christmas
vacation. The Ministers had a large majority, and even apart
from party interest the genuine feeling of both Houses ran
strongly against the Americans. Yet at no previous period were
they more powerfully defended. I have already noticed that
Chatham, having returned to active politics after his long
illness in 1774, had completely identified himself with the
American cause, and had advocated with all his eloquence
measures of conciliation. He … moved an address to the King
praying that he would as soon as possible, 'in order to open
the way towards a happy settlement of the dangerous troubles
in America,' withdraw the British troops stationed in Boston.
In the course of his speech he represented the question of
American taxation as the root-cause of the whole division, and
maintained that the only real basis of conciliation was to be
found in a distinct recognition of the principle that
'taxation is theirs, and commercial regulation ours;' that
England has a supreme right of regulating the commerce and
navigation of America, and that the Americans have an
inalienable right to their own property. He fully justified
their resistance, predicted that all attempts to coerce them
would fail, and eulogised the Congress at Philadelphia as
worthy of the greatest periods of antiquity. Only eighteen
peers voted for the address, while sixty-eight opposed it. On
February 1 he reappeared with an elaborate Bill for settling
the troubles in America. It asserted in strong terms the right
of Parliament to bind the colonies in all matters of imperial
concern, and especially in all matters of commerce and
navigation. It pronounced the new colonial doctrine that the
Crown had no right to send British soldiers to the colonies
without the assent of the Provincial Assemblies, dangerous and
unconstitutional in the highest degree, but at the same time
it recognised the sole right of the colonists to tax
themselves, guaranteed the inviolability of their charters,
and made the tenure of their judges the same as in England. It
proposed to make the Congress which had met at Philadelphia an
official and permanent body, and asked it to make a free grant
for imperial purposes. England, in return, was to reduce the
Admiralty Courts to their ancient limits, and to suspend for
the present the different Acts complained of by the colonists.
The Bill was not even admitted to a second reading. Several
other propositions tending towards conciliation were made in
this session. On March 22, 1775, Burke, in one of his greatest
speeches, moved a series of resolutions recommending a repeal
of the recent Acts complained of in America, reforming the
Admiralty Court and the position of the judges, and leaving
American taxation to the American Assemblies, without touching
upon any question of abstract right. A few days later, Hartley
moved a resolution calling upon the Government to make
requisitions to the colonial Assemblies to provide of their
own authority for their own defence; and Lord Camden in the
House of Lords and Sir G. Savile in the House of Commons
endeavoured to obtain a repeal of the Quebec Act. All these
attempts, however, were defeated by enormous majorities. The
petition of Congress to the King was referred to Parliament,
which refused to receive it, and Franklin, after vain efforts
to effect a reconciliation, returned from England to America."
_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 12. (volume 3)._
The following are the more important passages of the speech of
Burke, on moving the resolutions which he introduced in the
House of Commons, March 22, 1775:
"The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of
war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate
and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal
discord, fomented from principle, in all parts of the empire;
not peace to depend on the juridical determination of
perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy
boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace, sought
in its natural course and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace
sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely
pacific. I propose, by removing the ground of the difference,
and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the
colonies in the mother country, to give permanent satisfaction
to your people,—and (far from a scheme of ruling by discord)
to reconcile them to each other in the same act and by the
bond of the very same interest which reconciles them to
British government. My idea is nothing more. Refined policy
ever has been the parent of confusion,—and ever will be so, as
long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as
easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely
detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the
government of mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is an
healing and cementing principle. … The capital leading
questions on which you must this day decide are these two:
First, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your
concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we
have gained … some ground. But I am sensible that a good deal
more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to
determine both on the one and the other of these great
questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be
necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the
peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us:
because, after all our struggle, whether we will or not, we
must govern America according to that nature and to those
circumstances, and not according to our own imaginations, not
according to abstract ideas of right, by no means according to
mere general theories of government, the resort to which
appears to me, in our present situation, no better than arrant
trifling. … The first thing that we have to consider with
regard to the nature of the object is the number of people in
the colonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of pains
on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in
placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our
own European blood and color,—besides at least 500,000 others,
who form no inconsiderable part of the strength and opulence
of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true number.
There is no occasion to exaggerate, where plain truth is of so
much weight and importance. But whether I put the present
numbers too high or too low is a matter of little moment.
{3219}
Such is the strength with which population shoots in that part
of the world, that, state the numbers as high as we will,
whilst the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends. Whilst we
are discussing any given magnitude, they are grown to it.
Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of
governing two millions, we shall find we have millions more to
manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy to
manhood than they spread from families to communities, and
from villages to nations. … But the population of this
country, the great and growing population, though a very
important consideration, will lose much of its weight, if not
combined with other circumstances. The commerce of your
colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers of the
people. … The trade with America alone is now within less than
£500,000 of being equal to what this great commercial nation,
Eng]and, carried on at the beginning of this century with the
whole world! … But, it will be said, is not this American
trade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the juices
from the rest of the body? The reverse. It is the very food
that has nourished every other part into its present
magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly augmented, and
augmented more or less in almost every part to which it ever
extended, but with this material difference: that of the six
millions which in the beginning of the century constituted the
whole mass of our export commerce the colony trade was but one
twelfth part; it is now (as a part of sixteen millions)
considerably more than a third of the whole. … I choose, Sir,
to enter into these minute and particular details; because
generalities, which in all other cases are apt to heighten and
raise the subject, have here a tendency to sink it. When we
speak of the commerce of our colonies, fiction lags after
truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and
barren. … I pass … to the colonies in another point of
view,—their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such a
spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully their own growing
multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice,
has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last
harvest, I am persuaded, they will export much more. At the
beginning of the century some of these colonies imported corn
from the mother country. For some time past the Old World has
been fed from the New. The scarcity which you have felt would
have been a desolating famine, if this child of your old age,
with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put
the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its
exhausted parent. As to the wealth which the colonies have
drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter
fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those
acquisitions of value, for they seemed even to excite your
envy; and yet the spirit by which that enterprising employment
has been exercised ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised
your esteem and admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world
is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the
manner in which the people of New England have of late carried
on the whale-fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling
mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest
frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we
are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that
they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that
they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen
serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote
and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is
but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their
victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more
discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the
poles. … I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted in
my detail is admitted in the gross, but that quite a different
conclusion is drawn from it. America, gentlemen say, is a
noble object,—it is an object well worth fighting for.
Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of
gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their
choice of means by their complexions and their habits. Those
who understand the military art will of course have some
predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the state
may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I
confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is
much more in favor of prudent management than of
force,—considering force not as an odious, but a feeble
instrument, for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so
growing, so spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate
connection with us. First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the
use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a
moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing
again: and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be
conquered. My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not
always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory.
If you do not succeed, you are without resource: for,
conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no
further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority
are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged
as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence. A further
objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very
endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the
thing which you recover, but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and
consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me than
whole America. I do not choose to consume its strength along
with our own; because in all parts it is the British strength
that I consume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign
enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict, and still less
in the midst of it. I may escape, but I can make no insurance
against such an event. Let me add, that I do not choose wholly
to break the American spirit; because it is the spirit that
has made the country. Lastly, we have no sort of experience in
favor of force as an instrument in the rule of our colonies.
Their growth and their utility has been owing to methods
altogether different. Our ancient indulgence has been said to
be pursued to a fault. It may be so; but we know, if feeling
is evidence, that our fault was more tolerable than our
attempt to mend it, and our sin far more salutary than our
penitence. These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining
that high opinion of untried force by which many gentlemen,
for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great
respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still
behind a third consideration concerning this object, which
serves to determine my opinion on the sort of policy which
ought to be pursued in the management of America, even more
than its population and its commerce: I mean its temper and
character.
{3220}
In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the
predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole.
… This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English
colonies, prob·ably, than in any other people of the earth,
and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to
understand the true temper of their minds, and the direction
which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open
somewhat more largely. First, the people of the colonies are
descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which
still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The
colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character
was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction
the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not
only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English
ideas and on English principles. … Your mode of governing
them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or
mistake, confirmed them in the imagination, that they, as well
as you, had an interest in these common principles. They were
further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their
provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are
popular in an high degree: some are merely popular; in all,
the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share
of the people in their ordinary government never fails to
inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion
from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief importance.
If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the
form of government, religion would have given it a complete
effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new
people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of
professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The
people are Protestants, and of that kind which is the most
adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. … All
Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of
dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern
colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is
the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the
Protestant religion. … Permit me, Sir, to add another
circumstance in our colonies, which contributes no mean part
towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit: I
mean their education. In no country, perhaps, in the world is
the law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous
and powerful, and in most provinces it takes the lead. The
greater number of the deputies sent to the Congress were
lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavour to
obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told by an
eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after
tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the
law exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen
into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear that
they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's 'Commentaries'
in America as in England. General Gage marks out this
disposition very particularly in a letter on your table. He
states, that all the people in his government are lawyers, or
smatterers in law,—and that in Boston they have been enabled,
by successful chicane, wholly to evade many parts of one of
your capital penal constitutions. … The last cause of this
disobedient spirit in the colonies is hardly less powerful
than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the
natural constitution of things. Three thousand miles of ocean
lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the
effect of this distance in weakening government. Seas roll,
and months pass, between the order and the execution; and the
want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to
defeat an whole system. … Then, Sir, from these six capital
sources, of descent, of form of government, of religion in the
northern provinces, of manners in the southern, of education,
of the remoteness of situation from the first mover of
government,—from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty
has grown up. It has grown with the growth of the people in
your colonies, and increased with the increase of their
wealth: a spirit, that, unhappily meeting with an exercise of
power in England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable
to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled
this flame that is ready to consume us. … The question is not,
whether their spirit deserves praise or blame,—what, in the
name of God, shall we do with it? You have before you the
object, such as it is,—with all its glories, with all its
imperfections on its head. You see the magnitude, the
importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all
these considerations we are strongly urged to determine
something concerning it. We are called upon to fix some rule
and line for our future conduct, which may give a little
stability to our politics, and prevent the return of such
unhappy deliberations as the present. … It should seem, to my
way of conceiving such matters, that there is a very wide
difference, in reason and policy, between the mode of
proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered individuals,
or even of bands of men, who disturb order within the state,
and the civil dissensions which may, from time to time, on
great questions, agitate the several communities which compose
a great empire. It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to
apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great
public con·test. I do not know the method of drawing up an
indictment against an whole people. … I am not ripe to pass
sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted with
magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with
the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very same title
that I am. I really think that for wise men this is not
judicious, for sober men not decent, for minds tinctured with
humanity not mild and merciful."
In the closing part of his speech, Mr. Burke introduced
successively and commented upon the following propositions, or
resolutions, which formed in their entirety his plan of
conciliation. At the end of his speaking they were rejected by
a vote of 270 against 78:
"That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North
America, consisting of 14 separate governments, and containing
two mil·lions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had
the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights
and burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high court
of Parliament.
{3221}
That the said colonies and plantations have been made liable
to, and bounden by, several subsidies, payments, rates, and
taxes, given and granted by Parliament, though the said
colonies and plantations have not their knights and burgesses
in the said high court of Parliament, of their own election,
to represent the condition of their country; by lack whereof
they have been oftentimes touched and grieved by subsidies,
given, granted, and assented to, in the said court, in a
manner prejudicial to the common wealth, quietness, rest, and
peace of the subjects inhabiting within the same.
That, from the distance of the said colonies, and from other
circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised for
procuring a representation in Parliament for the said
colonies.
That each of the said colonies hath within itself a body,
chosen, in part or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders,
or other free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the General
Assembly, or General Court, with powers legally to raise,
levy, and assess, according to the several usages of such
colonies, duties and taxes towards defraying all sorts of
public services.
That the said general assemblies, general courts, or other
bodies legally qualified as aforesaid, have at sundry times
freely granted several large subsidies and public aids for his
Majesty's service, according to their abilities, when required
thereto by letter from one of his Majesty's principal
Secretaries of State; and that their right to grant the same,
and their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants,
have been at sundry times acknowledged by Parliament. That it
hath been found by experience, that the manner of granting the
said supplies and aids by the said general assemblies hath
been more agreeable to the inhabitants of said colonies, and
more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the
mode of giving and granting aids and subsidies in Parliament,
to be raised and paid in the said colonies.
That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 7th year
of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for
granting certain duties in the British colonies and
plantations in America; for allowing a drawback of the duties
of customs, upon the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee
and cocoa-nuts, of the produce of the said colonies or
plantations; for discontinuing the drawbacks payable on China
earthen ware exported to America; and for more effectually
preventing the clandestine running of goods in the said
colonies and plantations.'
That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 14th year
of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act to
discontinue, in such manner and for such time as are therein
mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of
goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town and within the
harbor of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in
North America.'
That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 14th year
of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for
the impartial administration of justice, in the cases of
persons questioned for any acts done by them, in the execution
of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in
the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'
That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 14th year
of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for
the better regulating the government of the province of the
Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'
That it may be proper to explain and amend an act, made in the
35th year of the reign of King Henry VIII., intituled, 'An act
for the trial of treasons committed out of the king's
dominions.'
That, from the time when the general assembly, or general
court, of any colony or plantation in North America, shall
have appointed, by act of assembly duly confirmed, a settled
salary to the offices of the chief justice and other judges of
the superior courts, it may be proper that the said chief
justice and other judges of the superior courts of such colony
shall hold his and their office and offices during their good
behaviour, and shall not be removed therefrom, but when the
said removal shall be adjudged by his Majesty in council, upon
a hearing on complaint from the general assembly, or on a
complaint from the governor, or the council, or the house of
representatives, severally, of the colony in which the said
chief justice and other judges have exercised the said
offices.
That it may be proper to regulate the courts of admiralty or
vice-admiralty, authorized by the 15th chapter of the 4th
George III., in such a manner as to make the same more
commodious to those who sue or are sued in the said courts;
and to provide for the more decent maintenance of the judges
of the same."
_Edmund Burke,
Works,
volume 2._
ALSO IN:
_T. MacKnight,
Life and Times of Edmund Burke,
chapter 21 (volume 2)._
_J. Adolphus,
History of England, Reign of George III.,
chapter 25 (volume 2)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (January-April).
Aims at independence disclaimed.
"The denial that independence was the final object, was
constant and general. To obtain concessions and to preserve
the connection with England was affirmed everywhere; and John
Adams, after the peace, went farther than this, for he
said:—'There was not a moment during the Revolution, when I
would not have given everything I possessed for a restoration
to the state of things before the contest began, provided we
could have had a sufficient security for its continuance.' If
Mr. Adams be regarded as expressing the sentiments of the
Whigs, they were willing to remain Colonists, provided they
could have had their rights secured to them; while the Tories
were contented thus to continue, without such security. Such,
as it appears to me, was the only difference between the two
parties prior to hostilities. … Franklin's testimony, a few
days before the affair at Lexington, was, that he had 'more
than once travelled almost from one end of the continent to
the other, and kept a variety of company, eating, drinking,
and conversing with them freely, [and] never had heard from
any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for
a separation, or a hint that such a thing would be
advantageous to America.' Mr. Jay is quite as explicit.
'During the course of my life,' said he, 'and until the second
petition of Congress in 1775, I never did hear an American of
any class, or of any description, express a wish for the
independence of the Colonies.' 'It has always been, and still
is, my opinion and belief, that our country was prompted and
impelled to independence by necessity, and not by choice.'
{3222}
Mr. Jefferson affirmed, 'What, eastward of New York, might
have been the dispositions towards England before the
commencement of hostilities, I know not; but before that I
never heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great
Britain; and after that its possibility was contemplated with
affliction by all.' Washington, in 1774, fully sustains these
declarations, and, in the 'Fairfax County Resolves,' it was
complained that 'malevolent falsehoods' were propagated by the
ministry to prejudice the mind of the king: 'particularly that
there is an intention in the American Colonies to set up for
independent States.' Mr. Madison was not in public life until
May, 1776, but he says, 'It has always been my impression,
that a reëstablishment of the Colonial relations to the parent
country, as they were previous to the controversy, was the
real object of every class of the people, till the despair of
obtaining it,' &c. … The only way to dispose of testimony like
this, is to impeach the persons who have given it."
_L. Sabine,
Biographical Sketches of Loyalists
of the American Revolution,
volume 1, pages 64-66._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (January-September).
Revolution in South Carolina.
See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (April).
The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution.
Lexington.
Concord.
"On April 19, 1775, the Committees of safety could only count
up twelve field-pieces in Massachusetts; and there had been
collected in that colony 21,549 fire-arms, 17,441 pounds of
powder, 22,191 pounds of ball, 144,699 flints, 10,108
bayonets, 11,979 pouches, 15,000 canteens. There were also
17,000 pounds of salt fish, 35,000 pounds of rice, with large
quantities of beef and pork. Viewed as an evidence of the
forethought of the colonists, these statistics are remarkable;
but there was something heroic and indeed almost pathetic in
the project of going to war with the British government on the
strength of twelve field-pieces and seventeen thousand pounds
of salt fish. Yet when, on the night of the 18th of April,
1775, Paul Revere rode beneath the bright moonlight through
Lexington to Concord, with Dawes and Prescott for comrades, he
was carrying the signal for the independence of a nation. He
had seen across the Charles River the two lights from the
church-steeple in Boston which were to show that a British
force was going out to seize the patriotic supplies at
Concord; he had warned Hancock and Adams at Reverend Jonas
Clark's parsonage in Lexington, and had rejected Sergeant
Monroe's caution against unnecessary noise, with the
rejoinder, 'You'll have noise enough here before long—the
regulars are coming out.' As he galloped on his way the
regulars were advancing with steady step behind him, soon
warned of their own danger by alarm-bells and signal-guns.
When Revere was captured by some British officers who happened
to be near Concord, Colonel Smith, the commander of the
expedition, had already halted, ordered Pitcairn forward, and
sent back prudently for reinforcements. It was a night of
terror to all the neighboring Middlesex towns, for no one knew
what excesses the angry British troops might commit on their
return march. The best picture we have of this alarm is in the
narrative of a Cambridge woman, Mrs. Hannah Winthrop,
describing 'the horrors of that midnight cry,' as she calls
it. The women of that town were roused by the beat of drums
and ringing of bells; they hastily gathered their children
together and fled to the outlying farm-houses; seventy or
eighty of them were at Fresh Pond, within hearing of the guns
at Menotomy, now Arlington. The next day their husbands bade
them flee to Andover, whither the college property had been
sent, and thither they went, alternately walking and riding,
over fields where the bodies of the slain lay unburied. Before
5 A. M. on April 19, 1775, the British troops had reached
Lexington Green, where thirty-eight men, under Captain Parker,
stood up before six hundred or eight hundred to be shot at,
their captain saying, 'Don't fire unless you are fired on; but
if they want a war let it begin here.' It began there; they
were fired upon; they fired rather ineffectually in return,
while seven were killed and nine wounded. The rest, after
retreating, reformed and pursued the' British towards Concord,
capturing seven stragglers—the first prisoners taken in the
war. Then followed the fight at Concord, where four hundred
and fifty Americans, instead of thirty-eight, were rallied to
meet the British. The fighting took place between two
detachments at the North Bridge, where 'once the embattled
farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.'
There the American captain, Isaac Davis, was killed at the
first shot—he who had said, when his company was placed at the
head of the little column, 'I haven't a man that is afraid to
go.' He fell and Major Buttrick gave the order, 'Fire! for
God's sake fire!' in return. The British detachment retreated
in disorder, but their main body was too strong to be
attacked, so they disabled a few cannon, destroyed some
barrels of flour, cut down the liberty-pole, set fire to the
court-house and then began their return march. It ended in a
flight; they were exposed to a constant guerilla fire;
minute-men flocked behind every tree and house; and only the
foresight of Colonel Smith in sending for reinforcements had
averted a surrender. At 2 P. M., near Lexington, Percy with
his troops met the returning fugitives, and formed a hollow
square, into which they ran and threw themselves on the ground
exhausted. Then Percy in turn fell back. Militia still came
pouring in from Dorchester, Milton, Dedham, as well as the
nearer towns. A company from Danvers marched sixteen miles in
four hours. The Americans lost ninety-three in killed, wounded
and missing that day; the British, two hundred and
seventy-three. But the important result was that every
American colony now recognized that war had begun."
_T. W. Higginson,
History of the United States of America,
chapter 10._
ALSO IN:
_R. Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston,
chapter 2._
_E. H. Goss,
Life of Paul Revere,
volume 1, chapter 7._
_J. L. Watson,
Paul Revere's Signal
(Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings,
November 1876)._
_P. Force, editor,
American Archives,
series 4, volume 2. _
_E. Phinney,
History of Battle at Lexington._
_C. Hudson,
History of Lexington,
chapters 6-8._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (April).
The first Provincial Convention in New York.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1775 (APRIL).
{3223}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (April-May).
The siege of Boston begun.
"Reinforcements of foreign troops and supplies were constantly
arriving in Boston. Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne came, as
generals, on the 25th of May. Bitterness, ridicule, and
boasting, with all the irritating taunts of a mercenary
soldiery, were freely poured on the patriots and on the 'mixed
multitude' which composed the germ of their army yet to be.
The British forces had cooped themselves up in Bos·ton, and
the provincials determined that they should remain there, with
no mode of exit save by the sea. The pear-shaped peninsula,
hung to the mainland only by the stem called the 'Neck,' over
which the tide-waters sometimes washed, was equally an
inconvenient position for crowding regiments in war-like
array, and a convenient one for the extemporized army which
was about to beleaguer them there. … The town of Charlestown,
which lay under the enemy's guns, had contained a population
of between two and three thousand. The interruption of all the
employments of peace, and the proximity of danger, had brought
poverty and suffering upon the people. They had been steadily
leaving the town, with such of their effects as they could
carry with them. It proved to be well for them that they had
acted upon the warning. It would seem that there were less
than 200 of its inhabitants remaining in it at the time of the
battle, when the flames kindled by the enemy and bombs from a
battery on Copp's Hill laid it in ashes. On the third day
after the affair at Concord, the Provincial Congress again
assembled, voted to raise at once 13,000 men, to rally at
Cambridge and the neighborhood, and asked aid from the other
provinces, to which Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New
Hampshire responded. The forts, magazines, and arsenals, such
as they then were, were secured for the country. … Of the
15,000 men then gathered, by the cry of war, at Cambridge and
Roxbury, all virtually, but not by formal investment, under
the command of General Ward, nearly 10,000 belonged to
Massachusetts, and the remainder to New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, and Connecticut. They have been designated since, at
various times and by different writers, under the extreme
contrast of terms, as an 'organized army,' and a 'mob.' Either
of these terms would be equally inappropriate. … Our troops
were 'minute-men' extemporized into fragmentary companies and
skeleton regiments. The officers, chosen on the village-green
or in its public-house, paying for the honor by a treat, or
perhaps because they kept the premises where the treat could
be most conveniently furnished, were not commissioned or
ranked as the leaders of an army for campaign service. The
yeomen of town and village had not come together at the
summons of a commander-in-chief through adjutant, herald, or
advertisement. They came unbidden, at an alarm from the bell
on their meeting-house, or from a post-rider, or from the
telegrams transmitted by tongue and ear. … And for the most
part they were as free to go away as they had been to come.
They were enlisted after a fashion, some prime conditions of
which were their own convenience or pleasure. … Such of them
as came from the seaboard might bring with them old sails for
tents, while the midsummer days made it scarcely a hardship to
many to have only the heavens for a roof. Generally their
towns were expected to keep them supplied with food. … The
forces then mustered at Cambridge as a central camp, and,
stretching from the left at Chelsea almost round to Dorchester
on the right, for nearly three quarters of a circle, were
indeed not organized, nor yet had they any characteristic of a
mere mob. They combined in fact four inde·pendent armies,
united in resistance to a foreign enemy. … Each of the
Provinces had raised, commissioned, and assumed the supply of
its respective forces, holding them subject to their several
orders. After the battle in Charlestown, the Committee of War
in Connecticut ordered their generals, Spencer and Putnam,
while they were on the territory of this Province, to regard
General Ward as the commander-in-chief, and suggested to Rhode
Island and New Hampshire to issue the same instructions to
their soldiers. … General Artemas Ward was a conscientious and
judicious patriot. In the French war he had earned some
military experience and fame. … On October 27, 1774, the
Provincial Congress, in which he was a delegate, appointed him
a general officer, and on May 19 following,
Commander-in-chief. As such he served at Cambridge till the
arrival of Washington. On the very day of the battle in
Charlestown, when the great chieftain was selected for his
high service, Ward was chosen by the Continental Congress as
its first major-general. Though he was only in his 48th year
when he was burdened with the responsibility of the opening
warfare, his body was infirm from disease and exposure.
Lieutenant-General Thomas, two years the senior of Ward, was
second in command. … General Israel Putnam preceded his
Connecticut troops in hurrying to the scene of war on the news
of the affair at Lexington and Concord. His men soon followed
him, with like enthusiasm. The New Hampshire troops, on their
arrival at Medford, made choice of Colonel John Stark as their
leader. Colonel Nathaniel Greene commanded a regiment from
Rhode Island. … A few days after the affair at Lexington, when
virtually the siege began, General Gage, the British
commander, at the solicitation of some of the leading citizens
assembled in Faneuil Hall, had, by a mutual understanding,
entered into an agreement that such of the inhabitants as
wished to depart from the town should be at liberty to do so,
if they would leave their arms behind them and covenant not to
engage in any hostility against his army. The agreement was
availed of by many of the suffering and frightened people. …
But the original freedom and fulness of this understanding, on
the part of General Gage, were soon reduced by a very strict
examination of those who sought to go out of the town, and by
a rigid search of the effects which they wished to take with
them. … Several of the inhabitants remained in it from
different motives: some as devoted loyalists; some as timid
neutrals; some as spies, to watch each hostile movement and to
communicate it to their friends outside. … After hostilities
commenced, General Gage, of course, regarded the citizens as
alike prisoners, either in the same sense in which he was
himself under restraint, or as abettors of those who were his
enemies. … The population of the town, independent of the
military, was then about 18,000. To all those who were not in
sympathy with them the British behaved in an insulting and
exasperating manner. … To show, as members of the English
Church establishment, their contempt of congregational places
of worship, they removed the pews and pulpit from the Old
South meeting-house, and, covering the floor with earth, they
converted it into a riding-school for Burgoyne's squadron of
cavalry.
{3224}
The two eastern galleries were allowed to remain, one for
spectators, the other for a liquor-shop, while the fire in the
stove was occasionally kindled by books and pamphlets from the
library of a former pastor, Dr. Prince, which were in a room
in the tower. … At the time of the skirmishes at Lexington and
Concord there were about 4,000 British troops in Boston and at
the Castle. The number was increased to more than 10,000
before the action in Charlestown."
_G. E. Ellis,
History of the Battle of Bunker's Hill,
pages 4-26._
ALSO IN:
_R. Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston,
chapter 3._
_George Washington,
Writings,
edited by W. C. Ford,
volume 3._
_Joseph Reed,
Life and Correspondence,
volume 1._
_C. Stedman [English],
History of the American War,
volume 1, chapters 1 and 5._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (April-June).
The spreading of revolt.
All the colonies in line with New England.
"On the 23d of April, the day after the dissolution of the
provincial Congress of New York, the news from Lexington burst
upon the city. Though it was Sunday, the inhabitants speedily
unloaded two sloops which lay at the wharfs, laden with flour
and supplies for the British at Boston, of the value of
£80,000. … The royal government lay hopelessly prostrate.
Isaac Sears concerted with John Lamb to stop all vessels going
to Quebec, Newfoundland, Georgia, or Boston, where British
authority was still supreme. The people shut up the
custom-house, and the merchants whose vessels were cleared out
dared not let them sail. In the following days the military
stores of the city of New York were secured, and volunteer
companies paraded in the streets. … On the 1st of May the
people, at the usual places of election, chose for the city
and county a new general committee of one hundred, who
'resolved in the most explicit manner to stand or fall with
the liberty of the continent.' All parts of the colony were
summoned to send delegates to a provincial convention, to
which the city and county of New York deputed one-and-twenty
as their representatives. … On the 2d of May the New Jersey
committee of correspondence called a provincial congress for
the 23d at Trenton. To anticipate its influence, the governor
convened the regular assembly eight days earlier at
Burlington, and laid before them the project of Lord North
[adopted by the British parliament in February, offering to
each colony freedom from taxation on its making satisfactory
provision for the general defense and for support of
government]. The assembly could see in the proposition no
avenue to reconciliation, and declared their intention to
'abide by the united voice of the continental congress.' Such,
too, was the spirit of Pennsylvania. 'Let us not have it said
of Philadelphia that she passed noble resolutions and
neglected them,' were the words of Mifflin, youngest of the
orators who on the 25th of April addressed the town-meeting
called in that city on receiving the news from Lexington.
Thousands were present, and agreed 'to associate for the
purpose of defending with arms their lives, their property,
and liberty.' Thomas Paine from that day 'rejected the sullen
Pharaoh of the British throne forever.' … In Philadelphia,
thirty companies, with 50 to 100 in each, daily practiced the
manual exercise of the musket. One of them was raised from the
Quakers. … The Pennsylvania assembly, which met on the first
day of May, rejecting the overtures of the governor, 'could
form no prospect of lasting advantages for Pennsylvania but
from a communication of rights and property with the other
colonies.' … On the 5th Franklin arrived, after a voyage over
the smoothest seas, and the next morning was unanimously
elected a deputy to the congress. … In Maryland, at the
request of the colonels of militia, Eden, at Annapolis, gave
up the arms and ammunition of the province to the freemen of
the county. Pleased with his concession, the provincial
convention distinguished itself by its moderation; and its
delegates to congress determined to labor for a
reconciliation. In Virginia [where, in the night of April
20th, Governor Dunmore had carried off the gunpowder stored in
the colony's magazine at Williamsburg, and where, as a
consequence, the excited people were already in arms, though
no further action had yet been taken], on the 2d of May, at
the cry from Lexington, the independent company of Hanover and
its county committee were called together by Patrick Henry.
The soldiers, most of them young men, elected him their chief,
and marched for Williamsburg, on the way greatly increasing in
numbers. Alarmed by the 'insurrections,' Dunmore convened the
council, and in a proclamation of the 3d pretended that he had
removed the ammunition, lest it should be seized by slaves.
Message after message could not arrest the march or change the
purpose of Henry. … At sunrise on the 4th the governor's
messenger met Henry at New Kent, and, as a compensation for
the gunpowder taken out of the magazine, paid him £330, for
which he was to account to the convention of Virginia. The sum
was found to be more than the value of the powder, and the
next Virginia convention directed the excess to be paid back.
… In twelve or thirteen days the message from Lexington was
borne to Newbern, in North Carolina, where it 'wrought a great
change.' The governor, in his panic, ordered the cannon in the
town to be dismounted; and, after a remonstrance made in the
name of the inhabitants by Abner Nash, 'the oracle of their
committee and a principal promoter of sedition,' he shipped
his wife to New York and fled to Fort Johnston, where a
sloop-of-war had its station. In South Carolina, Charles
Pinckney, on learning the inflexibility of parliament, using
power intrusted to him by the provincial congress, appointed a
committee of five to place the colony in a state of defence;
on the 21st of April, the very night after their organization,
men of Charleston, without disguise, under their direction,
seized all the powder in the public magazines, and removed 800
stand of arms and other military stores from the royal
arsenal. The tidings from Lexington induced the general
committee to hasten the meeting of the provincial congress,
whose members, on the 2d of June, Henry Laurens being their
president, associated themselves for defence against every
foe; 'ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes to secure
her freedom and safety.' They resolved to raise two regiments
of infantry and a regiment of rangers. … The people of
Charleston are as mad as they are here in Boston,' was the
testimony of Gage. The skirmish at Lexington became known in
Savannah on the 10th of May, and added Georgia to the union.
At that time she had about 17,000 white inhabitants and 15,000
Africans. Her militia was not less than 3,000.
{3225}
Her frontier, which extended from Augusta to St. Mary's, was
threatened by the Creeks, with 4,000 warriors; the Chickasas,
with 450; the Cherokees, with 3,000; the Choctas, with 2,500.
But danger could not make her people hesitate. On the night of
the 11th, Noble Wimberley Jones, Joseph Habersham, Edward
Telfair, and others, broke open the king's magazine in the
eastern part of the city, and took from it over 500 pounds of
powder. To the Boston wanderers they sent 63 barrels of rice
and £122 in specie; and they kept the king's birthday by
raising a liberty-pole."
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 4, chapter 11._
ALSO IN:
_T. Jones,
History of New York during the Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 2._
_W. Wirt,
Life of Patrick Henry,
section 5._
_W. B. Stevens,
History of Georgia,
book 4, chapter 1 (volume 2)._
_Proceedings of New York Provincial Congress
(New York State Archives, volume 1)._
_W. H. Egle,
History of Pennsylvania,
chapter 8._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (May).
The surprising of Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
"Early in the year 1775, as soon as it was made manifest by
the attitude assumed on the part of the British government
against the colonies, and by the conduct of General Gage in
Boston, that open hostilities must inevitably commence in a
short time, it began to be secretly whispered among the
principal politicians in New England that the capture of
Ticonderoga was an object demanding the first attention. In
the month of March, Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, as
members of the Committee of Correspondence in Boston, sent an
agent privately into Canada, on a political mission, with
instructions to ascertain the feelings of the people there in
regard to the approaching contest, and to make such reports as
his observations should warrant. … This agent sent back
intelligence from Montreal, and among other things advised,
that by all means the garrison of Ticonderoga should be seized
as quickly as possible after the breaking out of hostilities,
adding that the people of the New Hampshire Grants had already
agreed to undertake the task, and that they were the most
proper persons to be employed in it. This hint was given three
weeks anterior to the battle of Lexington, and how far it
influenced future designs may not be known; but it is certain
that, eight days after that event, several gentlemen at that
time attending the Assembly in Hartford, Connecticut,
concerted a plan for surprising Ticonderoga and seizing the
cannon in that fortress, for the use of the army then marching
from all quarters to the environs of Boston."
_J. Sparks,
Life of Ethan Allen
(Library of American Biographies, volume 1),
page 270._
The gentlemen above mentioned "borrowed of the Connecticut
Treasury some 1,800 dollars, and enlisted Mott and Phelps of
Hartford, and Blagden of Salisbury, to beat up recruits. With
these they went northward, and at Pittsfield got the
co-operation of Captains Easton and Brown. No time was to be
lost, and they pushed on with some forty men to find that
Vermont giant, Ethan Allen, at Bennington. Allen at once
agreed to go; he sought out Seth Warner, and roused the 'Green
Mountain Boys,' who were mostly Connecticut and Massachusetts
men; so that, in a few days, there gathered at Castleton (7th
of May, 1775) two hundred and seventy strong men. Allen was
their first leader, Easton second, and Warner third. Their
larger body was to cross the Lake in boats from Shoreham, and
surprise 'Ty.' Captain Herrick, with thirty men, was to seize
the pass of Skenesborough (now Whitehall) at the head of the
Lake, and Captain Douglass was to search for and seize all
boats and batteaux. While these things were in progress, the
ambitious, active, and daring Benedict Arnold heard of this
expedition, and at once got leave from the Committee of Safety
at Cambridge, to lead it. He rode post-haste through
Massachusetts to raise men, and, with a single follower,
reached Castleton, and claimed the command. These rough cubs
of the forest could not well understand why he should lead
them, for had they not Allen, and Warner, and Easton, and
Phelps, and Biggelow, and others? But they consented that he
should join Allen as an equal; and so forward they went. On
the 8th of May Captain Noah Phelps, disguised with rough
farmer clothes, and a long beard, blundered into the fort at
Ticonderoga, pretending he wanted to be shaved. He found the
gates open, and discipline loose; for no telegraph had carried
the Lexington news to them, nor had the winds wafted the smell
of blood, or the sounds of muskets there. When the darkness
was deepest on the night of the 9th, Allen and Arnold, with 83
men, pulled across the Lake, landed near the fort, and then
sent back the boats for Warner and his men. They had a boy,
Nathan Beman, for a guide, and were full of courage. Allen
formed his men, made them a little speech, and all was ready,
when the question arose as to who should have the honor of
entering the fort first. The dispute was warm between Arnold
and Allen, but was finally quieted; and, side by side, at
daylight, they rushed through the gate of the fort, defended
only by sleeping men. The sentinel snapped his musket, and
ran, giving the alarm; the garrison hastily turned out, to
find themselves in the face of superior numbers. Allen sought
and found the Commander's bed-room, and when Captain Delaplace
waked, he saw any thing but an Angel of Mercy with white
wings. Delaplace opened the door, with trowsers in hand, and
there the great gaunt Ethan stood, with a drawn sword in his
hand. 'Surrender!' said Ethan. 'To you?' asked Delaplace.
'Yes, to me, Ethan Allen.' 'By whose authority?' asked
Laplace. Ethan was growing impatient, and raising his voice,
and waving his sword, he said: 'In the name of the Great
Jehovah, and of the Continental Congress, by God!' Delaplace
little comprehended the words, but surrendered at once. Thus,
on the morning of 10th of May, the strong fortress of
Ticonderoga was taken by the border-men, and with it 44
prisoners, 120 iron cannon, with swivels, muskets, balls, and
some powder, without the loss of a single man. The surprise
was planned and paid for by Connecticut, and was led by Allen,
a Connecticut-born man, but was carried out by the 'Green
Mountain Boys.' Skenesborough (Whitehall) was surprised and
seized, while Major Skene was out shooting. Arnold at once
manned a schooner, taken at Skenesborough, and led an attack
against an armed sloop at St. John's; he took her and the
place, and returned in triumph to meet Allen, who, in
batteaux, was coming to sustain him. Warner led a party
against Crown Point, and took it, with its hundred cannon, and
small garrison of 12 men.
{3226}
News of these things was carried to the Continental Congress,
reassembled at Philadelphia, which caused almost as much
surprise there, as Allen's demand did to Captain Delaplace,
and more exultation. They requested the Committees of Safety
of New York and Albany, to have an inventory made of the
stores, so that they might be returned 'when the restoration
of harmony between Great Britain and the Colonies' should
render it safe."
_C. W. Elliott,
The New England History,
volume 2, chapter 18._
ALSO IN:
_J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
chapter 3 (volume 1)._
_W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 3, chapter 17._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (May).
The Mecklenburg Declaration.
See NORTH CAROLINA:. A. D. 1775 (MAY).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (May-August).
The Second Continental Congress and its work.
Its powers, theoretical and actual.
Its opportunity.
Its influence.
The New England Army adopted as the "Continental Army,"
and Washington made Commander-in-chief.
"The second General Congress assembled at Philadelphia on the
10th of May. Peyton Randolph was again elected as president;
but being obliged to return, and occupy his place as speaker
of the Virginia Assembly, John Hancock, of Massachusetts, was
elevated to the chair. … Many of those most active in
vindicating colonial rights, and Washington among the number,
still indulged the hope of an eventual reconciliation, while
few entertained, or, at least, avowed the idea of complete
independence. A second 'humble and dutiful' petition to the
king was moved, but met with strong opposition. John Adams
condemned it as an imbecile measure, calculated to embarrass
the proceedings of Congress. He was for prompt and vigorous
action. Other members concurred with him. Indeed, the measure
itself seemed but a mere form, intended to reconcile the
half-scrupulous; for subsequently, when it was carried,
Congress, in face of it, went on to assume and exercise the
powers of a sovereign authority. A federal union was formed,
leaving to each colony the right of regulating its internal
affairs according to its own individual constitution, but
vesting in Congress the power of making peace or war; of
entering into treaties and alliances; of regulating general
commerce; in a word, of legislating on all such matters as
regarded the security and welfare of the whole community. The
executive power was to be vested in a council of twelve,
chosen by Congress from among its own members, and to hold
office for a limited time. Such colonies as had not sent
delegates to Congress might yet become members of the
confederacy by agreeing to its conditions. Georgia, which had
hitherto hesitated, soon joined the league, which thus
extended from Nova Scotia to Florida. Congress lost no time in
exercising their federated powers. In virtue of them, they
ordered the enlistment of troops, the construction of forts in
various parts of the colonies, the provision of armies,
ammunition, and military stores; while, to defray the expense
of these, and other measures, avowedly of self-defence, they
authorized the emission of notes to the amount of $3,000,000,
bearing the inscription of 'The United Colonies'; the faith of
the confederacy being pledged for their redemption. A
retaliating decree was passed, prohibiting all supplies of
provisions to the British fisheries; and another, declaring
the province of Massachusetts Bay absolved from its compact
with the crown, by the violation of its charter; and
recommending it to form an internal government for itself. …
The situation of the New England army, actually besieging
Boston, became an early and absorbing consideration. It was
without munitions of war, without arms, clothing, or pay; in
fact, without legislative countenance or encouragement. Unless
sanctioned and assisted by Congress, there was danger of its
dissolution. … The disposition to uphold the army was general;
but the difficult question was, who should be
commander-in-chief? … The opinion evidently inclined in favor
of Washington; yet it was promoted by no clique of partisans
or admirers. More than one of the Virginia delegates, says
Adams, were cool on the subject of this appointment. … Adams,
in his diary, claims the credit of bringing the members of
Congress to a decision. … On the 15th of June, the army was
regularly adopted by Congress, and the pay of the
commander-in-chief fixed at $500 a month. Many still clung to
the idea, that in all these proceedings they were merely
opposing the measures of the ministry, and not the authority
of the crown, and thus the army before Boston was designated
as the Continental Army, in contradistinction to that under
General Gage, which was called the Ministerial Army. In this
stage of the business, Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, rose, and
nominated Washington for the station of commander-in-chief.
The election was by ballot, and was unanimous. It was formally
announced to him by the president, on the following day, when
he had taken his seat in Congress. Rising in his place, he
briefly expressed his high and grateful sense of the honor
conferred on him, and his sincere devotion to the cause.
'But,' added he, 'lest some unlucky event should happen
unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by
every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with the
utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I
am honored with. As to pay, I beg leave to assure the Congress
that, as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to
accept this arduous employment, at the expense of my domestic
ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit on it. I
will keep an exact account of my expenses. Those, I doubt not,
they will discharge, and that is all I desire.'" Four
major-generals,—Artemas Ward, Charles Lee, Philip Schuyler and
Israel Putnam,—and eight brigadier-generals—Seth Pomeroy,
Richard Montgomery, David Wooster, William Heath, Joseph
Spencer, John Thomas, John Sullivan, and Nathaniel Greene—were
appointed. "At Washington's express request, his old friend,
Major Horatio Gates, then absent at his estate in Virginia,
was appointed adjutant-general, with the rank of brigadier."
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 1, chapter 39._
"The Congress of 1775 was not content with mere expression of
opinions. It took a large view of its powers. It realized that
its efficiency depended wholly upon the acceptance of its acts
by the principals of the different delegations; but, following
its judgment as to what the patriotism of the colonies would
approve and sustain, it initiated action of various kinds,
which, from the beginning, assumed the certainty of adoption
by the colonies, and derived all its energy from the
probability of such ratification.
{3227}
The Congress doubtless exceeded the letter of the instructions
received by a portion of its members; but this was not from
any misconception of those instructions. … In pointing out to
the colonies the direction which their preparations for
resistance ought to take, the Congress no more acted upon an
imagined authority to command the colonies than does the
lookout at the bow of the ship, when he reports the direction
of danger to the officer of the deck. The Congress
unquestionably enjoyed a prestige at this juncture which it
subsequently lost. The people, and even the provincial
conventions, occasionally addressed it in a tone which
indicated that they unconsciously attributed to it power which
it plainly did not possess."
A. W. Small,
The Beginnings of American Nationality
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, 8th series, 1-2)
page 73.
"With the energy and recklessness of a French revolutionary
body it might have blotted out the distinctions between
colonies, and established a centralized government, to be
modified in time by circumstances. In fact, it took no such
direction. It began its course by recommendations to the new
colonial governments; it relied on them for executive acts;
and, as soon as the new colonies were fairly under way, they
seized on the power of naming and recalling the delegates to
the Congress. From that time the decadence of the Congress was
rapid; the national idea became dimmer; and the assertions of
complete sovereignty by the political units became more
pronounced."
_A. Johnston,
The United States: its History and Constitution,
sections 63-66 (chapter 3)._
ALSO IN:
_R. Frothingham,
The Rise of the Republic,
chapter 10._
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 1._
_P. Force,
American Archives,
volume 2._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (June).
End of Royal Government in New Hampshire.
See NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1775-1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (June).
The end of Royal Government In Virginia.
See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1775.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (June).
The Battle of Bunker Hill.
"British reinforcements, under three generals, Howe, Clinton,
and Burgoyne, arrived at Boston soon after the fight at
Lexington. Gage had now about 10,000 men. These occupied the
town of Boston, which lay on a peninsula covering the middle
of the harbor. Around them, on the hills of the mainland,
there were about twice their number of undisciplined and
poorly-armed Americans, without cannon and almost without
food. Just north of Boston, another peninsula ran out into the
harbor. On it there were several hills, and the Americans
determined to seize and fortify one of them, called Bunker
Hill. About 1,000 men, under Colonel Prescott, were sent into
the peninsula for this on a suitable night. For some reason,
they passed beyond Bunker Hill, and seized Breed's Hill, much
closer to Boston. Breed's Hill is now usually called Bunker
Hm, and the Bunker Hill monument is erected upon it. The
American fortification was continued silently and swiftly
through the night. In the morning of June 17, 1775, the
British in Boston woke to see a long line of intrenchments
running across the hill above them, and an American
working-party busily strengthening it. For a time, the British
frigates in the harbor kept up a slow and distant fire, to
which the working-party paid no attention; but at noon the
work was stopped, for the British troops were coming across
the harbor in boats. Three thousand well armed, uniformed, and
drilled soldiers, who had never known defeat in equal fight,
landed near Charlestown, under General Howe. Here they formed
at the water-side, and in a long, steady line began to move
upward to scatter the 1,500 farmers who were watching them
from the top of the hill. From the roofs of the houses in
Boston, the rest of the British army and the townspeople were
watching, anxious to see 'whether the Yankees would fight.'
Most of the watchers expected to see the untrained soldiers in
the fort fire a few hasty shots at a safe distance, and run.
The fort held a threatening silence until the attacking column
was within 150 feet. Then, at the word, came a sheet of fire
from the marksmen within; and, when the smoke lifted, part of
the British line was lying dead or wounded, and the rest were
retreating hastily down the hill. The British were not
cowards: the officers re-formed the line at the bottom of the
hill, and, after setting fire to Charlestown, again advanced
to the attack. Again there was a steady silence in the fort, a
close and deadly fire, and the British line was driven down
the hill again. The British then moved up the hill for the
third time. The powder in the fort was now gone, and the
garrison fought for a few minutes with gun stocks and stones
against the British bayonets. But such a struggle was
hopeless, and the British gained the fort. They were too tired
to pursue the garrison, who escaped to the mainland."
_A. Johnston,
History of the United States for schools,
sections 195-197._
"As soon as Prescott saw the defence was hopeless, he ordered
a retreat, and friend and foe mingled together as they surged
out of the sally-port amid the clouds of dust which the
trampling raised, for a scorching sun had baked the new-turned
soil. It was now, while the confused mass of beings rocked
along down the rear slope of the hill, that Warren [who had
joined the defending force that morning as a volunteer] fell,
shot through the head. No one among the Americans knew
certainly that he was dead, as they left him. … Prescott did
not conceal his indignation at not having been better
supported, when he made his report at Ward's headquarters. He
knew he had fought well; but neither he nor his contemporaries
understood at the time how a physical defeat might be a moral
victory. Not knowing this, there was little else than
mortification over the result,—indeed, on both sides. … The
general opinion seems to be that the Americans had about 1,500
men engaged at one time, and that from 3,000 to 4,000 at
different times took some part in it. The British had probably
about the same numbers in all, but were in excess of the
Americans at all times while engaged. The conflict with small
arms lasted about ninety minutes."
J. Winsor,
_The Conflict Precipitated
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 6, chapter 2). _
"How can we exaggerate the relative importance of this day's
action? Did it not, in fact, not only open, but make the
contest, dividing into two parties not only those determined
for the ministry or for enfranchisement, but also all timid,
hesitating, reluctant neutrals? It was impossible after this
to avoid taking a side. It rendered all reconciliation
impossible, till it should offer itself in the shape of
independence.
{3228}
It echoed the gathering cry that brought together our people
from their farms and workshops, to learn the terrible art
which grows more merciful only as it is more ferociously, that
is, skilfully, pursued. The day needs no rhetoric to magnify
it in our revolutionary annals. When its sun went down, the
provincials had parted with all fear, hesitation, and
reluctance. They found that it was easy to fight. … General
Gage's account of the battle, acknowledging the loss of 226
killed and 828 wounded, was received in London, July 25th.
While the ministry received with dismay this official
intelligence, and kept it back from publication, many private
letters accompanying it in its transit anticipated with
exaggerations its humiliating details."
_G. E. Ellis,
History of the Battle of Bunker's Hill,
pages 102-105._
ALSO IN:
_R. Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston,
chapters 4-7._
_R. Frothingham,
Life and Times of Joseph Warren,
chapter 16._
_I. N. Tarbox,
Life of Israel Putnam,
chapters 7-11._
_H. B. Dawson,
Bunker Hill
(Historical Magazine, June, 1868)._
_S. A. Drake,
Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex,
chapter 3._
_P. Force, editor,
American Archives,
series 4, volume 2._
_F. Moore, editor,
Diary of the American Revolution,
volume 1, pages 97-103._
_B. J. Lossing,
Field Book of the American Revolution,
volume 1._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (August-December).
Unsuccessful expedition to Canada.
"The exploits of Allen and Arnold at Ticonderoga … had invited
further conquests; but the Continental Congress hesitated to
take any steps which might seem to carry war across the line
till the Canadians had the opportunity of casting in their lot
with their neighbors. On the 1st of June, 1775, Congress had
distinctly avowed this purpose of restraint; and they well
needed to be cautious, for the Canadian French had not
forgotten the bitter aspersions on their religion which
Congress had, with little compunction, launched upon its
professors, under the irritation of the Quebec Act. Still
their rulers were aliens, and the traditional hatred of
centuries between races is not easily kept in abeyance. Ethan
Allen was more eager to avail himself of this than Congress
was to have him; but the march of events converted the
legislators, and the opportunity which Allen grieved to see
lost was not so easily regained when Congress at last
authorized the northern invasion. Arnold and Allen had each
aimed to secure the command of such an expedition, the one by
appealing to the Continental Congress, the other by
representations to that of New York. Allen had also gone in
person to Philadelphia, and he and his Green Mountain Boys
were not without influence upon Congress, in their quaint and
somewhat rough ways, as their exuberant patriotism later made
the New York authorities forget their riotous opposition to
the policy which that province had been endeavoring to enforce
in the New Hampshire Grants. Connecticut had already sent
forward troops to Ticonderoga to hold that post till Congress
should decide upon some definite action; and at the end of
June, 1775, orders reached Schuyler which he might readily
interpret as authorizing him, if the Canadians did not object,
to advance upon Canada. He soon started to assume command, but
speedily found matters unpromising. The Johnsons were arming
the Indians up the Mohawk and beyond in a way that boded no
good, and they had entered into compacts with the British
commanders in Canada. Arnold had been at Ticonderoga, and had
quarrelled with Hinman, the commander of the Connecticut
troops. Schuyler heard much of the Green Mountain Boys, but he
only knew them as the lawless people of the Grants, and soon
learned that Allen and Warner had themselves set to
quarrelling. … In August the news from Canada began to be
alarming. Richard Montgomery, an Irish officer who had some
years before left the army to settle on the Hudson and marry,
was now one of the new brigadiers. He urged Schuyler to
advance and anticipate the movement now said to be intended by
Carleton, the English general commanding in Canada. At this
juncture Schuyler got word from Washington that a coöperating
expedition would be dispatched by way of the Kennebec, which,
if everything went well, might unite with Schuyler's before
Quebec."
_J. Winsor,
The Conflict Precipitated
(Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 6)._
The two movements were made, from Ticonderoga and from the
Kennebec, with results which will be found related under
CANADA: A. D. 1775-1776. "No expedition during the American
Revolution had less elements of permanent value than those
which were undertaken against Canada during the year 1775.
Great results were anticipated, but none were realized. The
obstacles were too substantial, and failure was inevitable.
Wonderful endurance and great physical courage were
manifested, and these were accompanied by a prodigious amount
of faith, but there was neither ability nor opportunity for
works commensurate with the faith. Certain Acts of Parliament,
known as the Canadian Acts, were as offensive to Canadians as
other legislation was to Americans; but the former were not
pressed to the extremity of armed resistance. The people
themselves having no harmony of religious or political views,
were equally divided in language and race. Neither did the
Canadians invite the aid of the colonies. The hypothesis that
Canada would blend her destiny with that of New England, and
would unite in resistance to the crown, certainly involved
some identity of interest as well as of action. But the
characters of the two people were too unlike to be unified by
simple opposition to English legislation, and Canadians had no
antecedents such as would prompt a hearty sympathy with New
England and its controlling moral sentiment. Neither was there
such a neighborly relation as admitted of prompt and adequate
aid from one to the other, in emergencies calling for a
combined effort. As a base of operations for a British army
moving upon the colonies, Canada had the single advantage of
being less distant from England than an Atlantic base, and
many supplies could be procured without the expense and delay
of their transportation across the Atlantic; but between
Canada and the American colonies there was an actual
wilderness. Hence a British offensive movement from Canada
involved constant waste of men and materials, a deep line
through an uninhabited or hostile region, and such a constant
backing, as was both inconsistent with the resources of the
base, and with a corresponding support of armies resting upon
the sea coast. The British government was not ready for
operations so extensive and so exhaustive of men and treasure;
neither did it realize the necessity for that expenditure.
{3229}
There were two alternatives, one illustrated by General
Carleton's plan, viz., to hold the forts of Lake Champlain, as
advanced, defensive positions; and the other, that of
Burgoyne, to strike through the country and depend upon
support from the opposite base. The true defense of the
colonies from such expeditions depended upon the prompt
seizure and occupation of the frontier posts. An American
advance upon Canada was not only through a country
strategically bad, but the diversion of forces for that
purpose endangered the general issue, and entrusted its
interests to the guardianship of an army already insufficient
to meet the pressing demands of the crisis. The occupation of
New York in 1775, by an adequate British force, would have
infinitely outweighed all possible benefit from the complete
conquest of Canada. At the very time when Washington could
hardly hold the British garrison of Boston in check,—when he
had an average of but nine rounds of ammunition per man, he
was required to spare companies, ammunition, and supplies for
a venture, profitless at best,—with the certainty that
reinforcements could not be supplied as fast as the enemy
could draw veteran regiments from Great Britain and Ireland,
to defend or recover Canadian soil. In giving a rapid outline
of this first attempt of the colonies to enlarge the theatre
of active operations, it should be noticed that the initiative
had been taken before General Washington had been elected
commander-in-chief, and that Congress itself precipitated the
final movement."
_H. B. Carrington,
Battles of the American Revolution,
chapter 19._
ALSO IN:
_B. J. Lossing,
Life and Times of Philip Schuyler,
volume 1, chapters 19-29,
and volume 2, chapters 1-4._
_J. Armstrong,
Life of Richard Montgomery
(Library of American Biographies, volume 1)._
_J. Henry,
Account of Arnold's Campaign against Quebec,
by one of the Survivors._
_I. N. Arnold,
Life of Benedict .Arnold,
chapters 3-5._
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington.
volume 2, chapters 4-5, 8-9, 12, 15-16, 19-20._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (September).
Flight of Govern or Tryon from New York.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1775 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775-1776.
Washington in command at Cambridge.
The British forced out of Boston.
Washington "arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 2d of
July [1775], and on the following day presented himself at the
head of the army. His head-quarters remained at Cambridge,
till the evacuation of Boston by the royal forces on the 17th
of March, 1776. The position of affairs was one of vast
responsibility and peril. The country at large was highly
excited, and expected that a bold stroke would be struck and
decisive successes obtained. But the army was without
organization and discipline; the troops unused to obey, the
officers for the most part unaccustomed, some of them
incompetent, to command. A few of them only had had a limited
experience in the Seven Years' War. Most of the men had rushed
to the field on the first alarm of hostilities, without any
enlistment; and when they were enlisted, it was only till the
end of the year. There was no military chest; scarce anything
that could be called a commissariat. The artillery consisted
of a few old field-pieces of various sizes, served with a very
few exceptions by persons wholly untrained in gunnery. There
was no siege train, and an almost total want of every
description of ordnance stores. Barrels of sand, represented
as powder, were from time to time brought into the camp, to
prevent the American army itself from being aware of its
deficiency in that respect. In the autumn of 1775, an alarm of
small-pox was brought from Boston, and the troops were
subjected to inoculation: There was no efficient power, either
in the Provincial Assembly or the Congress at Philadelphia, by
which these wants could be supplied and these evils remedied.
Such were the circumstances under which General Washington
took the field, at the head of a force greatly superior in
numbers to the royal army, but in all other respects a very
unequal match. Meantime the British were undisputed masters of
the approaches to Boston by water. Washington's letters
disclose extreme impatience under the inaction to which he was
condemned; but the gravest difficulties attended the expulsion
of the royal forces from Boston. It could only be effected by
the bombardment and assault of that place; an attempt which
must in any event have been destructive to the large
non-combatant population, that had been unable to remove into
the country, and which would have been of doubtful success,
for the want of a siege train, and with troops wholly unused
to such an undertaking. Having in the course of the year
received some captured ordnance from Canada [from Fort
Ticonderoga], and a supply of ammunition taken by privateers
at sea, Washington was strongly disposed to assault the town,
as soon as the freezing of the bay on the western side of the
peninsula would allow the troops to pass on the ice. The
winter, however, remained open longer than usual, and a
council of war dissuaded this attempt. He then determined to
occupy Nook's Hill (an eminence at the extremity of Dorchester
'Neck,' as it was called, separated from Boston by a narrow
arm of the harbor), and Dorchester Heights, which commanded
Nook's Hill and the town itself. In this way the royal forces
would be compelled to take the risk of a general action, for
the purpose of dislodging the Americans, or else to evacuate
the town. The requisite preparations having been made with
secrecy, energy, and despatch, the heights were covered with
breastworks on the night of the 4th of March, 1776, as 'by
enchantment.' A partial movement, undertaken by the royal army
to dislodge the Americans, was frustrated by stress of
weather; and on the 17th of March, in virtue of an agreement
to that effect with the municipal government, the town and
harbor of Boston were evacuated by the British army and army
without firing a gun. Thus, without a battle and without the
destruction of a building in Boston, the first year of the war
was brought to a successful and an auspicious close."
_E. Everett,
Life of Washington,
chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_G. Washington,
Writings; edited. by Ford,
volume 3._
_R. Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston,
chapters 8-13._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775-1776.
The beginning of the American Navy,
and the early fitting out of Privateers.
"Before the end of 1775 the Continental Congress ordered that
five ships of 32 guns should be built, five of 28, and three
of 24. This order was carried out, and these vessels are the
proper beginning of the navy of the United States. Almost
everyone of them, before the war was over, had been captured,
or burned to avoid capture.
{3230}
But the names of the little fleet will always be of interest
to Americans, and some of those names have always been
preserved on the calendar of the navy. They are the
'Washington,' 'Raleigh,' 'Hancock,' 'Randolph,' 'Warren,'
'Virginia,' 'Trumbull,' 'Effingham,' 'Congress,' 'Providence,'
'Boston,' 'Delaware,' 'Montgomery.' The State of Rhode Island,
at the very outbreak of hostilities, commissioned Abraham
Whipple, who went with his little vessel as far as Bermuda,
and, from his experience in naval warfare earned in the French
War, he was recognized as commodore of the little fleet of
American cruisers. … Meanwhile, every maritime State issued
commissions to privateers, and established admiralty or prize
courts, with power to condemn prizes when brought in.
Legitimate commerce had been largely checked, and … the seamen
of the country, who had formerly been employed in the
fisheries, or in our large foreign trade with the West India
Islands and with Europe, gladly volunteered in the private
service. Till the end of the war the seamen preferred the
privateer service to that of the government. … The larger
maritime States had in commission one or more vessels from the
beginning, but they found the same difficulty which the
Congress found in enlisting seamen, when any bold privateer
captain came into rivalry with them. … As early as the 22d of
December, in 1775, Congress had appointed Esek Hopkins, of
Rhode Island, commander-in-chief of its navy, and had named
four captains besides, with several lieutenants, the first of
whom was John Paul Jones. … On the 10th of October [1776] a
resolution of Congress fixed the rank of captains in the navy,
… Paul Jones eighteenth on a list of twenty-four. Jones was
not pleased that his rank was not higher, but eventually his
achievements were such that his reputation probably now stands
higher as a successful officer than that of any of the
number."
_E. E. Hale,
Naval History of the American Revolution
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 6, chapter 7)._
ALSO IN:
_J. F. Cooper,
Naval History of the United States,
volume 1, chapters 4-6._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (January).
Adoption of a Constitution in New Hampshire.
See NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1775-1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (January-June).
King George's war measures and Paine's "Common Sense."
The setting of the tide of opinion toward national independence.
"Disastrous news arrived from England before the close of the
winter of 1775-6. The King had opened Parliament with a speech
in which he had denounced the Colonists as rebels, seeking,
with deceitful pretences, to establish an independent empire;
and his Majesty recommended decisive, coercive measures
against them. … The answer to the Royal Address (adopted by a
vote of seventy-six to thirty-three in the Lords, and two
hundred and seventy-eight to one hundred and eight in the
Commons) gave assurances of the firm support of Parliament to
the proposed measures. The very moderately conciliatory
propositions made by the Duke of Richmond, Mr. Burke, and the
Duke of Grafton, were summarily voted down, and not far from
the middle of December the atrocious' Prohibitory Act,' as it
was generally designated, passed. It was, in effect, a
declaration of war, and a war unrestrained by the customs, and
unmitigated by the decencies of civilization. It authorized
the confiscation of American vessels and cargoes, and those of
all nations found trading in American ports. It authorized
British commanders to impress American crews into the British
Navy, and to place them on the same footing with voluntarily
enlisted seamen; that is, to give them a choice between
parricide and being hung at a yardarm! Finally, it referred
all future negotiations to two Commissioners, to be sent out
along with a conquering armament, who were allowed to grant
pardons to individuals and Colonies, on submission, thus
leaving no future alternative opposed to the latter but the
sword, and indicating that henceforth all appeals to King or
Parliament were cut off. … Concurrently with these legislative
steps, the practical ones for carrying on the war, with a
large army, were entered upon. Finding it difficult or
impossible to obtain the necessary recruits at home, and that
the existing English and Irish regiments embarked with such
reluctance that it was necessary to keep a guard upon the
transports 'to keep them from deserting by wholesale,' the
Ministry successively applied to Russia, the States-General,
and finally, several of the German States for mercenaries. …
The infamy of filling up the British armament was reserved for
the Princes of three or four petty German States. … As the
news of these events successively reached the American
Congress and people, in the winter and spring of 1775-6, the
contest took a new coloring. Not only the bold, but the
moderate began now to see the real alternative before them.
And at a critical moment the remedy, and the path to it, were
pointed out by a master hand. 'Common Sense' was published by
Thomas Paine, and a more effective popular appeal never went
to the bosoms of a nation. Its tone, its manner, its biblical
illusions, its avoidance of all openly impassioned appeals to
feeling, and its unanswerable common sense were exquisitely
adapted to the great audience to which it was addressed; and
calm investigation will satisfy the historical student that
its effect in preparing the popular mind for the Declaration
of Independence, exceeded that of any other paper, speech, or
document made to favor it, and it would scarcely be
exaggeration to add, than all other such means put together.
John Adams, with a childish perpetuance, and with a rancor so
vehement that it appears ridiculous, spares no occasion to
underrate Paine's services, and to assault his opinions and
character. … His transparent motive seems to be to decry the
author of a paper which had too much the credit of preparing
the public mind for the Declaration of Independence, a credit
which Mr. Adams was more than anxious to monopolize. Let us be
just. Paine's services in paving the way to the Declaration
are not to be mentioned on the same page with John Adams's.
Moreover, Independence would have been declared, and, perhaps,
nearly as early, had Paine never written. But he did, at a
propitious moment, and with consummate adaptation, write a
paper which went like the arrow which pierces the centre of
the target. Its effect was instantaneous and tremendous. … The
work ran through innumerable editions in America and France.
The world rung with it. … It admits of no doubt that pretty
early in 1776, all the true Whigs in Congress, moderates as
well as ultras, became satisfied of the necessity and
expediency of separation, and that henceforth it was only a
question of time with them.
{3231}
Enactments placing the struggle on the footing of open war,
instead of mere insurrection—issuing letters of marque and
reprisal against the enemies of our commerce—advising the
local authorities to disarm the disaffected—opening the ports
of the country to all nations but Great Britain—directing
negotiations for foreign alliances to be undertaken—were
successively made. Finally, on the 10th of May, a resolution,
prepared by John Adams and R. H. Lee, passed the House,
advising all the Colonies to form governments for themselves;
and in this, unlike preceding instances of giving advice on
the same subject, no limitation of the duration of the
governments to be formed 'to the continuance of the present
dispute' was inserted. This, with a befitting preamble,
written by John Adams, was adopted on the 15th, … and was,
obviously, a long and bold stride in the direction of
independence, and must have been understood by all as its
signal and precursor. … Congress cheered on those whom
peculiar circumstances had rendered more backward, and it
tarried for them a little by the way; on the other hand, it
prudently waited for the prompting of the more forward. Thus
it avoided the appearance of dominating over public
opinion—thus it 'kept front and rear together.' Early in April
(12th), North Carolina 'empowered' her delegates 'to concur
with the delegates of other Colonies in declaring
independency.' At its 'May session' (the day of the month not
appearing in the record under our eye), the General Assembly
of Rhode Island abolished its act of allegiance, and directed
all commissions and legal processes henceforth to issue in the
name and under the authority of the 'Governor and Company.'
The Connecticut General Assembly, which met on the 9th of May,
before its adjournment (date not before us), repealed its act
against high treason, and made the same order with Rhode
Island in regard to legal processes. On the 15th of May,
Virginia took a still more decisive step, by instructing its
delegates in Congress to move for a Declaration of
Independence. … The Virginia delegates in Congress made choice
of Richard H. Lee to move the resolutions contained in their
instructions of May 15th; and he did so on Friday, the 7th day
of June, John Adams seconding them. Their consideration was
postponed until the next day, when they were referred to a
committee of the whole, and debated throughout Saturday and
the succeeding Monday. On the latter day (10th) Congress
resolved: 'That the consideration of the first resolution be
postponed to Monday, the first day of July next; and in the
meanwhile, that no time be lost, in case the Congress agree
thereto, that a committee be appointed to prepare a
declaration to the effect of the said first resolution, which
is in these words: That these Colonies are, and of right ought
to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved
from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all
Political connection between them and the State of Great
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.'"
_H. S. Randall,
Life of Jefferson,
volume 1, chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_G. Bancroft,
History of United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 4, chapters 24-28._
_R. Frothingham,
Rise of the Republic,
chapter 11._
_W. C. Rives,
Life and Times of Madison,
volume 1, chapters 4-5._
_American Archives,
series 4, volume 6._
_E. G. Scott,
The Development of Constitutional Liberty in the
English Colonies,
chapter 11._
_C. J. Stille,
Life and Times of John Dickinson,
chapter 5._
See, also, NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775-1776;
and VIRGINIA: A. D. 1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (January-June).
Engagement of hireling Hessians
to reinforce the British arms.
"The [British] Cabinet had entertained some hopes of Russian
auxiliaries [application for 20,000 of whom had been made to
the Empress Catherine, who refused them with hardly concealed
scorn], but the negotiation for that object could not be
matured. Early in the year treaties were signed with the
Landgrave of Hesse for taking into British pay 12,000 of his
men; with the Duke of Brunswick and other petty potentates of
Germany for 5,000 more. These little princes, seeing the need
of England, which did not choose to lean, as she might and
should have done, on her own right arm, insisted on obtaining,
and did obtain, most usurious terms. Under the name of
levy-money, there was to be paid to them the price of 30
crowns for every foot-soldier. Under the name of subsidy, each
of their Serene Highnesses was moreover to be indulged with a
yearly sum, irrespective of the pay and subsistence of the
troops; and on the plea that in this case no certain number of
years was stipulated as the term of service, the Landgrave of
Hesse claimed and was promised a double subsidy, namely
450,000 crowns a year. The men were to enter into pay before
they began to march! The subsidies were to be continued for
one full year at least after the war was over and the troops
had returned to their respective homes. Never yet, in short,
was the blood of brave men sold on harder terms. The disgrace
of this transaction to the German Princes who engaged in it
requires little comment. … The ablest by far of the German
Princes at that time, Frederick of Prussia, was not in general
a man of compassionate feelings. He had no especial love or
care for the North American cause. … Yet even Frederick
expressed in strong terms his contempt for the scandalous
man-traffic of his neighbours. It is said that whenever any of
the newly hired Brunswickers or Hessians had to pass through
any portion of his territory he claimed to levy on them the
usual toll as for so many head of cattle, since he said they
had been sold as such! Nor can the British ministry in this
transaction be considered free from blame. … Certain it is
that among the various causes which at this period wrought
upon our trans-Atlantic brethren to renounce their connection
with us, there was none more cogent in their minds than the
news that German mercenaries had been hired and were coming to
fight against them."
_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 53 (volume 6)._
"The first German troops to start for America were the
Brunswickers. These marched from Brunswick on February 22d,
1776, 2,282 strong, and were embarked at Stade, near the mouth
of the Elbe. The second division of Brunswickers embarked at
the end of May—about 2,000 men. The first Hessians set out
from Cassel early in March, and were shipped at Bremerlehe,
near the mouth of the Weser. The second division was embarked
in June. Together they numbered between 12,000 and 13,000 men.
{3232}
They were for the most part excellent troops and well
equipped, for the Landgrave's little army was one of the best
in Germany. … The Prince of Waldeck sent his regiment through
Cassel without trouble. The Prince of Hesse-Hanau, the
Margrave of Anspach-Bayreuth, and the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst
had a longer road."
_E. J. Lowell,
The Hessians in the Revolutionary War,
chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_M. von Eelking,
Memoirs of General Riedesel,
volume 1, pages 18-88, and appendix._
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 4, chapter 22._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (February).
Flight of the Royal Governor from Georgia.
See GEORGIA: A. D. 1775-1777.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (March).
State government organized and a Constitution adopted in
South Carolina.
See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1776 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (April).
North Carolina the first colony to declare for independence.
See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775-1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (May).
Rhode Island renounces allegiance to the King.
See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (May).
Popular vote for independence in Massachusetts.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1776 (APRIL-MAY).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (May).
Arnold's retreat from Canada.
See CANADA: A. D. 1775-1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (May-June).
Independence declared and Constitution adopted in Virginia.
See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (June).
The British repulsed at Charleston.
"Early in 1776 the task was assigned to Clinton, who had in
January departed from Boston, … to force and hold the Southern
colonies to their allegiance.
See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775-1776.
Cornwallis, with troops, was sent over under convoy of Sir
Peter Parker's fleet, to give Clinton the army he needed. The
fleet did not reach North Carolina till May. In March,
[Charles] Lee, while in New York, had wished to be ordered to
the command in Canada, as 'he was the only general officer on
the continent who could speak and think in French.' He was
disappointed, and ordered farther south. By May he was in
Virginia, ridding the country of Tories, and trying to find
out where Parker intended to land. It was expected that
Clinton would return north to New York in season to operate
with Howe, when he opened the campaign there in the early
summer, as that general expected to do, and the interval for a
diversion farther south was not long. Lee had now gone as far
as Charleston (South Carolina), and taken command in that
neighborhood, while in charge of the little fort at the
entrance of the harbor was William Moultrie, upon whom Lee was
inculcating the necessity of a slow and sure fire, in case it
should prove that Parker's destination, as it might well be,
was to get a foothold in the Southern provinces, and break up
the commerce which fed the rebellion through that harbor. The
people of Charleston had been for some time engaged on their
defences, and 'seem to wish a trial of their mettle,' wrote a
looker-on. The fort in question was built of palmetto logs,
and was unfinished on the land side. Its defenders had four
days' warning, and the neighboring militia were summoned. On
the 4th of June the hostile fleet appeared, and having landed
troops on an adjacent island, it was not till the 27th that
their dispositions were made for an attack. Their ships threw
shot at the fort all day, which did very little damage, while
the return fire was rendered with a precision surprising in
untried artillerists, and seriously damaged the fleet, of
which one ship was grounded and abandoned. The expected land
attack from Clinton's troops, already ashore on Long Island,
was not made. A strong wind had raised the waters of the
channel between that island and Sullivan's Island so high that
it could not be forded, and suitable boats for the passage
were not at hand. A few days later the shattered vessels and
the troops left the neighborhood, and Colonel Moultrie had
leisure to count the cost of his victory, which was twelve
killed and twice as many wounded. The courage of Sergeant
Jasper, in replacing on the bastion a flag which had been shot
away, became at once a household anecdote."
_J. Winsor,
The Conflict Precipitated
(Narrative and Critical History of America.
volume 6, chapter 2)._
_ALSO IN:
H. Flanders,
Life of John Rutledge,
chapter 10
(Lives of the Chief Justices, volume 1)._
_C. B. Hartley,
Life of General William Moultrie
(Heroes and Patriots of the South),
chapter 2._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (June).
Resolutions for Independence.
Making ready for the Declaration.
"Things were now verging on every side to the same point.
North Carolina had conferred the necessary powers to vote for
independence and foreign alliances as early as the 12th of
April. And now came the news from Richard Lee, to Mr. Adams,
that on the very day of the passage of the significant
preamble in congress, the 15th of May, the convention of
Virginia had gone a step further, and had instructed their
delegates to propose independence. Authority to assent to its
natural consequences, a confederation and foreign alliances,
followed as a matter of course. On the other hand, the
convention of Massachusetts had referred the subject back to
the people, to be considered and acted upon at their primary
town meetings, and the responses had been for some time
corning in unequivocally enough. So decided was the feeling
that Joseph Hawley, impatient of the delay, was stimulating
the nowise reluctant Gerry to greater exertions. Perceiving
these encouraging indications in opposite quarters, the
friends of independence now consulted together, and made up
their minds that the moment had come for a final
demonstration. Resolutions, embracing the three great points,
were carefully matured, which it was arranged that Richard
Henry Lee, on behalf of the delegates of Virginia, should
present, and John Adams should second, for Massachusetts. The
movement took place, accordingly, on the 7th of June. It
appears on the journal, recorded with the customary caution,
as follows:
'Certain resolutions respecting independency being moved and
seconded,—Resolved, that the consideration of them be referred
till to-morrow morning; and that the members be enjoined to
attend punctually at ten o'clock, in order to take the same
into their consideration.' It was well that a measure of so
momentous a character should be accompanied with as much of
the forms of notice and special assignment as the body could
properly give it. The record of what passed at the appointed
time has come down to us very barren of details.
{3233}
We only know that the resolutions were referred to the
committee of the whole, where they were debated with great
spirit during that day, Saturday, and again on Monday, the
10th, by which time it had become quite clear that a majority
of the colonies were prepared to adopt the first and leading
resolution. This majority was composed of the four New
England, and three out of the four southern colonies. But it
being deemed unadvisable to place this great act upon so
narrow a basis, and a prospect being held out of securing a
more general concurrence by delaying the decision, a
postponement until the 1st of July was effected by a change of
the votes of two colonies. In the mean while, however, as it
was thought suitable to accompany the act with an elaborate
exposition of the causes which were held to justify it, a
committee was ordered to have in charge the preparation of
such a paper in season for the adjourned debate. … At the same
time that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin,
Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, all but the last
named being of the movement, were appointed the committee to
prepare a declaration, as mentioned, the congress formally
voted a second committee, with powers to prepare and digest a
form of confederation to be entered into between the colonies;
and yet a third, to mature a plan of treaties to be proposed
to foreign powers. In this compass were included all the
elements of national sovereignty abroad and at home. … The
bulk of opposition now centred in the five middle colonies,
and the pillar upon which it leaned was John Dickinson. But
under the combined assaults conducted by the leading colonies
of Virginia and Massachusetts, it was plain that victory was
become a mere question of time. Jonathan D. Sergeant, who had
left congress to hasten a change in the counsels of New
Jersey, had been so successful in spiriting up the assembly as
to be able to write, on the 15th of June, to Mr. Adams, that
the delegates about to be elected would be on the spot by the
1st of July, the day to which the question had been assigned,
and that they would 'vote plump.' Equally favorable news soon
came from Maryland. … Thus were two States secured. But
Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York yet remained to move. In
the first of these, recourse was had once more to the
so-called committees of conference. … And here, on the 23d of
June, Dr. Benjamin Rush, then a young man, but acting entirely
in sympathy and co-operation with the leaders in congress,
moved and carried the appointment of a committee to declare
the sense of the conference with respect to an independence of
the province on the crown of Great Britain. He and James Smith
were then joined with Thomas McKean, the chairman of the
conference, in a committee, which was ready the next day with
a report affirming the willingness of the deputies of the
conference to concur in a vote declaring the United Colonies
free and independent States. The report was adopted
unanimously, was presented to congress on the 25th, and,
doubtless, had its effect in determining those delegates of
the colony to absent themselves on the final vote, upon whose
resistance its adverse decision depended. As the hesitation of
Delaware was chiefly owing to the feeling that pervaded the
county of Sussex, Mr. Rodney had repaired thither for the
purpose of bringing about a favorable change, in which errand
the news came that he was laboring with success. The delegates
from New York, no longer interposing any active opposition,
yet unwilling to assume a responsibility which their
constituents had not authorized, preferred to withdraw from
participation in the decision. Such was the state of affairs
on the 1st of July, to which day the discussion had been
adjourned. There was then little doubt of an affirmative vote
on the part of all but four colonies."
_J. Q. Adams and C. F. Adams,
Life of John Adams,
volume 1, pages 308-318._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (June).
End of proprietary and royal government in Maryland.
See MARYLAND: A. D. 1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (July).
Authorship, adoption and signing
of the Declaration of Independence.
For the last hundred years one of the first facts taught to
any child of American birth is, that Jefferson wrote the
Declaration of Independence. The original draft in his
handwriting was afterward deposited in the State Department.
It shows two or three trifling alterations, interlined in the
handwritings of Franklin and Adams. Otherwise it came before
Congress precisely as Jefferson wrote it. Many years afterward
John Adams gave an account of the way in which Jefferson came
to be the composer of this momentous document, differing
slightly from the story told by Jefferson. But the variance is
immaterial. … Jefferson's statement seems the better entitled
to credit, and what little corroboration is to be obtained for
either narrator is wholly in his favor. He says simply that
when the Committee came together he was pressed by his
colleagues unanimously to undertake the draft; that he did so;
that, when he had prepared it, he submitted it to Dr. Franklin
and Mr. Adams, separately, requesting their corrections,
'which were two or three only and merely verbal,' 'interlined
in their own handwritings'; that the report in this shape was
adopted by the committee, and a 'fair copy,' written out by
Mr. Jefferson, was then laid before Congress. A somewhat more
interesting discussion concerns the question, how Jefferson
came to be named first on the committee, to the entire
exclusion of Lee, to whom, as mover of the resolution,
parliamentary etiquette would have assigned the chairmanship.
See, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE).
Many explanations have been given, of which some at least
appear the outgrowth of personal likings and dislikings. It is
certain that Jefferson was not only preëminently fitted for
the very difficult task of this peculiar composition, but also
that he was a man without an enemy. His abstinence from any
active share in debate had saved him from giving irritation;
and it is a truth not to be concealed, that there were cabals,
bickerings, heart-burnings, perhaps actual enmities among the
members of that famous body, which, grandly as it looms up,
and rightly too, in the mind's eye, was after all composed of
jarring human ingredients. It was well believed that there was
a faction opposed to Washington, and it was generally
suspected that irascible, vain, and jealous John Adams, then
just rising from the ranks of the people, made in this matter
common cause with the aristocratic Virginian Lees against
their fellow-countrymen. … So it is likely enough that a
timely illness of Lee's wife was a fortunate excuse for
passing him by, and that partly by reason of admitted
aptitude, partly because no risk could be run of any
interference of personal feelings in so weighty a matter,
Jefferson was placed first on the committee, with the natural
result of doing the bulk of its labor.
{3234}
On July 1, pursuant to assignment, Congress, in committee of
the whole, resumed consideration of Mr. Lee's resolution, and
carried it by the votes of nine colonies. South Carolina and
Pennsylvania voted against it. The two delegates from Delaware
were divided. Those from New York said that personally they
were in favor of it and believed their constituents to be so,
but they were hampered by instructions drawn a twelvemonth
since and strictly forbidding any action obstructive of
reconciliation, which was then still desired. The committee
reported, and then Edward Rutledge moved an adjournment to the
next day, when his colleagues, though disapproving the
resolution, would probably join in it for the sake of
unanimity. This motion was carried, and on the day following
the South Carolinians were found to be converted; also a third
member 'had come post from the Delaware counties' and caused
the vote of that colony to be given with the rest;
Pennsylvania changed her vote; and a few days later the
Convention of New York approved the resolution, 'thus
supplying the void occasioned by the withdrawing of her
delegates from the vote.' On the same day, July 2, the House
took up Mr. Jefferson's draft of the Declaration, and debated
it during that and the following day and until a late hour on
July 4. Many verbal changes were made, most of which were
conducive to closer accuracy of statement, and were
improvements. Two or three substantial amendments were made by
the omission of passages; notably there was stricken out a
passage in which George III. was denounced for encouraging the
slave-trade. … No interpolation of any consequence was made.
Jefferson had ample cause to congratulate himself upon this
event of the discussion. … He himself spoke not a word in the
debate. … The burden of argument, from which Jefferson wisely
shrank, was gallantly borne by John Adams, whom Jefferson
gratefully called 'the colossus of that debate.' Jefferson
used afterward to take pleasure in tingeing the real solemnity
of the occasion with a coloring of the ludicrous. The debate,
he said, seemed as though it might run on interminably, and
probably would have done so at a different season of the year.
But the weather was oppressively warm, and the room occupied
by the deputies was hard by a stable, whence the hungry flies
swarmed thick and fierce, alighting on the legs of the
delegates and biting hard through their thin silk stockings.
Treason was preferable to discomfort, and the members voted
for the Declaration and hastened to the table to sign it and
escape from the horse-fly. John Hancock, making his great
familiar signature, jestingly said that John Bull could read
that without spectacles; then, becoming more serious, began to
impress on his comrades the necessity of their 'all hanging
together in this matter.' 'Yes, indeed,' interrupted Franklin,
'we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang
separately.' … Amid such trifling, concealing grave thoughts,
Jefferson saw his momentous document signed at the close of
that summer afternoon."
_J. T. Morse, Jr.,
Thomas Jefferson,
chapter 3._
"The statements relative to signing the Declaration are
conflicting. Jefferson states that it was signed generally on
the 4th (Memoirs i, 94), and he in other places reiterates
this statement, but this manuscript is not known to be extant.
… According to the journals, Congress, on the 19th of July,
resolved that the 'declaration, passed on the 4th, be fairly
engrossed on parchment, with the title and style of "The
unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of
America," and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by
every member of Congress.' On the 2d day of August, the
journals say, 'The Declaration being engrossed, and compared
at the table, was signed by the members.' … This manuscript is
preserved in the office of the Secretary of State."
_R. Frothingham,
The Rise of the Republic,
page 545 and foot-note._
"Because statesmen like Dickinson and communities like
Maryland were slow in believing that the right moment for a
declaration of independence had come, the preposterous theory
has been suggested that the American Revolution was the work
of an unscrupulous and desperate minority, which, through
intrigue mingled with violence, succeeded in forcing the
reluctant majority to sanction its measures. Such a
misconception has its root in an utter failure to comprehend
the peculiar character of American political life, like the
kindred misconception which ascribes the rebellion of the
colonies to a sordid unwillingness to bear their due share of
the expenses of the British Empire. It is like the
misunderstanding which saw an angry mob in every town-meeting
of the people of Boston, and characterized as a 'riot' every
deliberate expression of public opinion. No one who is
familiar with the essential features of American political
life can for a moment suppose that the Declaration of
Independence was brought about by any less weighty force than
the settled conviction of the people that the priceless
treasure of self-government could be preserved by no other
means. It was but slowly that this unwelcome conviction grew
upon the people; and owing to local differences of
circumstances it grew more slowly in some places than in
others. Prescient leaders, too, like the Adamses and Franklin
and Lee, made up their minds sooner than other people. Even
those conservatives who resisted to the last, even such men as
John Dickinson and Robert Morris, were fully agreed with their
opponents as to the principle at issue between Great Britain
and America, and nothing would have satisfied them short of
the total abandonment by Great Britain of her pretensions to
impose taxes and revoke charters. Upon this fundamental point
there was very little difference of opinion in America. As to
the related question of independence, the decision, when once
reached, was everywhere alike the reasonable result of free
and open discussion; and the best possible illustration of
this is the fact that not even in the darkest days of the war
already begun did any state deliberately propose to reconsider
its action in the matter. The hand once put to the plough,
there was no turning back."
_J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
chapter 4 (volume 1). _
ALSO IN:
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 4, chapter 28._
_H. S. Randall,
Life of Jefferson,
volume 1, chapter 5._
_C. F. Adams,
Life of John Adams,
chapter 4._
_J. Madison,
Papers,
volume 1, pages 9-27._
_J. Sanderson,
Biographies of the Signers of the Declaration._
See, also, INDEPENDENCE HALL.
{3235}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (July).
Text of the Declaration of Independence.
The following is the text of the great manifesto:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for
one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of
the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to
the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the
causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed,
will dictate that Governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves
by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when
a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these
Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them
to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of
the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To
prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has
refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary
for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass
Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in
their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when
so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He
has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the
right of Representation in the Legislature, a right
inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has
called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public
Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into
compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative
Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his
invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a
long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be
elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their
exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all
the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States;
for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of
Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their
migration hither, and raising the conditions of new
Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration
of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing
Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will
alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and
payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New
Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our
People, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in
times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our
legislature. He has affected to render the Military
independent of and superior to the Civil Power. He has
combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign
to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving
his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For
quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For
protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any
Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these
States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us
in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For
transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended
offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a
neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary
government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at
once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same
absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our
Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our
own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power
to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated
Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and
waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our
Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our
people. He is at this time transporting large armies of
foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation
and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty &
perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and
totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has
constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas
to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners
of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their
Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and
has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,
the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is
an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and
conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have
Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated
Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A
Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may
define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.
Nor have We been wanting in attention to our Brittish
brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by
their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over
us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our
emigration and settlement here.
{3236}
We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and
we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to
disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt
our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to
the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation,
and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War,
in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the
united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude
of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the
good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,
That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free
and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all
Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political
connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and
ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and
Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude
Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all
other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right
do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm
reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually
pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred
Honor.
John Hancock.
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett,
Wm. Whipple,
Matthew Thornton.
Massachusetts Bay
Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine,
Elbridge Gerry.
Rhode Island
Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.
Connecticut.
Roger Sherman, Sam'el Huntington, Wm. Williams,
Oliver Wolcott.
New York
Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frans. Lewis, Lewis Morris.
New Jersey
Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson,
John Hart, Abra. Clark.
Pennsylvania
Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton,
Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson,
Geo. Ross.
Delaware.
Cæsar Rodney, Geo. Read, Tho. M'Kean.
Maryland
Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone,
Charles Carroll of Carrollton.
Virginia.
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Th Jefferson,
Benja. Harrison, Thos. Ne]son, jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee,
Carter Braxton.
North Carolina.
Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
South Carolina.
Edward Rutledge, Thos. Heyward, Junr.,
Thomas Lynch, Junr., Arthur Middleton.
Georgia.
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (July).
Constitutional effect of the Declaration of Independence.
"The Declaration of Independence did not create thirteen
sovereign states, but the representatives of the people
declared that the former English colonies, under the name
which they had assumed of the United States of America,
became, from the 4th day of July, 1776, a sovereign state and
a member of the family of nations, recognized by the law of
nations; and further, that the people would support their
representatives with their blood and treasure, in their
endeavor to make this declaration a universally recognized
fact. Neither congress nor the people relied in this upon any
positive right belonging either to the individual colonies
or to the colonies as a whole. Rather did the Declaration of
Independence and the war destroy all existing political jural
relations, and seek their moral justification in the right of
revolution inherent in every people in extreme emergencies. …
Political theories had nothing to do with this development of
things. It was the natural result of given circumstances and
was an accomplished fact before anyone thought of the legal
consequences which might subsequently be deduced from it."
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 1._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (July).
Independence declared in New Jersey
and Governor Franklin arrested.
See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1774-1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (August).
The struggle for New York and the Hudson.
Battle of Long Island.
"Washington had been informed, early in January, that General
Sir Henry Clinton had sailed from Boston, with a considerable
body of troops, on a secret expedition. Apprehending that the
city of New York was his destination, he immediately
dispatched General Charles Lee to Connecticut to raise troops,
and to proceed to that city to watch and oppose Clinton
wherever he might attempt to land. Six weeks before the
evacuation of Boston [March 17, 1776], Lee had encamped near
New York with twelve hundred militia. Already the Sons of
Liberty had been busy, and overt acts of rebellion had been
committed by them. They had seized the cannons at Fort George,
and driven Tryon, the royal governor, on board the Asia, a
British armed vessel in the harbor. In March, Clinton arrived
at Sandy Hook, just outside New York harbor, and on the same
day, the watchful Lee providentially entered the city. The
movement, although without a knowledge of Clinton's position,
was timely, for it kept him at bay. Foiled in his attempt upon
New York, that commander sailed southward. … The destination
of Howe, when he left Boston, was also unknown to Washington.
Supposing he, too, would proceed to New York, he put the main
body of his army in motion toward that city, as soon as he had
placed Boston in a state of security. He arrived in New York
about the middle of April [April 14], and proceeded at once to
fortify the town and vicinity, and also the passes of the
Hudson Highlands, fifty miles above. In the mean while,
General Lee, who had been appointed to command the American
forces in the South, had left his troops in the charge of
General Lord Stirling [March 7], and was hastening toward the
Carolinas to watch the movements of Clinton, arouse the Whigs,
and gather an army there. … Pursuant to instructions, General
Howe proceeded toward New York, to meet General Clinton and
Parker's fleet. He left Halifax on the 11th of June, [1776],
and arrived at Sandy Hook on the 29th. On the 2d of July he
took possession of Staten Island, where he was joined by Sir
Henry Clinton [July 11], from the South, and his brother,
Admiral Lord Howe [July 12], with a fleet and a large land
force, from England. Before the first of August, other vessels
arrived with a part of the Hessian troops, and on that day,
almost 30,000 soldiers, many of them tried veterans, stood
ready to fall upon the republican army of 17,000 men, mostly
militia, which lay intrenched in New York and vicinity, less
than a dozen miles distant. The grand object in view was the
seizure of New York and the country along the Hudson, so as to
keep open a communication with Canada, separate the patriots of
New England from those of the other states, and to overrun the
most populous portion of the revolted colonies.
{3237}
This was the military plan, arranged by ministers. They had
also prepared instructions to their commanding generals, to be
pacific, if the Americans appeared disposed to submit. Lord
Howe and his brother, the general, were commissioned to 'grant
pardon to all who deserved mercy,' and to treat for peace, but
only on terms of absolute submission on the part of the
colonies, to the will of the King and parliament. After making
a foolish display of arrogance and weakness, in addressing
General Washington as a private gentleman, and being assured
that the Americans had been guilty of no offense requiring a
'pardon' at their hands, they prepared to strike an immediate
and effective blow. The British army was accordingly put in
motion on the morning of the 22d of August [1776], and during
that day, 10,000 effective men, and forty pieces of cannon,
were landed on the western end of Long Island, between the
present Fort Hamilton and Gravesend village. Already
detachments of Americans under General Sullivan, occupied a
fortified camp at Brooklyn, opposite New York, and guarded
seven passes on a range of hills which extend from the Narrows
to the village of Jamaica. When intelligence of the landing of
the invading army reached Washington, he sent General Putnam,
with large reinforcements, to take the chief command on Long
Island; and to prepare to meet the enemy. The American troops
on the island now [August 26], numbered about 5,000. The
British moved in three divisions. The left, under General
Grant, marched along the shore toward Gowanus; the right,
under Clinton and Cornwallis, toward the interior of the
island; and the center, composed chiefly of Hessians, under De
Heister, marched up the Flatbush road, south of the hills.
Clinton moved under cover of night, and before dawn on the
morning of the 27th, he had gained possession of the Jamaica
pass, near the present East New York. At the same time, Grant
was pressing forward along the shore of New York Bay, and at
day-break, he encountered Lord Stirling, where the monuments
of Greenwood cemetery now dot the hills. De Heister advanced
from Flatbush at the same hour, and attacked Sullivan, who,
having no suspicions of the movements of Clinton, was watching
the Flatbush Pass. A bloody conflict ensued, and while it was
progressing, Clinton descended from the wooded hills, by the
way of Bedford, to gain Sullivan's rear. As soon as the latter
perceived his peril, he ordered a retreat to the American
lines at Brooklyn. It was too late; Clinton drove him back
upon the Hessian bayonets, and after fighting desperately,
hand to hand, with the foe in front and rear, and losing a
greater portion of his men, Sullivan was compelled to
surrender. As usual, misfortunes did not come single. While
these disasters were occurring on the left, Cornwallis
descended the port-road to Gowanus, and attacked Stirling.
They fought desperately, until Stirling was made prisoner.
Many of his troops were drowned while endeavoring to escape
across the Gowanus Creek, as the tide was rising; and a large
number were captured. At noon the victory for the British was
complete. About 500 Americans were killed or wounded, and
1,100 were made prisoners. These were soon suffering dreadful
horrors in prisons and prison-ships, at New York. The British
loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was 367. It was with
the deepest anguish that Washington had viewed, from New York,
the destruction of his troops, yet he dared not weaken his
power in the city, by sending reinforcements to aid them. He
crossed over on the following morning [August 28], with
Mifflin, who had come down from the upper end of York island
with a thousand troops, and was gratified to find the enemy
encamped in front of Putnam's lines, and delaying an attack,
until the British fleet should co-operate with him. This delay
allowed Washington time to form and execute a plan for the
salvation of the remainder of the army, now too weak to resist
an assault with any hope of success. Under cover of a heavy
fog, which fell upon the hostile camps at midnight of the
29th, and continued until the morning of the 30th, he silently
withdrew them from the camp, and, unperceived by the British,
they all crossed over to New York in safety, carrying
everything with them but their heavy cannons. … Howe, who felt
sure of his prey, was greatly mortified, and prepared to make
an immediate attack upon New York, before the Americans should
become reinforced, or should escape from it."
_B. J. Lossing,
Family History of the United States,
period 5, chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_H. P. Johnston,
The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn,
chapters 1-5,
(Members of Long Island History Society, volume 3)._
_T. W. Field,
The Battle of Long island
(Members of Long Island History Society, volume 2)._
_W. A. Duer,
Life of Wm. Alexander, Earl of Stirling,
chapter 5._
_J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
chapter 5 (volume 1)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (September).
Quiet death of proprietary government in Pennsylvania
and adoption of a State Constitution.
See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (September-November).
The struggle for New York and the Hudson.
Successes of the British.
Washington's retreat into New Jersey.
"At daybreak the British awoke, but it was too late. They had
fought a successful battle, they had had the American army in
their grasp, and now all was over. The victory had melted
away, and, as a grand result, they had a few hundred
prisoners, a stray boat with three camp-followers, and the
deserted works in which they stood. To make such a retreat as
this was a feat of arms as great as most victories, and in it
we see, perhaps as plainly as anywhere, the nerve and
quickness of the man who conducted it. It is true it was the
only chance of salvation, but the great man is he who is
entirely master of his opportunity, even if he have but one.
The outlook, nevertheless, was, as Washington wrote, 'truly
distressing.' The troops were dispirited, and the militia
began to disappear, us they always did after a defeat.
Congress would not permit the destruction of the city,
different interests pulled in different directions,
conflicting opinions distracted the councils of war, and, with
utter inability to predict the enemy's movements, everything
led to halfway measures and to intense anxiety, while Lord
Howe tried to negotiate with Congress, and the Americans
waited for events, Washington, looking beyond the confusion of
the moment, saw that he had gained much by delay, and had his
own plan well defined. … Everyone else, however, saw only past
defeat and present peril.
{3238}
The British ships gradually made their way up the river, until
it became apparent that they intended to surround and cut off
the American army. Washington made preparations to withdraw,
but uncertainty of information came near rendering his
precautions futile. September 15th the men-of-war opened fire,
and troops were landed near Kip's Bay. The militia in the
breastworks at that point had been at Brooklyn and gave way at
once, communicating their panic to two Connecticut regiments.
Washington, galloping down to the scene of battle, came upon
the disordered and flying troops. He dashed in among them,
conjuring them to stop, but even while he was trying to rally
them they broke again on the appearance of some sixty or
seventy of the enemy, and ran in all directions. In a tempest
of anger Washington drew his pistols, struck the fugitives
with his sword, and was only forced from the field by one of
his officers seizing the bridle of his horse and dragging him
away from the British, now within a hundred yards of the spot.
… The rout and panic over, Washington quickly turned to deal
with the pressing danger. With coolness and quickness he
issued his orders, and succeeded in getting his army off,
Putnam's division escaping most narrowly. He then took post at
King's Bridge, and began to strengthen and fortify his lines.
While thus engaged, the enemy advanced, and on the 16th a
sharp skirmish was fought, in which the British were repulsed,
and great bravery was shown by the Connecticut and Virginia
troops, the two commanding officers being killed. This affair,
which was the first gleam of success, encouraged the troops,
and was turned to the best account by the general. Still a
successful skirmish did not touch the essential difficulties
of the situation, which then as always came from within,
rather than without. To face and check 25,000 well equipped
and highly disciplined soldiers, Washington had now some
12,000 men, lacking in everything which goes to make an army,
except mere individual courage and a high average of
intelligence. Even this meagre force was an inconstant and
diminishing quantity, shifting, uncertain, and always
threatening dissolution. The task of facing and fighting the
enemy was enough for the ablest of men; but Washington was
obliged also to combat and overcome the inertness and dullness
born of ignorance, and to teach Congress how to govern a
nation at war. … Meanwhile the days slipped along, and
Washington waited on the Harlem Plains, planning descents on
Long Island, and determining to make a desperate stand where
he was, unless the situation decidedly changed. Then the
situation did change, as neither he nor anyone else apparently
had anticipated. The British warships came up the Hudson past
the forts, brushing aside our boasted obstructions, destroying
our little fleet, and getting command of the river. Then
General Howe landed at Frog's Point, where he was checked for
the moment by the good disposition of Heath, under
Washington's direction. These two events made it evident that
the situation of the American army was full of peril, and that
retreat was again necessary. Such certainly was the conclusion
of the council of war, on the 16th, acting this time in
agreement with their chief. Six days Howe lingered on Frog's
Point, bringing up stores or artillery or something, … and
gave six days to Washington. They were of little value to
Howe, but they were of inestimable worth to Washington, who
employed them in getting everything in readiness, in holding
his council of war, and then on the 17th in moving
deliberately off to very strong ground at White Plains. … On
the 28th, Howe came up to Washington's position, and found the
Americans quite equal in numbers, strongly intrenched, and
awaiting his attack with confidence. He hesitated, doubted,
and finally feeling that he must do something, sent 4,000 men
to storm Chatterton Hill, an outlying post, where some 1,400
Americans were stationed. There was a short, sharp action, and
then the Americans retreated in good order to the main army,
having lost less than half as many men as their opponents.
With caution now much enlarged, Howe sent for reinforcements,
and waited two days. The third day it rained, and on the
fourth Howe found that Washington had withdrawn to a higher
and quite impregnable line of hills, where he held all the
passes in the rear and awaited a second attack. Howe
contemplated the situation for two or three days longer, and
then broke camp and withdrew to Dobbs Ferry. Such were the
great results of the victory of Long Island, two wasted
months, and the American army still untouched. Howe was
resolved, however, that his campaign, should not be utterly
fruitless, and therefore directed his attention to the
defences of the Hudson, Fort Lee, and Fort Washington, and
here he met with better success. Congress, in its military
wisdom, had insisted that these forts must and could be held.
… An attempt was made to hold both forts, and both were lost,
as he [Washington] had foreseen. From Fort Lee the garrison
withdrew in safety. Fort Washington was carried by storm,
after a severe struggle. Twenty-six hundred men and all the
munitions of war fell into the hands of the enemy. It was a
serious and most depressing loss, and was felt throughout the
continent. Meantime Washington had crossed into the Jerseys,
and, after the loss of Fort Lee, began to retreat before the
British, who, flushed with victory, now advanced rapidly under
Lord Cornwallis."
_H. C. Lodge,
George Washington,
volume 1, chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_H. B. Carrington,
Battles of the American Revolution,
chapters 33-36._
_G. W. Greene,
Life of Nathanael Greene,
chapters 8-11 (volume 1)._
_B. J. Lossing,
Field Book of the American Revolution,
volume 2, chapter 23._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (October).
Connecticut assumes independence and sovereignty.
See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1777.
Washington's retreat through New Jersey and his
masterly return movement.
The victories at Trenton and Princeton
retrieving the situation.
"On the 17th [of November] Washington ordered Lee [who had
lately returned from the south, and who had command of 7,000
men at Northcastle] to come over and join him; but Lee
disobeyed, and in spite of repeated orders from Washington he
stayed at Northcastle till the 2d of December. General Ward
had some time since resigned, so that Lee now ranked next to
Washington. A good many people were finding fault with the
latter for losing the 3,000 men at Fort Washington, although,
as we have seen, that was not his fault but the fault of
Congress.
{3239}
Lee now felt that if Washington were ruined, he would surely
become his successor in the command of the army, and so,
instead of obeying his orders, he spent his time in writing
letters calculated to injure him. Lee's disobedience thus
broke the army in two, and did more for the British than they
had been able to do for themselves since they started from
Staten Island. It was the cause of Washington's flight through
New Jersey, ending on the 8th of December, when he put himself
behind the Delaware river, with scarcely 3,000 men. Here was
another difficulty. The American soldiers were enlisted for
short terms, and when they were discouraged, as at present,
they were apt to insist upon going home as soon as their time
had expired. It was generally believed that Washington's army
would thus fall to pieces within a few days. Howe did not
think it worth while to be at the trouble of collecting boats
wherewith to follow him across the Delaware. Congress fled to
Baltimore. People in New Jersey began taking the oath of
allegiance to the crown. Howe received the news that he had
been knighted for his victory on Long Island, and he returned
to New York to celebrate the occasion. While the case looked
so desperate for Washington, events at the north had taken a
less unfavourable turn. Carleton [who began preparations to
invade the province of New York as soon as Arnold retreated
from Canada] had embarked on Lake Champlain early in the
autumn with his fine army and fleet. Arnold had fitted up a
small fleet to oppose his advance, and on the 11th of October
there had been a fierce naval battle between the two near
Valcour Island, in which Arnold was defeated, while Carleton
suffered serious damage. The British general then advanced
upon Ticonderoga, but suddenly made up his mind that the
season was too late for operations in that latitude. The
resistance he had encountered seems to have made him despair
of achieving any speedy success in that quarter, and on the 3d
of November he started back for Canada. This retreat relieved
General Schuyler at Albany of immediate cause for anxiety, and
presently he detached seven regiments to go southward to
Washington's assistance. On the 2d of December Lee crossed the
Hudson with 4,000 men, and proceeded slowly to Morristown.
Just what he designed to do was never known, but clearly he
had no intention of going beyond the Delaware to assist
Washington, whom he believed to be ruined. Perhaps he thought
Morristown a desirable position to hold, as it certainly was.
Whatever his plans may have been, they were nipped in the bud.
For some unknown reason he passed the night of the 12th at an
unguarded tavern, about four miles from his army; and there he
was captured next morning by a party of British dragoons, who
carried him off to their camp at Princeton. The dragoons were
very gleeful over this unexpected exploit, but really they
could not have done the Americans a greater service than to
rid them of such a worthless creature. The capture of Lee came
in the nick of time, for it set free his men to go to the aid
of Washington. Even after this force and that sent by Schuyler
had reached the commander-in-chief, he found he had only 6,000
men fit for duty. With this little force Washington instantly
took the offensive. It was the turning-point in his career and
in the history of the Revolutionary War. On Christmas, 1776,
and the following nine days, an Washington's most brilliant
powers were displayed. The British centre, 10,000 strong, lay
at Princeton. The principal generals, thinking the serious
business of the war ended, had gone to New York. An advanced
party of Hessians, 1,000 strong, was posted on the bank of the
Delaware at Trenton, and another one lower down, at
Burlington. Washington decided to attack both these outposts,
and arranged his troops accordingly, but when Christmas night
arrived, the river was filled with great blocks of floating
ice, and the only division which succeeded in crossing was the
one that Washington led in person. It was less than 2,500 in
number, but the moment had come when the boldest course was
the safest. By daybreak Washington had surprised the Hessians
at Trenton and captured them all. The outpost at Burlington,
on hearing the news, retreated to Princeton. By the 31st
Washington had got all his available force across to Trenton.
Some of them were raw recruits just come in to replace others
who had just gone home. At this critical moment the army was
nearly helpless for want of money, and on New Year's morning
Robert Morris was knocking at door after door in Philadelphia,
waking up his friends to borrow the $50,000, which he sent off
to Trenton before noon. The next day Cornwallis arrived at
Princeton, and taking with him all the army, except a
rear-guard of 2,000 men left to protect his communications,
came on toward Trenton. When he reached that town, late in the
afternoon, he found Washington entrenched behind a small creek
just south of the town, with his back toward the Delaware
river. 'Oho!' said Cornwallis, 'at last we have run down the
old fox, and we will bag him in the morning.' He sent back to
Princeton, and ordered the rearguard to come up. He expected
next morning to cross the creek above Washington's right, and
then press him back against the broad and deep river, and
compel him to surrender. Cornwallis was by no means a careless
general, but he seems to have gone to bed on that memorable
night and slept the sleep of the just. Washington meanwhile
was wide awake. He kept his front line noisily at work digging
and entrenching, and made a fine show with his camp-fires.
Then he marched his army to the right and across the creek,
and got around Cornwallis's left wing and into his rear, and
so went on gayly toward Princeton. At daybreak he encountered
the British rear-guard, fought a sharp battle with it and sent
it flying, with the loss of one-fourth of its number. The
booming guns aroused Cornwallis too late. To preserve his
communications with New York, he was obliged to retreat with
all haste upon New Brunswick, while Washington's victorious
army pushed on and occupied the strong position at Morristown.
There was small hope of dislodging such a general from such a
position. But to leave Washington in possession of Morristown
was to resign to him the laurels of this half-year's work. For
that position guarded the Highlands of the Hudson on the one
hand, and the roads to Philadelphia on the other. Except that
the British had taken the city of New York-which from the
start was almost a foregone conclusion—they were no better off
than in July when Lord Howe had landed on Staten Island. In
nine days the tables had been completely turned.
{3240}
The attack upon, an outpost had developed into a campaign
which quite retrieved the situation. The ill-timed
interference of Congress, which had begun the series of
disasters, was remedied; the treachery of Lee was checkmated;
and the cause of American Independence, which on Christmas Eve
had seemed hopeless, was now fairly set on its feet. Earlier
successes had been local; this was continental. Seldom has so
much been done with such slender means."
_J. Fiske,
The War of Independence,
chapter 6._
"The effect of these two unexpected strokes at Trenton and
Princeton was to baffle Howe, and utterly disconcert his
plans. Expecting to march upon Philadelphia at his leisure, he
suddenly finds Washington turning about and literally cutting
his way through the British posts, back to a point where he
threatened Howe's flank and rear. The enemy were at once
compelled to retire from all their positions below Brunswick,
give up the thought of wintering in Philadelphia, and fall
back to the vicinity of New York. When Horace Walpole heard of
these movements, he wrote to Sir Horace Mann: 'Washington has
shown himself both a Fabius and a Camillus. His march through
our lines is allowed to have been a prodigy of generalship. In
one word, I look upon a great part of America as lost to this
country.' Here the campaign closed. Washington could not be
dislodged from his strong mountain position, and Howe was
satisfied to rest his troops and postpone further operations
until the next season. Meantime the country took heart,
Congress voted troops and supplies, and the army was recruited
and organized on a better basis. 'The business of war is the
result of Experience,' wrote Wolcott from Congress, with faith
unshaken during the darkest hours of the campaign; and
experience was now put to good profit. The crisis was passed.
Events proved decisive. Hardship and anxiety were yet to come
during succeeding years of the war; but it was the result of
this year's struggle that cleared away misgivings and
confirmed the popular faith in final success. England could do
no more than she had done to conquer America; while America
was now more ready than ever to meet the issue. Independence
was established in the present campaign—in the year of its
declaration; and more than to any others we owe this political
privilege to the men who fought from Long Island to
Princeton."
_H. P. Johnston,
Campaign of 1776,
Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society,
volume 3, part 1, chapter 8._
ALSO IN:
_J. F. Hageman,
History of Princeton,
chapter 4, sections 4-5 (volume 1)._
_J. O. Raum,
History of New Jersey,
chapter 20 (volume 2)._
_W. B. Reed,
Life of Joseph Reed,
volume 1, chapter 4._
_W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 3, chapter 21._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1777.
Prisoners and exchanges.
British treatment of captives.
The Jersey Prison-ship and the Sugar-house prison.
In New York, during the British occupation of the city,
"wretched indeed was the condition of the poor refugee, of the
sick soldier, and, above all, the patriot prisoner. The
newspapers are filled with calls for charitable contributions
for women and children perishing with cold and hunger, for
disabled soldiers and families without a shelter. … But if the
favored Tories suffered, what must have been the condition of
the patriot prisoners, confined by thousands in bleak
barracks, churches, and prison-ships? Let us pass up Broadway,
amidst the uncleared ruins, and, turning down Liberty Street,
pause before a huge brick building near the Middle Dutch
Church. It is five stories high, with broken windows, through
which the fierce winds of winter rush unrestrained. Through
its imperfect roof and various openings, snow, ice, and water
penetrate to every part of the building. Sentries pace round
its walls prepared to fire upon any of its maddened inmates
who attempt in desperation to escape. Wounded men crawl to the
windows begging aid; but the impassive sentinel turns back the
gifts of the charitable. No communication with the prisoners
can be allowed. The walls within are bare and cheerless, nor
do any of the common conveniences of life soften the horrors
of those dreary chambers. Yet the old Sugar-House is the most
crowded building in New York, and hundreds of prisoners, some
chained, others at large, fill its comfortless interior. In
the old Sugar-House were confined the prisoners of Long
Island, the captives of sudden forays, the patriot citizen,
and the heroes of the rebel army. Clothed in rags and scarcely
covered from the winter air, crowded in narrow apartments and
broken by hunger and disease, the prisoners died by thousands.
The sick lay down on beds of snow to perish; the feeble
wounded quivered in the February blast. Food of the coarsest
kind was served out to them in scanty measure, and devoured
with the eagerness of famine. Every night ten or twenty died;
every day their corpses were thrown into pits without a single
rite of burial. When led out to be exchanged, the glad hope of
freedom gave them no joy—they died on the way to their
friends, or lingered out a few weeks of miserable decline in
the hospitals of the Jerseys. So wretched was their condition
that Washington refused to consider them fit subjects for
exchange. 'You give us only the dead or dying,' he wrote to
Howe, 'for our well-fed and healthy prisoners.' Howe, as if in
mockery, replied that they had been kept in 'airy, roomy
buildings,' on the same fare as his own soldiers. Washington
pointed to the condition in which they reached him—diseased,
famished, emaciated, and dying, as they were conducted to his
quarters. Across the river, in Wallabout Bay, lay the
prison-ship 'Jersey.' She was the hulk of a 64 gun ship, long
unseaworthy, her masts and rigging gone, her figurehead broken
off, and her whole appearance singularly repulsive. Yet on
board of the Jersey were confined 1,200 captured seamen. She
was never cleansed, and lay in that condition seven years. No
fires warmed her occupants in winter, no screen sheltered them
from the August sun; no physician visited the sick, no
clergyman consoled the dying there. Poor and scanty food, the
want of clothing, cleanliness, and exercise, and raging
diseases that never ceased their ravages, made the Jersey a
scene of human suffering to which the Black Hole of Calcutta
might favorably compare. Benevolent Tories would sometimes
convey by stealth food or clothing to her unhappy inmates; but
this was little. Toward the close of the war the British, from
shame or pity, made some improvement in her condition; but she
remained throughout the contest a centre of sickness and
death, always decimated by disease and always replenished with
new victims. The bones of her dead, estimated at 11,000, lie
buried on the Brooklyn shore. The crowded city itself was
never free from contagion. In winter the smallpox made fearful
ravages."
_E. Lawrence,
New York in the Revolution
(Harper's Magazine, July, 1868)._
ALSO IN:
_Force's American Archives,
4th Series, volume 6,
5th Series, volumes 1-3._
_History Magazine, 1866, sup._
_W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 3, chapter 21._
{3241}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1778.
Attitude and feeling of France.
Her disposition to aid the colonies and the reasons for it.
The American embassy to the French court.
Silas Deane and Beaumarchais.
Franklin at Passy.
"On March 17, 1776, Vergennes presented to his associates in
the cabinet—Maurepas, Turgot (controller-general), Sartine
(secretary of the navy), and St. Germain (secretary of war)—a
paper entitled 'Considerations,' which, after for many years
evading the search of historians, … was brought to light by De
Witt and republished by Doniol. In this important paper
Vergennes, after some general reflections on the advantages
which the two crowns of France and Spain derived from the
continuance of the civil war in America, and, on the other
hand, on the inconveniences which might arise from the
independence of the Colonies, and the probability that, in
case of failure in North America, England would, to recover
its credit, turn its arms against the French and Spanish
possessions in America, proceeds to consider the course at
once to be pursued. He bitterly attacks the English for their
habitual breach of good faith, violation of treaties, and
disregard of that observance of the sacred laws of morality
which distinguish the French, and infers that they will take
the first opportunity to declare war against France or invade
Mexico. No doubt, if the kings of France and Spain had martial
tendencies; if they obeyed the dictates of their own
interests, and perhaps the justice of their cause, which was
that of humanity, so often outraged by England; if their
military resources were in a sufficiently good condition, they
would feel that Providence had evidently chosen that very hour
for humiliating England and revenging on her the wrongs she
had inflicted on those who had the misfortune to be her
neighbors and rivals, by rendering the resistance of the
Americans as desperate as possible. The exhaustion produced by
this internecine war would prostrate both England and her
Colonies, and would afford an opportunity to reduce England to
the condition of a second-rate power; to tear from her the
empire she aimed at establishing in the four quarters of the
world with so much pride and injustice, and relieve the
universe of a tyranny which desires to swallow up both all the
power and all the wealth of the world. But the two crowns not
being able to act in this way, they must have recourse to a
circumspect policy." Vergennes "draws the following
inferences:
(1) That they should continue dexterously to keep the English
ministry in a state of false security with respect to the
intentions of France and Spain.
(2) That it would be politic to give the insurgents secret
assistance in military stores and money; that the admitted
utility would justify this little sacrifice, and no loss of
dignity or breach of equity would be involved in it.
(3) That it would not be consistent with the king's dignity or
interest to make an open contract with the insurgents until
their independence was achieved.
(4) That in case France and Spain should furnish assistance,
they should look for no other return than the success of the
political object they had at that moment in view, leaving
themselves at liberty to be guided by circumstances as to any
future arrangements.
(5) That perhaps a too-marked inactivity at the present crisis
might be attributed by the English to fear, and might expose
France to insults to which it might not be disposed to submit.
The English, he adds, respect only those who can make
themselves feared.
(6) That the result to which all these considerations led was
that the two crowns should actively prepare means to resist or
punish England, more especially as, of all possible issues,
the maintenance of peace with that power was the least
probable.
… It would be a mistake, however, to attribute the French
support of America exclusively to a feeling of revenge for the
humiliations of the prior war. Other motives came in and
exercised a decisive influence. There was a conviction, and a
right one, in France that for Britain to hold under control
the whole of North America as well as of India would give her
a maritime supremacy, as well as a superiority in wealth,
which would constitute a standing menace to the rest of the
civilized world. There was, again, an enthusiasm among the
young nobility and among officers in the army for America,
which, even aside from the bitterness towards Britain with
which it was mingled, had great effect on people as well as on
court; and to this was added the sympathy of doctrinaire
political philosophers who then and for some time afterwards
had great power in forming French public opinion. By the
enthusiasm of the young nobility the queen—brilliant, bold,
weary of the traditions of the old court, inconsiderate as to
ultimate political results—was affected, and through her her
husband was reached. But above this was the sense of right
which was uppermost in the breast of the unfortunate sovereign
who then, with little political experience but high notions of
duty as well as of prerogative, occupied the throne."
_F. Wharton, editor,
Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence
of the United States,
Introduction, chapter 4 (volume 1)._
"From the earliest moment France had been hopefully regarded
by the colonists as probably their friend and possibly their
ally. To France, therefore, the first American envoy was
dispatched with promptitude [receiving his instructions in
March and reaching Paris in the following June, 1776] even
before there was a declaration of independence or an
assumption of nationality. Silas Deane was the man selected.
He was the true Yankee jack-at-all-trades; he had been
graduated at Yale College, then taught school, then practiced
law, then engaged in trade, had been all the while advancing
in prosperity and reputation, had been a member of the first
and second congresses, had failed of reëlection to the third,
and was now without employment. Mr'. Parton describes him as
'of somewhat striking manners and good appearance, accustomed
to live and entertain in liberal style, and fond of showy
equipage and appointment.' Perhaps his simple-minded
fellow-countrymen of the provinces fancied that such a man
would make an imposing figure at an European court.
{3242}
He developed no other peculiar fitness for his position; he
could not even speak French; and it proved an ill hour for
himself in which he received this trying and difficult honor.
… Deane arrived in France in June, 1776. He had with him a
little ready money for his immediate personal expenses, and
some letters of introduction from Franklin. It was intended to
keep him supplied with money by sending cargoes of tobacco,
rice, and indigo consigned to him, the proceeds of which would
be at his disposal for the public service. He was instructed
to seek an interview with de Vergennes, the French minister
for foreign affairs, and to endeavor with all possible
prudence and delicacy to find out what signs of promise the
disposition of the French government really held for the
insurgents. He was also to ask for equipment for 25,000
troops, ammunition, and 200 pieces of field artillery, all to
be paid for—when Congress should be able! In France he was to
keep his mission cloaked in secure secrecy, appearing simply
as a merchant conducting his own affairs. … Before the arrival
of Deane the interests of the colonies had been already taken
in hand and substantially advanced in France by one of the
most extraordinary characters in history. Caron de
Beaumarchais was a man whom no race save the French could
produce, and whose traits, career, and success lie hopelessly
beyond the comprehension of the Anglo-Saxon. Bred a
watchmaker, he had the skill, when a mere youth, to invent a
clever escapement balance for regulating watches; had he been
able to insert it into his own brain he might have held more
securely his elusive good fortunes. From being an ingenious
inventor he became an adventurer general, watchmaker to the
king, the king's mistresses, and the king's daughters, the
lover, or rather the beloved, of the wife of the controller of
the king's kitchen, then himself the controller, thence a
courtier, and a favorite of the royal princesses. Through a
clever use of his opportunities he was able to do a great
favor to a rich banker, who in return gave him chances to
amass a fortune, and lent him money to buy a patent of
nobility. This connection ended in litigation, which was near
ruining him; but he discovered corruption on the part of the
judge, and thereupon wrote his Memorials, of which the wit,
keenness, and vivacity made him famous. He then rendered a
private, personal, and important service to Louis XV., and
soon afterwards another to the young Louis XVI. … He became
frenzied in the American cause. In long and ardent letters he
opened upon King Louis and his ministers a rattling fire of
arguments sound and unsound, statements true and untrue,
inducements reasonable and unreasonable, forecastings probable
and improbable, politics wise and unwise, all designed to show
that it was the bounden duty of France to adopt the colonial
cause."
_J. T. Morse, Jr.,
Benjamin Franklin,
chapter 9._
Soon after the arrival of Deane in Paris, the American
Congress, having determined to declare the independence of the
states represented in it, appointed a committee "to prepare
the plan of a treaty to be proposed to foreign powers, which,
after a long discussion, was at length agreed to, and
ministers were appointed to negotiate the treaties proposed.
Mr. Franklin, Mr. Deane, and Mr. Jefferson, were elected; but,
the last mentioned gentleman having declined accepting the
appointment offered him, Mr. Arthur Lee, then in London, was
chosen in his place. These transactions were placed on the
secret journals, and no member was permitted to give any
specific information concerning them; or to state more than,
'that congress had taken such steps as they judged necessary
for obtaining foreign alliances.' The secret committee were
directed to make an effectual lodgment in France of £10,000
sterling, subject to the order of these commissioners. They
assembled in Paris early in the winter, and had an immediate
interview with the count De Vergennes. It was perceived that
the success of the American cruisers, whose captures had been
so considerable as to raise the price of insurance higher than
it had been at any time during the war with both France and
Spain, had excited a very favourable opinion of the capacities
and energies of the nation. They were assured that the ports
of France would remain open to their ships, and that the
American merchants might freely vend in them every article of
commerce, and purchase whatever might be useful for their
country. But it was apparent that the minister wished to avoid
a rupture with England, and was, therefore, unwilling to
receive them openly as the ministers of the United States, or
to enter into any formal negotiation with them."
_J. Marshall,
Life of Washington,
volume 3, chapter 7._
"It is … a settled rule of diplomacy that a minister should
not be pressed upon a foreign court by which it is understood
that he will not be received. To this may be added the rule
that applications for loans should, unless as part of a treaty
alliance, be made through business channels. In disregard of
these rules the majority of Congress, under the influence of
Richard H. Lee and Samuel Adams, instituted a series of
missions to European courts for the bare purpose of borrowing
money, when the courts so addressed not only gave no
intimation that they would receive these envoys, but when,
from the nature of things, as well as from unofficial
intimation, it should have been known that such reception
would be refused. With France there was no difficulty, as
France had intimated unofficially that such envoys would be
received, at least in a private capacity, France being then
ready to take the consequence of war with Britain. And this
reception was accorded … first to Silas Deane, then to
Franklin, and then to Arthur Lee. Here Franklin thought
Congress should stop, saying that ministers should not be sent
to sovereigns without first having some sort of assurance of
recognition of the United States as an independent
sovereignty, and that a 'virgin' republic, as he called it,
should wait till there was some such recognition before
thrusting embassies on foreign courts with demands for money.
Congress thought differently. Arthur Lee was instructed to go
to Madrid with an alternate commission to Berlin; William Lee
was sent to Vienna, Dana to St. Petersburg, Adams to The
Hague, Izard to Florence, and the instructions in each case
were to demand not only recognition, but subsidy. … The policy
of sending ministers to European courts where such ministers
were not received worked injuriously to the United States from
the mere fact of their non-reception. Another difficulty arose
from the circumstance that several of these ministers took up
their residence in Paris, and, without specific authority,
considered it their duty to take part in the counsels of the
American legation.
{3243}
Thus Ralph Izard, commissioned to Tuscany, never went there,
but remained in Paris, claiming a right to be informed of all
the details of the negotiations with France, and occupying no
small share of the time and care of Franklin with discussions
of this claim, which Franklin could not accede to, but on
which Izard continued to insist. When the triple legation of
Franklin, Deane, and Arthur Lee (and afterwards Franklin,
Arthur Lee, and Adams), was commissioned, it was understood
that its members were to divide, so that one (Franklin) should
remain in Paris, while the others should take charge of the
missions to other capitals. But Arthur Lee, when he found that
he could not be received in Madrid, or in Vienna, or in
Berlin, made but brief excursions to Spain, to Austria, and to
Berlin, reporting himself after each short trip promptly at
Paris, there to differ from Franklin not only as to important
business details, but as to the whole policy of the mission.
When Adams was in Paris, during their joint mission, he
concurred with Arthur Lee in what turned out to be the
disastrous measure of removing Williams as commercial agent
and putting in his place William Lee, with a nephew of William
and Arthur Lee as clerk; while on the whole question of
sending legations to foreign courts which had not consented to
receive them, and in the still more important question of the
attitude to be assumed by the commissioners to the French
court, Adams agreed with Lee. … It is due to Adams to say that
he saw the inherent difficulties of permanent missions
conducted by three joint commissioners; that he recommended
that there should be but one permanent minister to France; and
that he recognized Franklin's great influence with the French
ministry as a strong reason for his retention though without
colleagues. But there can be no doubt that down to the period
when Franklin became sole minister, the American cause in
Europe was much embarrassed by the fact that he had colleagues
associated with him."
_F. Wharton,
Introduction to The Revolutionary Diplomatic
Correspondence of The United States,
chapter 1, sections 16-17,
and chapter 9, section 106 (volume 1)._
Before Franklin or Lee reached France, Silas Deane had already
entered into negotiations with Beaumarchais and opened a train
of dealings which proved unfortunate for both. Leaving aside
"all the long controversy about the rights and wrongs of
Beaumarchais, which have never been completely and
satisfactorily solved, … it appears that a large part of the
misunderstanding between him and Deane and Arthur Lee is
attributable to a change of plan between April and July, 1776.
Beaumarchais's scheme of operation, when he saw Lee in London,
was to expend money which should, at least in pretence and
form, be obtained from the voluntary contributions of wealthy
Frenchmen in aid of the American cause; but in July, when he
saw Deane, that scheme had been dropped, and the project was
that he should appear as a merchant. … In May, there was a
plan on the part of the French government to employ a real
merchant; now the plan was to employ a comedy merchant. This
was exactly the role which Beaumarchais was qualified to fill,
and he proceeded to establish and open a large house, with all
the accessories of a house of business, as the same are
understood and represented on the stage, At that time it was
believed that the colonists had plenty of exportable products
which they could and would contribute for the purpose
[purchase?] of arms and ammunition. It was thought that their
main difficulty would be to find any market in which they
could purchase contraband of war. The chief assistance,
therefore, which they would need from France would be secret
permission to make this exchange in France. Beaumarchais's
commercial operations would be real commercial operations, and
at worst could only issue in some expenses and losses, on the
balance of account, which the French government might have to
make good. Beaumarchais approached Deane with all the forms
and reality of a commercial proposition, and Deane assured him
that he should have some returns in six months, and full pay
for everything which he supplied in a year. Two days later
they made a contract by which Congress was to pay the current
price of the goods in America when they should arrive, or take
them at the cost price, with insurance, charges, and
commission 'proportioned to the trouble and care, which cannot
now be fixed.' … August 18, Beaumarchais writes to the
Committee of Secret Correspondence that, led by esteem for a
people struggling for liberty, he has established an extensive
commercial house, solely for the purpose of supplying them
with all things useful, even gold for the payment of troops;
and that without waiting for their consent he has already
procured 200 cannons, 200,000 pounds of powder, 20,000 guns,
with balls, lead, clothing, etc. He wants the cargoes
consigned to him in return, and promises that he has great
power to use any consignments whatsoever; but he wants
especially tobacco. He signs this letter Roderique Hortales &
Co. … A million livres were advanced by Spain to Beaumarchais,
August 11, 1776, and the Farmers-general of France advanced a
million livres, but took advantage of the distress of the
Americans to stipulate that it should be paid for in tobacco
at half its then current price. Beaumarchais also advanced
money to Deane for his personal expenses; and it has never
been doubted that he exerted himself with the utmost energy,
if not always with the greatest prudence, to expedite the
shipment of the goods. Of the three ships which he despatched
at the end of the year, two were captured by the English; but
the one which arrived was of the greatest possible value to
the cause. … When Arthur Lee received his appointment as
Commissioner to France and entered upon the discharge of his
duties, he found that the promises made to him by Beaumarchais
… had not been kept. He reported to the Committee of Secret
Correspondence that a change in the mode of sending had been
settled between Deane and Hortales. … Arthur Lee always held
the attitude of suspicion that Deane and Beaumarchais were in
a conspiracy to levy contributions for themselves on the free
gifts of France to the United States. Franklin always affected
to ignore the dealings with Beaumarchais, and to treat them as
exclusively in the hands of Deane; while Congress always
showed themselves very careful not to pay for anything which
possibly was intended as a gift. Therefore Deane and
Beaumarchais were left for years to claim and protest that
there had been genuine mercantile contracts which had not been
fulfilled, and they could scarcely obtain attention. … September
8, 1777, Congress voted that Deane had no authority to make
contracts with persons to come to America.
{3244}
November 21, they voted to recall him. Undoubtedly the
vexation which Deane had caused them by sending over a great
number of persons to serve in the army, under contracts which
enabled them to demand large pay and high rank, was the chief
cause of irritation against him; but Arthur Lee had also been
poisoning the mind of his brother, and through him, of the
whole Lee-Adams faction in Congress, with suspicions of
Deane's honesty. Deane had found himself transferred, within a
period of two or three years, from an utterly obscure
existence at Wethersfield, Connecticut, to the position of a
quasi-ambassador at the court of France. He adopted a large
and expensive style of living, and kept open house for the
Americans at Paris. It is very reasonable to suppose that this
large expenditure on his part was one of the chief grounds of
belief that he was making great gain out of his position. …
The affair of Silas Deane has importance far beyond the merits
or the fate of that individual. The quarrel over him and his
rights and wrongs, as will presently be seen, entered into the
hottest party contests in Congress during the next two or
three years, and it comes up again often subsequently. It has
even been asserted that the intimacy into which John Adams was
thrown with the Lees, in this connection, was what made him
President of the United States, by winning him votes from
Virginia in 1796. January 1, 1778, Beaumarchais, having heard
that money had been given to the Americans through Grand, the
banker, writes to Vergennes: 'So I have lost the fruit of the
most noble and incredible labour by those very exertions which
conduct others to glory.' … He is in terror of bankruptcy.
Inasmuch as a treaty of alliance between France and the United
States was now made, matters had entered upon a new stage.
Beaumarchais, with his fictitious firm of Hortales, was no
longer necessary or useful. The French government dealt
directly with the American envoys in granting supplies and
subsidies. April 7, Congress made a contract with Hortales
that they should pay, for all the cargoes already shipped and
those to be shipped, the first cost, charges, and freight, in
France. The contract between Beaumarchais and Deane is
recognized. Hortales is to pay bills drawn every two months at
double usance for twenty-four million livres annually. This
article, however, is subject to ratification by the house in
Paris and the American Commissioners at Paris. American
produce is to be exported and consigned to this house.
Interest is to be paid on all sums due, with a commission of
two and a half per cent. From this time Beaumarchais falls out
of sight as an agent of aid and supplies to the American
cause, and becomes a claimant, who considers that he has been
treated with injustice and ingratitude by the United States."
_W. G. Sumner,
The Financier and the Finances of the American Revolution,
chapter 8 (volume 1)._
"The episode of Beaumarchais … was a survival of the secret
diplomacy of Louis XV, for a short time exercising an
extraordinary influence in the first period of the reign of
Louis XVI. Louis XVI, on reaching the throne, found the
machinery of secret diplomacy so ingeniously constructed by
his predecessor in full operation; and, … for one or two
delicate inquiries at the outset of the new reign,
Beaumarchais, who of all the diplomatists of this peculiar
breed was the most adroit and fertile in expedients, was well
fitted. Hence came his employment, and from his employment
came his suggestions, full of brilliant wit and effective
reasoning, as to America. But the antagonism between him and
Vergennes was too marked to permit sustained political
relationship; and when Franklin entered into diplomatic life
in Paris Beaumarchais ceased to take a prominent political
position. And even during the period of Beaumarchais' greatest
activity it must be remembered that he was not technically
Vergennes' subordinate. It was one of the peculiarities of the
secret diplomacy of Louis XIV and Louis XV, as depicted by
Broglie in his admirable treatise on that topic, that even the
existence of the secret agent was not to be supposed to be
known to the king's ostensible ministers. This was not the
case with Beaumarchais; but at the same time Beaumarchais'
political influence ceased … when, on the arrival of Franklin,
Vergennes, with Franklin's aid, took control of Anglo-American
diplomacy."
_F. Wharton,
Introduction to The Revolutionary Diplomatic
Correspondence of the United States,
chapter 4, section 55 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_E. E. Hale,
Franklin in France._
_J. Bigelow, editor,
Life of Franklin, by himself,
volume 2, chapters 13-15._
_J. Parton,
Life of Franklin,
part 6 (volume 2)._
_L. de Lomenie,
Beaumarchais and his Times,
chapters 20-23 (volume 3)._
_Papers in relation to the Case of Silas Deane
(Seventy-Six Society, 1855)._
_C. Tower, Jr.,
The Marquis de La Fayette in the American Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 5._
See, also,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (FEBRUARY).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1779.
The Thirteen Colonies become States.
The framing and adoption of State Constitutions.
"The recommendations to form governments proceeded from the
general congress; the work was done by the several states, in
the full enjoyment of self-direction. Each of them claimed to
be of right a free, sovereign, and independent state; each
bound its officers to bear to it true allegiance, and to
maintain its freedom and independence. Massachusetts, which
was the first state to frame a government independent of the
king, deviated as little as possible from the letter of its
charter; and, assuming that the place of governor was vacant
from the 19th of July 1775, it recognised the council as the
legal successor to executive power. On the 1st day of May
1776, in all commissions and legal processes, it substituted
the name of its 'government and people' for that of the king.
In June 1777, its legislature assumed power to prepare a
constitution; but, on a reference to the people, the act was
disavowed. In September 1779, a convention, which the people
themselves had specially authorized, framed a constitution. It
was in a good measure the compilation of John Adams, who was
guided by the English constitution, by the bill of rights of
Virginia, and by the experience of Massachusetts herself; and
this constitution, having been approved by the people, went
into effect in 1780. On the 5th of January 1776, New Hampshire
shaped its government with the fewest possible changes from
its colonial forms, like Massachusetts merging the executive
power in the council. Not till June 1783 did its convention
agree upon a more perfect instrument, which was approved by
the people, and established on the 31st of the following
October.
{3245}
The provisional constitution of South Carolina dates from the
26th of March 1776. In March 1778, a permanent constitution
was introduced by an act of the legislature. Rhode Island
enjoyed under its charter a form of government so thoroughly
republican that the rejection of monarchy, in May 1776,
required no change beyond a renunciation of the king's name in
the style of its public acts. A disfranchisement of Catholics
had stolen into its book of laws; but, so soon as it was
noticed, the clause was expunged. In like manner, Connecticut
had only to substitute the people of the colony for the name
of the king; this was done provisionally on the 14th of June
1776, and made perpetual on the 10th of the following October.
Before the end of June of the same year Virginia, sixth in the
series, first in the completeness of her work, by a
legislative convention without any further consultation of the
people, framed and adopted a bill of rights, a declaration of
independence, and a constitution. On the second of July 1776,
New Jersey perfected its new, self-created charter. Delaware
next proclaimed its bill of rights, and, on the 20th of
September 1776, the representatives in convention having been
chosen by the freemen of the state for that very purpose,
finished its constitution. The Pennsylvania convention adopted
its constitution on the 28th of September 1776; but the
opposition of the Quakers whom it indirectly disfranchised,
and of a large body of patriots, delayed its thorough
organization for more than five months. The delegates of
Maryland, meeting on the 14th of August 1776, framed its
constitution with great deliberation; it was established on
the 9th of the following November. On the 18th of December
1776, the constitution of North Carolina was ratified in the
congress which framed it. On the 5th of February 1777, Georgia
perfected its organic law by the unanimous agreement of its
convention. Last of the thirteen came New York, whose
empowered convention, on the 20th of April 1777, established a
constitution that, in humane liberality, excelled them all.
The privilege of the suffrage had been far more widely
extended in the colonies than in England; by general consent,
the extension of the elective franchise was postponed. The age
of twenty-one was a qualification universally required. So,
too, was residence, except that in Virginia and South Carolina
it was enough to own in the district or town a certain
freehold or 'lot.' South Carolina required the electors to
'acknowledge the being of a God, and to believe in a future
state of rewards and punishments.' 'White men alone could
claim the franchise in Virginia, in South Carolina, and in
Georgia; but in South Carolina a benign interpretation of the
law classed the free octaroon as a white, even though
descended through an unbroken line of mothers from an imported
African slave; the other ten states raised no question of
color. In Pennsylvania, in New Hampshire, and partially in
North Carolina, the right to vote belonged to every resident
taxpayer; Georgia extended it to any white inhabitant 'of any
mechanic trade'; with this exception, Georgia and all the
other colonies required the possession of a freehold, or of
property variously valued, in Massachusetts at about $200, in
Georgia at £10. Similar conditions had always existed, with
the concurrence or by the act of the colonists themselves.
Maryland prescribed as its rule that votes should be given by
word of mouth; Virginia and New Jersey made no change in their
usage; in Rhode Island each freeman was in theory summoned to
be present in the general court; he therefore gave his proxy
to his representative by writing his own name on the back of
his vote; all others adopted the ballot, New York at the end
of the war, the other eight without delay."
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 5, chapter 9._
ALSO IN:
_American Archives,
series 5, volumes 2-3 (as indexed)._
See, also,
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1776;
SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1776 (FEBRUARY-APRIL);
NEW YORK: A. D. 1777;
CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1776;
NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1774-1776;
PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1776;
MARYLAND: A. D. 1776;
GEORGIA: A. D. 1775-1777;
NEW HAMPSHIRE: 1775-1776.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (January-December).
The campaign on the Delaware.
Lord Howe in possession of Philadelphia.
Battles on the Brandywine and at Germantown.
The winter of Washington's army at Valley Forge.
"Washington remained at Morristown from the 7th of January
until the 28th of May, during which time no military movement
of importance took place. His men left for their homes as soon
as their terms of service expired, and as few militia entered
the camp to take their places, at times it seemed as if the
army would be so reduced as to be unworthy of the name. It was
not until late in the spring that the new levies reached
headquarters. On the 28th of May the Americans marched to
Middlebrook and took position behind the Raritan. On the 13th
of June Howe marched from Brunswick and … endeavored to bring
on a general engagement, … but Washington refused to leave the
strong position he occupied, and Howe retired to Amboy. Early
in April Howe had settled upon a campaign having for its
object the capture of Philadelphia. He determined to embark
his troops and transport them to the banks of the Delaware or
Chesapeake, and march directly on the city. … On the 23d of
July, after Howe's troops had been three weeks on the vessels,
the fleet sailed, shaping its course southwesterly. … Signal
fires were lighted along the Jersey coast as it was seen from
time to time by those who were watching for it, and messengers
carried inland the news of its progress. At last, on the 30th,
it was spoken off the capes of Delaware, but Lord Howe deemed
it too hazardous to sail up that river, and after consulting
with his brother, the general, continued on his course
southward. On the 15th of August he entered Chesapeake Bay,
and on the 25th the troops were landed at Elk Ferry."
Meantime, Washington had been in great uncertainty as to the
destination and intentions of his antagonist, but had drawn
his army near to Philadelphia. It had just been joined by
several distinguished foreign officers, Lafayette, De Kalb and
Pulaski in the number. At Philadelphia there was consternation
on the approach of the enemy, but "the pacific influence which
the presence of a large Quaker population exercised seemed to
bear down all military efforts. … To impress the lukewarm with
the strength of his forces, and to inspire hopes in the
breasts of the patriotic, on the 24th of August Washington
marched his army through the streets of Philadelphia.
{3246}
The men were poorly armed and clothed, and to give them some
uniformity they wore sprigs of green in their hats." The
advance of Howe from Elk Ferry was slow, and it was not until
the 11th of September that the Americans encountered him, at
Chad's Ford, on the Brandywine, where they had taken position.
In the battle which occurred that day the British gained a
clear victory, by means of a successful flank movement which
Cornwallis executed, crossing the river some miles above,
while General Knyphausen made feigned attempts at Chad's Ford.
"The American loss was about 1,000, killed, wounded, and
prisoners; that of the British, 579. … The day after the
battle Washington marched from Chester to Philadelphia. He
rested his army two days at Germantown, and then recrossed the
Schuylkill; public opinion demanding that another battle
should be risked before the city should be given up. On the
16th the two armies met on the high ground south of Chester
Valley and prepared for action. The skirmishing had actually
begun, when a violent storm stopped the engagement by ruining
the ammunition of both armies. Washington withdrew to the
hills north of the valley, and, finding it impossible to
repair the damage done by the storm, retreated again over the
Schuylkill, leaving Wayne behind him to watch the enemy and
attack their rear should they attempt to follow." But Wayne
was surprised at Paoli, and Washington was deceived by a
feigned movement, so that Howe succeeded in entering
Philadelphia without another battle, on the 26th, having
occupied Germantown the day before. "The main portion of
Howe's army remained at Germantown, a village of a single
street, two miles in length, and five from the city." Here, on
the morning of October 4th, Washington attacked him, and, for
a time, with great success; but confusion and
misunderstandings on the part of the attacking columns arose,
which turned the half-won victory into a defeat. "The
Americans lost nearly 1,100 killed, wounded, and prisoners;
the British 521. … While the Americans were defeated in their
object, the moral results of the battle were in their favor.
It inspired them with confidence, and showed the world that,
though driven from the field of Brandywine, they were still
aggressive." The next few weeks were employed by Howe in
reducing the forts which commanded the Delaware. Fort Mifflin
was taken after a severe siege, and this compelled the
abandonment of Fort Mercer, from which the British had been
repulsed with heavy loss. Early in December Howe moved upon
Washington's lines, at Whitemarsh, intending an attack; but
found them so strong that he dared not venture the attempt,
and returned to Philadelphia. "As the season was advancing,
and the Americans were in no condition to keep the field, it
was decided to go into winter-quarters at Valley Forge, on the
west side of the Schuylkill, where the Valley Creek empties
into the river. The surrounding hills were covered with woods
and presented an inhospitable appearance. The choice was
severely criticised, and De Kalb described it as a wilderness.
But the position was central and easily defended. The army
arrived there about the middle of December, and the erection
of huts began. They were built of logs, and were 14 by 15 feet
each. The windows were covered with oiled paper, and the
openings between the logs were closed with clay. The huts were
arranged in streets, giving the place the appearance of a
city. It was the first of the year, however, before they were
occupied, and previous to that the suffering of the army had
become great. Although the weather was intensely cold the men
were obliged to work at the buildings, with nothing to support
life but flour mixed with water, which they baked into cakes
at the open fires. … The horses died of starvation by
hundreds, and the men were obliged to haul their own
provisions and firewood. As straw could not be found to
protect the men from the cold ground, sickness spread through
their quarters with fearful rapidity. 'The unfortunate
soldiers,' wrote Lafayette in after-years, 'were in want of
everything; they had neither coats, hats, shirts, nor shoes;
their feet and their legs froze till they became black, and it
was often necessary to amputate them. … The army frequently
remained whole days without provisions, and the patient
endurance of both soldiers and officers was a miracle which
each moment served to renew.' … While the country around
Valley Forge was so impoverished by the military operations of
the previous summer as to make it impossible for it to support
the army, the sufferings of the latter were chiefly owing to
the inefficiency of Congress. That body met at Lancaster after
leaving Philadelphia, and at once adjourned to York, where its
sessions were continued. But it in no way equalled the
congresses which had preceded it. 'The Continental Congress
and the currency,' wrote Gouverneur Morris in 1778, 'have
greatly depreciated.'"
_F. D. Stone,
The Struggle for the Delaware
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 6, chapter 5)._
The sufferings of the army at Valley Forge, and the shameful
neglect which it experienced, were indignantly described by
Washington, in a letter addressed to the President of
Congress, December 23, 1777: "Since the month of July," he
wrote, "we have had no assistance from the
quartermaster-general, and to want of assistance from this
department the commissary-general charges great part of his
deficiency. To this I am to add, that, notwithstanding it is a
standing order, and often repeated, that the troops shall
always have two days' provisions by them, that they might be
ready at any sudden call; yet an opportunity has scarcely ever
offered, of taking an advantage of the enemy, that has not
been either totally obstructed, or greatly impeded on this
account. And this, the great and crying evil, is not all. The
soap, vinegar, and other articles allowed by Congress, we see
none of, nor have we seen them, I believe, since the battle of
Brandywine. The first, indeed, we have now little occasion
for; few men having more than one shirt, many only the moiety
of one, and some none at all. In addition to which, as a proof
of the little benefit received from a clothier-general, and as
a further proof of the inability of an army, under the
circumstances of this, to perform the common duties of
soldiers, (besides a number of men confined to hospitals for
want of shoes, and others in farmers' houses on the same
account,) we have, by a field-return this day made, no less
than two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight men now in
camp unfit for duty, because they are barefoot and otherwise
naked.
{3247}
By the same return it appears, that our whole strength in
Continental troops, including the eastern brigades, which have
joined us since the surrender of General Burgoyne, exclusive
of the Mary]and troops sent to Wilmington, amounts to more
than eight thousand two hundred in camp fit for duty;
notwithstanding which; and that since the 4th instant, our
numbers fit for duty, from the hardships and exposures they
have undergone, particularly on account of blankets (numbers
having been obliged, and still are, to sit up all night by
fires, instead of taking comfortable rest in a natural and
common way), have decreased near two thousand men. We find
gentlemen, without knowing whether the army was really going
into winter-quarters or not (for I am sure no resolution of
mine would warrant the Remonstrance), reprobating the measure
as much as if they thought the soldiers were made of stocks or
stones, and equally insensible of frost and snow; and
moreover, as if they conceived it easily practicable for an
inferior army, under the disadvantages I have described ours
to be, which are by no means exaggerated, to confine a
superior one, in all respects well-appointed and provided for
a winter's campaign, within the city of Philadelphia, and to
cover from depredation and waste the States of Pennsylvania
and Jersey. But what makes this matter still more
extraordinary in my eye is, that these very gentlemen,—who
were well apprized of the nakedness of the troops from ocular
demonstration, who thought their own soldiers worse clad than
others, and who advised me near a month ago to postpone the
execution of a plan I was about to adopt, in consequence of a
resolve of Congress for seizing clothes, under strong
assurances that an ample supply would be collected in ten days
agreeably to a decree of the State (not one article of which,
by the by, is yet come to hand),—should think a winter's
campaign, and the covering of these States from the invasion
of an enemy, so easy and practicable a business. I can assure
those gentlemen, that it is a much easier and less distressing
thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good
fireside, than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under
frost and snow, without clothes or blankets. However, although
they seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed
soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and, from my soul,
I pity those miseries, which it is neither in my power to
relieve or prevent. It is for these reasons, therefore, that I
have dwelt upon the subject; and it adds not a little to my
other difficulties and distress to find, that much more is
expected of me than is possible to be performed, and that upon
the ground of safety and policy I am obliged to conceal the
true state of the army from public view, and thereby expose
myself to detraction and calumny."
_George Washington,
Writings,
edited by W. C. Ford,
volume 6, pages 259-262._
It was during this trying winter, while the army suffered at
Valley Forge, that it was joined by Baron Steuben, an
accomplished Prussian officer, trained in the school of
Frederick the Great, with a record of distinguished service in
the Seven Years War. He came as a volunteer, and was welcomed
by Washington, who found in him the organizer, the
disciplinarian, the instructor, which the rudely formed
American army so greatly needed. The services rendered by
Baron Steuben during that first winter of his stay in America
were especially valuable, beyond measure. In his own account
of the state of things which he found he says: "'My
determination must have been very firm that I did not abandon
my design when I saw the troops. Matters had to be remedied,
but where to commence was the great difficulty. In the first
place, I informed myself relative to the military
administration. I found that the different branches were
divided into departments. There were those of the
quarter-master general, war commissary, provisions commissary,
commissary of the treasury, or paymaster of forage, etc., etc.
But they were all bad copies of a bad original. That is to
say, they had imitated the English administration, which is
certainly the most imperfect in Europe. The general asked me
to give him some statements concerning the arrangements of the
departments, and their various branches in the European
armies. I gave them to him, and, detailing therein the duties
of each department and of its different branches, dilated upon
the functions of the quarter-masters (maréchaux généraux de
logis) in particular, in which branch I had served myself for
a long time in the Seven Years' War. But the English system,
bad as it is, had already taken root. Each company and
quarter-master had a commission of so much per cent. on all
the money he expended. It was natural, therefore, that expense
was not spared—that wants were discovered where there were
none; and it was also natural that the dearest articles were
those that suited the commissioners best. Hence the
depreciation of our currency—hence the expense of so many
millions. I pointed out to General Washington and several
members of Congress the advantages of the contract system. I
even drew up a memorandum on the subject, which Colonel
Laurens translated into English, showing the way in which
things were contracted for in the Prussian and French armies.
But whether it was that they thought such a system
impracticable in this country, or whether they were unable to
check the torrent of expense, things remained as they were. I
directed my attention to the condition of the troops, and I
found an ample field, where disorder and confusion were
supreme. … The number of men in a regiment was fixed by
Congress, as well as in a company—so many infantry, cavalry,
and artillery. But the eternal ebb and flow of men engaged for
three, six, and nine months, who went and came every day,
rendered it impossible to have either a regiment or a company
complete; and the words company, regiment, brigade, and
division, were so vague that they did not convey any idea upon
which to form a calculation, either of a particular corps or
of the army in general. They were so unequal in their number,
that it would have been impossible to execute any maneuvers.
Sometimes a regiment was stronger than a brigade. I have seen
a regiment consisting of thirty men, and a company of one
corporal! … The soldiers were scattered about in every
direction. The army was looked upon as a nursery for servants,
and every one deemed it his right to have a valet; several
thousand soldiers were employed in this way. We had more
commissaries and quarter-masters at that time than all the
armies of Europe together; the most modest had only one
servant, but others had two and even three.
{3248}
If the captains and colonels could give no account of their
men, they could give still less an account of their arms,
accouterments, clothing, ammunition, camp equipage, etc.
Nobody kept an account but the commissaries, who furnished all
the articles. A company, which consisted, in May, of fifty
men, was armed, clothed and equipped in June. It then
consisted of thirty men; in July it received thirty recruits,
who were to be clothed, armed and equipped; and not only the
clothes, but the arms were carried off by those who had
completed their time of service. General Knox assured me that,
previous to the establishment of my department, there never
was a campaign in which the military magazines did not furnish
from 5,000 to 8,000 muskets to replace those which were lost
in the way I have described above. The loss of bayonets was
still greater. The American soldier, never having used this
arm, had no faith in it, and never used it but to roast his
beefsteak, and indeed often left it at home. This is not
astonishing when it is considered that the majority of the
States engaged their soldiers for from six to nine months.
Each man who went away took his musket with him, and his
successor received another from the public store. No captain
kept a book. Accounts were never furnished nor required. As
our army is, thank God, little subject to desertion, I venture
to say that during an entire campaign there have not been
twenty muskets lost since my system came into force. … The men
were literally naked, some of them in the fullest extent of
the word. The officers who had coats had them of every color
and make. I saw officers, at a grand parade at Valley Forge,
mounting guard in a sort of dressing-gown, made of an old
blanket or woolen bed-cover. With regard to their military
discipline, I may safely say no such thing existed. … I
commenced operations by drafting 120 men from the line, whom I
formed into a guard for the general-in-chief. I made this
guard my military school. I drilled them myself twice a day;
and to remove that English prejudice which some officers
entertained, namely, that to drill a recruit was a sergeant's
duty and beneath the station of an officer, I often took the
musket myself to show the men the manual exercise which I
wished to introduce. All my inspectors were present at each
drill. We marched together, wheeled, etc., etc., and in a
fortnight my company knew perfectly how to bear arms, had a
military air, knew how to march, to form in column, deploy,
and execute some little maneuvers with excellent precision. …
I paraded them in presence of all the officers of the army,
and gave them an opportunity of exhibiting all they knew. They
formed in column; deployed; attacked with the bayonet; changed
front, etc., etc. It afforded a new and agreeable sight for
the young officers and soldiers. Having gained my point, I
dispersed my apostles, the inspectors, and my new doctrine was
eagerly embraced. I lost no time in extending my operations on
a large scale. I applied my system to battalions, afterward to
brigades, and in less than three weeks I executed maneuvers
with an entire division in presence of the
commander-in-chief.' … The most interesting narrative of the
energy employed by Steuben, and the success of his system, is
given by his favorite aid-de-camp and intimate friend, William
North, who was with him from the beginning. He says in his
biographical sketch: 'Certainly it was a brave attempt!
Without understanding a word of the English language, to think
of bringing men, born free, and joined together to preserve
their freedom, into strict subjection; to obey without a word,
a look, the mandates of a master! that master once their
equal, or possibly beneath them, in whatever might become a
man! It was a brave attempt, which nothing but virtue, or
high-raised hopes of glory, could have supported. At the first
parade, the troops neither understanding the command, nor how
to follow in a changement to which they had not been
accustomed, even with the instructor at their head, were
getting fast into confusion. At this moment, Captain B.
Walker, then of the second New York regiment, advanced from
his platoon, and offered his assistance to translate the
orders and interpret to the troops. "If," said the baron, "I
had seen an angel from heaven, I should not have more
rejoiced." … Walker became from that moment his aid-de-camp,
and remained to the end of the baron's life his dear and most
worthy friend. From the commencement of instruction, no time,
no pains, no fatigue were thought too great, in pursuit of
this great object. Through the whole of each campaign, when
troops were to maneuver, and that was almost every day, the
baron rose at three o'clock; while his servant dressed his
hair he smoked a single pipe and drank one cup of coffee, was
on horseback at sunrise, and, with or without his suite,
galloped to the parade. There was no waiting for a tardy
aid-de-camp, and those who followed wished they had not slept.
Nor was there need of chiding; when duty was neglected, or
military etiquette infringed, the baron's look was quite
sufficient.' … Steuben enjoyed the confidence of both officers
and men, and every thing he proposed was executed with as much
precision as if it were an order from the commander-in-chief.
Although he was only a volunteer, without any specific rank in
the army, he had greater power and authority than any general
could boast of."
_F. Kapp,
Life of Frederick William von Steuben,
chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 3, chapters 13, 18-19, and 23-27._
_G. W. Greene,
Life of General Nathanael Greene,
book 2, chapters 16-25 (volume l)._
_J. T. Scharf and T. Westcott,
History of Philadelphia,
chapter 17 (volume l)._
_C. J. Stille,
Major-General Anthony Wayne,
Chapter 3._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (June).
Vermont denied admission to the Union.
See VERMONT; A. D. 1777-1778.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (July).
The coming of Lafayette.
"La Fayette, barely nineteen years old, was in garrison at
Metz, when he was invited to a dinner that his commander, the
Count de Broglie, gave to the brother of the king of England,
the Duke of Gloucester, then on his way through the city. News
had just been received of the proclamation of the independence
of the United States, and, the conversation having naturally
fallen on this subject, La Fayette plied the duke with
questions to acquaint himself with the events, entirely new to
him, which were happening in America. Before the end of the
dinner he had made his decision, and, from that moment, he no
longer thought of anything else except setting out for the new
world.
{3249}
He went to Paris and confided his project to his friends, the
Count de Segur and the Viscount de Noailles, who were to
accompany him. The Count de Broglie, whom he also informed,
tried to turn him from his design. 'I saw your uncle die in
Italy,' he said to him, 'and your father at Min·den, and I do
not wish to contribute to the ruin of your family by allowing
you to go.' Nevertheless, he put La Fayette in communication
with the former agent of Choiseul in Canada, the Baron de
Kalb, who became his friend. De Kalb presented him to Silas
Deane, who, considering him too young, wished to dissuade him
from his project. But the news of the disasters experienced by
the Americans before New York, at White Plains and in New
Jersey, confirmed La Fayette in his resolution. He bought and
fitted out a vessel at his own expense, and disguised his
preparations by making a journey to London. Nevertheless his
design was disclosed at Court. His family became angry with
him. He was forbidden to go to America, and, to render this
order effective, a lettre de cachet was issued against him.
Nevertheless he left Paris with an officer named Mauroy,
disguised himself as a courier, went on board his ship at
Passage in Spain, and set sail April the 26th, 1777. He had
several officers on board. La Fayette successfully avoided the
English cruisers and the French vessels sent in pursuit of
him. Finally, after a hazardous passage of seven weeks, he
reached Georgetown, and, furnished with letters of
recommendation from Deane, he reported to Congress."
_T. Balch,
The French in America during the War of Independence,
chapter 7._
In consideration of the great personal sacrifice he had made
in quitting France, and his offer to serve the American cause
at his own expense and without pay, Congress, with hesitation,
conferred on the young marquis the rank of Major General, but
without command. He succeeded, too, in procuring a like
commission for Baron de Kalb, who had accompanied him. While
Lafayette was still busy with these arrangements, Washington
came to Philadelphia, and they met at a dinner party. They
seem to have been drawn to one another at the first exchange
of words, and a friendship began which lasted through their
lives. Lafayette was soon invited to become a member of the
military family of the commander-in-chief.
_B. Tuckerman,
Life of General Lafayette,
chapter 2._
ALSO IN:
_C. Tower, Jr.,
The Marquis de La Fayette in the American Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 1._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (July-October).
The struggle for the Hudson.
Burgoyne's expedition from Canada.
His surrender at Saratoga.
Early in the summer of 1777 a formidable expedition under
General Burgoyne was set in motion from Canada toward Lake
Champlain. "It was a part of Burgoyne's plan, not merely to
take Ticonderoga, but to advance thence upon Albany, and, with
the co-operation of the troops at New York, to get possession
also of the posts in the Highlands. The British would then
command the Hudson through its whole extent, and New England,
the head of the rebellion, would be completely cut off from
the middle and southern colonies. Burgoyne started on this
expedition with a brilliant army of 8,000 men, partly British
and partly Germans, besides a large number of Canadian
boatmen, laborers and skirmishers. On the western shore of
Lake Champlain, near Crown Point, he met the Six Nations in
council, and after a feast and a speech, some 400 of their
warriors joined this army. His next step was to issue a
proclamation … threatening with all the extremities of war all
who should presume to resist his arms. Two days after the
issue of this proclamation, Burgoyne appeared [July 1] before
Ticonderoga." The commander of that important fort, General
St. Clair, found defense impracticable and evacuated the
place. He was vigorously pursued in his retreat and only
escaped with the loss of most of his bag·gage and stores,
besides several hundred men, in killed, wounded, and
prisoners. "After a seven days' march, he joined Schuyler at
Fort Edward, on the Hudson. Here was assembled the whole force
of the northern army, amounting to about 5,000 men; but a
considerable part were militia hastily called in; many were
without arms; there was a great deficiency of ammunition and
provisions; and the whole force was quite disorganized. The
region between Skenesborough [now Whitehall, where Burgoyne
had halted] and the Hudson was an almost unbroken wilderness.
Wood Creek was navigable as far as Fort Anne [which the
Americans had fired and abandoned]; from Fort Anne to the
Hudson, over an exceedingly rough country, … extended a single
military road. While Burgoyne halted a few days at
Skenesborough to put his forces in order, and to bring up the
necessary supplies, Schuyler hastened to destroy the
navigation of Wood Creek," and to make the road from Fort Anne
as nearly impassable as a wilderness road can be made. "All
the stock in the neighborhood was driven off, and the militia
of New England was summoned to the rescue. … The advance from
Skenesborough cost the British infinite labor and fatigue; but
… [the] impediments were at length overcome; and Burgoyne,
with his troops, artillery, and baggage, presently appeared
[July 29] on the banks of the Hudson. … Fort Edward was
untenable. As the British approached, the Americans crossed
the river, and retired, first to Saratoga, and then to
Stillwater, a short distance above the mouth of the Mohawk.
Hardly had Schuyler taken up this position, when news arrived
of another disaster and a new danger. While moving up Lake
Champlain, Burgoyne had detached Colonel St. Leger, with 200
regulars, Sir John Johnson's Royal Greens, some Canadian
Rangers, and a body of Indians under Brant, to harass the New
York frontier from the west. St. Leger laid siege to Fort
Schuyler, late Fort Stanwix, near the head of the Mohawk, then
the extreme western post of the State of New York. General
Herkimer raised the militia of Tryon county, and advanced to
the relief of this important post, which was held by
Gansevoort and Willett, with two New York regiments. About six
miles from the fort [near Oriskany, August 6], owing to want
of proper precaution, Herkimer fell into an ambush. Mortally
wounded, he supported himself against a stump, and encouraged
his men to the fight. By the aid of a successful sally by
Willett, they succeeded at last in repulsing the assailants,
but not without a loss of 400, including many of the leading
patriots of that region, who met with no mercy at the hands of
the Indians and refugees. Tryon county, which included the
whole district west of Albany, abounded with Tories.
{3250}
It was absolutely necessary to relieve Fort Schuyler." General
Arnold was accordingly despatched thither, with three
regiments, and on his approach St. Leger, deserted by most of
his Indian allies, retreated precipitately, leaving most of
his stores and baggage behind. Meantime, Burgoyne was
beginning to find his situation serious. To feed and otherwise
supply his army was the chief difficulty. He could bring
enough of stores to the head of Lake George, by the water
carriage which he commanded, from Canada; but to transport
them thence to the Hudson, though the distance was only
eighteen miles, proved nearly impracticable. "The roads were
so bad, and the supply of draft cattle so small, that, after a
fortnight's hard labor, the British army had only four days'
provision in advance." To improve his supplies, and partly,
moreover, in the hope of finding discontent among the settlers
of the New Hampshire Grants, Burgoyne sent 800 men, under
Colonel Baum, into Vermont, They were defeated [August 16] at
Bennington by the New Hampshire and Vermont militia under
Colonel John Stark, and again defeated a second time the same
day, after reinforcements had been sent to them. "Besides the
killed, about 200 in number, the Americans took near 600
prisoners, 1,000 stand of arms, as many swords, and four
pieces of artillery. … The American loss was only 14 killed
and 42 wounded. … The victory of Stark had a magical effect in
reviving the spirits of the people and the courage of the
soldiers."
_R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
chapter 36 (volume 3)._
"Burgoyne's position was by this time very dangerous. His
Indians were leaving him; many of his best men had been killed
or captured; and he was getting short of provisions. The army
opposed to him was increasing: Congress was hurrying men up
the Hudson; and the country militia were coming in rapidly.
Burgoyne, therefore, desperately attempted to force his way
through the American army. He crossed the Hudson, and moved
slowly down its west bank toward the Mohawk. About the same
time, Gates, who had been sent by Congress to take Schuyler's
place, felt strong enough to move up the west bank of the
Hudson, away from the Mohawk. The two armies met [September
19] at Bemis Heights, between Saratoga Lake and the Hudson.
The battle which followed [called by some writers the battle
of Freeman's Farm] was not decisive: the British held the
ground; but the Americans had shown that Burgoyne could not
break through."
_A. Johnston,
History of the United States for Schools,
sections 222-223._
"Burgoyne now halted again, and strengthened his position by
field-works and redoubts; and the Americans also improved
their defences. The two armies remained nearly within
cannon-shot of each other for a considerable time, during
which Burgoyne was anxiously looking for intelligence of the
promised expedition from New York, which, according to the
original plan, ought by this time to have been approaching
Albany from the south. At last, a messenger from Clinton made
his way, with great difficulty, to Burgoyne's camp, and
brought the information that Clinton was on his way up the
Hudson to attack the American forts which barred the passage
up that river to Albany. Burgoyne, in reply, on the 30th of
September, urged Clinton to attack the forts as speedily as
possible, stating that the effect of such an attack, or even
the semblance of it, would be to move the American army from
its position before his own troops. By another messenger, who
reached Clinton on the 5th of October, Burgoyne informed his
brother general that he had lost his communications with
Canada, but had provisions which would last him till the 20th.
Burgoyne described himself as strongly posted, and stated that
though the Americans in front of him [at Stillwater] were
strongly posted also, he made no doubt of being able to force
them, and making his way to Albany; but that he doubted
whether he could subsist there, as the country was drained of
provisions. He wished Clinton to meet him there, and to keep
open a communication with New York. Burgoyne had
over-estimated his resources, and in the very beginning of
October found difficulty and distress pressing him hard. The
Indians and Canadians began to desert him; while, on the other
hand, Gates's army was continually reinforced by fresh bodies
of the militia. … Finding the number and spirit of the enemy
to increase daily, and his own stores of provisions to
diminish, Burgoyne determined on attacking the Americans in
front of him, and by dislodging them from their position, to
gain the means of moving upon Albany, or at least of relieving
his troops from the straitened position in which they were
cooped up. Burgoyne's force was now reduced to less than 6,000
men. The right of his camp was on some high ground a little to
the west of the river; thence his entrenchments extended along
the lower ground to the bank of the Hudson, the line of their
front being nearly at a right angle with the course of the
stream. The lines were fortified with redoubts and
field-works. … The numerical force of the Americans was now
greater than the British, even in regular troops, and the
numbers of the militia and volunteers which had joined Gates
and Arnold were greater still. General Lincoln, with 2,000 New
England troops, had reached the American camp on the 29th of
September. Gates gave him the command of the right wing, and
took in person the command of the left wing, which was
composed of two brigades under Generals Poor and Leonard, of
Colonel Morgan's rifle corps, and part of the fresh New
England Militia. The whole of the American lines had been ably
fortified under the direction of the celebrated Polish
General, Kosciusko, who was now serving as a volunteer in
Gates's army. The right of the American position, that is to
say, the part of it nearest to the river, was too strong to be
assailed with any prospect of success: and Burgoyne therefore
determined to endeavour to force their left. For this purpose
he formed a column of 1,500 regular troops, with two
twelve-pounders, two howitzers, and six six-pounders. He
headed this in person, having Generals Philips, Riedesel; and
Fraser under him. The enemy's force immediately in front of
his lines was so strong that he dared not weaken the troops
who guarded them, by detaching any more to strengthen his
column of attack. It was on the 7th of October that Burgoyne
led his column forward; and on the preceding day, the 6th,
Clinton had successfully executed a brilliant enterprise
against the two American forts which barred his progress up
the Hudson.
{3251}
He had captured them both, with severe loss to the American
forces opposed to him; he had destroyed the fleet which the
Americans had been forming on the Hudson, under the protection
of their forts; and the upward river was laid open to his
squadron. He had also, with admirable skill and industry,
collected in small vessels, such as could float within a few
miles of Albany, provisions sufficient to supply Burgoyne's
army for six months. He was now only 156 miles distant from
Burgoyne; and a detachment of 1,700 men actually advanced
within 40 miles of Albany. Unfortunately Burgoyne and Clinton
were each ignorant of the other's movements; but if Burgoyne
had won his battle on the 7th, he must on advancing have soon
learned the tidings of Clinton's success, and Clinton would
have heard of his. A junction would soon have been made of the
two victorious armies, and the great objects of the campaign
might yet have been accomplished. All depended on the fortune
of the column with which Burgoyne, on the eventful 7th of
October, 1777, advanced against the American position." It
failed in the attempt to break the American line. Arnold, who
bad been deprived of his command by Gates, rushed into the
fight at its fiercest stage and assumed a lead, without
authority, which contributed greatly to the result. General
Fraser, on the British side, was wounded mortally by a
sharp-shooter under Morgan's command. Burgoyne's whole force
was driven back, with heavy losses in killed and wounded,
leaving six cannon behind them, and the Americans, pursuing,
carried part of their entrenchments by storm. By this success,
the latter "acquired the means of completely turning the right
flank of the British, and gaining their rear. To prevent this
calamity, Burgoyne effected during the night an entire change
of position. With great skill he removed his whole army to
some heights near the river, a little northward of the former
camp, and he there drew up his men, expecting to be attacked
on the following day. But Gates was resolved not to risk the
certain triumph which his success had already secured for him.
He harassed the English with skirmishes, but attempted no
regular attack. Meanwhile he detached bodies of troops on both
sides of the Hudson to prevent the British from recrossing
that river, and to bar their retreat. When night fell, it
became absolutely necessary for Burgoyne to retire again, and,
accordingly, the troops were marched through a stormy and
rainy night towards Saratoga, abandoning their sick and
wounded, and the greater part of their baggage, to the enemy.
… Burgoyne now took up his last position on the heights near
Saratoga; and hemmed in by the enemy, who refused any
encounter, and baffled in all his attempts at finding a path
of escape, he there lingered until famine compelled him to
capitulate. The fortitude of the British army during this
melancholy period has been justly eulogised by many native
historians, but I prefer quoting the testimony of a foreign
writer, as free from all possibility of partiality. Botta
says: 'It exceeds the power of words to describe the pitiable
condition to which the British army was now reduced. The
troops were worn down by a series of toil, privation,
sickness, and desperate fighting. They were abandoned by the
Indians and Canadians; and the effective force of the whole
army was now diminished by repeated and heavy losses, which
had principally fallen on the best soldiers and the most
distinguished officers, from 10,000 combatants to less than
one-half that number. Of this remnant, little more than 3,000
were English. In these circumstances, and thus weakened, they
were invested by an army of four times their own number, whose
position extended three parts of a circle round them; who
refused to fight them, as knowing their weakness, and who,
from the nature of the ground, could not be attacked in any
part. In this helpless condition, obliged to be constantly
under arms, while the enemy's cannon played on every part of
their camp, and even the American rifle-balls whistled in many
parts of the lines, the troops of Burgoyne retained their
customary firmness, and while sinking under a hard necessity,
they showed themselves worthy of a better fate. They could not
be reproached with an action or a word, which betrayed a want
of temper or of fortitude.' At length the 13th of October
arrived, and as no prospect of assistance appeared, and the
provisions were nearly exhausted, Burgoyne, by the unanimous
advice of a council of war, sent a messenger to the American
camp to treat of a convention. General Gates in the first
instance demanded that the royal army should surrender
prisoners of war. He also proposed that the British should
ground their arms. Burgoyne replied, 'This article is
inadmissible in every extremity; sooner than this army will
consent to ground their arms in their encampment, they will
rush on the enemy, determined to take no quarter.' After
various messages, a convention for the surrender of the army
was settled, which provided that 'The troops under General
Burgoyne were to march out of their camp with the honours of
war, and the artillery of the intrenchments, to the verge of
the river, where the arms and artillery were to be left. The
arms to be piled by word of command from their own officers. A
free passage was to be granted to the army under
Lieutenant-General Burgoyne to Great Britain, upon condition
of not serving again in North America during the present
contest.' The articles of capitulation were settled on the
15th of October; and on that very evening a messenger arrived
from Clinton with an account of his successes, and with the
tidings that part of his force had penetrated as far as
Esopus, within 50 miles of Burgoyne's camp. But it was too
late. The public faith was pledged; and the army was, indeed,
too debilitated by fatigue and hunger to resist an attack if
made; and Gates certainly would have made it, if the
convention had been broken off. Accordingly, on the 17th, the
convention of Saratoga was carried into effect. By this
convention 5,790 men surrendered themselves as prisoners. The
sick and wounded left in the camp when the British retreated
to Saratoga, together with the numbers of the British, German,
and Canadian troops, who were killed, wounded, or taken, and
who had deserted in the preceding part of the expedition, were
reckoned to be 4,689. The British sick and wounded who had
fallen into the hands of the Americans after the battle of the
7th, were treated with exemplary humanity; and when the
convention was executed, General Gates showed a noble delicacy
of feeling, which deserves the highest degree of honour. Every
circumstance was avoided which could give the appearance of
triumph.
{3252}
The American troops remained within their lines until the
British had piled their arms; and when this was done, the
vanquished officers and soldiers were received with friendly
kindness by their victors, and their immediate wants were
promptly and liberally supplied. Discussions and disputes
afterwards arose as to some of the terms of the convention;
and the American Congress refused for a long time to carry
into effect the article which provided for the return of
Burgoyne's men to Europe; but no blame was imputable to
General Gates or his army, who showed themselves to be
generous as they had proved themselves to be brave."
_Sir E. Creasy,
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,
chapter 13_.
ALSO IN:
_General J. Burgoyne,
State of the Expedition from Canada._
_S. A. Drake,
Burgoyne's Invasion._
_W. L. Stone,
Campaign of Burgoyne._
_M. von Eelking,
Memoir of General Riedesel,
volume 1, pages 88-218._
_B. J. Lossing,
Life and Times of Philip Schuyler,
volume 2, chapters 6-21._
_Colonel M. Willett,
Narrative of Military Actions,
chapter 5._
_C. Stark,
Memoir of General John Stark,
pages 46-140._
_T. Dwight,
Travels in New England and New York,
volume 3, pages 220-233._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777-1778.
The British in Philadelphia.
Their gay winter.
See PHILADELPHIA: A. D. 1777-1778.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777-1778.
The Conway Cabal.
The capitulation of Burgoyne at Saratoga "was an all-important
event in its influence on the progress of the war; but its
immediate effect was unpropitious to the reputation of the
Commander-in-chief, who was compelled, at the close of the
year, to place his army in a state of almost total destitution
in winter-quarters at Valley Forge. The brilliant success of
General Gates at Saratoga, in contrast with the reverses which
had befallen the American Army under the immediate command of
Washington, encouraged the operations of a cabal against him,
which had been formed by certain disaffected officers of the
army, and was countenanced by a party in Congress. The design
was, by a succession of measures implying a want of
confidence, to drive Washington to retire from the service in
disgust: and, when this object was effected, to give the
command of the army to General Gates, who lent a willing ear
to these discreditable intrigues. A foreign officer in the
American Army, of the name of Conway, was the most active
promoter of the project, which was discovered by the
accidental disclosure of a part of his correspondence with
Gates. Washington bore himself on this occasion with his usual
dignity, and allowed the parties concerned, in the army and in
Congress, to take refuge in explanations, disclaimers, and
apologies, by which those who made them gained no credit, and
those who accepted them were not deceived. A part of the
machinery of this wretched cabal was the publication, in
London, and the republication in New York of [a] collection of
forged letters … bearing the name of Washington, and intended
to prove his insincerity in the cause of the Revolution.
Nothing perhaps more plainly illustrates his conscious
strength of character, than the disdainful silence with which
he allowed this miserable fabrication to remain for twenty
years without exposure. It was only in the year 1796, and when
about to retire from the Presidency, that he filed, in the
department of Slate, a denial of its authenticity."
_E. Everett,
Life of Washington,
chapter 6._
In a letter written May 30, 1778, addressed to Landon Carter,
from the camp at Valley Forge, Washington alluded to the
subject of the cabal as follows: "With great truth I think I
can assure you, that the information you received from a
gentleman at Sabine Hall, respecting a disposition in the
northern officers to see me superseded in my command by
General G--s is without the least foundation. I have very
sufficient reasons to think, that no officers in the army are
more attached to me, than those from the northward, and of
those, none more so than the gentlemen, who were under the
immediate command of G--s last campaign. That there was a
scheme of this sort on foot, last fall, admits of no doubt:
but it originated in another quarter; with three men who
wanted to aggrandize themselves; but finding no support, on
the contrary, that their conduct and views, when seen into,
were likely to undergo severe reprehension, they slunk back,
disavowed the measure, and professed themselves my warmest
admirers. Thus stands the matter at present. Whether any
members of Congress were privy to this scheme, and inclined to
aid and abet it, I shall not take upon me to say; but am well
informed, that no whisper of the kind was ever heard in
Congress."
_George Washington,
Writings,
edited by W. C. Ford,
volume 7, page 39._
ALSO IN:
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 3, chapters 28-30._
_J. C. Hamilton,
History of the United States
in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton,
volume 1, chapters 13-14._
_J. Sparks,
Life of Gouverneur Morris,
volume 1, chapter 10._
_W. V. Wells,
Life of Samuel Adams,
chapter 46 (volume 2)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777-1781.
Adoption and ratification of the Articles of Confederation.
"On the 11th of June, 1776, the same day on which the
committee for preparing the declaration of independence was
appointed, congress resolved, that 'a committee be appointed
to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be
entered into between these colonies'; and on the next day a
committee was accordingly appointed, consisting of a member
from each colony. Nearly a year before this period (viz. on
the 21st of July, 1775), Dr. Franklin had submitted to
congress a sketch of articles of confederation, which does
not, however, appear to have been acted on. … On the 12th of
July, 1776, the committee appointed to prepare articles of
confederation presented a draft, which was in the hand-writing
of Mr. Dickenson, one of the committee, and a delegate from
Pennsylvania. The draft, so reported, was debated from the 22d
to the 31st of July, and on several days between the 5th and
20th of August, 1776. On this last day, congress, in committee
of the whole, reported a new draft, which was ordered to be
printed for the use of the members. The subject seems not
again to have been touched until the 8th of April, 1777, and
the articles were debated at several times between that time
and the 15th of November of the same year. On this last day
the articles were reported with sundry amendments, and finally
adopted by congress. A committee was then appointed to draft,
and they accordingly drafted, a circular letter, requesting
the states respectively to authorize their delegates in
congress to subscribe the same in behalf of the state. … It
carried, however, very slowly conviction to the minds of the
local legislatures. Many objections were stated, and many
amendments were proposed.
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All of them, however, were rejected by congress, not probably
because they were all deemed inexpedient or improper in
themselves; but from the danger of sending the instrument back
again to all the states, for reconsideration. Accordingly, on
the 26th of June, 1778, a copy, engrossed for ratification,
was prepared, and the ratification begun on the 9th day of
July following. It was ratified by all the states, except
Delaware and Maryland, in 1778; by Delaware in 1779, and by
Maryland on the 1st of March, 1781, from which last date its
final ratification took effect, and was joyfully announced by
congress. In reviewing the objections taken by the various
states to the adoption of the confederation in the form in
which it was presented to them, … that which seemed to be of
paramount importance, and which, indeed, protracted the
ratification of the confederation to so late a period, was the
alarming controversy in respect to the boundaries of some of
the states, and the public lands, held by the crown, within
these reputed boundaries."
_J. Story,
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,
book 2, chapter 2 (volume 1)._
The following is the text of the Articles of Confederation:
"Article I.
The style of this Confederacy shall be,
'The United States of America.'
Article II.
Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence,
and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this
Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in
Congress assembled.
Article III.
The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of
friendship with each other, for their common defense, the
security of their liberties, and their mutual and general
welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all
force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them,
on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other
pretense whatever.
Article IV.
The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and
intercourse among the people of the different States in this
Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers,
vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be
entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in
the several States; and the people of each State shall have
free ingress and egress to and from any other State, and shall
enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce subject
to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the
inhabitants thereof respectively; provided that such
restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal
of property imported into any State to any other State of
which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also, that no
imposition, duties, or restriction shall be laid by any State
on the property of the United States or either of them. If any
person guilty of, or charged with, treason, felony, or other
high misdemeanor in any State shall flee from justice and be
found in any of the United States, he shall, upon demand of
the governor or executive power of the State from which he
fled, be delivered up and removed to the State having
jurisdiction of his offense. Full faith and credit shall be
given in each of these States to the records, acts, and
judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every
other State.
Article V.
For the more convenient management of the general interests of
the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in
such manner as the Legislature of each State shall direct, to
meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every
year, with a power reserved to each State to recall its
delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to
send others in their stead for the remainder of the year. No
State shall be represented in Congress by less than two, nor
by more than seven members; and no person shall be capable of
being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six
years; nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of
holding any office under the United States for which he, or
another for his benefit, receives any salary, fees, or
emolument of any kind. Each State shall maintain its own
delegates in any meeting of the States and while they act as
members of the Committee of the States. In determining
questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each
State shall have one vote. Freedom of speech and debate in
Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or
place out of Congress; and the members of Congress shall be
protected in their persons from arrests and imprisonment
during the time of their going to and from, and attendance on,
Congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace.
Article VI.
No State, without the consent of the United States, in
Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any
embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement,
alliance, or treaty with any king, prince, or state; nor shall
any person holding any office of profit or trust under the
United States, or any of them, accept of any present,
emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever from any
king, prince, or foreign state; nor shall the United States,
in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of
nobility. No two or more States shall enter into any treaty,
confederation, or alliance whatever between them, without the
consent of the United States, in Congress assembled,
specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be
entered into, and how long it shall continue. No State shall
lay any imposts or duties which may interfere with any
stipulations in treaties entered into by the United States, in
Congress assembled, with any king, prince, or state, in
pursuance of any treaties already proposed by Congress to the
courts of France and Spain. No vessel of war shall be kept up
in time of peace by any State, except such number only as
shall be deemed necessary by the United States, in Congress
assembled, for the defense of such State or its trade, nor
shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of
peace, except such number only as, in the judgment of the
United States, in Congress assembled, shall be deemed
requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of
such State; but every State shall always keep up a
well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and
accoutred, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use
in public stores a due number of field-pieces and tents, and a
proper quantity of arms, ammunition, and camp equipage. No
State shall engage in any war without the consent of the
United States, in Congress assembled, unless such State be
actually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain
advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians
to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to
admit of a delay till the United States, in Congress
assembled, can be consulted; nor shall any State grant
commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of
marque or reprisal, except it be after a declaration of war by
the United States, in Congress assembled, and then only
against the kingdom or state, and the subjects thereof,
against which war has been so declared, and under such
regulations as shall be established by the United States, in
Congress assembled, unless such State be infested by pirates,
in which case vessels of war may be fitted out for that
occasion, and kept so long as the danger shall continue, or
until the United States, in Congress assembled, shall
determine otherwise.
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Article VII.
When land forces are raised by any State for the common
defense, all officers of or under the rank of Colonel shall be
appointed by the Legislature of each State respectively by
whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such
State shall direct, and all vacancies shall be filled up by
the State which first made the appointment.
Article VIII.
All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be
incurred for the common defense, or general welfare, and
allowed by the United States, in Congress assembled, shall be
defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by
the several States in proportion to the value of all land
within each State, granted to, or surveyed for, any person, as
such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be
estimated, according to such mode as the United States, in
Congress assembled, shall, from time to time, direct and
appoint. The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid
and levied by the authority and direction of the Legislatures
of the several States, within the time agreed upon by the
United States, in Congress assembled.
Article IX.
The United States, in Congress assembled, shall have the sole
and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war,
except in the cases mentioned in the sixth Article; of sending
and receiving ambassadors; entering into treaties and
alliances, provided that no treaty of commerce shall be made,
whereby the legislative power of the respective States shall
be restrained from imposing such imposts and duties on
foreigners as their own people are subjected to, or from
prohibiting the exportation or importation of any species of
goods or commodities whatever; of establishing rules for
deciding, in all cases, what captures on land and water shall
be legal, and in what manner prizes taken by land or naval
forces in the service of the United States shall be divided or
appropriated; of granting letters of marque and reprisal in
times of peace; appointing courts for the trial of piracies
and felonies committed on the high seas; and establishing
courts for receiving and determining finally appeals in all
cases of captures; provided that no member of Congress shall
be appointed a judge of any of the said courts. The United
States, in Congress assembled, shall also be the last resort
on appeal in all disputes and differences now subsisting, or
that hereafter may arise between two or more States concerning
boundary, jurisdiction, or any other cause whatever; which
authority shall always be exercised in the manner following:
Whenever the legislative or executive authority, or lawful
agent of any State in controversy with another, shall present
a petition to Congress, stating the matter in question, and
praying for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order
of Congress to the legislative or executive authority of the
other State in controversy, and a day assigned for the
appearance of the parties by their lawful agents, who shall
then be directed to appoint, by joint consent, commissioners
or judges to constitute a court for hearing and determining
the matter in question; but if they cannot agree, Congress
shall name three persons out of each of the United States, and
from the list of such persons each party shall alternately
strike out one, the petitioners beginning, until the number
shall be reduced to thirteen; and from that number not less
than seven nor more than nine names, as Congress shall direct,
shall, in the presence of Congress, be drawn out by lot; and
the persons whose names shall be so drawn, or any five of
them, shall be commissioners or judges, to hear and finally
determine the controversy, so always as a major part of the
judges who shall hear the cause shall agree in the
determination; and if either party shall neglect to attend at
the day appointed, without showing reasons which Congress
shall judge sufficient, or being present, shall refuse to
strike, the Congress shall proceed to nominate three persons
out of each State, and the secretary of Congress shall strike
in behalf of such party absent or refusing; and the judgment
and sentence of the court, to be appointed in the manner
before prescribed, shall be final and conclusive; and if any
of the parties shall refuse to submit to the authority of such
court, or to appear or defend their claim or cause, the court
shall nevertheless proceed to pronounce sentence or judgment,
which shall in like manner be final and decisive; the judgment
or sentence and other proceedings being in either case
transmitted to Congress, and lodged among the acts of Congress
for the security of the parties concerned; provided, that
every commissioner, before he sits in judgment, shall take an
oath, to be administered by one of the judges of the supreme
or superior court of the State where the cause shall be tried,
'well and truly to hear and determine the matter in question,
according to the best of his judgment, without favor,
affection, or hope of reward.' Provided, also, that no State
shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United
States. All controversies concerning the private right of soil
claimed under different grants of two or more States, whose
jurisdictions, as they may respect such lands, and the States
which passed such grants are adjusted, the said grants or
either of them being at the same time claimed to have
originated antecedent to such settlement of jurisdiction,
shall, on the petition of either party to the Congress of the
United States, be finally determined, as near as may be, in
the same manner as is before prescribed for deciding disputes
respecting territorial jurisdiction between different States.
The United States, in Congress assembled, shall also have the
sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and
value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the
respective States; fixing the standard of weights and measures
throughout the United States; regulating the trade and
managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of
the States; provided that the legislative right of any State,
within its own limits, be not infringed or violated;
{3255}
establishing and regulating post-offices from one State to
another, throughout all the United States, and exacting such
postage on the papers passing through the same as may be
requisite to defray the expenses of the said office;
appointing all officers of the land forces in the service of
the United States, excepting regimental officers; appointing
all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all
officers whatever in the service of the United States; making
rules for the government and regulation of the said land and
naval forces, and directing their operations. The United
States, in Congress assembled, shall have authority to appoint
a committee, to sit in the recess of Congress, to be
denominated 'A Committee of the States,' and to consist of one
delegate from each State, and to appoint such other committees
and civil officers as may be necessary for managing the
general affairs of the United States under their direction; to
appoint one of their number to preside; provided that no
person be allowed to serve in the office of president more
than one year in any term of three years; to ascertain the
necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the
United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for
defraying the public expenses; to borrow money or emit bills
on the credit of the United States, transmitting every half
year to the respective States an account of the sums of money
so borrowed or emitted; to build and equip a navy; to agree
upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from
each State for its quota, in proportion to the number of white
inhabitants in such State, which requisition shall be binding;
and thereupon the Legislature of each State shall appoint the
regimental officers, raise the men, and clothe, arm, and equip
them in a soldier-like manner, at the expense of the United
States; and the officers and men so clothed, armed, and
equipped shall march to the place appointed, and within the
time agreed on by the United States, in Congress assembled;
but if the United States, in Congress assembled, shall, on
consideration of circumstances, judge proper that any State
should not raise men, or should raise a smaller number than
its quota, and that any other State should raise a greater
number of men than the quota thereof, such extra number shall
be raised, officered, clothed, armed, and equipped in the same
manner as the quota of such State, unless the Legislature of
such State shall judge that such extra number can not be
safely spared out of the same, in which case they shall raise,
officer, clothe, arm, and equip as many of such extra number
as they judge can be safely spared, and the officers and men
so clothed, armed, and equipped shall march to the place
appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States,
in Congress assembled. The United States, in Congress
assembled, shall never engage in a war, nor grant letters of
marque and reprisal in time of peace, nor enter into any
treaties or alliances, nor coin money, nor regulate the value
thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expenses necessary for the
defense and welfare of the United States, or any of them, nor
emit bills, nor borrow money on the credit of the United
States, nor appropriate money, nor agree upon the number of
vessels of war to be built or purchased, or the number of land
or sea forces to be raised, nor appoint a commander-in-chief
of the army or navy, unless nine States assent to the same,
nor shall a question on any other point, except for adjourning
from day to day, be determined, unless by the votes of a
majority of the United States, in Congress assembled. The
Congress of the United States shall have power to adjourn to
any time within the year, and to any place within the United
States, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer
duration than the space of six months, and shall publish the
journal of their proceedings monthly, except such parts
thereof relating to treaties, alliances, or military
operations as in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas
and nays of the delegates of each State, on any question,
shall be entered on the journal when it is desired by any
delegate; and the delegates of a State, or any of them, at his
or their request, shall be furnished with a transcript of the
said journal except such parts as are above excepted, to lay
before the Legislatures of the several States.
Article X.
The Committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be
authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the
powers of Congress as the United States, in Congress
assembled, by the consent of nine States, shall, from time to
time, think expedient to vest them with; provided that no
power be delegated to the said Committee, for the exercise of
which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice of nine
States in the Congress of the United States assembled is
requisite.
Article XI.
Canada, acceding to this Confederation, and joining in the
measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and
entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other
colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission
be agreed to by nine States.
Article XII.
All bills of credit emitted, moneys borrowed, and debts
contracted by or under the authority of Congress, before the
assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present
Confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge
against the United States, for payment and satisfaction
whereof the said United States and the public faith are hereby
solemnly pledged.
Article XIII.
Every State shall abide by the determinations of the United
States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this
Confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this
Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and
the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any
time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration
be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be
afterwards confirmed by the Legislatures of every State. AND
WHEREAS it hath pleased the great Governor of the world to
incline the hearts of the Legislatures we respectively
represent in Congress to approve of, and to authorize us to
ratify, the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual
Union, know ye, that we, the undersigned delegates, by virtue
of the power and authority to us given for that purpose, do,
by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective
constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and
every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual
Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein
contained. And we do further solemnly plight and engage the
faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by
the determinations of the United States, in Congress
assembled, on all questions which by the said Confederation
are submitted to them; and that the Articles thereof shall be
inviolably observed by the States we respectively represent,
and that the Union shall be perpetual.
{3256}
In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands in Congress.
Done at Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania the ninth
day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred
and seventy-eight, and in the third year of the independence
of America."
"Under these Articles of Confederation the treaty of peace
with England was concluded and the American nation was
governed until the final adoption of the Constitution of the
United States. The main defect of the Articles of
Confederation was, that although powers sufficiently adequate
to create a government were ceded, there was no power to raise
revenue, to levy taxes, or to enforce the law, except with the
consent of nine States; and although the government had power
to contract debts, there were no means by which to discharge
them. The government had power to raise armies and navies, but
no means wherewith to pay them, unless the means were voted by
the States themselves; they could make treaties with foreign
powers, but had no means to coerce a State to obey such
treaty. In short, it was a government which had the power to
make laws, but no power to punish infractions thereof.
Washington himself said: 'The Confederation appears to me to
be little more than the shadow without the substance, and
Congress a nugatory body.' Chief Justice Story, in summing up
the leading defects of the Articles of Confederation, says:
'There was an utter want of all coercive authority to carry
into effect its own constitutional measures; this of itself
was sufficient to destroy its whole efficiency as a
superintendent government, if that may be called a government
which possessed no one solid attribute of power. In truth,
Congress possessed only the power of recommendation. Congress
had no power to exact obedience or punish disobedience of its
ordinances; they could neither impose fines nor direct
imprisonments, nor divest privileges, nor declare forfeitures,
nor suspend refractory officers. There was no power to
exercise force.'"
_S. Sterne,
Constitutional History of the United States,
chapter 1._
"The individual states had attributed to themselves, in the
Articles of Confederation, no powers which could place them in
relation to foreign nations in the light of sovereign states.
They felt that all such claims would be considered ridiculous,
because back of these claims there was no real corresponding
power. Congress therefore remained, as heretofore, the sole
outward representative of sovereignty. But the power to
exercise the prerogatives was taken from it, and this without
placing it in any other hands. The changes effected by the
Articles of Confederation were rather of a negative than of a
positive nature. They did not give the State which was just
coming into being a definite form, but they began the work of
its dissolution. … The practical result … was that the United
States tended more and more to split up into thirteen
independent republics, and … virtually ceased to be a member
of the family of nations bound together by the 'jus gentium.'"
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 1._
ALSO IN:
_G. Bancroft,
History of the Formation of the Constitution,
volume 1, chapter 1._
_D. R. Goodloe,
The Birth of the Republic,
pages 353-366._
_H. W. Preston,
Documents illustrative of American History,
pages 218-231._
On the operation and failure of the Articles of Confederation.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783-1787.
On the question of the western territorial claims of several
of the States, and the obstacle which it brought in the way of
the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 1781-1786.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (February).
The Treaty with France.
"The account of Burgoyne's surrender, which was brought to
France by a swift-sailing ship from Boston, threw Turgot and
all Paris into transports of joy. None doubted the ability of
the states to maintain their independence. On the 12th of
December their commissioners had an interview with Vergennes.
'Nothing,' said he, 'has struck me so much as General
Washington's attacking and giving battle to General Howe's
army. To bring troops raised within the year to this, promises
everything. The court of France, in the treaty which is to be
entered into, intend to take no advantage of your present
situation. Once made, it should be durable; and therefore it
should contain no condition of which the Americans may
afterward repent, but such only as will last as long as human
institutions shall endure, so that mutual amity may subsist
forever. Entering into a treaty will be an avowal of your
independence. Spain must be consulted, and Spain will not be
satisfied with an undetermined boundary on the west. Some of
the states are supposed to run to the South Sea, which might
interfere with her claim to California.' It was answered that
the last treaty of peace adopted the Mississippi as a
boundary. 'And what share do you intend to give us in the
fisheries?' asked Vergennes; for in the original draft of a
treaty the United States had proposed to take to themselves
Cape Breton and the whole of the island of Newfoundland.
Explanations were made by the American commissioners that
their later instructions removed all chances of disagreement
on that subject. … The question of a French alliance … was
discussed by Vergennes with the Marquis d'Ossun, the late
French ambassador in Madrid, as the best adviser with regard
to Spain, and the plan of action was formed. Then these two
met the king at the apartment of Maurepas, where the plan,
after debate, was finally settled. Maurepas, at heart opposed
to the war, loved ease and popularity too well to escape the
sway of external opinion; and Louis XVI. sacrificed his own
inclination and his own feeling of justice to policy of state
and the opinion of his advisers. So, on the 6th of February, a
treaty of amity and commerce and an eventual defensive treaty
of alliance were concluded between the king of France and the
United States, on principles of equality and reciprocity, and
for the most part in conformity to the proposals of congress.
In commerce each party was to be placed on the footing of the
most favored nation. The king of France promised his good
offices with the princes and powers of Barbary. As to the
fisheries, each party reserved to itself the exclusive
possession of its own. Accepting the French interpretation of
the treaties of Utrecht and of Paris, the United States
acknowledged the right of French subjects to fish on the banks
of Newfoundland, and their exclusive right to half the coast
of that island for drying-places.
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On the question of ownership in the event of the conquest of
Newfoundland the treaty was silent. The American proposal,
that free ships give freedom to goods and to persons, except
to soldiers in actual service of an enemy, was adopted.
Careful lists were made out of contraband merchandises. The
absolute and unlimited independence of the United States was
described as the essential end of the defensive alliance; and
the two parties mutually engaged not to lay down their arms
until it should be assured by the treaties terminating the
war. Moreover, the United States guaranteed to France the
possessions then held by France in America, as well as those
which it might acquire by a future treaty of peace; and, in
like manner, the king of France guaranteed to the United
States their present possessions and acquisitions during the
war from the dominions of Great Britain in North America. A
separate and secret act reserved to the king of Spain the
power of acceding to the treaties. Within forty-two hours of
the signature of these treaties of commerce and alliance the
British ministry received the news by special messenger from
their spy in Paris, but it was not divulged." It was
officially communicated to the British government on the 13th
of March, when ambassadors were withdrawn on both sides and
war soon followed.
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 5, chapter 17._
ALSO IN:
_Treaties and Conventions of the United States
(edition of 1889),
page 296._
_T. Balch,
The French in America during the War of Independence,
chapter 8._
See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1778.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (June).
Peace-proposals from England.
British evacuation of Philadelphia and march to New York.
Battle of Monmouth.
"On May 11th, Sir Henry Clinton relieved Sir William Howe at
Philadelphia, and the latter took his departure in a blaze of
mock glory. … The new commander was more active than his
predecessor, but no cleverer, and no better fitted to cope
with Washington. … Expecting a movement by the enemy,
Washington sent Lafayette forward to watch Philadelphia.
Clinton, fresh in office, determined to cut him off, and by a
rapid movement nearly succeeded in so doing. Timely
information, presence of mind, and quickness, alone enabled
the young Frenchman to escape, narrowly but completely.
Meantime, a cause for delay, that curse of the British
throughout the war, supervened. A peace commission, consisting
of the Earl of Carlisle, William Eden, and Governor Johnstone,
arrived. They were excellent men, but they came too late.
Their propositions three years before would have been well
enough, but as it was they were worse than nothing. Coolly
received, they held a fruitless interview with a committee of
Congress, tried to bribe and intrigue, found that their own
army had been already ordered to evacuate Philadelphia [in
apprehension of the arrival of the expected French fleet]
without their knowledge, and finally gave up their task in
angry despair, and returned to England to join in the chorus
of fault-finding which was beginning to sound very loud in
ministerial ears. Meanwhile, Washington waited and watched,
puzzled by the delay, and hoping only to harass Sir Henry with
militia on the march to New York. But, as the days slipped by,
the Americans grew stronger, while Sir Henry weakened himself
by sending 5,000 men to the West Indies, and 3,000 to Florida.
When he finally started [evacuating Philadelphia June 17], he
had with him less than 10,000 men, while the Americans had
13,000, nearly all continental troops. Under these
circumstances, Washington determined to bring on a battle. He
was thwarted at the outset by his officers, as was wont to be
the case. Lee had returned more whimsical than ever, and at
the moment was strongly adverse to an attack. … Washington was
harassed of course by all this, but he did not stay his
purpose, and as soon as he knew that Clinton actually had
marched, he broke camp at Valley Forge and started in pursuit.
There were more councils of an old-womanish character, but
finally Washington took the matter into his own hands, and
ordered forth a strong detachment to attack the British
rear-guard. They set out on the 25th, and as Lee, to whom the
command belonged, did not care to go, Lafayette [see above: A.
D. 1777 (JULY)] was put in charge. As soon as Lafayette had
departed, however, Lee changed his mind, and insisted that all
the detachments in front, amounting to 6,000 men, formed a
division so large that it was unjust not to give him the
command. Washington, therefore, sent him forward next day with
two additional brigades, and then Lee by seniority took
command on the 27th of the entire advance. In the evening of
that day, Washington came up, reconnoitred the enemy, and saw
that, although their position was a strong one, another day's
unmolested march would make it still stronger. He therefore
resolved to attack the next morning, and gave Lee then and
there explicit orders to that effect. In the early dawn he
despatched similar orders, but Lee apparently did nothing
except move feebly forward, saying to Lafayette, 'You don't
know the British soldiers; we cannot stand against them.' He
made a weak attempt to cut off a covering party, marched and
countermarched, ordered and countermanded, until Lafayette and
Wayne, eager to fight, knew not what to do, and sent hot
messages to Washington to come to them. Thus hesitating and
confused, Lee permitted Clinton to get his baggage and train
to the front, and to mass all his best troops in the rear
under Cornwallis, who then advanced against the American
lines. Now there were no orders at all, and the troops did not
know what to do, or where to go. They stood still, then began
to fall back, and then to retreat. A very little more and
there would have been a rout. As it was, Washington alone
prevented disaster. … As the ill tidings grew thicker,
Washington spurred sharper and rode faster through the deep
sand and under the blazing mid-summer sun. At last he met Lee
and the main body all in full retreat. He rode straight at
Lee, savage with anger, not pleasant to look at, one may
guess, and asked fiercely and with a deep oath, tradition
says, what it all meant. … Lee gathered himself and tried to
excuse and palliate what had happened, but although the brief
words that followed are variously reported to us across the
century, we know that Washington rebuked him in such a way,
and with such passion, that all was over between them. Lee …
went to the rear, thence to a court-martial, thence to
dismissal and to a solitary life. … Having put Lee aside,
Washington rallied the broken troops, brought them into
position, turned them back, and held the enemy in check.
{3258}
It was not an easy feat, but it was done, and when Lee's
division again fell back in good order the main army was in
position, and the action became general. The British were
repulsed, and then Washington, taking the offensive, drove
them back until he occupied the battlefield of the morning.
Night came upon him still advancing. He halted his army, lay
down under a tree, his soldiers lying on their arms about him,
and planned a fresh attack, to be made at daylight. But when
the dawn came it was seen that the British had crept off, and
were far on their road. The heat prevented a rapid pursuit,
and Clinton got into New York. Between there and Philadelphia
he had lost 2,000 men, Washington said, and modern authorities
put it at about 1,500, of whom nearly 500 fell at Monmouth. …
Monmouth has never been one of the famous battles of the
Revolution, and yet there is no other which can compare with
it as an illustration of Washington's ability as a soldier. …
Its importance lies in the evidence which it gives of the way
in which Washington, after a series of defeats, during a
winter of terrible suffering and privation, had yet developed
his ragged volunteers into a well-disciplined and effective
army. The battle was a victory, but the existence and the
quality of the army that won it were a far greater triumph.
The dreary winter at Valley Forge had indeed borne fruit."
_H. C. Lodge,
George Washington,
volume 1, chapter 7._
ALSO IN:
_H. B. Carrington,
Battles of the American Revolution,
chapters 54-56._
_Mrs. M. Campbell,
Life of General W. Hull,
chapter 14._
_The Lee Papers,
volumes 2-3
(New York Historical Society Collection, 1872-1873)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (June-November).
The war on the border.
Activity of Tories and Indians.
The Massacre at Cherry Valley.
"The Six Nations were stirred to hostility by Sir John Johnson
and the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, with Walter Butler, of
infamous name. Their tory partisans were more cruel than the
red men. At Cobleskill, Schoharie county, June 1, 1778, Brant
won a savage triumph with a mixed force, and burned and
plundered the settlement. Springfield was also destroyed, and
the assailants retired. A month later the Indians were again
at Cobleskill, and, burning where they went, beat off a force
that attempted to check them. The valley of the Schohariekill
was in the succeeding year subjected to invasions from the
Senecas, and suffered severely. About Fort Stanwix the tories
and red men were continually hovering, and more than once
persons were pounced upon and scalped in sight of the works.
In 1778, in the early autumn, German Flats was visited by
Brant and his followers, and was entirely destroyed, although
all the inhabitants but two were warned in season to escape
with their lives. An expedition was sent after the Indians,
but failed to bring the warriors to battle, and was rewarded
only by laying waste the Indian villages of Unadilla and
Oquaga, and capturing a large supply of cattle and provisions.
At Cherry Valley a fort had been built, and the village was
occupied by a band of colonial troops under Colonel Ichabod
Alden. He rested in security, and the settlers were scattered
in their habitations, regardless of warnings of approaching
foes. Under cover of a severe storm of snow and rain, November
11, Brant and Butler, with 800 Indians and tories, swooped
upon the homes, and 43 persons, including women and children,
were butchered, 40 taken prisoners, all the buildings were
burned, and the domestic animals seized. So brutal was the
massacre that Brant charged Butler and the tories with acting
against his protests. Brant himself was content, July 19,
1779, with destroying the church, mills, houses, and barns at
Minnisink, Orange county, without sacrificing lives, but
turned upon a party sent in pursuit, and, after capturing a
detachment, butchered the wounded, and slew 45 who tried to
escape. Such deeds produced a terror in the colony. No one
knew where the red men and tories would strike next. To check
and counteract them, excursions were made against the tribes
in their homes. One of these was led by Colonels Van Schaick
and Willett from Fort Stanwix in April, 1779). Proceeding by
Wood Creek and Oneida Lake, they penetrated the villages of
the Onondagas, which they destroyed, and seized the provisions
and even the weapons of the red men, who fled into the
wilderness."
_E. H. Roberts,
New York,
chapter 24 (volume 2)._
The following account of the attack on Cherry Valley is from a
pen friendly to Butler and from sources favorable to the Tory
side: "After an exhausting march next day through a blinding
snow-storm and over ground covered with deep wet snow and mud,
Butler halted his men at dark in a pine wood which afforded
them some shelter, six miles from Cherry Valley. He assembled
the chiefs and proposed that as soon as the moon rose, they
should resume their march and surround the house occupied by
the officers, while he made a rush upon the fort with the
rangers. They readily assented, but before the time appointed
arrived it began to rain violently, and they obstinately
refused to move until daybreak. It was then arranged that
Captain McDonnel with 50 picked rangers and some Indians
should storm the house, while Butler with the remainder
assailed the fort. Without tents, blankets or fires, they
spent a sleepless night cowering beneath the pines, and were
glad to move as soon as day appeared. They had approached
unperceived within a mile of the fort by passing through a
dense swamp, when the Indians in front fired at two men
cutting wood. One fell dead; the other, though bleeding, ran
for his life and the entire body of Indians set up a whoop and
followed at full speed. Unhappily the rangers had just been
halted to fix flints and load their rifles, and the Indians
obtained a long start. The Continental officers attempted to
escape to the fort but only two or three reached it. The
colonel, five other officers and twenty soldiers, were killed
on the way and the lieutenant-colonel, three subalterns, and
ten privates were taken. The colors of the regiment were
abandoned in the house and burnt in it. The garrison of the
fort was fully alarmed, and opened a fierce fire of artillery
and small arms. The rangers seized and burnt a detached
block-house, and fired briskly at the loop-holes in the
palisades for ten minutes, when Butler saw with horror and
consternation that the Indians had set their officers at
defiance, and dispersed in every direction to kill and
plunder. Their wretched misconduct forced him to collect all
the rangers into a compact body on an eminence near the
principal entrance to the fort, to oppose a sally by the
garrison, which then undoubtedly outnumbered them
considerably.
{3259}
There he was obliged to remain inactive all day under a
ceaseless, chilling rain, while blazing houses and shrieks of
agony told their pitiful tale in the settlement below. At
nightfall he marched a mile down the valley and encamped. He
then struggled with indifferent success to rescue the
prisoners. Those surrendered were placed next the camp fires
and protected by his whole force. Next morning most of the
Indians and the feeblest men among the rangers were sent away
with a huge drove of captured cattle for the supply of the
garrison at Niagara, and McDonnel and Brant, with 60 rangers
and 50 Indians, swept the valley from end to end, ruthlessly
burning every building and stack in sight, while Butler, with
the remainder, again stood guard at the gate of the fort. He
hoped that this appalling spectacle would provoke the garrison
to sally out and fight, but the lesson of Wyoming had not been
lost on them, and they continued to look on from the walls in
silent fury. Another great herd of cattle was collected, and
Butler leisurely began his retreat, having had only two
rangers and three Indians wounded during the expedition. He
did not disguise the dark side of the story in his letter to
Colonel Bolton of the 17th November. 'I have much to lament,'
he said, 'that notwithstanding my utmost precautions to save
the women and children, I could not prevent some of them
falling victims to the fury of the savages. They have carried
off many of the inhabitants and killed more, among them Colin
Cloyd, a very violent rebel. I could not prevail on the
Indians to leave the women and children behind, though the
second morning Captain Johnson (to whose knowledge of the
Indians and address in managing them I am much indebted) and I
got them to permit twelve, who were loyalists, and whom I
concealed, with the humane assistance of Mr. Joseph Brant and
Captain Jacobs of Ochquaga, to return. The death of the women
and children on this occasion may, I believe, be truly
ascribed to the rebels having falsely accused the Indians of
cruelty at Wyomen. This has much exasperated them, and they
are still more incensed at finding that the colonel and those
who had then laid down their arms, soon after marching into
their country intending to destroy their villages, and they
declared that they would be no more accused falsely of
fighting the enemy twice, meaning they would in future give no
quarter.'"
_E. Cruikshank,
The Story of Butler's Rangers,
pages 55-56._
ALSO IN:
_W. W. Campbell,
Annals of Tryon County,
chapter 5._
_Centennial Celebrations of New York,
pages 359-383._
_W. L. Stone,
Life of Brant,
volume 1, chapter 17._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (July).
The war on the border.
Bloody work of the Tories and their Indian allies.
The Massacre at Wyoming.
"In 1778, according to the plan of campaign as given by Guy
Johnson in his correspondence, the English forces on the
western borders of New York were divided into two bodies: one,
consisting of Indians under Brant, to operate in New York,
while Deputy Superintendent Butler with the other should
penetrate the settled district on the Susquehanna. Brant
[Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief], who, according to Colonel
Claus, 'had shown himself to be the most faithful and zealous
subject his majesty could have in America,' did his work
unsparingly, and ruin marked his track. In the valley of the
upper Mohawk and the Schoharie nothing but the garrison-houses
escaped, and labor was only possible in the field when muskets
were within easy reach. Occasionally blows were struck at the
larger settlements. … In July, 1778, the threatened attack on
Wyoming took place. This region was at that time formally
incorporated as the county of Westmoreland of the colony of
Connecticut. … In the fall of 1776, two companies, on the
Continental establishment, had been raised in the valley, in
pursuance of a resolution of Congress, and were shortly
thereafter ordered to join General Washington. Several
stockaded forts had been built during the summer at different
points. The withdrawal of so large a proportion of the
able-bodied men as had been enlisted in the Continental
service threw upon the old men who were left behind the duty
of guarding the forts. … In March, 1778, another military
company was organized, by authority of Congress, to be
employed for home defence. In May, attacks were made upon the
scouting parties by Indians, who were the forerunners of an
invading army. The exposed situation of the settlement, the
prosperity of the inhabitants, and the loyalty with which they
had responded to the call for troops, demanded consideration
from Connecticut, to whose quota the companies had been
credited, and from Congress, in whose armies they had been
incorporated; but no help came. On June 30th, an armed labor
party of eight men, which went out from the upper fort, was
attacked by Major Butler, who, with a force estimated by the
American commander in his report at 800 men, Tories and
Indians in equal numbers, had arrived in the valley. This
estimate was not far from correct; but if we may judge from
other raiding forces during the war, the proportion of whites
is too large, for only a few local Tories had joined Butler.
The little forts at the upper end of the valley offered no
resistance to the invaders. On July 3d, there were collected
at 'Forty Fort,' on the banks of the river, about three miles
above Wilkesbarre, 230 Americans, organized in six companies
(one of them being the company authorized by Congress for home
defence), and commanded by Colonel Zebulon Butler, a resident
in the valley and an officer in the Continental army. It was
determined, after deliberation, to give battle. In the
afternoon of that day, this body of volunteers, their number
being swelled to nearly 300 by the addition of old men and
boys, marched up the valley. The invaders had set fire to the
forts of which they were in possession. This perplexed the
Americans, as was intended, and they pressed on towards the
spot selected by the English officer for giving battle. This
was reached about four in the afternoon, and the attack was at
once made by the Americans, who fired rapidly in platoons. The
British line wavered, but a flanking fire from a body of
Indians concealed in the woods settled the fate of the day
against the Americans. They were thrown into confusion. No
efforts of their officers could rally them while exposed to a
fire which in a short time brought down every captain in the
band. The Indians now cut off the retreat of the
panic-stricken men, and pressed them towards the river. All
who could saved their lives by flight. Of the 300 who went out
that morning from Forty Fort, the names are recorded of 162
officers and men killed in the action or in the massacre which
followed.
{3260}
Major Butler, the British officer in command, reported the
taking of 'two hundred and twenty-seven scalps' 'and only five
prisoners.' Such was the exasperation of the Indians,
according to him, that it was with difficulty he saved these
few. He gives the English loss at two whites killed and eight
Indians wounded. During the night the worst passions of the
Indians seem to have been aroused in revenge for Oriskany.
Incredible tales are told of the inhumanity of the Tories.
These measures of vengeance fell exclusively upon those who
participated in the battle, for all women and children were
spared. As soon as the extent of the disaster was made known,
the inhabitants of the lower part of the valley deserted their
homes, and fled in the direction of the nearest settlements.
Few stayed behind who had strength and opportunity to escape.
In their flight many of the fugitives neglected to provide
themselves with provisions, and much suffering and some loss
of life ensued. The fugitives from the field of battle took
refuge in the forts lower down the valley. The next day,
Colonel Zebulon Butler, with the remnants of the company for
home defence, consisting of only fourteen men, escaped from
the valley. Colonel Denison, in charge of Forty Fort,
negotiated with Major Butler the terms of capitulation which
were ultimately signed. In these it was agreed that the
inhabitants should occupy their farms peaceably, and their
lives should be preserved 'intire and unhurt.' With the
exception that Butler executed a British deserter whom he
found among the prisoners, no lives were taken at that time.
Shortly thereafter, the Indians began to plunder, and the
English commander, to his chagrin, found himself unable to
check them. Miner even goes so far as to say that he promised
to pay for the property thus lost. Finding his commands
disregarded, Butler mustered his forces and withdrew, without
visiting the lower part of the valley. The greater part of the
Indians went with him, but enough remained to continue the
devastation, while a few murders committed by straggling
parties of Indians ended the tragedy. The whole valley was
left a scene of desolation."
_A. McF. Davis,
The Indians and the Border Warfare of the Revolution
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 6, chapter 8)._
"Rarely, indeed, does it happen that history is more at fault
in regard to facts than in the case of Wyoming. The remark may
be applied to nearly every writer who has attempted to narrate
the events connected with the invasion of Colonel John Butler.
Ramsay, and Gordon, and Marshall—nay, the British historians
themselves—have written gross exaggerations. Marshall,
however, in his revised edition, has made corrections. … Other
writers, of greater or less note, have gravely recorded the
same fictions, adding, it is to be feared, enormities not even
conveyed to them by tradition. The grossest of these
exaggerations are contained in Thatcher's Military Journal and
Drake's Book of the Indians. The account of the marching out
of a large body of Americans from one of the forts, to hold a
parley, by agreement, and then being drawn into an ambuscade
and all put to death, is false; the account of 70 Continental
soldiers being butchered, after having surrendered, is also
totally untrue. No regular troops surrendered, and all escaped
who survived the battle of the 3d. … There is still another
important correction to be made. … This correction regards the
name and the just fame of Joseph Brant, whose character has
been blackened with all the infamy, both real and imaginary,
connected with this bloody expedition. Whether Captain Brant
was at any time in company with this expedition is doubtful;
but it is certain, in the face of every historical authority,
British and American, that, so far from being engaged in the
battle, he was many miles distant at the time of its
occurrence. … It will, moreover, be seen, toward the close of
the present work, that after the publication of Campbell's
'Gertrude of Wyoming,' in which poem the Mohawk chieftain was
denounced as 'the Monster Brant,' his son repaired to England,
and, in a correspondence with the poet, successfully
vindicated his father's memory."
_W. L. Stone,
Life of Joseph Brant,
volume 1, page 339, foot-note, page 338 and footnote._
"No lives were taken by the Indians after the surrender; but
numbers of women and children perished in the dismal swamp on
the Pokono range of mountains, in the flight. … The whole
number of people killed and missing was about 300. … The
greatest barbarities of this celebrated massacre were
committed by the tories."
_W. L. Stone,
Poetry and History of Wyoming,
chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_W. P. Miner,
History of Wyoming,
Letters 17-18._
_G. Peck,
Wyoming._
_J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
chapter 11 (volume 2)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (July-November).
The French fleet and army and their undertakings.
Ill fortune and ill-feeling between the new allies.
The failure at Newport.
"The first minister of France to the United States, M. Gérard,
came accompanied by a fleet and army, under D'Estaing, (July.)
'Unforeseen and unfavorable circumstances,' as Washington
wrote, 'lessened the importance of the French services in a
great degree.' In the first place, the arrival was just late
enough to miss the opportunity of surprising the British fleet
in the Delaware, not to mention the British army on its
retreat to New York. In the next place, the French vessels
proved to be of too great draught to penetrate the channel and
cooperate in an attack upon New York. Thus disappointing and
disappointed, D'Estaing engaged in an enterprise against
Newport, still in British hands. It proved another failure.
But not through the French alone; the American troops that
were to enter the island at the north being greatly
behindhand. The same day that they took their place, under
Sullivan, Greene, and Lafayette, the French left theirs at the
lower end of the island, in order to meet the British fleet
arriving from New York, (August 10.) A severe storm prevented
more than a partial engagement; but D'Estaing returned to
Newport only to plead the injuries received in the gale as
compelling his retirement to Boston for repairs. The orders of
the French government had been peremptory, that in case of any
damage to the fleet it should put into port at once. So far
was D'Estaing from avoiding action on personal grounds, that
when Lafayette hurried to Boston to persuade his countrymen to
return, the commander offered to serve as a volunteer until
the fleet should be refitted. The Americans, however, talked
of desertion and of inefficiency,—so freely, indeed, as to
affront their faithful Lafayette.
{3261}
At the same time, large numbers of them imitated the very
course which they censured, by deserting their own army. The
remaining forces retreated from their lines to the northern
end of the island, and, after an engagement, withdrew to the
mainland, (August 30.) It required all the good offices of
Lafayette, of Washington, and of Congress, to keep the peace
between the Americans and their allies. D'Estaing, soothed by
the language of those whom he most respected, was provoked, on
the other hand, by the hostility of the masses, both in the
army and amongst the people. Collisions between his men and
the Bostonians kept up his disgust; and, when his fleet was
repaired, he sailed for the West Indies, (November.) … On the
part of the British, there was nothing attempted that would
not have been far better unattempted. Marauding parties from
Newport went against New Bedford and Fairhaven. Others from
New York went against Little Egg Harbor. Tories and Indians
—'a collection of banditti,' as they were rightly styled by
Washington, descended from the northern country to wreak
massacre at Wyoming and at Cherry Valley. The war seemed to be
assuming a new character: it was one of ravages unworthy of
any cause, and most unworthy of such a cause as the British
professed to be. Affairs were at a low state amongst the
Americans."
_S. Eliot,
History of the United States,
part 3, chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_S. G. Arnold,
History of Rhode Island,
chapters 21-22 (volume 2)._
_O. W. B. Peabody,
Life of General John Sullivan
(Library of American Biographies,
series 2, volume 3)._
_J. Marshall,
Life of Washington,
volume 3, chapter 9._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (December).
Anxieties of Washington.
His opinion of Congress.
The serious defects and errors of that body.
"Much of the winter was passed by Washington in Philadelphia,
occupied in devising and discussing plans for the campaign of
1779. It was an anxious moment with him. Circumstances which
inspired others with confidence, filled him with solicitude.
The alliance with France had produced a baneful feeling of
security, which, it appeared to him, was paralyzing the
energies of the country. England, it was thought, would now be
too much occupied in securing her position in Europe, to
increase her force or extend her operations in America. Many,
therefore, considered the war as virtually at an end; and were
unwilling to make the sacrifices, or supply the means
necessary for important military undertakings. Dissensions,
too, and party feuds were breaking out in Congress, owing to
that relaxation of that external pressure of a common and
imminent danger, which had heretofore produced a unity of
sentiment and action. That august body had, in fact, greatly
deteriorated since the commencement of the war. Many of those
whose names had been as watchwords at the Declaration of
Independence had withdrawn from the national councils;
occupied either by their individual affairs, or by the affairs
of their individual States. Washington, whose comprehensive
patriotism embraced the whole Union, deprecated and deplored
the dawning of this sectional spirit."
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 3, chapter 38._
The following, from a letter written by Washington in
December, 1778, to Benjamin Harrison, Speaker of the Virginia
House of Delegates, intimates the grave anxieties which filled
his mind, and the opinion of Congress with which he had
returned from a visit to Philadelphia:
"It appears as clear to me as ever the Sun did in its meridian
brightness, that America never stood in more eminent need of
the wise, patriotic, and spirited exertions of her Sons than
at this period; and if it is not a sufficient cause for
general lamentation, my misconception of the matter impresses
it too strongly upon me, that the States, separately, are too
much engaged in their local concerns, and have too many of
their ablest men withdrawn from the general council, for the
good of the common weal. … As there can be no harm in a pious
wish for the good of one's Country, I shall offer it as mine,
that each State would not only choose, but absolutely compel
their ablest men to attend Congress; and that they would
instruct them to go into a thorough investigation of the
causes, that have produced so many disagreeable effects in the
army and Country; in a word, that public abuses should be
corrected & an entire reformation worked. Without these, it
does not in my Judgment require the spirit of divination to
foretell the consequences of the present administration; nor
to how little purpose the States individually are framing
constitutions, providing laws, and filling offices with the
abilities of their ablest men. These, if the great whole is
mismanaged, must sink in the general wreck, and will carry
with it the remorse of thinking, that we are lost by our own
folly and negligence, or the desire perhaps of living in ease
and tranquillity during the expected accomplishment of so
great a revolution, in the effecting of which the greatest
abilities, and the honestest men our (i. e. the American)
world affords, ought to be employed. It is much to be feared,
my dear Sir, that the States, in their separate capacities,
have very inadequate ideas of the present danger. Removed
(some of them) far distant from the scene of action, and
seeing and hearing such publications only, as flatter their
wishes, they conceive that the contest is at an end, and that
to regulate the government and police of their own State is
all that remains to be done; but it is devoutly to be wished,
that a sad reverse of this may not fall upon them like a
thunder-clap, that is little expected. I do not mean to
designate particular States. I wish to cast no reflections
upon any one. The Public believe (and, if they do believe it,
the fact might almost as well be so), that the States at this
time are badly represented, and that the great and important
concerns of the nation are horribly conducted, for want either
of abilities or application in the members, or through the
discord & party views of some individuals. … P. S.
Philadelphia: 30th. This letter was to have gone by Post from
Middlebrook but missed that conveyance, since which I have
come to this place at the request of Congress whence I shall
soon return. I have seen nothing since I came here (on the 22d
Inst.) to change my opinion of Men or Measrs., but abundant
reason to be convinced that our affairs are in a more
distressed, ruinous and deplorable condition than they have
been in since the commencement of the War.—By a faithful
laborer then in the cause—By a man who is daily injuring his
private Estate without even the smallest earthly advantage not
common to all in case of a favorable Issue to the dispute—By
one who wishes the prosperity of America most devoutly and
sees or thinks he sees it, on the brink of ruin, you are
beseeched most earnestly, my dear Colonel Harrison, to exert
yourself in endeavoring to rescue your Country by (let me add)
sending your ablest and best Men to Congress—these characters
must not slumber nor sleep at home in such times of pressing
danger—they must not content themselves in the enjoyment of
places of honor or profit in their own Country while the
common interests of America are mouldering and sinking into
irretrievable (if a remedy is not soon applied) ruin in which
theirs also must ultimately be involved.
{3262}
If I was to be called upon to draw a picture of the times and
of Men, from what I have seen, and heard, and in part know, I
should in one word say that idleness, dissipation &
extravagance seems to have laid fast hold of most of
them.—That speculation—peculation—and an insatiable thirst
for riches seems to have got the better of every other
consideration and almost of every order of Men.—That party
disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the
day whilst the momentous concerns of an empire—a great and
accumulated debt—ruined finances—depreciated money—and want
of credit (which in their consequences is the want of
everything) are but secondary considerations and postponed
from day to day—from week to week as if our affairs wear the
most promising aspect—after drawing this picture, which from
my Soul I believe to be a true one, I need not repeat to you
that I am alarmed and wish to see my Countrymen roused.—I
have no resentments, nor do I mean to point at any particular
characters,—this I can declare upon my honor for I have every
attention paid me by Congress that I can possibly expect and
have reason to think that I stand well in their estimation,
but in the present situation of things I cannot help asking—
Where is Mason—Wythe—Jefferson—Nicholas—Pendleton—Nelson—and
another I could name—and why, if you are sufficiently
impressed with your danger do you not (as New York has done in
the case of Mr. Jay) send an extra member or two for at least
a certain limited time till the great business of the Nation
is put upon a more respectable and happy establishment.—Your
Money is now sinking 5 Pr. ct. a day in this city; and I shall
not be surprized if in the course of a few months a total stop
is put to the currency of it.—And yet an Assembly—a concert—a
Dinner—or supper (that will cost three or four hundred pounds)
will not only take Men off from acting in but even from thinking
of this business while a great part of the Officers of ye Army
from absolute necessity are quitting the service and ye more
virtuous few rather than do this are sinking by sure degrees
into beggary and want.—I again repeat to you that this is not
an exaggerated acct.; that it is an alarming one I do not
deny, and confess to you that I feel more real distress on
account of the prest. appearances of things than I have done
at any one time since the commencement of the dispute—but it
is time to bid you once more adieu.—Providence has heretofore
taken me up when all other means and hope seemed to be
departing from me in this."
_George Washington,
Writings,
edited by W: C. Ford,
volume 7, pages 297-303._
"The first Continental Congress enjoyed and deserved in a
remarkable degree the respect and confidence of the country.
The second Congress was composed of eminent men, and
succeeded, for a time, to the honors and reputation of the
first. But when it attempted to pass from discussion to
organization, and to direct as well as to frame the machinery
of administration, its delays and disputes and errors and
contradictions and hesitations excited a well-founded distrust
of its executive skill. Conscious of this distrust, it became
jealous of its authority; and instead of endeavoring to
regain, by correcting its errors, the ground which it had lost
by committing them, it grew suspicious and exacting in
proportion to the decay of its strength. And while this
critical change in its relations to the country was taking
place, important changes took place also in the materials of
which it was composed,—some of its wisest members being
removed by death, or imperative calls to other fields of duty,
or by failing of re-election at the regular expiration of
their terms of office. Among the first elements with which it
was brought into collision were the newly organized
governments of the States. The question of State rights, that
unsolved problem of our history, begins almost with the
beginning of the war. How abundant and active the materials of
disunion were, and how difficult it was even for leading men
to rise above them might be proved by numerous passages in the
letters of Washington and Greene, if it were not still more
evident from the conduct of the local legislatures. How far
this spirit might have been counteracted or controlled if the
policy of the Congress had been that policy of prompt decision
and energetic action which, commanding respect at all times,
commands in times of general danger general and implicit
obedience, it is impossible to say. … Another element with
which it was brought into immediate and constant relations was
the army; and, unfortunately for both, these relations, from
their very nature, brought into immediate and constant
contrast the elements of opposition which they both contained,
rather than the elements of harmonious action, which they also
contained in an almost equal degree. If the Congress was
composed of the representatives of the people, the army was
composed in a large proportion of the constituents of the
Congress. More than once also, during the course of the war,
men who had done good work for their country as soldiers,
withdrawing from their original field of action, did equally
good service for her as statesmen. And more than once, too,
men who had proved themselves wise and eloquent in counsel
were found at the head of a regiment, or even in more
subordinate positions in the army. … The real interest and the
real object of the citizen in arms and of the citizen in the
toga were still the same. But their point of view was
different. The ever-present object of Congress was discussion
as a means of organization. The ever-present object of the
leaders of the army was decision as a means of action.
Congress counted obstacles, weighed difficulties, balanced
opposing advantages, eating and sleeping meanwhile and
refreshing mind and body as nature bade. But while Congress
was deliberating upon the best way of procuring meat, the army
was often brought to the verge of starvation for the want of
it. While Congress was discussing by a warm fire the most
eligible method of providing the army with tents and blankets,
half the army was sleeping on the snow without either blanket
or tent.
{3263}
While Congress was framing elaborate resolutions, and drawing
out and equipping regiments upon paper, officers in the field
were standing disheartened before their thinned and
disheartened ranks. … Errors of statesmanship, like errors of
generalship, would easily have been forgiven and forgotten;
for both statesmen and generals had still much to learn.
Unfortunately, while the best generals strove earnestly to
correct their errors by their experience, Congress, in too
many things, clung obstinately to its errors, in spite of the
most decisive experience. Those errors were twofold,—errors of
policy and errors of principle,—the one tending to undermine
the respect which, in the beginning, was felt for their
wisdom; the other, to awaken a general distrust of their
justice. The first year of the war demonstrated the danger of
short enlistments and temporary levies. But more than half the
second year was allowed to pass before it was decided to raise
an army for the whole duration of the war. The first campaign
demonstrated the necessity of providing by regularly organized
departments for the food, clothing, and transportation of the
army; but it was not till late in the second year that a board
of war was organized; and not till later still that the
Quartermaster-General and Commissary-General were allowed to
devote themselves to their duty in camp, instead of waiting
idly for orders at the door of Congress. All experience and
the simplest reasoning showed the importance of strengthening
the hands of their General by passing promptly all the acts
needed for the conduct of an army in the field, or the support
and instruction of an army in quarters; but, in spite of all
experience and the plainest reason, Congress persisted in its
unseasonable delays. … The policy of the Congress, in the
organization and support of the army, was a policy of
tergiversation and delay. No wonder that the army, leaders and
all, should early lose their confidence in its wisdom! But the
dissatisfaction did not end here. One of the earliest felt of
the numerous wants of the army was the want of good officers.
… To select them in the beginning from the mass of unproved
candidates was impossible; but in the course of two campaigns,
the characters and pretensions of men were well tried, the
chaff thoroughly sifted, and what remained might be
confidently accepted as sound. … It was evidently the policy
of Congress to secure by all proper and reasonable inducements
the services of such officers for the war. It was the duty of
Congress, in its dealings with them, to remember that in
becoming soldiers, and exposing themselves to the dangers and
privations of a soldier's life, they adopted, with the ideas
of subordination that lie at the basis of military discipline,
the ideas of rank and grade which define and circumscribe that
subordination. But Congress remembered nothing of this. It
required of them the service of officers, but gave them a pay
hardly sufficient to enable them to live like private
soldiers. It demanded the present sacrifice of cold, hunger,
hard service, and exposure to sickness, wounds, and death; and
refused the prospective reward of half-pay or pension when
sickness or wounds should have incapacitated them for further
exertion, or death should have made their wives unprotected
widows, and their children helpless orphans. Forgetting that
pride is an essential element of the military character, and
that self-respect is essential to a healthy and sustaining
pride, it trifled with their claims to rank by the accepted
rules of service, and claimed and exercised the power of
dealing with commissions according to its own good pleasure."
_G. W. Greene,
Life of Nathanael Greene,
book 2, chapter 18 (volume 1)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779.
Clark's conquest of the Northwest for Virginia, and its
annexation to the district of Kentucky.
"Virginia … had more western enterprise than any other colony.
In 1774 Dunmore's war gave her the 'back-lands,' into which
her frontiersmen had been for some time pressing. Boone was a
Carolinian, but Kentucky was a distinctively Virginia colony.
In 1776 the Virginia legislature erected the County of
Kentucky, and the next year a Virginia judge dispensed justice
at Harrodsburg. Soon the colony was represented in the
legislature of the parent state. While thus extending her
jurisdiction over the region southwest of the Ohio, the Old
Dominion did not forget the language of [her charter] of 1609,
'up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and
northwest.' George Rogers Clark, a Virginian who had made
Kentucky his home, was endowed with something of the general's
and statesman's grasp. While floating down the Ohio in 1776,
being then 24 years of age, he conceived the conquest of the
country beyond the river. … Clark says he had since the
beginning of the war taken pains to make himself acquainted
with the true situation of the Northwestern posts; and in 1777
he sent two young hunters to spy out the country more
thoroughly, and especially to ascertain the sentiments of the
'habitants.' On the return of these hunters with an
encouraging report, he went to Williamsburg, then the capital
of Virginia, where he enlisted Governor Patrick Henry and
other leading minds in a secret expedition to the Illinois.
Acting under a vaguely worded law, authorizing him to aid 'any
expedition against their Western enemies,' Governor Henry gave
Clark some vague public instructions, directing him to enlist,
in any county of the commonwealth, seven companies of men who
should act under his command as a militia, and also private
instructions that were much more full and definite. … Both the
public and private instructions are dated January 2, 1778. The
governor also gave the young captain a small supply of money.
Clark immediately re-crossed the mountains and began to
recruit his command. … Overcoming as best he could the
difficulties that environed him, he collected his feeble
command at the Falls of the Ohio. On June 26, 1778, he began
the descent of the river. Leaving the Ohio at Fort Massac,
forty miles above its mouth, he began the march to Kaskaskia.
This fell into his hands, July 5th, and Cahokia soon after,
both without the loss of a single life. Clark found few
Englishmen in these villages, and the French, who were weary
of British rule, he had little difficulty in attaching to the
American interest. Vincennes, soon after, surrendered to a
mere proclamation, when there was not an American soldier
within one hundred miles of the place. … Clark prevailed upon
100 men to re-enlist for eight months; he then filled up his
companies with recruits from the villages, and sent an urgent
call to Virginia for re-enforcements. The salutary influence
of the invasion upon the Indians was felt at once; it 'began
to spread among the nations even to the border of the lakes;'
and in five weeks Clark settled a peace with ten or twelve
different tribes. …
{3264}
And now Clark began really to feel the difficulties of his
situation. Destitute of money, poorly supplied, commanding a
small and widely scattered force, he had to meet and
circumvent an active enemy who was determined to regain what
he had lost. Governor Hamilton [the British governor at
Detroit] projected a grand campaign against the French towns
that had been captured and the small force that held them. The
feeble issue was the capture, in December, 1778, of Vincennes,
which was occupied by but two Americans. Clark, who was in the
Illinois at the time of this disaster, at once put his little
force in motion for the Wabash, knowing, he says, that if he
did not take Hamilton, Hamilton would take him; and, February
25, 1779, at the end of a march of 250 miles, that ranks in
peril and hardship with Arnold's winter march to Canada, he
again captured the town, the fort, the governor, and his whole
command. Hamilton was sent to Virginia a prisoner of war,
where he was found guilty of treating American prisoners with
cruelty, and of offering the Indians premiums for scalps, but
none for prisoners." Clark was ambitious to extend his march
to Detroit, but could not compass the necessary means.
"'Detroit lost for a few hundred men,' was his pathetic lament
as he surrendered an enterprise that lay near his heart. Had
he been able to achieve it, he would have won and held the
whole Northwest. As it was he won and held the Illinois and
the Wabash in the name of Virginia and of the United States.
The bearing of this conquest on the question of western
boundaries will be considered in another place, but here it is
pertinent to remark that the American Commissioners, in 1782,
at Paris, could plead 'uti possidetis' in reference to much of
the country beyond the Ohio, for the flag of the Republic,
raised over it by George Rogers Clark, had never been lowered.
It would not be easy to find in our history a case of an
officer accomplishing results that were so great and
far-reaching with so small a force. Clark's later life is
little to his credit, but it should not be forgotten that he
rendered the American cause and civilization a very great
service. All this time the British were not idle. War-party
after war-party was sent against the American border. In 1780
a grand expedition was organized at Detroit and sent to
Kentucky under the command of Captain Bird. But it
accomplished nothing commensurate with its magnitude and cost.
… The Northwest had been won by a Virginia army, commanded by
a Virginia officer, put in the field at Virginia's expense.
Governor Henry had promptly announced the conquest to the
Virginia delegates in Congress. … But before Patrick Henry
wrote this letter, Virginia had welded the last link in her
chain of title to the country beyond the Ohio. In October,
1778, her Legislature declared: 'All the citizens of the
commonwealth of Virginia, who are actually settlers there, or
who shall hereafter be settled, on the west side of the Ohio,
shall be included in the district of Kentucky which shall be
called Illinois County.' Nor was this all. Soon after,
Governor Henry appointed a lieutenant-commandant for the new
county, with full instructions for carrying on the government.
The French settlements remained under Virginia jurisdiction
until March, 1784."
_B. A. Hinsdale,
The Old Northwest,
chapter 9._
ALSO IN:
_Clark's Campaign in the Illinois
(Ohio Valley History Series, 3)._
_J. H. Perkins,
Annals of the West,
chapter 7._
_A. Davidson and B. Stuvé,
History of Illinois,
chapters 16-18._
_T. Roosevelt,
The Winning of the West,
volume 2, chapters 2-3._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779.
The French Alliance.
Peril of France.
Doubtful feeling in America.
Spanish mediation with England.
"From the third volume of Doniol's comprehensive work on the
'Participation de la France a l'etablissement des Ètats Unis,'
published in 1888, we are able to learn for the first time the
extreme peril of France in 1778-1779. When Vergennes advised
the recognition of the independence of the United States, it
was on the same grounds that Canning advised the recognition
of the independence of the Spanish South American States many
years afterwards. The fair distribution of power in the
civilized world, which was threatened in the latter period by
the Holy Alliance, was threatened in the former period by the
assumption of maritime supremacy by Britain. In each the
object was to call up a new sovereignty in America, so as to
check an undue concentration of sovereignty in Europe,
Undoubtedly Vergennes was aided, as Canning was aided, by the
enthusiasm felt by men of liberal views for a revolution that
was expected to extend the domain of liberalism; but with
Vergennes, as with Canning, the object was the establishing of
a power abroad which could resist a dangerous aggression at
home. When in February, 1778, France acknowledged the
independence of the United States, Vergennes had good reason
to hold either that Britain would not resent the insult by
war, or that she would find that in such a war the odds were
against her. A British army had just capitulated at Saratoga.
America, so it was reported to Vergennes and so he believed,
was unanimous in determining to defend her liberties to the
last. In Holland there was a strong party which was expected
to force the States-General into a recognition of their sister
republic. Spain had already secretly advanced a million of
francs to the American commissioners. From Frederick the
Great, delighted to see his British relatives, who had not
always supported him in his troubles, annoyed by a revolt in
their own domain, came words very encouraging to the American
envoys. Catharine II listened with apparent satisfaction to a
scheme which would relieve her infant shipping from British
oppression. It looked as if, should Britain declare war
against France, she would have against her the armies and
navies of all continental Europe, aided by the people of her
American Colonies in a compact mass. But in a few months there
came a great change. The British army under Howe was so
largely reenforced as for the immediate present to give it a
great superiority over any army Congress could bring against
it in open field. … It is true that the news in April of the
French treaty revived the energies of the revolutionists; but
this treaty had its drawbacks, as the old dislike of France,
in part inherited from England, in part the product of the
Seven-years war, intensified the yearning for the mother
country which in many hearts still remained. French officers
complained that on their first arrival in New England they
were received with sullen aversion by the people, though
welcomed by the revolutionary leaders.
{3265}
The French army and navy, for the first year in which they
were engaged in America, did no good to the American cause;
and so great was the popular irritation at their inactivity,
so strong, it was said, continued to be the old race
attachment to England, that intelligent French observers in
America advised Vergennes that he must move warily, for at any
moment America might make a separate peace with Britain and
then join the British forces against France. No doubt these
reports, so far as they pronounced this to be the drift of a
large minority in Congress, were unfounded in fact. They were
nevertheless communicated under high sanction to Vergennes,
and produced in his mind the liveliest anxiety. … English
influence had for a time regained its ascendency in Holland.
Prussia and Russia, having tasted the delights of neutral
commerce, let it be plainly understood that they would not
abandon a neutrality so profitable for the risks of
belligerency. And Spain had taken alarm and was backing out
not merely from the family compact, but from her recent
promise to aid the insurgents. Aiding the insurgents, her
minister declared, would be cutting her own throat, and no aid
to the insurgents should be given except on a very heavy
equivalent. If France was to meet the shock of the British
navy alone she might be swept from the seas, and, aside from
this danger, her finances were in such a ruinous condition
that her bankruptcy was imminent. One of two courses must be
adopted, not only to save France but to save the independence
of the United States and the consequent equipoise of power for
which France has gone to war. There must be either a general
peace, which would include the independence of the United
States, or there must be war, with Spain joining the allies. …
It was in this condition of affairs that the position of Spain
in 1778-1779 became of commanding importance. She offered
herself as mediator between the allies and their common enemy,
and through her the terms of pacification were discussed. In
the negotiations, protracted and on both sides largely
insincere, between Spain and Britain relative to the proposed
pacification, the winter of 1778-1779 was consumed."
_F. Wharton,
Introduction to The Revolutionary Diplomatic
Correspondence of the United States,
chapter 5, section 86 (volume 1)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779.
The War carried into the South.
Savannah taken and Georgia subdued.
Towards the end of November, 1778, a "body of troops, under
Lieutenant-colonel Campbell, sailed [from New York] for
Georgia In the squadron of Commodore Hyde Parker; the British
cabinet having determined to carry the war into the Southern
States. At the same time General Prevost, who commanded in
Florida, was ordered by Sir Henry Clinton to march to the
banks of the Savannah River, and attack Georgia in flank,
while the expedition under Campbell should attack it in front
on the seaboard. … The squadron of Commodore Hyde Parker
anchored in the Savannah River towards the end of December. An
American force of about 600 regulars, and a few militia under
General Robert Howe, were encamped near the town, being the
remnant of an army with which that officer had invaded
Florida, in the preceding summer, but had been obliged to
evacuate it by a mortal malady which desolated his camp.
Lieutenant-colonel Campbell landed his troops on the 29th of
December, about three miles below the town. The whole country
bordering the river is a deep morass, cut up by creeks, and
only to be traversed by causeways. Over one of these, 600
yards in length, with a ditch on each side, Colonel Campbell
advanced, putting to flight a small party stationed to guard
it. General Howe had posted his little army on the main road,
with the river on his left and a morass in front. A negro gave
Campbell information of a path leading through the morass, by
which troops might get unobserved to the rear of the
Americans. Sir James Baird was detached with the light
infantry by this path, while Colonel Campbell advanced in
front. The Americans, thus suddenly attacked in front and
rear, were completely routed; upwards of 100 were either
killed on the spot, or perished in the morass; 38 officers and
415 privates were taken prisoners, the rest retreated up the
Savannah River and crossed into South Carolina. Savannah, the
capital of Georgia, was taken possession of by the victors,
with cannon, military stores and provisions; their loss was
only seven killed and nineteen wounded. Colonel Campbell
conducted himself with great moderation; protecting the
persons and property of the inhabitants, and proclaiming
security and favor to all that should return to their
allegiance. Numbers in consequence flocked to the British
standard: the lower part of Georgia was considered as subdued,
and posts were established by the British to maintain
possession. While Colonel Campbell had thus invaded Georgia in
front, General Prevost" entered the State from Florida, "took
Sunbury, the only remaining fort of importance, and marched to
Savannah, where he assumed the general command, detaching
Colonel Campbell against Augusta. By the middle of January
(1779) all Georgia was reduced to submission. A more
experienced American general than Howe had by this time
arrived to take command of the Southern Department,
Major-general Lincoln, who had gained such reputation in the
campaign against Burgoyne, and whose appointment to this
station had been solicited by the delegates from South
Carolina and Georgia. He had received his orders from
Washington in the beginning of October."
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 3, chapter 37._
ALSO IN:
_W. B. Stevens,
History of Georgia,
book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779.
Washington guarding the Hudson.
The storming of Stony Point.
Marauding warfare of the British.
"After Clinton slipped away from Monmouth and sought refuge in
New York, Washington took post at convenient points and
watched the movements of the enemy. In this way the summer
passed. As always, Washington's first object was to guard the
Hudson, and while he held this vital point firmly, he waited,
ready to strike elsewhere if necessary. It looked for a time
as if the British intended to descend on Boston, seize the
town, and destroy the French fleet, which had gone there to
refit. Such was the opinion of Gates, then commanding in that
department, and as Washington inclined to the same belief, the
fear of this event gave him many anxious moments.
{3266}
He even moved his troops so as to be in readiness to march
eastward at short notice; but he gradually became convinced
that the enemy had no such plan. … The main army, therefore,
remained quiet, and when the autumn had passed went into
winter-quarters in well-posted detachments about New York. In
December Clinton made an ineffectual raid [in New Jersey], and
then all was peaceful again, and Washington was able to go to
Philadelphia and struggle with Congress, leaving his army more
comfortable and secure than they had been in any previous
winter. … He now hoped and believed that the moment would come
when, by uniting his army with the French, he should be able
to strike the decisive blow. Until that time came, however, he
knew that he could do nothing on a great scale, and he felt
that meantime the British, abandoning practically the eastern
and middle States, would make one last desperate struggle for
victory, and would make it in the south. Long before anyone
else, he appreciated this fact, and saw a peril looming large
in that region. … All this, however, did not change his own
plans one jot. He believed that the south must work out its
own salvation, as New York and New England had done with
Burgoyne, and he felt sure that in the end it would be
successful. But he would not go south, nor take his army
there. … The British might overrun the north or invade the
south, but he would stay where he was, with his grip upon New
York and the Hudson River. The tide of invasion might ebb and
flow in this region or that, but the British were doomed if
they could not divide the eastern colonies from the others.
When the appointed hour came, he was ready to abandon
everything and strike the final and fatal blow; but until then
he waited and stood fast with his army, holding the great
river in his grasp. He felt much more anxiety about the south
than he had felt about the north, and expected Congress to
consult him as to a commander, having made up his mind that
Greene was the man to send. But Congress still believed in
Gates, who had been making trouble for Washington all winter;
and so Gates was sent, and Congress in due time got their
lesson, and found once more that Washington understood men
better than they did. In the north the winter was
comparatively uneventful. The spring passed, and in June
Clinton came out and took possession of Stony Point and
Verplanck's Point, and began to fortify them. It looked a
little as if Clinton might intend to get control of the Hudson
by slow approaches, fortifying, and then advancing until he
reached West Point. With this in mind, Washington at once
determined to check the British by striking sharply at one of
their new posts. Having made up his mind, he sent for Wayne
and asked him if he would storm Stony Point. Tradition says
that Wayne replied, 'I will storm hell, if you will plan it.'
A true tradition, probably, in keeping with Wayne's character,
and pleasant to us to-day as showing with a vivid gleam of
rough human speech the utter confidence of the army in their
leader, that confidence which only a great soldier can
inspire. So Washington planned, and Wayne stormed [July 15,
1779], and Stony Point fell. It was a gallant and brilliant
feat of arms, one of the most brilliant of the war. Over 500
prisoners were taken, the guns were carried off, and the works
destroyed, leaving the British to begin afresh with a good
deal of increased caution and respect. Not long after, Harry
Lee stormed Paulus Hook with equal success, and the British
were checked and arrested, if they intended any extensive
movement. On the frontier, Sullivan, after some delays, did
his work effectively. … In these various ways Clinton's circle
of activity was steadily narrowed, but it may be doubted
whether he had any coherent plan. The principal occupation of
the British was to send out marauding expeditions and cut off
outlying parties. Tryon burned and pillaged in Connecticut [at
New Haven, Fairfield and Norwalk], Matthews in Virginia [at
Norfolk, Portsmouth and elsewhere], and others on a smaller
scale elsewhere in New Jersey and New York. … It was enough
for Washington to hold fast to the great objects he had in
view, to check Clinton and circumscribe his movements.
Steadfastly he did this through the summer and winter of
1779."
_H. C. Lodge,
George Washington,
volume 1, chapter 8._
ALSO IN:
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 3, chapters 38-40,
and volume 4, chapter 1._
_B. J. Lossing,
Field-book of the Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 31._
_J. Armstrong,
Life of Anthony Wayne
(Library of American Biographies, volume 4)._
_C. J. Stillé,
Major-General Anthony Wayne,
chapter 5_
_G. W. Greene,
Life of Nathaniel Greene,
book 3, chapters 3-7 (volume. 2)._
See, also, WEST POINT.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1779 (August-September).
General Sullivan's expedition against the Senecas.
For the purpose of putting an end to the destructive and
bloody incursions of Tories and Indians from western New York,
directed against the border settlements of that state and
Pennsylvania—as at Cherry Valley and Wyoming—General
Washington, in the early part of the year 1779, determined
upon a measure for carrying the war into the home of the
invaders. "The command was entrusted to General Sullivan. The
army organized for the expedition was in three divisions. That
part of it under the immediate command of General Sullivan,
coming from Pennsylvania, ascended the Susquehannah to Tioga
Point. Another division under the command of General James
Clinton, constructing batteaux at Schenectady, ascended the
Mohawk and rendezvoused at Canajoharrie, opened a road to the
head of Otsego Lake, and from thence proceeded in a formidable
fleet of over 200 batteaux, to Tioga Point, forming a junction
with the force under General Sullivan, on the 22d of August.
Previous to the arrival of General Clinton, Sullivan had sent
forward a detachment which fell in with a scouting party of
Indians, and a skirmish ensued. The combined forces amounted
to 5,000 men. The expedition had been so long preparing, and
upon the march, that the enemy were well apprized of an that
was going on. Their plan of defence contemplated a decisive
engagement upon the Chemung river. For this purpose the
Rangers and regular British troops, under the command of
Colonel John Butler, Colonels Guy and Sir John Johnson, Major
Walter N. Butler and Captain M'Donald, and the Indians under
Brant, had concentrated their forces upon a bend of the river,
near the present village of Elmira [then called Newtown],
where they had thrown up a long breast work of logs. The
united forces of the British allies, as computed by General
Sullivan, was about 1,500.
{3267}
Having ascertained their position, General Sullivan marched in
full force and attacked them in the forenoon of the 29th of
August. … The battle had been waged about two hours, when the
British and Indians perceiving their forces inadequate, and
that a maneuver to surround them was likely to be successful,
broke and fled in great disorder. 'This,' says John Salmon, of
Livingston county, who belonged to the expedition and gave an
account of it to the author of the Life of .Mary Jemison, 'was
the only regular stand made by the Indians. In their retreat
they were pursued by our men to the Narrows, where they were
attacked and killed in great numbers, so that the sides of the
rocks next the River looked as if blood had been poured on
them by pailfuls.' The details of all that transpired in this
campaign are before the public in so many forms, that their
repetition here is unnecessary. The route of the army was via
'French Catherine's Town,' head of Seneca Lake, down the east
shore of the Lake to the Indian village of Kanadesaga (Old
Castle), and from thence to Canandaigua, Honeoye, head of
Conesus Lake, to Groveland. The villages destroyed (with the
apple trees and growing crops of the Indians,) were at
Catherinestown, Kendai, or 'Apple Town' on the east side of
the Lake, eleven miles from its foot, Kanadesaga, Honeoye,
Conesus, Canascraga, Little Beard's Town, Big Tree, Canawagus,
and on the return of the army, Scawyace, a village between the
Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, and several other Cayuga villages. …
The march of Sullivan, the devastations committed by his army,
would at this distant period seem like Vandalism, in the
absence of the consideration that he was acting under strict
orders; and that those orders were approved, if not dictated,
by Washington. The campaign was a matter of necessity; to be
effectual, it was not only necessary that its acts should be
retaliatory and retributive, but that the haunts, the
retreats, of a foe so ruthless, must be broken up. The object
was to destroy all the means of subsistence of the Senecas,
desolate their homes, prevent their return to them, and if
possible, induce their permanent retreat beyond the Niagara
River. The imprudence, the want of sagacity, which Colonel
Stone has imputed to General Sullivan in alarming every
village he approached by the sound of his cannon, the author
conceives a misapprehension of his motives. Stealthy, quiet
approaches, would have found as victims, in every village, the
old men, the women and children—the warriors away, banded with
their British allies. Humanity dictated the forewarning, that
those he did not come to war against could have time to flee.
… The march of General Sullivan, after leaving the Chemung,
was bloodless, except in a small degree—just as it should have
been, if he could not make victims of those he was sent to
punish. The third expedition of this campaign, which has
generally been lost sight of by historians, was that of
General Broadhead. He left Fort Pitt in August with 600 men,
and destroyed several Mingo and Muncey tribes living on the
Allegany, French Creek, and other tributaries of the Ohio. The
heavy artillery that General Sullivan brought as far as
Newton, would indicate that Niagara was originally the
destination. There the General and his officers, seeing how
long it had taken to reach that point, in an probability
determined that too much of the season had been wasted, to
allow of executing their tasks in the Indian country, making
their roads and moving the army and all its appointments to
Niagara before the setting in of winter. Besides, before the
army had reached the valley of the Chemung, the fact was
ascertained that there would be a failure in a contemplated
junction with the army under General Broadhead. After the
expedition of General Sullivan, the Indians never had any
considerable permanent re-occupancy of their villages east of
the Genesee river. They settled down after a brief flight, in
their villages on the west side of the river in the
neighborhood of Geneseo, Mt. Morris and Avon, and at Gardeau,
Canadea, Tonawanda, Tuscarora, Buffalo Creek, Cattaraugus and
Allegany."
_O. Turner,
History of the Pioneer Settlement
of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase,
part 1, chapter 4._
"In his general orders of the 17th of October, General
Washington announced to the army the result of the expedition,
as follows: 'The Commander-in-chief has now the pleasure of
congratulating the army on the complete and full success of
Major General Sullivan, and the troops under his command,
against the Seneca and other tribes of the Six Nations, as a
just and necessary punishment for their wanton depredations,
their unparalleled and innumerable cruelties, their deafness
to all remonstrances and entreaty, and their perseverance in
the most horrid acts of barbarity. Forty of their towns have
been reduced to ashes, some of them large and commodious; that
of the Genesee alone containing one hundred and twenty-eight
houses. Their crops of corn have been entirely destroyed,
which, by estimation, it is said, would have provided 160,000
bushels, besides large quantities of vegetables of various
kinds. Their whole country has been overrun and laid waste,
and they themselves compelled to place their security in a
precipitate flight to the British fortress at Niagara. And the
whole of this has been done with the loss of less than forty
men on our part, including the killed, wounded, captured, and
those who died natural deaths. The troops employed in this
expedition, both officers and men, throughout the whole of it,
and in the action they had with the enemy, manifested a
patience, perseverance and valor that do them the highest
honor. In the course of it, when there still remained a large
extent of the enemy's country to be prostrated, it became
necessary to lessen the issues of provisions to half the usual
allowance. In this the troops acquiesced with a most general
and cheerful concurrence, being fully determined to surmount
every obstacle, and to prosecute the enterprise to a complete
and successful issue. Major General Sullivan, for his great
perseverance and activity, for his order of march and attack,
and the whole of his dispositions; the Brigadiers and officers
of all ranks, and the whole of the soldiers engaged in the
expedition, merit and have the Commander-in-chief's warmest
acknowledgements for their important services upon this
occasion.' On the 9th of November, 1779, General Sullivan
wrote to the President of Congress: 'It is with the deepest
regret I find myself compelled to request from Congress
liberty to retire from the army. My health is so much impaired
by a violent bilious disorder, which seized me in the
commencement and continued during the whole of the western
expedition, that I have not the smallest hope of a perfect
recovery.' …
{3268}
General Sullivan, in transmitting to Congress an official
account of his operations, reported that … 'Every creek and
river has been traced, and the whole country explored in
search of Indian settlements, and I am well persuaded that,
except one town situated near the Alleghany, about fifty-eight
miles from Chinesee, there is not a single town left in the
country of the Five Nations. … I flatter myself that the
orders with which I was entrusted are fully executed, as we
have not left a single settlement or field of corn in the
country of the Five Nations, or is there even the appearance
of an Indian on this side of Niagara. Messengers and small
parties have been constantly passing, and some imprudent
soldiers who straggled from the army mistook the route and
went back almost to Chinesee without discovering even the
track of an Indian.' Sullivan was mistaken in regard to the
destruction of all the Indian towns as there were several
small villages undiscovered by his troops. The principal
villages, however, and probably nine-tenths of the growing
crops, upon which the Indians had depended for sustenance
during the following winter, were effectually destroyed. …
While Sullivan fully accomplished the task given him to
perform, the results expected were not fully realized. The
power of the savages had been weakened, but they were not
entirely subdued until years afterward, when 'Mad Anthony
Wayne' defeated the confederated bands of the Indians of the
west, in 1794, a measure which thoroughly humbled the Indians
of Western New York, and gave to the settlers peace and
security. Sullivan's expedition was fruitful of great results
in other ways, however, than the temporary subjugation of the
Indians. The fertile and beautiful country now forming the
western part of the State of New York, was then an unknown
wilderness, and its value and attractiveness were first made
known to the white people through this expedition. … Soon
after the close of the war the tide of emigration commenced to
flow westward. From the New England States, Pennsylvania and
New Jersey, came hardy pioneers, led on by the glowing
accounts they had heard of the new country, and the vicinity
of the inland lakes, the borders of the flowing streams, the
forest-covered hills became the dwelling places of a rapidly
growing band of settlers. The road which Sullivan had opened
from the Susquehanna valley was followed by many of the
settlers, even to the banks of the Genesee. Thus many of those
who had shared the perils and privations of Sullivan's
expedition against the Indian tribes of Western New York,
afterward became settlers of the land they had aided to
conquer."
_A. T. Norton,
History of Sullivan's Campaign against the Iroquois,
chapter 11._
ALSO IN:
_L. L. Doty,
History of Livingston County, New York,
chapter 7._
_O. W. B. Peabody,
Life of John Sullivan
(Library of American Biographies,
series 2, volume. 3), chapter 7._
_Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John
Sullivan, with records of Centennial Celebrations
(including Historical Address by Reverend David Craft,
pages 331-388)._
_J. E. Seaver,
Life of Mary Jemison,
appendix 2._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1779 (September).
Paul Jones' great sea-fight.
The Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis.
"Near the end of July [1779], Paul Jones, a Scot by birth, in
the service of the United States, sailed from l'Orient as
commander of a squadron, consisting of the Poor Richard ['Bon
Homme Richard,' Jones named her, in compliment to Franklin and
to the language of the country from which Franklin's influence
procured the ship] of 40 guns, many of them unserviceable; the
Alliance of 36 guns, both American ships-of-war; the Pallas, a
French frigate of 32; and the Vengeance, a French brig of 12
guns. They ranged the western coast of Ireland, turned
Scotland, and, cruising off Flamborough Head, descried the
British merchant fleet from the Baltic, under the convoy of
the Serapis of 44 guns and the Countess of Scarborough of 20
guns. An hour after sunset, on the 23d of September, the
Serapis, having a great superiority in strength, engaged the
Poor Richard. Paul Jones, after suffering exceedingly in a
contest of an hour and a half within musket-shot, bore down
upon his adversary, whose anchor he hooked to his own quarter.
The muzzles of their guns touched each other's sides. Jones
could use only three nine-pounders beside muskets from the
round-tops, but combustible matters were thrown into every
part of the Serapis, which was on fire no less than ten or
twelve times. There were moments when both ships were on fire.
After a two-hours' conflict in the first watch of the night,
the Serapis struck its flag. Jones raised his pendant on the
captured frigate, and the next day had but time to transfer to
it his wounded men and his crew before the Poor Richard went
down. The French frigate engaged and captured the Countess of
Scarborough. The Alliance, which from a distance had raked the
Serapis during the action, not without injuring the Poor
Richard, had not a man injured. On the fourth of October the
squadron entered the Texel with its prizes. The British
ambassador, of himself and again under instructions, reclaimed
the captured British ships and their crews, 'who had been
taken by the pirate Paul Jones of Scotland, a rebel and a
traitor.' 'They,' he insisted, 'are to be treated as pirates
whose letters of marque have not emanated from a sovereign
power.' The grand pensionary would not apply the name of
pirate to officers bearing the commissions of congress. In
spite of the stadholder, the squadron enjoyed the protection
of a neutral port."
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 5, page 350._
ALSO IN.
_A. S, Mackenzie,
Life of Paul Jones,
chapters 8-9 (volume 1)._
_Life and Correspondence of John Paul Jones,
pages 179-235._
_W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 3, chapter 24._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1779 (September-October).
Unsuccessful attack on Savannah by the Americans and French.
"The state of affairs in the South had called so imperatively
for the attention of Congress that a portion of Washington's
army had been detached to join General Lincoln. Washington
solicited more powerful aid from D'Estaing, who then commanded
in the West Indies an army sufficiently powerful to crush
entirely the English in Georgia. The French admiral received
this application just after having fought a hard battle
against Commodore Byron without any decisive result, yet such
as obliged the latter to go into port to refit. The former,
being thus for a time master of the sea, determined at once to
comply with the request, took on board 6,000 land-troops, and
steered direct for Savannah, where, arriving quite
unexpectedly, he captured by surprise a fifty-gun ship and
three frigates. Prevost, too, was very unprepared, having his
force broken up into detachments distributed along the
frontier; but these being instantly ordered in, obeyed with
such promptitude that, before the French had landed and formed
a junction with Lincoln, nearly all had arrived.
{3269}
On the 16th of September, D'Estaing appeared before the place
and summoned it to surrender. Prevost, under pretext of
negotiation, obtained a suspension for twenty-four hours,
during which Colonel Maitland entered with the last and
largest detachment, eluding the Americans by a route supposed
impassable; and the full determination to resist was then
announced. The opinion of all military men now is that
D'Estaing was guilty of the most outrageous folly in not
marching at once to the attack of the city, without summoning
the weakened garrison to surrender at all. The surprise would
have then been complete, and the victory sure. … A regular
siege was now commenced. Heavy ordnance and stores were
brought up from the fleet, and the besieging army broke
ground. By the 1st of October they had pushed their sap within
300 yards of the abattis, on the left of the British lines.
Several batteries were opened on the besieged, which played
almost incessantly upon their works, but made no impression on
them. The situation of D'Estaing was becoming critical. More
time had already been consumed on the coast of Georgia than he
had supposed would be necessary for the destruction of the
British force in that State. He became uneasy for the
possessions of France in the West Indies, and apprehensive for
the safety of the ships under his command. The naval officers
remonstrated strenuously against longer exposing his fleet on
an insecure coast, at a tempestuous season of the year, and
urged the danger of being overtaken by a British squadron when
broken and scattered by a storm." D'Estaing accordingly
decided that he must either raise the siege or attempt the
enemy's works by storm. "The latter part of the alternative
was adopted. … On the morning of the 9th of October, before
day, … about 3,500 French and 1,000 Americans, of whom between
600 and 700 were regulars and the residue militia of
Charleston, advanced in three columns, led by D'Estaing and
Lincoln, aided by the principal officers of both nations, and
made a furious assault on the British lines. Their reception
was warmer than had been expected. … Both the French and
Americans planted their standards on the walls, and were
killed in great numbers while endeavoring to force their way
into the works. For about fifty minutes the contest was
extremely obstinate." Then the assailants gave way and a
retreat was ordered. "In this unsuccessful attempt the French
lost in killed and wounded about 700 men. Among the latter
were the Count D'Estaing himself, Major General De Fontanges,
and several other officers of distinction. The continental
troops lost 234 men, and the Charleston militia, who, though
associated with them in danger, were more fortunate, had one
captain killed and six privates wounded. Count Pulaski was
among the slain. The loss of the garrison was astonishingly
small. In killed and wounded it amounted only to 55. So great
was the advantage of the cover afforded by their works. …
Count D'Estaing, having committed a blunder at the beginning,
had committed a worse blunder at the end, by insisting on the
assault, as unnecessary as it was rash. … He [now] insisted on
raising the siege, and both the French and American armies
moved from their ground on the evening of the 18th of October.
D'Estaing sailed for the West Indies; and Lincoln recrossed
the Savannah at Zubly's Ferry and again encamped in South
Carolina."
_C. B. Hartley,
Life of General Marion
(Heroes and Patriots of the South),
chapter 11._
ALSO IN:
_C. C. Jones, Jr.,
History of Georgia,
volume 2, chapters 20-21._
_J. Sparks,
Life of Pulaski
(Library of American Biographies,
series 2, volume 4)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (January-April).
The gloomy winter at Morristown.
Depreciation to worthlessness of the Continental Currency.
Consequent sufferings of the army and the country.
"The year 1780 opened upon a famishing camp. 'For a fortnight
past,' writes Washington, on the 8th of January, 'the troops,
both officers and men, have been almost perishing with want.
Yet,' adds he, feelingly, 'they have borne their sufferings
with a patience that merits the approbation, and ought to
excite the sympathies, of their countrymen.' The severest
trials of the Revolution, in fact, were not in the field,
where there were shouts to excite and laurels to be won; but
in the squalid wretchedness of ill-provided camps, where there
was nothing to cheer and everything to be endured. To suffer
was the lot of the revolutionary soldier. A rigorous winter
had much to do with the actual distresses of the army, but the
root of the evil lay in the derangement of the currency.
Congress had commenced the war without adequate funds, and
without the power of imposing direct taxes. To meet pressing
emergencies, it had emitted paper money, which, for a time,
passed currently at par; but sank in value as further
emissions succeeded, and that already in circulation remained
unredeemed. The several States added to the evil by emitting
paper in their separate capacities: thus the country gradually
became flooded with a 'continental currency,' as it was
called; irredeemable, and of no intrinsic value. The
consequence was a general derangement of trade and finance.
The continental currency declined to such a degree that forty
dollars in paper were equivalent to only one in specie.
Congress attempted to put a stop to this depreciation by
making paper money a legal tender, at its nominal value, in
the discharge of debts, however contracted. This opened the
door to knavery, and added a new feature to the evil. The
commissaries now found it difficult to purchase supplies for
the immediate wants of the army, and impossible to provide any
stores in advance. They were left destitute of funds, and the
public credit was prostrated by the accumulating debts
suffered to remain uncancelled. The changes which had taken
place in the commissary department added to this confusion.
The commissary-general, instead of receiving, as heretofore, a
commission on expenditures, was to have a fixed salary in
paper currency, and his deputies were to be compensated in
like manner, without the usual allowance of rations and
forage. No competent agents could be procured on such terms. …
In the present emergency Washington was reluctantly compelled,
by the distresses of the army, to call upon the counties of
the State for supplies of grain and cattle, proportioned to
their respective abilities. … Wherever a compliance with this
call was refused, the articles required were to be impressed:
it was a painful alternative, yet nothing else could save the
army from dissolution or starving. … As the winter advanced,
the cold increased in severity.
{3270}
It was the most intense ever remembered in the country. The
great bay of New York was frozen over. … The insular security
of the place was at an end. … Washington was aware of the
opportunity which offered itself for a signal 'coup de main,'
but was not in a condition to profit by it."
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 4, chapters 1 and 4._
"Paper for $9,000,000 was issued before any depreciation
began. The issues of the separate colonies must have affected
it, but the popular enthusiasm went for something. Pelatiah
Webster, almost alone as it seems, insisted on taxation, but a
member of Congress indignantly asked if he was to help tax the
people when they could go to the printing-office and get a
cartload of money. In 1776, when the depreciation began,
Congress took harsh measures to try to sustain the bills.
Committees of safety also took measures to punish those who
'forestalled' or 'engrossed,' these being the terms for
speculators who bought up for a rise. … The enemy, perceiving
the terrible harm the Americans were doing themselves, thought
it well to help on the movement. They counterfeited the bills
and passed them through the lines. At the end of 1779 Congress
was at its wit's end for money. Its issues had put specie
entirely out of reach, and the cause was in danger of being
drowned under the paper sea. … The French alliance helped more
by giving means of procuring loans in Europe than by military
assistance. Congress promised to limit its issues to
$200,000,000, and tried a new form of note; also loan offices
and lotteries. Over 350,000,000 were issued in all, but it is
doubtful if more than 200,000,000 were out at any one time. In
the spring of 1780 the bills were worth two cents on the
dollar, and then ceased to circulate. Specie now came into
circulation, being brought by the French, and also that
expended by the English passing the lines. The paper was now
worth more for an advertisement or a joke than for any
prospect of any kind of redemption. A barber's shop in
Philadelphia was papered with it, and a dog, coated with tar,
and with the bills stuck all over him, was paraded in the
streets."
_W. G. Sumner,
History of American Currency,
pages 44-47._
ALSO IN:
_W. G. Sumner,
The Financier and Finances of the American Revolution,
chapter 4 (volume 1)._
_A. S. Bolles,
Financial History of the United States, 1774-1789,
book 1._
_J. J. Knox,
United States Notes,
chapter 2._
See, also, MONEY AND BANKING, A. D. 1775-1780.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (February-August).
The siege and capture of Charleston by the British.
Defeat of Gates at Camden.
South Carolina subdued.
"After the failure of the attack on Savannah was learned by
Sir Henry Clinton, he sent a large additional force to the
South. Reinforcements were also sent on to Lincoln, while the
main body of the American army went into winter quarters near
Morristown, New Jersey. Sir Henry Clinton, as soon as his
forces, which had been dispersed by a storm, had been
collected at Savannah, proceeded to invest Charleston,"
landing his troops on St. John's Island in February. The
blockading of the port and operations for the investment of
the city were conducted cautiously and with success. On the
12th of May, the American commander, General Lincoln, "finding
himself incapable of defending Charleston, decided on
capitulating; and he acceded to the terms which the besiegers
had first offered. The fortifications, shipping, artillery,
and public stores were all surrendered. The garrison, and all
who had borne arms, were prisoners of war. The militia were
allowed to return home on parole. In the siege the British
lost 76 killed, and 189 wounded. The Americans about an equal
number. The prisoners, exclusive of sailors, amounted to
5,618, counting all the adult males of the town. To bring the
country entirely under subjection, Clinton sent forth three
detachments. The first and largest, in the northern part of
the State, was under Lord Cornwallis. He detached Colonel
Tarleton with his legion of cavalry and mounted infantry, to
disperse Colonel Buford, then encamped near the North Carolina
line. [Buford] was overtaken at the Waxhaws, and, on his
refusal to surrender, Tarleton made a furious charge on
Buford's men, when some, in dismay, threw down their arms and
asked for quarter, and some fired on the enemy. After this
partial resistance, no quarter was given. Colonel Buford, with
a few of the horse, and about 100 infantry, escaped; 113 were
killed on the spot; 150 so badly wounded as to be incapable of
being moved; and 53 were brought away as prisoners. The
American officers deny (what the British assert), that any who
had laid down their arms had again taken them up. All further
resistance to the enemy in South Carolina and Georgia seems
then to have ceased. The two other detachments of the British
army every where received the submission of the inhabitants,
who either gave their parole not again to bear arms against
the king, or took the oath of allegiance. In a proclamation
for settling the government, Sir Henry Clinton required all to
return to their allegiance on pain of being treated as rebels
and enemies. He then returned to New York, leaving Lord
Cornwallis in command, with 4,000 troops. … Lord Cornwallis,
considering South Carolina as entirely reannexed to Great
Britain, would admit of no neutrality among the inhabitants;
but insisted on their taking the oath of allegiance, which,
however, was generally taken with reluctance by the people of
the lower country. … A considerable force, under Baron de
Kalb, had been ordered for the Southern army by Congress; but,
for want of money, and a sufficient Commissary department,
they were so delayed in their march, that it was late in July
before they reached Cape Fear River. Here they were joined by
General Gates, who had been appointed to the command of the
Southern army. The men of this detachment, ill-fed, suffered
greatly from dysentery. In South Carolina, Gates was joined by
Porterfield's Virginia regiment, Rutherford's corps of North
Carolina militia, and Armaud's legion. … Gates having under
him about 4,000 men, of whom the regulars were less than
1,000, took post at Clermont. As the force of the Americans
was daily increasing, Cornwallis, having under him about 2,000
men, of whom 1,900 were regulars, decided on attacking the
American army. It so happened, that the period chosen by
Cornwallis to surprise Gates, was the very moment in which
Gates proposed to surprise his adversary; and thus the
advanced corps of both armies unexpectedly met at two o'clock
in the morning [August 6, near Camden].
{3271}
After some skirmishing, in which the British seemed to have
had a decided advantage, both parties suspended their
operations till the morning. On the first onset of the
British, the Virginia militia under General Stevens fled with
precipitation, and were followed by the infantry of Armstrong;
and, except Colonel Dixon's regiment, the whole South Carolina
division followed the example. Very few of the militia of
either State discharged a single musket. Gates was borne away
by the torrent, and, with General Caswell, retreated to
Clermont, in the hope of collecting a sufficient number of the
fugitives to cover the retreat of the regulars; but the hope
was vain. He was fain to proceed to Hillsborough, to concert
the future plan of operations. Thus left with an inadequate
force on the field, De Kalb made a stout resistance; but in an
impetuous charge he fell, after having received twelve wounds.
His troops were then unable to rally, and their discomfiture
was complete. Their loss, in killed, wounded and prisoners,
could not have been less than 1,000 men. The British lost 325
men. Just before the action, Sumter had captured a convoy, and
made 200 prisoners; but was subsequently surprised by
Tarleton, who recaptured the stores, killed 150, and took 300
prisoners. Sumter escaped with difficulty. There was no longer
any armed American force in South Carolina, and Cornwallis
resorted to energetic means of preventing disaffection. All
those who were found in arms after they had submitted to
British protection were considered as having forfeited their
lives, and several of them were hung on the spot. But these
severities, instead of their intended effect, produced a
strong reaction; and Sumter was able to collect a new force,
with which he greatly annoyed the north-western parts of the
State."
_G. Tucker,
History of the United States,
chapter 3 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_D. Ramsey,
History of South Carolina,
section 7 (volume l)._
_H. Lee,
Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department,
chapter 17._
_F. Bowen,
Life of Benjamin Lincoln,
chapter 5._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (July).
Fresh help from France.
The arrival of Rochambeau and his army, with a fleet.
"La Fayette's second visit to his native country [1770], was
most opportune. He arrived in Paris at the moment when the war
for the independence of America was in high popularity
throughout France. He was put in arrest a week for his
disobedience to the order not to leave France, but this was a
mere formality. Vergennes received him in private. His example
had roused the spirit of the French nobles. The stage
resounded with his applauses. Crowds followed his steps. Marie
Antoinette, with her quick, enthusiastic spirit, joyed at his
distinction. The council of state, the Parliament, the towns,
the corporations mingled in the noble excitement. The Royal
Treasury was assured support by patriotic offers of
contributions, and then was formed the auxiliary army that was
to bear succor to America. This public enthusiasm triumphed
over the hesitating reluctance of Maurepas, and the economical
prudence of Necker. The army, placed under the command of the
veteran Rochambeau, commended for his 'steadiness, wisdom,
ability and prudence,' a pupil of the Marshal de Belle Isle,
distinguished in frequent service, was to be composed of 6,000
troops. Among these shone forth the most brilliant of the
nobility."
_J. C. Hamilton,
History of the United States,
as traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton,
chapter 20 (volume 2)._
"La Fayette … made the ministers understand that if he was not
placed in command of the expedition, which would surprise the
Americans, at least it was imperative to place over it a
French general who would consent to serve under the American
commander-in-chief. But he knew well that his old companions
in arms in France were jealous of his rapid military fortune
and brilliant renown. He knew still better that the officers
who were his seniors in rank would be unwilling to serve under
him. His first proposition, therefore, was only made to
satisfy public feeling in America, which left the management
of this affair almost entirely in his hands. In view of the
serious difficulties that necessarily would result from the
adoption of such a decision—difficulties that might have most
disastrous consequences for the cause to which he had devoted
himself—he promised to make the Americans understand that he
had preferred remaining at the head of one of their divisions
and that he had refused the command of the French forces. But
he insisted upon this point, that, in order to avoid wounding
the self-respect of the Americans, it was indispensable to
choose a general to command the expedition, whose promotion
had been recent and whose talents were certainly equal to his
mission, but who, considering this mission as a distinction,
would consent to acknowledge General Washington's supremacy.
The choice that was made, under these conditions, of the Count
de Rochambeau was perfectly satisfactory to him, and, without
waiting for the departure of the expedition, he embarked at
Rochefort, on February the 18th, 1780, on board the frigate
Hermione, which the king had given him as being a swift
sailer. … He was anxious to inform Washington of the good news
himself, and immediately upon his landing at Boston, on April
the 28th, he hastened to Morristown to rejoin his well-beloved
and revered friend, as he called him in his letters. … General
Heath, who commanded the militia in the State of Rhode Is]and,
announced on the 11th of July, the arrival of the French
squadron to General Washington, who was then with his staff at
Bergen. La Fayette set out almost immediately, provided with
instructions from the commander-in-chief, dated the 15th, to
repair to the French general and admiral to confer with them.
For some time Washington had been considering a plan of
offensive operation for the capture of the city and the
garrison of New York. This plan, which conformed with the
wishes of the French government, was only to be carried out
upon certain conditions. First, it was necessary that the
French troops should unite with the American forces, and,
secondly, that the French should have a naval superiority over
the forces of Admirals Graves and Arbuthnot, who had effected
their junction at New York the day after the arrival of the
French at Newport. This last condition was far from being
fulfilled. … It had been foreseen that the English, who had
concentrated their land and naval forces at New York, would
not give the French time to establish themselves on Rhode
Island; and Washington informed Rochambeau that Sir Henry
Clinton was embarking his troops and would come shortly to
attack the forces of the expedition with the squadrons
assembled under the command of Admiral Arbuthnot, which were
anchored at Sandy Hook, beyond New York, at the mouth of the
Hudson River.
{3272}
The American general watched these movements, and, while he
gave frequent information to the French of the projected
attack upon them, he tried to prevent it. … At the same time,
Washington crossed the Hudson above West Point with the
greater part of his troops, and proceeded to King's Bridge, at
the northern end of the island, where he made some hostile
demonstrations. This manœuvre detained General Clinton, who
had already embarked eight thousand men upon the ships of
Arbuthnot. He landed his troops and gave up his project.
Nevertheless, the English admiral set sail and appeared before
Rhode Island with eleven ships of the line and a few frigates,
twelve days after the French had landed. … On August the 9th,
when La Fayette had returned to the headquarters of
Washington, which were at Dobb's Ferry, ten miles above King's
Bridge, on the right bank of the North River, he wrote to
Rochambeau and de Ternay an urgent dispatch, in which he
finished, in the name of the American general, by proposing to
the French generals to come at once to attempt an attack on
New York. … On the other hand, the same courier brought a
letter from Washington which made no mention of this project,
but which only replied by a kind of refusal to the request of
Rochambeau for a conference, 'wherein in an hour of
conversation they could agree upon more things than in volumes
of correspondence.' Washington said with truth that he did not
dare to leave his army in front of New York, for it might be
attacked at any moment, and that by his presence he prevented
the departure of the large body of the English forces that
might have been sent against Rhode Island. Indeed, it is
certain that if some differences had not arisen between
General Clinton and Admiral Arbuthnot, the French might have
found themselves in a dangerous position at the beginning.
From the earliest letters exchanged upon this occasion some
discord resulted between La Fayette, Rochambeau and
Washington, but, owing to the good sense of Rochambeau,
matters were soon smoothed over. He wrote in English to the
American general to ask him thereafter to address himself
directly to him, and to explain the reasons that induced him
to postpone assuming the offensive. At the same time he
urgently requested a conference. From that moment the
relations between the two leaders were excellent. The mere
presence of the French squadron and army, though they were
still paralyzed and really blockaded by Admiral Arbuthnot, had
effected a useful diversion, since the English had not been
able to profit by all the advantages resulting from the
capture of Charleston, and, instead of carrying on operations
in the Carolinas with superior forces, they had had to bring
the greater part of them back to New York."
_T. Balch,
The French in America in the War of Independence,
chapters 10-11._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (August-September).
The Treason of Benedict Arnold.
"Washington contemplated the aspect of affairs with the
greatest alarm. Doubtful if the army could be kept together
for another campaign, he was exceedingly anxious to strike
some decisive blow. He proposed to Rochambeau, commanding the
French troops at Newport, an attack upon New York; but that
was not thought feasible without a superior naval force.
Letters were sent to the French admiral in the West Indies
entreating assistance; and Washington presently proceeded to
Hartford, there to meet Rochambeau, to devise some definite
plan of operations. During Washington's absence at Hartford, a
plot came to light for betraying the important fortress of
West Point and the other posts of the Highlands into the hands
of the enemy, the traitor being no other than Arnold, the most
brilliant officer and one of the most honored in the American
army. The qualities of a brilliant soldier are unfortunately
often quite distinct from those of a virtuous man and a good
citizen. … Placed in command at Philadelphia, … he [Arnold]
lived in a style of extravagance far beyond his means, and he
endeavored to sustain it by entering into privateering and
mercantile speculations, most of which proved unsuccessful. He
was even accused of perverting his military authority to
purposes of private gain. The complaints on this point, made
to Congress by the authorities of Pennsylvania, had been at
first unheeded; but, being presently brought forward in a
solemn manner, and with some appearance of offended dignity on
the part of the Pennsylvania council, an interview took place
between a committee of that body and a committee of Congress,
which had resulted in Arnold's trial by a court martial.
Though acquitted of the more serious charges, on two points he
had been found guilty, and had been sentenced to be
reprimanded by the commander-in-chief. Arnold claimed against
the United States a large balance, growing out of the
unsettled accounts of his Canada expedition. This claim was
greatly cut down by the treasury officers and when Arnold
appealed to Congress, a committee reported that more had been
allowed than was actually due. Mortified and soured, and
complaining of public ingratitude, Arnold attempted, but
without success, to get a loan from the French minister. Some
months before, he had opened a correspondence with Sir Henry
Clinton under a feigned name, carried on through Major Andre,
adjutant general of the British army. Having at length made
himself known to his correspondents, to give importance to his
treachery, he solicited and obtained from Washington, who had
every confidence in him, the command in the Highlands, with
the very view of betraying that important position into the
hands of the enemy. To arrange the terms of the bargain, an
interview was necessary with some confidential British agent;
and Andre, though not without reluctance, finally volunteered
for that purpose. Several previous attempts having failed, the
British sloop-of-war Vulture, with Andre on board, ascended
the Hudson as far as the mouth of Croton River, some miles
below King's Ferry. Information being sent to Arnold under a
flag, the evening after Washington left West Point for
Hartford he dispatched a boat to the Vulture, which took Andre
on shore, for an interview on the west side of the river, just
below the American lines. Morning appeared before the
arrangements for the betrayal of the fortress could be
definitely completed, and Andre was reluctantly persuaded to
come within the American lines, and to remain till the next
night at the house of one Smith, a dupe or tool of Arnold's,
the same who had been employed to bring Andre from the ship.
{3273}
For some reason not very clearly explained, Smith declined to
convey Andre back to the Vulture. … Driven thus to the
necessity of returning by land, Andre laid aside his uniform,
assumed a citizen's dress, and, with a pass from Arnold in the
name of John Anderson, a name which Andre had often used in
their previous correspondence, he set off toward sunset on
horseback, with Smith for a guide. They crossed King's Ferry,
passed all the American guards in safety, and spent the night
near Crom Pond, with an acquaintance of Smith's. The next
morning, having passed Pine's Bridge, across Croton River,
Smith left Andre to pursue his way alone. The road led through
a district extending some thirty miles above the island of New
York, not included in the lines of either army, and thence
known as the 'Neutral Ground,' a populous and fertile region,
but very much infested by bands of plunderers called 'Cow
Boys' and 'Skinners.' The 'Cow Boys' lived within the British
lines, and stole or bought cattle for the supply of the
British army. The rendezvous of the 'Skinners' was within the
American lines. They professed to be great patriots, making it
their ostensible business to plunder those who refused to take
the oath of allegiance to the State of New York." On the
morning of Andre's journey, the road to Tarrytown, on which he
rode, was being guarded by a small party of men, who watched
for cattle thieves, and for suspicious travelers generally.
Three of these intercepted the unfortunate young officer and
discovered his character. Arnold received intelligence of what
had happened in time to make his escape to the Vulture. Andre
was examined before a board of which Lafayette, Steuben and
Greene were members, and on his own statements was executed as
a spy. The sympathy with him was very great, among Americans
as well as among his own countrymen; but lenity in the case
appeared too dangerous to Washington and his military
advisers.
_R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
chapter 41 (volume 3)._
ALSO IN:
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 4, chapters 2, 7, and 9-11._
_B. J. Lossing,
The Two Spies._
_J. Sparks,
Life and Treason of Benedict Arnold
(Library of American Biographies,
volume 3, chapters 8-15)._
_W. Sargent,
Life of Major John André,
chapters 11-21._
_I. N. Arnold,
Life of Benedict Arnold,
chapters 13-18._
_J. H. Smith,
Authentic Narrative of the Causes which led
to the Death of Major André._
_B. J. Lossing,
Field-book of the Revolution,
volume 1, chapters 30-32._
See, also, WEST POINT.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (August-December).
Partisan warfare in South Carolina.
Sumter and Marion.
A name "which recalls thrilling tales of desperate enterprise,
surprises at midnight, sudden attacks in the gray twilight of
morning, lurking-places in the depths of forests, restless
activity, and untiring perseverance, is the name of Thomas
Sumter. He comes before us tall, vigorous, dauntless, with a
bold bearing, and imperious brow, stern to look upon, fierce
in his self-will, arrogant in his decisions, tenacious in his
prejudices, resolute and vigorous in the execution of his own
plans, remiss and almost luke-warm in carrying out the plans
of others. Born in South Carolina just as that colony had
passed from the control of the Proprietaries to the control of
the King, he lived to see her take the first decided step
towards passing out of the Union. Little has been preserved of
his early life, although his subsequent career in the Senate
of the United States proves that he was not deficient in
education then, wherever or whenever acquired. In the
Revolution be took an early part, and soon made himself
conspicuous as a bold and enterprising officer. But it was not
till after the siege of Charleston that his talents were
brought fully into play. Then at the head of a body of
volunteers he moved rapidly from point to point, keeping alive
the hopes of the Whigs and the fears of the Tories in the
regions watered by the Broad River, the Ennoree, and the
Tiger. … History, like tradition, has her favorite characters,
on which she dwells with peculiar fondness, delighting herself
in preserving the memory of every exploit, and giving the
brightest tints to every circumstance connected with their
career. … Of these children of a happy star, no one holds in
our Revolutionary history the same place as Francis Marion.
His story, irregularly told by a friend and companion, took an
early hold upon the heart of the people; and the romantic
traits of his career, warming the imagination of a great poet,
have been recorded in beautiful verse. Impartial judgment and
sober research have left his own laurels unimpaired, although
they have dissipated the halo which tradition and fancy had
shed around his men. His life forms one of those pictures upon
which the mind loves to dwell, from the singular combination
of rare qualities which it displays. His ancestors were
Huguenot exiles, who took refuge in South Carolina, from the
dragonnades of Louis XIV. His father was a planter near
Georgetown, who, portioning out his estate to his children as
they came of age, had nothing left for Francis, the youngest,
and his next nearest brother, while they were yet children. At
sixteen Francis found himself compelled to choose a pursuit
for his support. With only a common English education, and no
money to carry him through the preparatory courses, he could
neither be a physician nor a lawyer. He resolved to be a
sailor, and started upon a voyage to the West Indies. But his
ship was burnt in a gale, and after tossing about eight days
in an open boat, without water and with nothing but the raw
flesh and skin of a single dog to eat, and seeing several of
his companions die of hunger, he, with the starving survivors,
were rescued, barely alive. He renounced the sea, returned to
Georgetown, and engaged in farming. The Cherokee war of 1759
found him hard at his work. He was now twenty-six, small in
frame, low in stature, but vigorous, active, and healthy. By
nature he was taciturn and reticent, with nothing in the
expression of his face to attract or interest a casual
observer, but still inspiring confidence and commanding
respect in those who were brought into intimate relations with
him. When, therefore, a company of volunteers was raised to
serve against the Indians, he was chosen lieutenant. In a
second expedition, which soon after became necessary, he was
made captain. Next came the War of Independence; and joining
the first South Carolina levies, he was presently made a
major; and with this rank took part in the gallant defense of
Fort Moultrie in 1776. His next promotion was to the command
of a regiment as lieutenant-colonel.
{3274}
During the siege of Charleston his leg was accidentally
broken, a lucky accident, which left him free when the city
fell, to engage in an adventurous system of warfare which was
the only possible system in that low state of our fortunes.
In the course of this he was promoted by Governor Rutledge to
a brigadiership. When he first appeared in Gates's camp, he
had but twenty men with him, or rather twenty between men and
boys. Some of them were negroes. With these he rescued 150 of
the prisoners of Camden, coming upon the British escort by
surprise and overpowering it. Early in September a body of 200
Tories attempted to surprise him. He had 53 men with him when
he heard of their intention, and instantly setting forward,
surprised an advance party of 45, killing or wounding all but
15, and then attacked the main body of 200, and put them to
flight. Before the end of the month he surprised another body
of 60 men; and in October one of 200. His force was constantly
fluctuating between 20 men and 70. Up to the 18th of October
he had never had over 70. They went and came as they chose,
their number ever ebbing and flowing like the tide. Sometimes
the very men who had fought with him were ranged in arms
against him; a few only serving from honest zeal and true love
of country. … As his slender form concealed a lion heart, so
under his cold, impassive face, there was a perpetual glow of
tender sympathies. … Without claiming for Marion those powers
of combination which belong to the highest order of military
genius, he must be allowed to have excelled in all the
qualities which form the consummate partisan,—vigilance,
promptitude, activity, energy, dauntless courage, and unshaken
self-control. … Two principles controlled all his actions, and
shaped all his ends; the love of country, pure, earnest, and
profound; the love of right, sincere, undeviating, and
incorruptible."
_G. W. Greene,
Life of Nathanael Greene,
book 4, chapter 7 (volume 3)._
"The other partisans … had been compelled to take refuge in
the mountains. Marion found his security in the swamps. This
able partisan maintained his ground below and along the Santee
river, and managed, among the defiles and swamps of that
region, to elude all the activity of his enemies. His force
had been collected chiefly among his own neighbors, were
practised in the swamps, and familiar with the country. Like
Sumter, utterly unfurnished with the means of war at first, he
procured them by similar means. He took possession of the saws
from the mills, and converted them into sabres. So much was he
distressed for ammunition that he has engaged in battle when
he had not three rounds of powder to each man of his party. …
Various were the means employed to draw off or drive away his
followers. The houses on the banks of the Pedee, Lynch's
Creek, and Black river, from whence they were chiefly taken,
were destroyed by fire, the plantations devastated, and the
negroes carried away. But the effect of this wantonness was
far other than had been intended. Revenge and despair
confirmed the patriotism of these ruined men, and strengthened
their resolution. … For months, their only shelter was the
green wood and the swamp—their only cover the broad forest and
the arch of heaven. … With a policy that nothing could
distract—a caution that no artifice could mislead—Marion led
his followers from thicket to thicket in safety, and was never
more perfectly secure than when he was in the neighborhood of
his foe. He hung upon his flanks along the march—he skirted
his camp in the darkness of the night—he lay in wait for his
foraging parties—he shot down his sentries, and, flying or
advancing, he never failed to harass the invader, and extort
from him a bloody toll at every passage through swamp,
thicket, or river, which his smaller parties made. In this
sort of warfare—which is peculiarly adapted to the
peculiarities of the country in Carolina, and consequently to
the genius of her people—he contrived almost wholly to break
up the British communications by one of the most eligible
routes between the seaboard and the interior."
_W. G. Simms,
History of South Carolina,
book 5, chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
C. B. Hartley,
Life of General Francis Marion
(Heroes and Patriots of the South),
chapters 14-15.
_W. G. Simms,
Life of Francis Marion._
_Horry and Weems,
Life of Marion._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780-1781.
Vermont as an independent State negotiating with the British.
See VERMONT: A. D. 1781.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780-1781.
Greene's campaign in the south.
King's Mountain.
The Cowpens.
Guilford Court House.
Hobkirk's Hill.
Eutaw Springs.
The British shut up in Charleston.
Cornwallis withdrawn to Virginia.
"After his victory at Camden, Lord Cornwallis found it
necessary to give his army some rest from the intense August
heat. In September he advanced into North Carolina, boasting
that he would soon conquer all the states south of the
Susquehanna river. … In traversing Mecklenburg county
Cornwallis soon found himself in a very hostile and dangerous
region, where there were no Tories to befriend him. One of his
best partisan commanders, Major Ferguson, penetrated too far
into the mountains. The back-woodsmen of Tennessee and
Kentucky, the Carolinas, and western Virginia were aroused;
and under their superb partisan leaders—Shelby, Sevier,
Cleaveland, McDowell, Campbell, and Williams—gave chase to
Ferguson, who took refuge upon what he deemed an impregnable
position on the top of King's Mountain. On the 7th of October
the backwoodsmen stormed the mountain, Ferguson was shot
through the heart, 400 of his men were killed and wounded, and
all the rest, 700 in number, surrendered at discretion. The
Americans lost 28 killed and 60 wounded. … In the series of
events which led to the surrender of Cornwallis, the battle of
King's Mountain played a part similar to that played by the
battle of Bennington in the series of events which led to the
surrender of Burgoyne. It was the enemy's first serious
disaster, and its immediate result was to check his progress
until the Americans could muster strength enough to overthrow
him. The events, however, were much more complicated in
Cornwallis's case, and took much longer to unfold themselves.
… As soon as he heard the news of the disaster he fell back to
Winnsborough, in South Carolina, and called for
reinforcements. While they were arriving, the American army,
recruited and reorganized since its crushing defeat at Camden,
advanced into Mecklenburg county. Gates was superseded by
Greene, who arrived upon the scene on the 2d of December.
Under Greene were three Virginians of remarkable
ability,—Daniel Morgan; William Washington, who was a distant
cousin of the commander-in-chief; and Henry Lee, familiarly
known as 'Light-horse Harry,' father of the great general,
Robert Edward Lee.
{3275}
The little army numbered only 2,000 men, but a considerable
part of them were disciplined veterans, fully a match for the
British infantry." To increase this small force, Baron
Steuben, the military organizer and disciplinarian of the
Revolutionary armies, was sent down to Virginia, for the
purpose of recruiting and organizing troops.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER).
Thereupon detachments from the British army at New York were
dispatched by sea to Virginia, and Arnold, the traitor, was
given command of them. "The presence of these subsidiary
forces in Virginia was soon to influence in a decisive way the
course of events. Greene, on reaching South Carolina, acted
with boldness and originality. He divided his little army into
two bodies, one of which cooperated with Marion's partisans in
the northeastern part of the state, and threatened
Cornwallis's communications with the coast. The other body he
sent under Morgan to the southwestward, to threaten the inland
posts and their garrisons. Thus worried on both flanks,
Cornwallis presently divided his own force, sending Tarleton
with 1,100 men to dispose of Morgan. Tarleton came up with
Morgan on the 17th of January, 1781, at a grazing-ground known
as the Cowpens, not far from King's Mountain. The battle which
ensued was well fought, and on Morgan's part it was a
wonderful piece of tactics. With only 900 men in open field he
surrounded and nearly annihilated a superior force. The
British lost 230 in killed and wounded, 600 prisoners, and all
their guns. Tarleton escaped with 270 men. The Americans lost
12 killed and 61 wounded. The two battles, King's Mountain and
the Cowpens, deprived Cornwallis of nearly all his light-armed
troops, and he was just entering upon a game where swiftness
was especially required. It was his object to intercept Morgan
and defeat him before he could effect a junction with the
other part of the American army. It was Greene's object to
march the two parts of his army in converging directions
northwards across North Carolina and unite them in spite of
Cornwallis. By moving in this direction Greene was always
getting nearer to his reinforcements from Virginia, while
Cornwallis was always getting further from his supports in
South Carolina. … The two wings of the American army came
together and were joined by the reinforcements; so that at
Guilford Court House, on the 15th of March, Cornwallis found
himself obliged to fight against heavy odds, 200 miles from
the coast and almost as far from the nearest point in South
Carolina at which he could get support. The battle of Guilford
was admirably managed by both commanders and stubbornly fought
by the troops. At nightfall the British held the field, with
the loss of nearly one third of their number, and the
Americans were repulsed. But Cornwallis could not stay in such
a place, and could not afford to risk another battle. There
was nothing for him to do but retreat to Wilmington, the
nearest point on the coast. There he stopped and pondered. His
own force was sadly depleted, but he knew that Arnold in
Virginia was being heavily reinforced from New York. The only
safe course seemed to march northward and join the operations
in Virginia; then afterwards to return southward. This course
Cornwallis pursued, arriving at Petersburg and taking command
of the troops there on the 20th of May. Meanwhile Greene,
after pursuing Cornwallis for about 50 miles from Guilford,
faced about and marched with all speed upon Camden, 160 miles
distant. … Lord Rawdon held Camden. Greene stopped at
Hobkirk's Hill, two miles to the north, and sent Marion and
Lee to take Fort Watson, and thus cut the enemy's
communications with the coast. On April 23 Fort Watson
surrendered; on the 25th Rawdon defeated Greene at Hobkirk's
Hill, but as his communications were cut the victory did him
no good. He was obliged to retreat toward the coast, and
Greene took Camden on the 10th of May. Having thus obtained
the commanding point, Greene went on until he had reduced
every one of the inland posts. At last, on the 8th of
September, he fought an obstinate battle at Eutaw Springs, in
which both sides claimed the victory. … Here, however, as
always after one of Greene's battles, it was the enemy who
retreated and he who pursued. His strategy never failed. After
Eutaw Springs the British remained shut up in Charleston under
cover of their ships, and the American government was
reëstablished over South Carolina. Among all the campaigns in
history that have been conducted with small armies, there have
been few, if any, more brilliant than Greene's."
_J. Fiske,
The War of Independence,
chapter 7._
ALSO IN:
_J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
chapter 15 (volume 2)._
_H. B. Carrington,
Battles of the American Revolution,
chapters 65-71._
_G. W. Greene,
Life of Nathanael Greene,
volume 3, chapters 1-23._
_L. C. Draper,
King's Mountain and its Heroes._
_H. Lee,
Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department,
chapters 18-34._
_J. Graham,
Life of General Daniel Morgan,
chapters 13-17._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781 (January).
The Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line.
"As the year 1781 opened and the prospect of a new year of
struggle became certain, and the invasion of the Southern
States began to indicate the prospect of a southern campaign,
which was at all times unpopular with northern troops, a
disaffection was developed which at last broke forth in open
mutiny, and a peremptory demand for discharge. This irritation
was aggravated by hunger, cold, and poverty. Marshall says:
'The winter brought not much relaxation from toil, and none
from suffering. The soldiers were perpetually on the point of
starvation, were often entirely without food, were exposed
without proper clothing to the rigors of winter; and had now
served almost twelve months without pay.' … On the 1st of
January the Pennsylvania line revolted; Captain Billings was
killed in an attempt to suppress the mutiny; General Wayne was
powerless to restore order, and 1,300 men, with six guns,
started to Princeton, with the declared purpose to march to
Philadelphia, and obtain redress. They demanded clothing, the
residue of their bounty, and full arrears of pay. A committee
from Congress and the State authorities of Pennsylvania at
once entered into negotiations with the troops for terms of
compromise. The American Commander-in-chief was then at New
Windsor. A messenger from General Wayne informed him on the 3d
of January of the revolt, and the terms demanded. It appears
from Washington's letters that it was his impulse, at the
first intimation of the trouble, to go in person and attempt
its control. His second impression was to reserve his
influence and authority until all other means were exhausted.
{3276}
The complaint of the mutineers was but a statement of the
condition of all the army, so far as the soldiers had served
three years; and the suffering and failure to receive pay were
absolutely universal. Leaving the preliminary discussion with
the civil authorities who were responsible for much of the
trouble, the Commander-in-chief appealed to the Governors of
the northern States for a force of militia to meet any attacks
from New York, and declined to interfere until he found that
the passion had passed and he could find troops who would at
all hazards execute his will. It was one of the most difficult
passages in the war, and was so handled that the
Commander-in-chief retained his prestige and regained control
of the army. … General Clinton received information of the
revolt as early as Washington, on the morning of the 23d, and
sent messengers to the American army with propositions,
looking to their return to British allegiance. He entirely
misconceived the nature of the disaffection, and his agents
were retained in custody. It is sufficient to say that a
portion of the troops were discharged without critical
examination of their enlistments, on their own oath; that many
promptly reenlisted, that as soon as Washington found that he
had troops who did not share in the open mutiny, he used force
and suppressed the disaffection, and that the soldiers
themselves hung several agents who brought propositions from
General Clinton which invited them to abandon their flag and
join his command. The mutiny of the American army at the
opening of the campaign of 1781, was a natural outbreak which
human nature could not resist, and whatever of discredit may
attach to the revolt, it will never be unassociated with the
fact that, while the emergency was one that overwhelmed every
military obligation by its pressure, it did not affect the
fealty of the soldiers to the cause for which they took up
arms. … La Fayette thus wrote to his wife, 'Human patience has
its limits. No European army would suffer the tenth part of
what the Americans suffer. It takes citizens to support
hunger, nakedness, toil, and the total want of pay, which
constitute the condition of our soldiers, the hardiest and
most patient that are to be found in the world.'"
_H. B. Carrington,
Battles of the American Revolution,
chapter 67._
ALSO IN:
_W. H. Egle,
History of Pennsylvania,
chapter 12._
_C. J. Stillé,
Major-General Anthony Wayne,
chapter 6._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781 (January-May).
Benedict Arnold and the British in Virginia.
Opening of Lafayette's campaign in that state.
"In January, 1781, the news reached headquarters in the
Highlands of New York that General [Benedict] Arnold had
landed in Virginia with a considerable force, was laying waste
the country, and had already destroyed the valuable stores
collected at Richmond; opposed to him were only the small
commands of Steuben and Muhlenberg. The situation was very
alarming, and threatened to place all the Southern States in
the hands of the British. If Arnold succeeded in destroying
the few American troops in Virginia, he could then march to
the assistance of Cornwallis, who, with a superior force, was
pressing General Greene very hard in the Carolinas. To defeat
or capture Arnold before he could further prosecute his
designs was, therefore, of the utmost importance. For this
purpose it was necessary to send a detachment from the main
army against Arnold by land, and a naval force to Chesapeake
Bay to prevent his escape by sea. Washington at once
communicated the state of affairs to Rochambeau, who, with the
French fleet, had long been blockaded at Newport. Taking
advantage of the serious injuries lately suffered by the
blockading English fleet in consequence of a storm, Admiral
Destouches despatched M. de Tilly to the Chesapeake with a
ship-of-the-line and two frigates. To cooperate with these
French vessels, Washington detached 1,200 light infantry from
the main army, and placed them under the command of Lafayette.
That officer was particularly chosen for this important trust,
because the confidence reposed in him by both the American and
French troops made him, in Washington's opinion, the fittest
person to conduct a combined expedition. Thus opened the only
campaign in America which afforded Lafayette an opportunity to
show what abilities he possessed as an independent commander,
and on this campaign his military reputation must chiefly
rest. Lafayette moved rapidly southward," to Annapolis; but,
the coöperating movement of the French fleet having, meantime,
been frustrated by an attack from the English squadron, his
instructions required him to abandon the expedition and
return. He had already set his troops in motion northward when
different instructions reached him. Two more British regiments
had been sent to Virginia, under General Philips, who now took
command of all the forces there, and this had increased the
anxiety of Washington. "The situation of the Southern States
had become extremely perilous. General Greene had all he could
do to fight Lord Cornwallis's superior force in North
Carolina. Unless a vigorous opposition could be made to
Philips, he would have no difficulty in dispersing the militia
of Virginia, and in effecting a junction with Cornwallis.
With their forces so combined, the British would be masters in
the South. Washington at once determined to place the defence
of Virginia in Lafayette's hands. … Lafayette marched with
such rapidity … that he reached Richmond, where there were
valuable stores to be protected, a day in advance of General
Philips. From his post on the heights of the town he saw the
British set fire to the tobacco warehouses at Manchester, just
across the river, but there were neither men nor boats enough
to make an attack possible. Philips, on his part, was too much
impressed with the show of strength made by the Americans to
prosecute his plans on Richmond, and retreating down the James
river, burning and laying waste as he went, he camped at Hog
Island. Lafayette followed, harassing the enemy's rear, as far
as the Chickahominy. Here the situation underwent a
considerable change. Lord Cornwallis, after his long and
unsuccessful campaign against Greene in North Carolina, made
up his mind that his exhausting labors there would prove
unprofitable until Virginia should be subjugated. His men were
worn out with incessant marching and fighting, while no
substantial advantage had been gained. Hearing that General
Greene had marched to attack Lord Rawdon at Camden in South
Carolina, he determined to join Philips.
{3277}
That officer, accordingly, received orders while at Hog Island
to take possession of Petersburg and there await Cornwallis's
arrival. … On the 13th of May, General Philips died at
Petersburg of a fever. … Cornwallis arrived at Petersburg on
the 20th of May. His forces now amounted to over 5,000 men,
which number was soon increased to 8,000."
_B. Tuckerman,
Life of Lafayette,
chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_J. E. Cooke,
Virginia,
part 3, chapter 17._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781 (May-October).
Cornwallis in Virginia and the trap into which he fell.
Siege of Yorktown by the French and Americans.
Surrender of the British army.
"On the 24th of May, Cornwallis, having rested his troops,
marched from Petersburg, and endeavored to engage the American
forces. But Lafayette, having removed the military stores from
Richmond, retreated across the Chickahominy to Fredericksburg,
where he expected to meet General Wayne and a battalion of
Pennsylvania troops, without whose assistance he could not
venture any fighting. … Cornwallis … moved between Lafayette
and the town of Albemarle, where had been placed a great part
of the military stores from Richmond, which now seemed doomed
to destruction. But on the 10th of June Lafayette had received
his expected reënforcement of Wayne's Pennsylvanians, and thus
strengthened felt able to assume the offensive. Rapidly
crossing the Rapidan he approached close to the British army
which blocked the road to Albemarle. Nothing could have better
suited Cornwallis, who prepared for a conflict in which he
felt sure of a decisive victory. Lafayette, however, had not
lost sight of the vital feature of his campaign,—to protect
the property of the State without losing his army. Through his
scouts he discovered an old unused road to Albemarle, unknown
to the enemy. While Cornwallis was preparing for battle, he
had the road cleared, and under cover of the night marched his
men through it and took up a strong position before the town.
There he was joined by militia from the neighboring mountains,
and he showed so strong a front that the British commander did
not venture an attack. … The British commander, so far foiled
in his objects, had to march back to Richmond and thence to
Williamsburg, near the coast, thus practically abandoning
control over any part of Virginia except where naval forces
gave possession. Lafayette effected a junction with Baron
Steuben on the 18th of June, and thus increased his force to
about four thousand men. The Americans had now become the
pursuers instead of the pursued, and followed the British,
harassing their rear and flanks."
_B. Tuckerman,
Life of General Lafayette,
volume 1, chapter 6._
"There now came a pause in the Virginia Campaign, at least in
daily operations and excitements. The State north of the James
was relieved. Cornwallis crossed to the south side, at Cobham,
on the 7th [July]; and Lafayette, retiring up the river,
encamped, about the 20th, on the now historic Malvern Hill,
then described as one of the healthiest and best watered spots
in the State. … The entire British army was soon after
concentrated at Portsmouth, and preparations made to transport
a considerable portion of it to New York. Lafayette,
meanwhile, at Malvern Hill, could only await developments. He
thought of sending re-enforcements to Greene, and asked
Washington if, in case Cornwallis left Virginia, he might not
return to the Northern army. … But while the marquis and
Washington and Greene were speculating on the future movements
of Cornwallis and were persuaded, from embarkations at
Portsmouth, that he was to be deprived of a large part of his
force by Clinton, unexpected intelligence came to hand.
Instead of any part going to New York, the British force
suddenly made its appearance, during the first days in August,
at Yorktown, on the Virginia peninsula, which it had abandoned
but three weeks before. Here again was a new situation.
Cornwallis, at last, at Yorktown—the spot he was not to leave
except as a prisoner of war. Why he went there is a simple
explanation. Clinton decided, upon certain dissenting opinions
expressed by Cornwallis respecting the situation in Virginia,
not to withdraw the force in the Chesapeake which he had
called for, and which was about to sail for New York, but
permitted Cornwallis to retain the whole—all with which he had
been pursuing Lafayette and the large garrison at Portsmouth,
a total of about seven thousand, rank and file. His new
instructions, conveyed at the same time, were to the effect
that his Lordship should abandon Portsmouth, which both
generals agreed was too unhealthy for the troops, and fortify
Old Point Comfort, where Fort Monroe now stands, as a naval
station for the protection of the British shipping. In
addition, if it appeared necessary, for the better security of
the Point, to occupy Yorktown also, that was to be done.
Obeying these instructions, Cornwallis ordered a survey of Old
Point Comfort; but, upon the report of his engineers, was
obliged to represent to Clinton that it was wholly unfit and
inadequate for a naval station, as it afforded little
protection for ships, and could not command the channel, on
account of its great width. Then, following what he believed
to be the spirit of his orders, Cornwallis, before hearing
from Clinton, moved up to Yorktown, and began to fortify it in
connection with Gloucester, on the opposite shore, as the best
available naval station. Clinton made no subsequent
objections, and there Cornwallis remained until his surrender.
His occupation of the place was simply an incident of the
campaign—a move taken for convenience and in the interests of
the navy and the health of his command."
_H. P. Johnston,
The Yorktown Campaign,
chapter 3._
"The march of Lord Cornwallis into Virginia was the first
emphatic fact which enabled General Washington to plan an
efficient offensive. The repeated detachment of troops from
New York so sensibly lessened the capacity of its garrison for
extensive field service at the north, that the American
Commander-in-chief determined to attack that post, and as a
secondary purpose, thereby to divert General Clinton from
giving further aid to troops in the Southern States. As a
matter of fact, the prudent conduct of the Virginia campaign
eventually rallied to the support of General La Fayette an
army, including militia, nearly as large as that of
Washington, and the nominal strength of the allied army near
Yorktown, early in September, was nearly or quite as great as
that of Lord Cornwallis. There were other elements which, as
in previous campaigns, hampered operations at the north. The
Indians were still troublesome in Western New York, and the
Canadian frontier continued to demand attention. The American
navy had practically disappeared.
{3278}
The scarcity of money and a powerless recruiting service,
increased the difficulties of carrying on the war in a manner
that would use to the best advantage the troops of France. …
The position of the American Commander-in-chief at this time
was one of peculiar personal mortification. Appeals to State
authorities failed to fill up his army. Three thousand Hessian
reinforcements had landed at New York, and the government as
well as himself would be compromised before the whole world by
failure to meet the just demands which the French auxiliaries
had a right to press upon his attention. Relief came most
opportunely. The frigate Concorde arrived at Newport, and a
reiteration of the purpose of Count de Grasse to leave St.
Domingo on the 3d of August, for the Chesapeake direct, was
announced by a special messenger. The possibilities of the
future at once quickened him to immediate action. With a
reticence so close that the army could not fathom his plans,
he re-organized his forces for a false demonstration against
New York and a real movement upon Yorktown. … Letters to the
Governors of northern States called for aid as if to capture
New York. Letters to La Fayette and the Count de Grasse
embodied such intimations of his plans as would induce proper
caution to prevent the escape of Lord Cornwallis, and secure
transportation at Head of Elk. Other letters to authorities in
New Jersey and Philadelphia, expressly defining a plan of
operations against New York via Staten Island, with the
assurance of ample naval support, were exposed to interception
and fell into the hands of General Clinton. As late as the
19th, the roads leading to King's Bridge were cleared of
obstructions, and the army was put in readiness to advance
against New York Island. On the same day the New Jersey
regiment and that of Colonel Hazen crossed the Hudson at
Dobb's Ferry, to threaten Staten Island, and ostensibly to
cover some bake-houses which were being erected for the
purpose of giving color to the show of operations against New
York. The plan of a large encampment had been prepared, which
embraced Springfield and the Chatham Pass to Morristown, and
this was allowed to find its way to Clinton's headquarters.
General Heath was assigned to command of the Hudson-river
posts, with two regiments from New Hampshire, ten from
Massachusetts, five from Connecticut, the Third artillery,
Sheldon's dragoons, the invalid corps, all local companies,
and the militia. The following forces were selected to
accompany the Commander-in-chief, viz., the light infantry
under Colonel Scammel, four light companies from New York and
Connecticut, the Rhode Island regiment, under the new army
establishment, two New York regiments, that of New Jersey and
Hazen's regiment, (the last two already across the Hudson) and
Lamb's artillery, in all about 2,000 men. The American troops
crossed on the 21st, at King's Ferry, and encamped near
Haverstraw. The French army followed, and the army was united
on the 25th. … General Washington and suite reached
Philadelphia about noon, August 30th. The army had already
realized the fact that they were destined southward. Some
dissatisfaction was manifested; but Count de Rochambeau
advanced $20,000 in gold upon the pledge of Robert Morris that
he would refund the sum by the 1st of October, and the effect
upon the troops, who had long been without any pay, was
inspiring."
_H. B. Carrington,
Battles of the American Revolution,
chapter 74._
"Leaving Philadelphia, with the Army, on the 5th of September,
Washington meets an express near Chester, announcing the
arrival, in Chesapeake Bay, of the Count de Grasse, with a
fleet of twenty-eight ships of the line, and with 3,500
additional French troops, under the command of the Marquis de
St. Simon, who had already been landed at Jamestown, with
orders to join the Marquis de La Fayette! 'The joy' says the
Count William de Deux-Ponts, in his precious journal, 'the joy
which this welcome news produces among all the troops, and
which penetrates General Washington and the Count de
Rochambeau, is more easy to feel than to express.' But, in a
foot-note to that passage, he does express and describe it, in
terms which cannot be spared and could not be surpassed, and
which add a new and charming illustration of the emotional
side of Washington's nature. 'I have been equally surprised
and touched,' says the gallant Deux-Ponts, 'at the true and
pure joy of General Washington. Of a natural coldness and of a
serious and noble approach, which in him is only true dignity,
and which adorn so well the chief of a whole nation, his
features, his physiognomy, his deportment, all were changed in
an instant. He put aside his character as arbiter of North
America, and contented himself for a moment with that of a
citizen, happy at the good fortune of his country. A child,
whose every wish had been gratified, would not have
experienced a sensation more lively, and I believe I am doing
honor to the feelings of this rare man in endeavoring to
express all their ardor.' Thanks to God, thanks to France,
from all our hearts at this hour, for 'this true and pure joy'
which lightened the heart, and at once dispelled the anxieties
of our incomparable leader. It may be true that Washington
seldom smiled after he had accepted the command of our
Revolutionary Army, but it is clear that on the 5th of
September he not only smiled but played the boy. … 'All now
went merry,' with him, 'as a marriage bell.' Under the
immediate influence of this joy, which he had returned for a
few hours to Philadelphia to communicate in person to
Congress, … and while the Allied Armies are hurrying
southward, he makes a hasty trip with Colonel Humphreys to his
beloved Mount Vernon and his more beloved wife—his first visit
home since he left it for Cambridge in 1775. Rochambeau, with
his suite, joins him there on the 10th, and Chastellux and his
aids on the 11th; and there with Mrs. Washington, he dispenses
for two days, 'a princely hospitality' to his foreign guests.
But the 13th finds them all on their way to rejoin the Army at
Williamsburg, where they arrive on the 15th, 'to the great joy
of the troops and the people,' and where they dine with the
Marquis de St. Simon. On the 18th Washington and Rochambeau,
with Knox and Chastellux and Du Portail, and with two of
Washington's aids, Colonel Cobb of Massachusetts, and Colonel
Jonathan Trumbull, jr., of Connecticut, embark on the
'Princess Charlotte' for a visit to the French fleet. … A few
days more are spent at Williamsburg on their return, where
they find General Lincoln already arrived with a part of the
troops from the North, having hurried them as Washington
besought him, 'on the wings of speed,' and where the word is
soon given, 'On, on, to York and Gloucester!'
{3279}
Washington takes his share of the exposure of this march, and
the night of the 28th of September finds him, with all his
military family, sleeping in an open field within two miles of
Yorktown, without any other covering, as the journal of one of
his aids states, 'than the canopy of the heavens, and the
small spreading branches of a tree,' which the writer predicts
'will probably be rendered venerable from this circumstance
for a length of time to come.' … Everything now hurries,
almost with the rush of a Niagara cataract, to the grand fall
of Arbitrary Power in America. Lord Cornwallis had taken post
here at Yorktown as early as the 4th of August, after being
foiled so often by 'that boy' as he called La Fayette, whose
Virginia campaign of four months was the most effective
preparation for all that was to follow, and who, with singular
foresight, perceived at once that his lordship was now fairly
entrapped, and wrote to Washington, as early as the 21st of
August, that 'the British army must be forced to surrender.'
Day by day, night by night, that prediction presses forward to
its fulfillment. The 1st of October finds our engineers
reconnoitering the position and works of the enemy. The 2d
witnesses the gallantry of the Duke de Lauzun and his legion
in driving back Tarleton, whose raids had so long been the
terror of Virginia and the Carolinas. On the 6th, the Allied
Armies broke ground for their first parallel, and proceeded to
mount their batteries on the 7th and 8th. On the 9th, two
batteries were opened—Washington himself applying the torch to
the first gun; and on the 10th three or four more were in
play—silencing the enemy's works, and making,' says the
little diary of Colonel Cobb, 'most noble music.' On the 11th,
the indefatigable Baron Steuben was breaking the ground for
our second parallel, within less than four hundred yards of
the enemy, which was finished the next morning, and more
batteries mounted on the 13th and 14th. But the great
achievement of the siege still awaits its accomplishment. Two
formidable British advanced redoubts are blocking the way to
any further approach, and they must be stormed. The allied
troops divide the danger and the glory between them, and
emulate each other in the assault. One of these redoubts is
assigned to the French grenadiers and chasseurs, under the
general command of the Baron de Viomesnil. The other is
assigned to the American light infantry, under the general
command of La Fayette. But the detail of special leaders to
conduct the two assaults remains to be arranged. Viomesnil
readily designates the brave Count William to lead the French
storming party, who, though he came off from his victory
wounded, counts it 'the happiest day of his life.' A question
arises as to the American party, which is soon solved by the
impetuous but just demand of our young Alexander Hamilton to
lead it. And lead it he did, with an intrepidity, a heroism,
and a dash unsurpassed in the whole history of the war. … Both
redoubts were soon captured; and these brilliant actions
virtually sealed the fate of Cornwallis. 'A small and
precipitate sortie,' as Washington calls it, was made by the
British on the following evening, resulting in nothing; and
the next day a vain attempt to evacuate their works, and to
escape by crossing over to Gloucester, was defeated by a
violent and, for us … most providential storm of rain and
wind. … A suspension of hostilities, to arrange terms of
capitulation, was proposed by Cornwallis on the 17th; the 18th
was occupied at Moore's House in settling those terms; and on
the 19th the articles were signed by which the garrison of
York and Gloucester, together with all the officers and seamen
of the British ships in the Chesapeake, 'surrender themselves
Prisoners of War to the Combined Forces of America and
France.'"
_Robert C. Winthrop,
Address at the Centennial Celebration of the Surrender
of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Oct. 19, 1881._
ALSO IN:
_Marquis Cornwallis,
Correspondence,
volume 1, chapters 4-5._
_Marquis Cornwallis,
Answer to Sir H. Clinton._
_Count de Deux-Ponts,
My Campaigns in America, 1781._
_T. Balch,
The French in America during the War of Independence,
chapters 13-22._
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 4, chapter 25-26, and 28._
_George Washington,
Writings, edited by W. C. Ford,
volume 9._
_C. Tower,
The Marquis de La Fayette in the American Revolution,
volume 2, chapters 25-28._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A, D, 1781-1782.
Practical suspension of hostilities.
Difficulty of maintaining the army.
Financial distress of the country.
"Immediately after the surrender of Yorktown Washington
returned with his army to the vicinity of New York [see
NEWBURGH], but he felt himself far too weak to attempt its
capture, and hostilities were restricted to a few indecisive
skirmishes or predatory enterprises. It is curious to notice
how far from sanguine Washington appeared even after the event
which in the eyes of most men, outside America, had determined
the contest without appeal. It was still impossible, he
maintained, to do anything decisive unless the sea were
commanded by a naval force hostile to England, and France
alone could provide this force. The difficulties of
maintaining the army were unabated. 'All my accounts,' he
wrote in April 1782, 'respecting the recruiting service are
unfavourable; indeed, not a single recruit has arrived to my
knowledge from any State except Rhode Island, in consequence
of the requisitions of Congress in December last.' He strongly
urged the impossibility of recruiting the army by voluntary
enlistment, and recommended that, in addition to the
compulsory enrolment of Americans, German prisoners should be
taken into the army. Silas Deane, in private letters,
expressed at this time his belief that it would be utterly
impossible to maintain the American army for another year; and
even after the surrender of Cornwallis, no less a person than
Sir Henry Clinton assured the Government that, with a
reinforcement of only 10,000 men he would be responsible for
the conquest of America. … Credit was gone, and the troops had
long been unpaid. 'The long sufferance of the army,' wrote
Washington in October 1782, 'is almost exhausted. It is high
time for a peace.' Nothing, indeed, except the great
influence, the admirable moderation and good sense, and the
perfect integrity of Washington could have restrained the army
from open revolt. … Holland, immediately after the surrender
of Yorktown, had recognised the independence of America, which
had as yet only been recognised by France. John Adams was
received as representative at the Hague, and after several
abortive efforts he succeeded in raising a Dutch loan. France,
as her ablest ministers well knew, was drifting rapidly
towards bankruptcy, yet two American loans, amounting together
to £600,000, were extorted in the last year of the war.
{3280}
Up to the very eve of the formal signature of peace, and long
after the virtual termination of the war, the Americans found
it necessary to besiege the French Court for money. As late as
December 5, 1782, Franklin wrote from Paris to Livingston
complaining of the humiliating duty which was imposed on him.
… The reply of Livingston was dated January 6, 1783, and it
paints vividly the extreme distress in America. 'I see the
force,' he writes, 'of your objections to soliciting the
additional twelve millions, and I feel very sensibly the
weight of our obligations to France, but every sentiment of
this kind must give way to our necessities. It is not for the
interest of our allies to lose the benefit of all they have
done by refusing to make a small addition to it. … The army
demand with importunity their arrears of pay. The treasury is
empty, and no adequate means of filling it presents itself.
The people pant for peace; should contributions be exacted, as
they have hitherto been, at the point of the sword, the
consequences may be more dreadful than is at present
apprehended. I do not pretend to justify the negligence of the
States in not providing greater supplies. Some of them might
do more than they have done; none of them all that is
required. It is my duty to confide to you, that if the war is
continued in this country, it must be in a great measure at
the expense of France. If peace is made, a loan will be
absolutely necessary to enable us to discharge the army, that
will not easily separate without pay.' It was evident that the
time for peace had come. The predatory expeditions which still
continued in America could only exasperate still further both
nations, and there were some signs—especially in the conflicts
between loyalists and revolutionists—that they were having
this effect. England had declared herself ready to concede the
independence America demanded. Georgia and South Carolina,
where the English had found so many faithful friends, were
abandoned in the latter half of 1782, and the whole force of
the Crown was now concentrated at New York and in Canada.
France and Spain for a time wished to protract negotiations in
hopes that Rodney might be crushed, that Jamaica and
afterwards Gibraltar might be captured; but all these hopes
had successively vanished. … If the war continued much longer
America would almost certainly drop away, and France, and
perhaps Spain, become bankrupt."
_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 15 (volume 4)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.
The cession of Western Territory
by the States to the Federal Union.
The Western Reserve of Connecticut.
Although the Articles of Confederation were adopted by
Congress in 1777 and ratified immediately by most of the
States, it was not until 1781 that they became operative by
the assent of all. "New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland held out
against ratifying them for from two to four years. The secret
of their resistance was in the claims to the western
territory. … The three recalcitrant States had always had
fixed western boundaries, and had no legal claim to a share in
the western territory. … New Jersey and Delaware gave up the
struggle in 1778 and 1779; but Maryland would not and did not
yield, until her claims were satisfied. Dr. H. B. Adams has
shown that the whole question of real nationality for the
United States was bound up in this western territory; that
even a 'league government' could not continue long to govern a
great and growing territory like this without developing into
a real national government, even without a change of strict
law; and that the Maryland leaders were working under a
complete consciousness of these facts."
_A. Johnston,
The United States: Its History and Constitution,
sections 89-90._
The western claims of Virginia were the most sweeping and were
founded upon the oldest historical document. "The charter
granted by James I. to South Virginia, in 1600 [see VIRGINIA:
A. D. 1609-1616] … embraced the entire north-west of North
America, and, within certain limits, all the islands along the
coast of the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. … The following is
the grant: 'All those lands, countries and territories
situate, lying and being in that part of America called
Virginia, from the point of land called Cape or Point Comfort,
all along the sea-coast to the northward 200 miles; and from
the said Point or Cape Comfort, all along the sea-coast to the
southward 200 miles; and all that space and circuit of land
lying from the sea-coast of the precinct aforesaid, up into
the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and north-west; and
also all the islands lying within 100 miles along the coast of
both seas of the precinct aforesaid.' The extraordinary
ambiguity of this grant of 1609, which was always appealed to
as a legal title by Virginia, was first shown by Thomas Paine.
… The chief ambiguity … lay in the interpretation of the words
'up into the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and
north-west.' From which point was the north-west line to be
drawn, from the point on the sea-coast 200 miles above, or
from the point 200 miles below Cape Comfort? … The more
favorable interpretation for Virginia and, perhaps, in view of
the expression 'from sea to sea,' more natural interpretation,
was to draw the north-western line from the point on the
sea-coast 200 miles above Point Comfort, and the western line
from the southern limit below Point Comfort. This gave
Virginia the greater part, at least, of the entire north-west,
for the lines diverged continually. … At the outbreak of the
Revolution, Virginia had annexed the 'County of Kentucky' to
the Old Dominion, and, in 1778, after the capture of the
military posts in the north-west by Colonel George Rogers
Clarke, … that enterprising State proceeded to annex the lands
beyond the Ohio, under the name of the County of Illinois
See, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779,
CLARKE'S CONQUEST.
The military claims of Virginia were certainly very strong,
but it was felt by the smaller States that an equitable
consideration for the services of other colonies in defending
the back country from the French, ought to induce Virginia to
dispose of a portion of her western territory for the common
good. It is easy now to conceive how royal grants to
Massachusetts and Connecticut of lands stretching from ocean
to ocean, must have conflicted with the charter claims and
military title of Virginia to the great north-west. … The
claims of Massachusetts were based upon the charter granted by
William and Mary, in 1691, and those of Connecticut upon the
charter granted by Charles II., in 1662. …
{3281}
The former's claim embraced the lands which now lie in
southern Michigan and Wisconsin, or, in other words, the
region comprehended by the extension westward of her present
southern boundary and of her ancient northern limit, which was
'the latitude of a league north of the inflow of Lake
Winnipiseogee in New Hampshire. The western claims of
Connecticut [the zone lying between her northern and southern
boundaries—41° and 42° 2' north latitude—extended westward]
covered portions of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. …
The extension of charter boundaries over the far west by
Massachusetts and Connecticut led to no trespass on the
intervening charter claims of New York. Connecticut fell into
a serious controversy, however, with Pennsylvania, in regard
to the possession of certain lands in the northern part of the
latter State, but the dispute, when brought before a court
appointed by Congress, was finally decided in favor of
Pennsylvania. But in the western country, Massachusetts and
Connecticut were determined to assert their chartered rights
against Virginia and the treaty claims of New York; for, by
virtue of various treaties with the Six Nations and allies,
the latter State was asserting jurisdiction over the entire
region between Lake Erie and the Cumberland mountains, or, in
other words, Ohio and a portion of Kentucky. These claims were
strengthened by the following facts: First, that the chartered
rights of New York were merged in the Crown by the accession
to the throne, in 1685, of the Duke of York as James II.;
again, that the Six Nations and tributaries had put themselves
under the protection of England, and that they had always been
treated by the Crown as appendant to the government of New
York; moreover, in the third place, the citizens of that State
had borne the burden of protecting these Indians for over a
hundred years. New York was the great rival of Virginia in the
strength and magnitude of her western claims." In 1780,
Maryland still insisting upon the surrender of these western
land claims to the federal government, and refusing to ratify
the Articles of Confederation until such cession was made, the
claimant States began to yield to her firmness. On the 1st of
March, 1781, the offer of New York to cede her claims,
providing Congress would confirm her western boundary, was
made in Congress. "On that very day, Maryland ratified the
Articles and the first legal union of the United States was
complete. The coincidence in dates is too striking to admit of
any other explanation than that Maryland and New York were
acting with a mutual understanding. … The offer of Virginia,
reserving to herself jurisdiction over the County of Kentucky;
the offer of Connecticut, withholding jurisdiction over all
her back lands; and the offer of New York, untrammeled by
burdensome conditions and conferring upon Congress complete
jurisdiction over her entire western territory,—these three
offers were now prominently before the country. … On the 29th
of October, 1782, Mr. Daniel Carroll, of Maryland, moved that
Congress accept the right, title, jurisdiction, and claim of
New York, as ceded by the agents of that state on the first of
March, 1781. … On the 13th day of September, 1783, it was
voted by Congress to accept the cession offered by Virginia,
of the territory north-west of the Ohio, provided that state
would waive the obnoxious conditions concerning the guaranty
of Virginia's boundary, and the annulling of all other titles
to the north-west territory. Virginia modified her conditions
as requested, and on the 20th of October, 1783, empowered her
delegates in Congress to make the cession, which was done by
Thomas Jefferson, and others, March 1, 1784."
_H. B. Adams,
Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, 3d series, Number 1),
pages 9-11, 19-22, 36-39._
The Massachusetts deed of cession was executed April 19, 1785.
It conveyed the right and title of the state to all lands
"west of a meridian line drawn through the western bent or
inclination of Lake Ontario, provided such line should fall 20
miles or more west of the western limit of the Niagara River"
—that being the western boundary of New York, fixed four years
before. In May, 1786, Connecticut authorized a cession which
was not complete. Instead of beginning at the western boundary
line of Pennsylvania, her conveyance was of lands beyond a
line 120 miles west of the Pennsylvania line—thus retaining
her claim to the large tract in Ohio known subsequently as the
Western Reserve, or Connecticut Reserve. "The acceptance of
this cession was strongly opposed in Congress. … After a
severe struggle it was accepted, May 26, 1786, Maryland alone
voting in the negative."
_B. A. Hinsdale,
The Old Northwest,
chapter 13._
South Carolina executed the cession of her western claims in
1787; North Carolina in 1790, and Georgia in 1802.
_A. Johnston,
Connecticut,
chapter 15._
ALSO IN:
_T. Donaldson,
The Public Domain: its History,
chapter 3._
See, also, OHIO: A. D. 1786-1796.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (February-May).
Peace Resolutions in the British House of Commons.
Retirement of Lord North.
Pacific overtures through General Carleton.
"Fortunately for the United States, the temper of the British
nation on the question of continuing the American war was not
in unison with that of its sovereign. That war into which the
nation had entered with at least as much eagerness as the
minister had now become almost universally unpopular. Motions
against the measures of administration respecting America were
repeated by the opposition, and on every new experiment the
strength of the minority increased. At length, on the 27th of
February [1782], general Conway moved in the house of commons,
'that it is the opinion of this house that a further
prosecution of offensive war against America, would, under
present circumstances, be the means of weakening the efforts
of this country against her European enemies, and tend to
increase the mutual enmity so fatal to the interests both of
Great Britain and America.' The whole force of administration
was exerted to get rid of this question, but was exerted in
vain; and the resolution was carried. An address to the king
in the words of the motion was immediately voted, and was
presented by the whole house. The answer of the crown being
deemed inexplicit, it was on the 4th of March resolved by the
commons, 'that the house will consider as enemies to his
majesty and the country, all those who should advise or
attempt a further prosecution of offensive war on the
continent of North America.' These votes were soon followed by
a change of administration [Lord North resigning and being
succeeded by Lord Rockingham, with Fox, Shelburne, Burke and
Sheridan for colleagues], and by instructions to the
commanding officers of his Brittanic majesty's forces in
America which conformed to them. …
{3282}
Early in May, Sir Guy Carleton, who had succeeded Sir Henry
Clinton in the command of all the British forces in the United
States, arrived at New York. Having been also appointed in
conjunction with admiral Digby a commissioner to negotiate a
peace, he lost no time in conveying to general Washington
copies of the votes of the British parliament, and of a bill
which had been introduced on the part of administration,
authorizing his majesty to conclude a peace or truce with
those who were still denominated the revolted colonies of
North America. These papers he said would manifest the
dispositions prevailing with the government and people of
England towards those of America, and if the like pacific
temper should prevail in this country, both inclination and
duty would lead him to meet it with the most zealous
concurrence. He had addressed to congress, he said, a letter
containing the same communications, and he solicited from the
American general a passport for the person who should convey
it. At this time, the bill enabling the British monarch to
conclude a peace or truce with America had not passed into a
law; nor was any assurance given that the present
commissioners possessed the power to offer other terms, than
those which had formerly been rejected. General Carleton
therefore could not hope that negotiations would commence on
such a basis; nor be disappointed that the passports he
requested were refused by congress, to whom the application
was, of course, referred. … The several states passed
resolutions expressing their objections to separate
negotiations, and declaring those to be enemies to America who
should attempt to treat without the authority of congress. But
the public votes which have been stated, and probably the
private instructions given to the British general, restrained
him from offensive war, and the state of the American army
disabled general Washington from making any attempt on the
posts held by the enemy. The campaign of 1782 consequently
passed away without furnishing any military operations of
moment between the armies under the immediate direction of the
respective commanders in chief."
_J. Marshall,
Life of Washington,
volume 4, chapter 11._
ALSO IN:
_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope)
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 65 (volume 7)._
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1782-1783.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (April).
Recognition by the Dutch Republic.
"Henry Laurens, the American plenipotentiary to the
Netherlands, having been taken captive and carried to England,
John Adams was appointed in his place. The new envoy had
waited more than eight months for an audience of reception.
Encouraged by the success at Yorktown, on the 9th of January
1782 Adams presented himself to the president of the
states-general, renewed his formal request for an opportunity
of presenting his credentials, and 'demanded a categorical
answer which he might transmit to his sovereign.' He next went
in person to the deputies of the several cities of Holland,
and, following the order of their rank in the confederation,
repeated his demand to each one of them. The attention of
Europe was drawn to the sturdy diplomatist, who dared, alone
and unsupported, to initiate so novel and bold a procedure.
Not one of the representatives of foreign powers at the Hague
believed that it could succeed;" but, beginning with
Friesland, in February, the seven states, one by one, declared
in favor of receiving the American envoy. "On the day which
chanced to be the seventh anniversary of 'the battle of
Lexington' their high mightinesses, the states-general,
reporting the unanimous decision of the seven provinces,
resolved that John Adams should be received as the minister of
the United States of America. The Dutch republic was the
second power in the world to recognise their independence."
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision),
volume 5, page 527._
ALSO IN:
_J. Q. and C. F. Adams,
Life of John Adams,
chapter 6 (volume 1)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (September).
The opening of negotiations for Peace.
The Rockingham ministry, which succeeded Lord North's in the
British government, in March, 1782 (see ENGLAND: A. D.
1782-1783), "though soon dissolved by the death of the Marquis
of Rockingham, were early distracted by a want of unanimity,
and early lost the confidence of the people. The negotiation
with America during May and June made no progress. Mr. Oswald
was the agent of Lord Shelburne, known to be opposed to the
acknowledgment, and Mr. Grenville, of Mr. Fox. This ministry
had been forced upon the king by a vote of the House of
Commons. The hopes of regaining America were again excited by
the decisive victory of Lord Rodney in the West Indies [see
ENGLAND: A. D. 1780-1782], and the unexpected successes of Sir
Eyre Coote against Hyder Ali in the East; and, if credit may
be given to the reports of the day, the government looked
forward with some confidence to the making a separate peace
with Congress by means of Sir Guy Carleton, who had been
appointed to the command of the forces in North America. … Mr.
Adams, writing from the Hague, June 13, 1782, observes, 'I
cannot see a probability that the English will ever make
peace, until their finances are ruined, and such distress
brought upon them, as will work up their parties into a civil
war.' It was not till September of the same year, under Lord
Shelburne's administration, formed upon the dissolution of the
Rockingham, that the British government took a decisive and
sincere step to make peace, and authorized their commissioner,
Mr. Oswald, at Paris, to acknowledge the independence of the
colonies. … This is the first instruction given by the British
Ministry in which it was proposed to recognize the celebrated
act of July 4th, 1776. A great and immediate progress was now
made in the preliminaries. … The commission, under which the
preliminaries of the treaty were actually concluded, was
issued by Congress in June 1781. It empowered 'John Adams,
Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and Thomas
Jefferson, or the majority of them, or such of them as may
assemble, or in case of the death, absence, indisposition, or
other impediment of the others, to any one of them, full power
and authority, general and special commission, … to sign, and
thereupon make a treaty or treaties, and to transact every
thing that may be necessary for completing, securing and
strengthening the great work of pacification, in as ample
form, and with the same effect, as if we were personally
present and acted therein.'
{3283}
All the commissioners, except Mr. Jefferson, were present
during the discussions, being in Europe at the time the
meeting was appointed. Mr. Jefferson was in America, and did
not leave it, as a report reached the government that the
preliminaries were already signed. Mr. Oswald's commission in
proper form was not issued till the 21st of September."
_The Diplomacy of the United States,
chapter 8._
"At the moment … that negotiations were set on foot, there
seemed but little hope of finding the Court of France
peaceably inclined. Fox alone among the Ministers, though
strongly opposed to a French alliance, inclined to a contrary
opinion, and imagined that the independence of America once
recognized, no further demands would be made upon England. It
was therefore his wish to recognize that independence
immediately, and by a rapid negotiation to insure the
conclusion of what he believed would prove a favourable peace.
Shelburne on the contrary believed that further concessions
would be asked by France, and that the best chance England
possessed of obtaining honourable terms, was to reserve the
recognition of independence as part of the valuable
consideration to be offered to the Colonies for favourable
terms, and to use the points where the interests of France,
Spain, and the Colonies were inconsistent, to foment
difficulties between them, and be the means of negotiating, if
necessary, a separate peace with each of the belligerents, as
opportunity might offer. The circumstances of the time
favoured the design. Vergennes had not gone to war for the
sake of American independence, but in order to humiliate
England. He not only did not intend to continue the war a day
longer than was necessary to establish a rival power on the
other side of the Atlantic, but was desirous of framing the
peace on conditions such as would leave England, Spain, and
the United States to balance one another, and so make France
paramount. He therefore intended to resist the claim which the
Colonies had invariably advanced of pushing their frontiers as
far west as the Mississippi, and proposed following the
example of the Proclamation of 1763, to leave the country
between Florida and the Cumberland to the Indians, who were to
be placed under the protection of Spain and the United States,
and the country north of the Ohio to England, as arranged by
the Quebec Act of 1774. Nor was he prepared to support the
claim of the New Englandmen to fish on the banks off
Newfoundland, over a considerable portion of which he desired
to establish an exclusive right for his own countrymen, in
keeping with the French interpretation of the Treaties of
Utrecht and Paris. Of a still more pronounced character were
the views of Spain. Her troops had recently conquered West
Florida and threatened East Florida as well. She had
determined to obtain formal possession of these territories,
and to claim that they ran into the interior till they reached
the great lakes. The United States, according to both the
French and Spanish idea, were therefore to be restricted to a
strip of land on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, bounded by
almost the same line which France had contended for against
England after the Treaty of Utrecht. In 1779, when the
alliance of France was not a year old, and the great triumph
over Burgoyne was fresh, Congress notwithstanding the pressure
of M. Gerard, the French envoy, had adopted the following
conditions as the ultimatum of peace:
(l.) The acknowledgment of the independence of the United
States by Great Britain, previous to any treaty or negotiation
for peace.
(2.) The Mississippi as their western boundary.
(3.) The navigation of that river to the southern boundary of
the States with a port below it.
They also passed a resolution to the effect that any
interference after the conclusion of peace by any power with
the fishery off Newfoundland hitherto exercised by the
inhabitants of the Colonies, should be regarded as a casus
belli. 'The advice of the allies, their knowledge of American
interests, and their own discretion,' were in other matters to
guide the American Commissioners sent to the European Courts.
As however the war progressed, and French assistance,
especially in money, became of greater and greater importance
to the Congress, the tone of their instructions became
sensibly modified, under the pressure, first of M. Gérard and
then of Count Luzerne, his successor. On the 25th January
1780, M. Gérard having obtained the appointment of a Committee
of Congress, informed them that the territories of the United
States extended no further west than the limits to which
settlements were permitted by the English proclamation of
1763; that the United States had no right to the navigation of
the Mississippi, having no territories adjoining any part of
the river; that Spain would probably conquer both Floridas,
and intended holding them; and that the territory on the east
side of the Mississippi belonged to Great Britain, and would
probably be conquered by Spain. He at the same time urged upon
Congress the immediate conclusion of an alliance with that
power, to which Jay had been sent as Commissioner in 1779. On
the 15th February, Congress having considered this
communication, resolved to instruct Jay to abandon the claim
to the navigation of the Mississippi. This practically implied
the abandonment of the claim to that river as the western
boundary. Shortly after, and again on the demand of Luzerne,
the instructions to Adams, who had been appointed Commissioner
for negotiating a peace, and was then in Europe, were altered.
Independence was to be the sole ultimatum, and Adams was to
undertake to submit to the guidance of the French Minister in
every respect. 'You are to make the most candid and
confidential communications,' so his amended instructions ran,
'upon all subjects to the Ministers of our generous ally the
King of France; to undertake nothing in the negotiations for
peace or truce without their knowledge or concurrence, and to
make them sensible how much we rely upon his Majesty's
influence for effectual support in every thing that may be
necessary to the present security or future prosperity of the
United States of America.' As a climax Count Luzerne suggested
and Congress agreed to make Jay, Franklin, Jefferson, and
Laurens, joint Commissioners with Mr. Adams. Of the body thus
appointed Jefferson refused to serve, while Laurens, as
already seen, was captured on his way to England. Of the
remaining Commissioners, John Adams was doubly odious to the
diplomatists of France and Spain, because of his fearless
independence of character, and because of the tenacity with
which as a New Englander he clung to the American rights in
the Newfoundland fisheries; Jay had been an enthusiastic
advocate for the Spanish alliance, but the cavalier treatment
he had received at Madrid, and the abandonment of the
Mississippi boundary by Congress, had forced upon him the
conviction that his own country was being used as a tool by
the European powers, for their own ulterior objects. The
French he hated.
{3284}
He said 'they were not a moral people, and did not know what
it was.' Not so Franklin, influenced partly by his long
residence in the French capital, and by the idea that the
Colonies were more likely to obtain their objects, by a firm
reliance upon France than by confidence in the generosity of
England. He also pointed to the terms of the treaty he had
negotiated with the former power, which forbade either party
to conclude a separate peace without the leave previously
obtained of the other, as imposing a moral and legal
obligation on his countrymen to follow the policy which he
believed their interests as a power required them to adopt.
Meanwhile the King of France congratulated Congress on having
entrusted to his care the interests of the United States, and
warned them that if France was to be asked to continue
hostilities for purely American objects it was impossible to
say what the result might be, for the system of France
depended not merely on America, but on the other powers at
war."
_Lord E. Fitzmaurice,
Life of William, Earl of Shelburne,
volume 3, chapter 4._
"Benjamin Franklin, now venerable with years, had been doing
at the court of Versailles a work hardly less important than
that of Washington on the battle-fields of America. By the
simple grace and dignity of his manners, by his large good
sense and freedom of thought, by his fame as a scientific
discoverer, above all by his consummate tact in the management
of men, the whilom printer, king's postmaster-general for
America, discoverer, London colonial agent, delegate in the
Continental Congress, and signer of the Declaration of
Independence, had completely captivated elegant, free-thinking
France. Learned and common folk, the sober and the frivolous
alike swore by Franklin. Snuff-boxes, furniture, dishes, even
stoves were gotten up 'à la Franklin.' The old man's portrait
was in every house. That the French Government, in spite of a
monarch who was half afraid of the rising nation beyond sea,
had given America her hearty support, was in no small measure
due to the influence of Franklin. And his skill in diplomacy
was of the greatest value in the negotiations now pending."
_E. B. Andrews,
History of the United States,
volume 1, pages 208-209._
ALSO IN:
_E. E. Hale,
Franklin in France,
volume 2, chapters 3-4._
_Lord J. Russell,
Life of Fox,
chapters 16-17 (volume 1)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (September-November).
The Peace parleyings at Paris.
Distrust of French aims by Jay and Adams.
A secret and separate negotiation with England.
"The task of making a treaty of peace was simplified both by
[the change of ministry which placed Lord Shelburne at the
head of affairs in England] … and by the total defeat of the
Spaniards and French at Gibraltar in September [see ENGLAND;
A. D. 1780-1782]. Six months before, England had seemed
worsted in every quarter. Now England, though defeated in
America was victorious as regarded France and Spain. The
avowed object for which France had entered into alliance with
the Americans, was to secure the independence of the United
States, and this point was now substantially gained. The chief
object for which Spain had entered into alliance with France
was to drive the English from Gibraltar, and this point was
now decidedly lost. France had bound herself not to desist
from the war until Spain should recover Gibraltar; but now
there was little hope of accomplishing this, except by some
fortunate bargain in the treaty, and Vergennes tried to
persuade England to cede the great stronghold, in exchange for
West Florida, which Spain had lately conquered, or for Oran or
Guadaloupe. Failing in this, he adopted a plan for satisfying
Spain at the expense of the United States; and he did this the
more willingly as he had no love for the Americans, and did
not wish to see them become too powerful. France had strictly
kept her pledges; she had given us valuable and timely aid in
gaining our independence; and the sympathies of the French
people were entirely with the American cause. But the object
of the French government had been simply to humiliate England,
and this end was sufficiently accomplished by depriving her of
her thirteen colonies. The immense territory extending from
the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi River, and from the
border of West Florida to the Great Lakes, had passed from the
hands of France into those of England at the peace of 1763;
and by the Quebec Act of 1774 England had declared the
southern boundary of Canada to be the Ohio River. … Vergennes
maintained that the Americans ought to recognize the Quebec
Act, and give up to England all the territory north of the
Ohio River. The region south of this limit should, he thought,
be made an Indian territory, and placed under the protection
of Spain and the United States. … Upon another important point
the views of the French government were directly opposed to
American interests. The right to catch fish on the banks of
Newfoundland had been shared by treaty between France and
England; and the New England fishermen, as subjects of the
king of Great Britain, had participated in this privilege. The
matter was of very great importance, not only to New England,
but to the United States in general. … The British government
was not inclined to grant the privilege, and on this point
Vergennes took sides with England, in order to establish a
claim upon her for concessions advantageous to France in some
other quarter. … Jay [who had lately arrived in Paris to take
part in the negotiations] soon began to suspect the designs of
the French minister. He found that he was sending M. de
Rayneval as a secret emissary to Lord Shelburne under an
assumed name; he ascertained that the right of the United
States to the Mississippi valley was to be denied; and he got
hold of a dispatch from Marbois, the French secretary of
legation at Philadelphia, to Vergennes, opposing the American
claim to the Newfoundland fisheries. As soon as Jay learned
these facts, he sent his friend Dr. Benjamin Vaughan to Lord
Shelburne to put him on his guard, and while reminding him
that it was greatly for the interest of England to dissolve
the alliance between America and France, he declared himself
ready to begin the negotiations without waiting for the
recognition of independence, provided that Oswald's commission
should speak of the thirteen United States of America, instead
of calling them colonies and naming them separately.
{3285}
This decisive step was taken by Jay on his own responsibility,
and without the knowledge of Franklin, who had been averse to
anything like a separate negotiation with England. It served
to set the ball rolling at once. … Lord Shelburne at once
perceived the antagonism that had arisen between the allies,
and promptly took advantage of it. A new commission was made
out for Oswald, in which the British government first
described our country as the United States; and early in
October negotiations were begun and proceeded rapidly. On the
part of England the affair was conducted by Oswald, assisted
by Strachey and Fitzherbert, who had succeeded Grenville. In
the course of the month John Adams arrived in Paris, and a few
weeks later Henry Laurens. … The arrival of Adams fully
decided the matter as to a separate negotiation with England.
He agreed with Jay that Vergennes should be kept as far as
possible in the dark until everything was cut and dried, and
Franklin was reluctantly obliged to yield. The treaty of
alliance between France and the United States had expressly
stipulated that neither power should ever make peace without
the consent of the other. … In justice to Vergennes, it should
be borne in mind that he had kept strict faith with us in
regard to every point that had been expressly stipulated. … At
the same time, in regard to matters not expressly stipulated,
Vergennes was clearly playing a sharp game against us; and it
is undeniable that, without departing technically from the
obligations of the alliance, Jay and Adams—two men as
honourable as ever lived—played a very sharp defensive game
against him. … The treaty with England was not concluded until
the consent of France had been obtained, and thus the express
stipulation was respected; but a thorough and detailed
agreement was reached as to what the purport of the treaty
should be, while our not too friendly ally was kept in the
dark."
_J. Fiske,
The Critical Period of American History,
chapter 1._
"If his [Vergennes'] policy had been carried out, it seems
clear that he would have established a claim for concessions
from England by supporting her against America on the
questions of Canada and the Canadian border and the
Newfoundland fishery. … The success of such a policy would
have been extremely displeasing to the Congress, and Jay and
Adams defeated it. … The act was done, and if it can be
justified by success, that justification, at least, is not
wanting."
_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 15 (volume 4)._
"The instructions of congress, given to the American
commissioners under the instigation of the French court, were
absolute and imperative, 'to undertake nothing without the
knowledge and concurrence of that court, and ultimately to
govern themselves by their advice and opinion.' These orders,
transmitted at the time of the enlargement of the commission,
had just been reinforced by assurances given to quiet the
uneasiness created in France by the British overtures through
Governor Carleton. Thus far, although the commissioners had
felt them to be derogatory to the honor of their country, as
well as to their own character as its representatives, there
had been no necessity for action either under or against them.
But now that matters were coming to the point of a serious
negotiation, and the secondary questions of interest to
America were to be determined, especially those to which
France had shown herself indifferent, not to say adverse, it
seemed as if no chance remained of escaping a decision. Mr.
Jay, jealous of the mission of De Rayneval, of which not a
hint had been dropped by the French court, suspicious of its
good faith from the disclosures of the remarkable dispatch of
Marbois, and fearful of any advice like that of which he had
received a foretaste through M. de Rayneval, at the same time
provoked that the confidence expected should be all on one
side, the Count communicating nothing of the separate French
negotiation, came to the conclusion that the interests of
America were safest when retained in American hands. He
therefore declared himself in favor of going on to treat with
Great Britain, without consulting the French court. Dr.
Franklin, on the other hand, expressing his confidence in that
court, secured by his sense of the steady reception of
benefits by his country, signified his willingness to abide by
the instructions he had received. Yet it is a singular fact,
but lately disclosed, that, notwithstanding this general
feeling, which was doubtless sincerely entertained, Dr.
Franklin had been the first person to violate those
instructions, at the very inception of the negotiations, by
proposing to Lord Shelburne the cession of Canada, and
covering his proposal with an earnest injunction to keep it
secret from France, because of his belief that she was adverse
to the measure. … It may fairly be inferred that, whatever
Franklin might have been disposed to believe of the French
court, his instincts were too strong to enable him to trust
them implicitly with the care of interests purely American.
And, in this, there can be no reasonable cause for doubt that
he was right. The more full the disclosures have been of the
French policy from their confidential papers, the more do they
show Count de Vergennes assailing England in America, with
quite as fixed a purpose as ever Chatham had to conquer
America in Germany. Mr. Adams had no doubt of it. He had never
seen any signs of a disposition to aid the United States from
affection or sympathy. On the contrary, he had perceived their
cause everywhere made subordinate to the general
considerations of continental politics. Perhaps his
impressions at some moments carried him even further, and led
him to suspect in the Count a positive desire to check and
depress America. In this he fell into the natural mistake of
exaggerating the importance of his own country. In the great
game of nations which was now playing at Paris under the
practised eye of France's chief (for Count de Maurepas was no
longer living), the United States probably held a relative
position, in his mind, not higher than that of a pawn, or
possibly a knight, on a chess-table. Whilst his attention was
absorbed in arranging the combinations of several powers, it
necessarily followed that he had not the time to devote that
attention to any one, which its special representative might
imagine to be its due. But even this hypothesis was to Mr.
Adams justification quite sufficient for declining to submit
the interests of his country implicitly to the Count's
control. If not so material in the Count's eyes, the greater
the necessity of keeping them in his own care. He therefore
seized the first opportunity to announce to his colleagues his
preference for the views of Mr. Jay.
{3286}
After some little reflection, Dr. Franklin signified his
acquiescence in this decision. His objections to it had
doubtless been increased by the peculiar relations he had
previously sustained to the French court, and by a very proper
desire to be released from the responsibility of what might
from him be regarded as a discourteous act. No such delicacy
was called for on the part of the other commissioners. Neither
does it appear that Count de Vergennes manifested a sign of
discontent with them at the time. He saw that little
confidence was placed in him, but he does not seem to have
made the slightest effort to change the decision or even to
get an explanation of it. The truth is, that the course thus
taken had its conveniences for him, provided only that the
good faith of the American negotiators, not to make a separate
peace, could be depended upon. Neither did he ever affect to
complain of it, excepting at one particular moment when he
thought he had cause to fear that the support he relied on
might fail."
_J. Q. and C. F. Adams,
The Life of John Adams,
volume 2, chapter 7._
"The radical difference between Franklin and his colleagues
was in the question of trust. Franklin saw no reason to
distrust the fidelity of France at any time to her engagements
to the United States during the revolutionary war. His
colleagues did not share this confidence, and yet, while
impressed by this distrust of their ally, they made no appeal
for explanation. The weight of opinion, as will hereafter be
more fully seen, is now that Franklin was right, and they in
this respect wrong. But whatever may have been the correctness
of their view, it was proper that, before making it the basis
of their throwing off the burden of treaty obligation and
their own instructions, they should have first notified France
of their complaint. Obligations cannot be repudiated by one
party on the ground of the failure of the other party to
perform some condition imposed on him, without giving him
notice of the charge against him, so that he could have the
opportunity of explanation. It may be added, on the merits,
that the extenuation set up by Jay and Adams, that France was
herself untrue to her obligations, however honestly they
believed it, can not now be sustained. Livingston, who knew
more of the attitude of France than any public man on the
American side except Franklin, swept it aside as groundless.
Edward Everett, one of the most accomplished historical
writers and diplomatists the country has ever produced,
speaks, as we shall see, to the same effect, and other
historical critics of authority, to be also hereafter cited,
give us the same conclusion. Yet there are other reasons which
may excuse their course, and that of Franklin, who concurred
with them rather than defeat a peace. In the first place, such
was their isolation, that their means of communication with
Congress was stopped; and they might well have argued that if
Congress knew that the English envoys refused to treat with
them except in secret conference their instructions would have
been modified. In the second place we may accept Adams'
statement that Vergennes was from time to time informally
advised of the nature of the pending propositions. In the
third place, the articles agreed on in 1782 were not to be a
definite treaty except with the assent of France. … It now
appears that the famous Marbois letter, handed to Jay by one
of the British loyalists, and relied on by him as showing
France's duplicity, was disavowed by Marbois; and there are,
aside from this, very strong reasons to distrust its
genuineness. In the second place, we have in the
correspondence of George III a new light thrown, on the action
taken by Jay in consequence of this letter. … Benjamin
Vaughan, while a gentleman of great amiability and personal
worth, was, when Jay sent him without Franklin's knowledge on
a confidential mission to the British ministry, in the employ
of that ministry as secret agent at Paris. It is due to Jay to
say that he was ignorant of this fact, though he would have
been notified of it had he consulted Franklin. One of the most
singular incidents of this transaction is that George III,
seeking double treachery in thus sending back to him his own
agent in the guise of an agent from the American legation,
regarded it as a peculiarly subtle machination of Franklin,
which it was his duty to baffle by utterly discrediting
Benjamin Vaughan. It should be added that Franklin's
affection for Benjamin Vaughan was in no wise diminished by
Vaughan's assumption, with an honesty which no one who knew
him would question, of this peculiar kind of mediatorship. And
in Jay Franklin's confidence was unabated. He more than once
said that no one could be found more suited than Jay to
represent the United States abroad. And when, in view of
death, he prepared to settle his estate, he selected; Jay as
his executor."
_F. Wharton,
The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence
of the United States,
chapter 9, section 111,
and chapter 13, section 158 (volume 1)._
Writing to M. de la Luzerne, the French Minister in the United
States, under date of December 19, 1782, Count de Vergennes
expressed himself on the conduct of the American Commissioners
as follows: "You will surely be gratified, as well as myself,
with the very extensive advantages, which our allies, the
Americans, are to receive from the peace; but you certainly
will, not be less surprised than I have been, at the conduct
of the Commissioners. According to the instructions of
Congress, they ought to have done nothing without our
participation. I have informed you, that the King did not seek
to influence the negotiation any further than his offices
might be necessary to his friends. The American Commissioners
will not say that I have interfered, and much less that I have
wearied them with my curiosity. They have cautiously kept
themselves at a distance from me. Mr. Adams, one of them,
coming from Holland, where he had been received and served by
our ambassador, had been in Paris nearly three weeks, without
imagining that he owed me any mark of attention, and probably
I should not have seen him till this time, if I had not caused
him to be reminded of it. Whenever I have had occasion to see
anyone of them, and inquire of them briefly respecting the
progress of the negotiation, they have constantly clothed
their speech in generalities, giving me to understand that it
did not go forward, and that they had no confidence in the
sincerity of the British ministry. Judge of my surprise, when,
on the 30th of November, Dr. Franklin informed me that the
articles were signed. The reservation retained on our account
does not save the infraction of the promise, which we have
mutually made, not to sign except conjointly.
{3287}
I owe Dr. Franklin the justice to state, however, that on the
next day he sent me a copy of the articles. He will hardly
complain that I received them without demonstrations of
sensibility. It was not till some days after, that, when this
minister had come to see me, I allowed myself to make him
perceive that his proceeding in this abrupt signature of the
articles had little in it, which could be agreeable to the
King. He appeared sensible of it, and excused, in the best
manner he could, himself and his colleagues. Our conversation
was amicable."
_J. Bigelow,
Life of Benjamin Franklin,
volume 3, page 207, note._
ALSO IN:
_J. Jay,
The Peace Negotiations of 1782-3
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 7, chapter 2)._
_E. Fitzmaurice,
Life of the Earl of Shelburne,
volume 3, chapter 6._
_E. E. Hale,
Franklin in France,
volume 2, chapters 5-8._
_H. Doniol,
Histoire de la Participation de la France
à l'établissement des États-Unis d'Amérique, tome 5._
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1782-1783.
[Image: Map of the United States.]
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782-1783.
Grievances of the Army.
The Newburgh Addresses.
"Nothing had been done by Congress for the claims of the army,
and it seemed highly probable that it would be disbanded
without even a settlement of the accounts of the officers, and
if so, that they would never receive their dues. Alarmed and
irritated by the neglect of Congress; destitute of money and
credit and of the means of living from day to day; oppressed
with debts; saddened by the distresses of their families at
home, and by the prospect of misery before them,—they
presented a memorial to Congress in December [1782], in which
they urged the immediate adjustment of their dues, and offered
to commute the half-pay for life, granted by the resolve of
October, 1780, for full pay for a certain number of years, or
for such a sum in gross as should be agreed on by their
committee sent to Philadelphia to attend the progress of the
memorial through the house. It is manifest from statements in
this document, as well as from other evidence, that the
officers were nearly driven to desperation, and that their
offer of commutation was wrung from them by a state of public
opinion little creditable to the country. … The committee of
the officers were in attendance upon Congress during the whole
winter, and early in March, 1783, they wrote to their
constituents that nothing had been done. At this moment, the
predicament in which Washington stood, in the double relation
of citizen and soldier, was critical and delicate in the
extreme. In the course of a few days, all his firmness and
patriotism, all his sympathies as an officer, on the one side,
and his fidelity to the government, on the other, were
severely tried. On the 10th of March, an anonymous address was
circulated among the officers at Newburgh, calling a meeting
of the general and field officers, and of one officer from
each company, and one from the medical staff, to consider the
late letter from their representatives at Philadelphia, and to
determine what measures should be adopted to obtain that
redress of grievances which they seemed to have solicited in
vain. It was written with great ability and skill [by John
Armstrong, afterwards General]. … Washington met the crisis
with firmness, but also with conciliation. He issued orders
forbidding an assemblage at the call of an anonymous paper,
and directing the officers to assemble on Saturday, the 15th,
to hear the report of their committee, and to deliberate what
further measures ought to be adopted as most rational and best
calculated to obtain the just and important object in view.
The senior officer in rank present [General Gates] was
directed to preside, and to report the result to the
Commander-in-chief. On the next day after these orders were
issued, a second anonymous address appeared from the same
writer. In this paper he affected to consider the orders of
General Washington, assuming the direction of the meeting, as
a sanction of the whole proceeding which he had proposed.
Washington saw, at once, that he must be present at the
meeting himself, or that his name would be used to justify
measures which he intended to discountenance and prevent. He
therefore attended the meeting, and under his influence,
seconded by that of Putnam, Knox, Brooks, and Howard, the
result was the adoption of certain resolutions, in which the
officers, after reasserting their grievances, and rebuking all
attempts to seduce them from their civil allegiance, referred
the whole subject of their claims again to the consideration
of Congress. Even at this distant day, the peril of that
crisis can scarcely be contemplated without a shudder. Had the
Commander-in-chief been other than Washington, had the leading
officers by whom he was surrounded been less than the noblest
of patriots, the land would have been deluged with the blood
of a civil war."
_G. T. Curtis,
History of the Constitution of the United States,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_J. Marshall,
Life of Washington,
volume 4, chapter 11._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782-1784.
Persecution and flight of the Tories or Loyalists.
See TORIES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (April).
Formation of the Society of the Cincinnati.
See CINCINNATI, THE SOCIETY OF THE.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (September).
The definitive Treaty of Peace between Great Britain and
the United States.
The four difficult questions on which the British and American
negotiators at Paris arrived, after much discussion and wise
compromise, at a settlement of differences originally wide,
were
(1) Boundaries;
(2) Fishing rights;
(3) Payment of debts from American to British merchants that
were outstanding when the war began;
(4) Amnesty to American loyalists, or Tories, and restoration
of their confiscated property.
Within two months after the separate negotiations with England
opened an agreement had been reached, and preliminary or
provisional articles were signed on the 30th of November,
1782. The treaty was not to take effect, otherwise than by the
cessation of hostilities, until terms of peace should be
agreed upon between England and France. This occurred in the
following January, and on the 3d of September, 1783, the
definitive Treaty of Peace between Great Britain and the
United States was signed [at Paris]. Its essential provisions
were the following:
"Article 1.
His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States,
viz. New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and
Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign and
independent States; that he treats with them as such, and for
himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to
the Government, propriety and territorial rights of the same,
and every part thereof.
{3288}
Article II.
And that all disputes which might arise in future, on the
subject of the boundaries of the United States may be
prevented, it is hereby agreed and declared, that the
following are, and shall be their boundaries, viz: From the
north-west angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle which is
formed by a line drawn due north from the source of Saint
Croix River to the Highlands; along the said Highlands which
divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St.
Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to
the northwestern most head of Connecticut River; thence down
along the middle of that river, to the 45th degree of north
latitude; from thence, by a line due west on the said
latitude, until it strikes the river Iroquois or Cataraquy;
thence along the middle of said river into Lake Ontario,
through the middle of said lake until it strikes the
communication by water between that lake and Lake Erie; thence
along the middle of said communication into Lake Erie, through
the middle of said lake until it arrives at the water
communication between that lake and Lake Huron; thence along
the middle of said water communication into the Lake Huron;
thence through the middle of said lake to the water
communication between that lake and Lake Superior; thence
through Lake Superior northward of the Isles Royal and
Philipeaux, to the Long Lake; thence through the middle of
said Long Lake, and the water communication between it and the
Lake of the Woods, to the said Lake of the Woods; thence through
the said lake to the most northwestern point thereof, and from
thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi; thence
by a line to be drawn along the middle of the said river
Mississippi until it shall intersect the northernmost part of
the 31st degree of north latitude. South, by a line to be
drawn due east from the determination of the line last
mentioned, in the latitude of 31 degrees north of the Equator,
to the middle of the river Apalachicola or Catahouche; thence
along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint River;
thence strait to the head of St. Mary's River; and thence down
along the middle of St. Mary's River to the Atlantic Ocean.
East, by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St.
Croix, from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its source, and
from its source directly north to the aforesaid Highlands,
which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from
those which fall into the river St. Lawrence; comprehending all
islands within twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the
United States, and lying between lines to be drawn due east
from the points where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova
Scotia on the one part, and East Florida on the other, shall
respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean;
excepting such islands as now are, or heretofore have been,
within the limits of the said province of Nova Scotia.
Article III.
It is agreed that the people of the United States shall
continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every
kind on the Grand Bank, and on all the other banks of
Newfoundland; also in the Gulph of Saint Lawrence, and at all
other places in the sea where the inhabitants of both
countries used at any time heretofore to fish. And also that
the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to
take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of
Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use (but not to dry or
cure the same on that island) and also on the coasts, bays, and
creeks of all other of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in
America; and that the American fishermen shall have liberty to
dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbours, and
creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, so long
as the same shall remain unsettled; but so soon as the same or
either of them shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for
the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement,
without a previous agreement for that purpose with the
inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground.
Article IV.
It is agreed that creditors on either side shall meet with no
lawful impediment to the recovery of the full value in
sterling money, of all bona fide debts heretofore contracted.
Article V.
It is agreed that the Congress shall earnestly recommend it to
the legislatures of the respective States, to provide for the
restitution of all estates, rights, and properties which have
been confiscated, belonging to real British subjects, and also
of the estates, rights, and properties of persons resident in
districts in the possession of His Majesty's arms, and who
have not borne arms against the said United States. …
Article VI.
That there shall be no future confiscations made, nor any
prosecutions commenced, against any person or persons for, or
by reason of the part which he or they may have taken in the
present war. …
Article VII.
There shall be a firm and perpetual peace between His
Britannic Majesty and the said States, and between the
subjects of the one and the citizens of the other, wherefore
all hostilities, both by sea and land, shall from henceforth
cease: All prisoners on both sides shall be set at liberty,
and His Britannic Majesty shall, with all convenient speed,
and without causing any destruction, or carrying away any
negroes or other property of the American inhabitants,
withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets from the said
United States. …
Article VIII.
The navigation of the river Mississippi, from its source to
the ocean, shall forever remain free and open to the subjects
of Great Britain, and the citizens of the United States."
_Documents Illustrative of American History,
edited by H. W. Preston,
page 232._
ALSO IN:
_Treaties and Conventions between the United States
and other Powers (edition of 1889),
pages 370-379._
_Parliamentary History of England,
volume 23._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (November-December).
The British evacuation of New York.
Dissolution of the Continental Army and Washington's
farewell to it.
"The definitive treaty had been signed at Paris on the 3d of
September, 1783, and was soon to be ratified by the United
States in Congress assembled. The last remnant of the British
army in the east had sailed down the Narrows on the 25th of
November, a day which, under the appellation of Evacuation
Day, was long held in grateful remembrance by the inhabitants
of New York, and was, till a few years since, annually
celebrated with fireworks and with military display. Of the
continental army scarce a remnant was then [at the beginning
of 1784] in the service of the States, and these few were
under the command of General Knox. His great work of
deliverance over, Washington had resigned his commission, had
gone back to his estate on the banks of the Potomac, and was
deeply engaged with plans for the improvement of his
plantations.
{3289}
The retirement to private life of the American Fabius, as the
newspapers delighted to call him, had been attended by many
pleasing ceremonies, and had been made the occasion for new
manifestations of affectionate regard by the people. The same
day that witnessed the departure of Sir Guy Carleton from New
York also witnessed the entry into that city of the army of
the States. Nine days later Washington bid adieu to his
officers. About noon on Thursday, the 4th of December, the
chiefs of the army assembled in the great room of Fraunces's
Tavern, then the resort of merchants and men of fashion, and
there Washington joined them. Rarely as he gave way to his
emotions, he could not on that day get the mastery of them. …
He filled a glass from a decanter that stood on the table,
raised it with a trembling hand, and said: 'With a heart full
of love and gratitude I now take leave of you, and most
devoutly wish your latter days may be as prosperous and happy
as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.' Then he
drank to them, and, after a pause, said: 'I cannot come to
each of you to take my leave, but shall be obliged if you will
each come and shake me by the hand.' General Knox came forward
first, and Washington embraced him. The other officers
approached one by one, and silently took their leave. A line
of infantry had been drawn up extending from the tavern to
Whitehall ferry, where a barge was in waiting to carry the
commander across the Hudson to Paulus Hook. Washington, with
his officers following, walked down the line of soldiers to
the water. The streets, the balconies, the windows, were
crowded with gazers. All the churches in the city sent forth a
joyous din. Arrived at the ferry, he entered the barge in
silence, stood up, took off his hat and waved farewell. Then,
as the boat moved slowly out into the stream amid the shouts
of the citizens, his companions in arms stood bareheaded on
the shore till the form of their illustrious commander was
lost to view."
_J. B. McMaster,
History of the People of the United States,
chapter 2 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 4, chapter 33._
_Mrs. M. J. Lamb,
History of the City of New York,
volume 2, chapters 6-7._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783-1787.
After the war.
Resistance to the stipulations of the Treaty of Peace.
National feebleness and humiliation.
Failure of the Articles of Confederation.
Movements toward a firmer Constitution.
"The revolution was at last accomplished. The evils it had
removed, being no longer felt, were speedily forgotten. The
evils it had brought pressed heavily upon them. They could
devise no remedy. They saw no way of escape. They soon began
to grumble, became sullen, hard to please, dissatisfied with
themselves and with everything done for them. The States,
differing in habits, in customs, in occupations, had been
during a few years united by a common danger. But the danger
was gone; old animosities and jealousies broke forth again
with all their strength, and the union seemed likely to be
dissolved. In this state of public discontent the House met at
Philadelphia early in January, 1784. Some days were spent in
examining credentials of new members, and in waiting for the
delinquents to come in. It was not till the 14th of the month
that the definitive treaty was taken under consideration and
duly ratified. Nothing remained, therefore, but to carry out
the stipulations with as much haste as possible. But there
were some articles which the people had long before made up
their minds never should be carried out. While the treaty was
yet in course of preparation the royal commissioners had
stoutly insisted on the introduction of articles providing for
the return of the refugees and the payment of debts due to
British subjects at the opening of the war. The commissioners
on behalf of the United States, who well knew the tempers of
their countrymen, had at first firmly stood out against any
such articles. But some concessions were afterward made by
each party, and certain stipulations touching the debts and
the refugees inserted. Adams, who wrote in the name of his
fellow-commissioners, … hoped that the middle line adopted
would be approved. The middle line to which Adams referred was
that Congress should recommend the States to make no more
seizures of the goods and property of men lately in arms
against the Confederation, and to put no bar in the way of the
recovery of such as had already been confiscated. It was
distinctly understood by each side that these were
recommendations, and nothing more than recommendations. Yet no
sooner were they made known than a shout of indignation and
abuse went up from all parts of the country. The community in
a moment was divided between three parties. The smallest of
the three was made up of the Tories, who still hoped for place
and power, and still nursed the delusion that the past would
be forgotten. Yet they daily contributed to keep the
remembrance of it alive by a strong and avowed attachment to
Great Britain. Opposed to these was the large and influential
body of violent Whigs, who insisted vehemently that every
loyalist should instantly be driven from the States. A less
numerous and less violent body of Whigs constituted the third
party." The fury of the violent Whigs proved generally
irresistible and great numbers of the obnoxious Tories fled
before it.
See TORIES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Some "sought a refuge in Florida, then a possession of Spain,
and founded settlements which their descendants have since
raised to prosperous and beautiful villages, renowned for
groves of orange-trees and fields of cane. Others embarked on
the British ships of war, and were carried to Canada or the
island of Bermuda; a few turned pirates, obtained a sloop, and
scoured the waters of Chesapeake bay. Many went to England,
beset the ministry with petitions for relief, wearied the
public with pathetic stories of the harsh ingratitude with
which their sufferings had been requited, and were accused,
with much show of reason, by the Americans of urging the
severe restrictions which England began to lay on American
commerce. Many more … set out for Nova Scotia. … The open
contempt with which, in all parts of the country, the people
treated the recommendation of Congress concerning the refugees
and the payment of the debts, was no more than any man of
ordinary sagacity could have foretold. Indeed, the state into
which Congress had fallen was most wretched. … Each of the
thirteen States the Union bound together retained all the
rights of sovereignty, and asserted them punctiliously against
the central government.
{3290}
Each reserved to itself the right to put up mints, to strike
money, to levy taxes, to raise armies, to say what articles
should come into its ports free and what should be made to pay
duty. Toward the Continental Government they acted precisely
as if they were dealing with a foreign power. In truth, one of
the truest patriots of New England had not been ashamed to
stand up in his place in the Massachusetts House of Deputies
and speak of the Congress of the States as a foreign
government. Every act of that body was scrutinized with the
utmost care. The transfer of the most trivial authority beyond
the borders of the State was made with protestations, with
trembling, and with fear. Under such circumstances, each
delegate felt himself to have much the character, and to be
clothed with very much of the power, of ambassadors. He was
not responsible to men, he was responsible to a State. … From
beginning to end the system of representation was bad. By the
Articles of Confederation each of the thirteen little
republics was annually to send to Congress not more than seven
and not less than two delegates. No thought was taken of
population. … But this absolute equality of the States was
more apparent than real. Congress possessed no revenue. The
burden of supporting the delegates was cast on those who sent
them, and, as the charge was not light, a motive was at once
created for preferring a representation of two to a
representation of seven, or, indeed, for sending none at all.
While the war was still raging and the enemy marching and
counter-marching within the border of every State, a sense of
fear kept up the number of delegates to at least two. Indeed,
some of the wealthier and more populous States often had as
many as four congressmen on the floor of the House. But the
war was now over. The stimulus derived from the presence of a
hostile army was withdrawn, and the representation and
attendance fell off fast. Delaware and Georgia ceased to be
represented. From the ratification of the treaty to the
organization of the Government under the Constitution six
years elapsed, and during those six years Congress, though
entitled to 91 members, was rarely attended by 25. The House
was repeatedly forced to adjourn day after day for want of a
quorum. On more than one occasion these adjournments covered a
period of thirteen consecutive days. … No occasion, however
impressive or important, could call out a large attendance.
Seven States, represented by twenty delegates, witnessed the
resignation of Washington. Twenty-three members, sitting for
eleven States, voted for the ratification of the treaty. … It
is not surprising, therefore, that Congress speedily
degenerated into a debating club, and a debating club of no
very high order. Neglected by its own members, insulted and
threatened by its mutinous troops, reviled by the press, and
forced to wander from city to city in search of an abiding
place, its acts possessed no national importance whatever. It
voted monuments that never were put up, rewarded meritorious
services with sums of money that never were paid, formed wise
schemes for the relief of the finances that never were carried
out, and planned on paper a great city that never was built.
In truth, to the scoffers and malcontents of that day, nothing
was more diverting than the uncertain wanderings of Congress.
… In the coffee-houses and taverns no toasts were drunk with
such uproarious applause as 'A hoop to the barrel' and 'Cement
to the Union'; toasts which not long before had sprung up in
the army and come rapidly into vogue. … The men who, in after
years, came to eminence as the framers of the Constitution,
who became renowned leaders of the Federalists, presidents,
cabinet ministers, and constitutional statesmen, were then in
private life, abroad, or in the State Assemblies. Washington
was busy with his negroes and tobacco; Adams was minister to
Holland; Jefferson still sat in Congress, but was soon to be
sent as minister to France; Madison sat in the Virginia House
of Deputies; Hamilton was wrangling with Livingston and Burr
at the bar of New York; Jay was minister to Spain."
_J. B. McMaster,
History of the People of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 2._
Hamilton's description, in one of the papers of the
Federalist, of the state of the country in 1787, is very
graphic: "We may indeed, with propriety," he wrote, "be said
to have reached almost the last stage of National humiliation.
There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride, or
degrade the character of an independent nation, which we do
not experience. Are there engagements, to the performance of
which we are held by every tie respectable among men? These
are the subjects of constant and unblushing violation. Do we
owe debts to foreigners, and to our own citizens, contracted
in a time of imminent peril, for the preservation of our
political existence! These remain without any proper or
satisfactory provision for their discharge. Have we valuable
territories and important posts in the possession of a foreign
power, which, by express stipulations, ought long since to
have been surrendered! These are still retained, to the
prejudice of our interests not less than of our rights. Are we
in a condition to resent or to repel the aggression? We have
neither troops, nor treasury, nor Government. Are we even in a
condition to remonstrate with dignity? The just imputations on
our own faith, in respect to the same treaty, ought first to
be removed. Are we entitled by nature and compact to a free
participation in the navigation of the Mississippi? Spain
excludes us from it. Is public credit an indispensable
resource in time of public danger? We seem to have abandoned
its cause as desperate and irretrievable. Is commerce of
importance to National wealth? Ours is at the lowest point of
declension. Is respectability in the eyes of foreign powers a
safeguard against foreign encroachments? The imbecility of our
Government even forbids them to treat with us. Our ambassadors
abroad are the mere pageants of mimic sovereignty. Is a
violent and unnatural decrease in the value of land a symptom
of National distress? The price of improved land in most parts
of the country is much lower than can be accounted for by the
quantity of waste land at market, and can only be fully
explained by that want of private and public confidence, which
are so alarmingly prevalent among all ranks, and which have a
direct tendency to depreciate property of every kind. Is
private credit the friend and patron of industry? That most
useful kind which relates to borrowing and lending is reduced
within the narrowest limits, and this still more from an
opinion of insecurity than from the scarcity of money.
{3291}
To shorten an enumeration of particulars which can afford
neither pleasure nor instruction, it may in general be
demanded what indication is there of National disorder,
poverty, and insignificance, that could befall a community so
peculiarly blessed with natural advantages as we are, which
does not form a part of the dark catalogue of our public
misfortunes? … The great and radical vice in the construction
of the existing Confederation is in the principle of
legislation for States or Governments, in their corporate or
collective capacities, and as contradistinguished from the
individuals of which they consist. Though this principle does
not run through all the powers delegated to the Union, yet it
pervades and governs those on which the efficacy of the rest
depends. Except as to the rule of apportionment, the United
States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for
men and money, but they have no authority to raise either, by
regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.
The consequence of this is, that, though in theory their
resolutions concerning those objects are laws,
constitutionally binding on the members of the Union, yet in
practice they are mere recommendations, which the States
observe or disregard at their option. … There is nothing
absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance
between independent nations, for certain defined purposes
precisely stated in a treaty; regulating all the details of
time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to
future discretion; and depending for its execution on the good
faith of the parties. … If the particular States in this
country are disposed to stand in a similar relation to each
other, and to drop the project of a general discretionary
superintendence, the scheme would indeed be pernicious, and
would entail upon us all the mischiefs which have been
enumerated under the first head; but it would have the merit
of being, at least, consistent and practicable. Abandoning all
views towards a Confederate Government, this would bring us to
a simple alliance offensive and defensive; and would place us
in a situation to be alternately friends and enemies of each
other, as our mutual jealousies and rivalships, nourished by
the intrigues of foreign nations, should prescribe to us. But
if we are unwilling to be placed in this perilous situation;
if we still will adhere to the design of a National
Government, or, which is the same thing, of a superintending
power, under the direction of a common Council, we must
resolve to incorporate into our plan those ingredients which
may be considered as forming the characteristic difference
between a league and a Government; we must extend the
authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens,—the
only proper objects of Government."
_Alexander Hamilton,
The Federalist,
number 15._
"Many of the States refused or neglected to pay even their
allotted shares of interest upon the public debt, and there
was no power in Congress to compel payment. Eighteen months
were required to collect only one-fifth of the taxes assigned
to the States in 1783. The national credit became worthless.
Foreign nations refused to make commercial treaties with the
United States, preferring a condition of affairs in which they
could lay any desired burden upon American commerce without
fear of retaliation by an impotent Congress. The national
standing army had dwindled to a corps of 80 men. In 1785
Algiers declared war against the United States. Congress
recommended the building of five 40-gun ships of war. But
Congress had only power to recommend. The ships were not
built, and the Algerines were permitted to prey on American
commerce with impunity. England still refused to carry out the
Treaty of 1783, or to send a Minister to the United States.
The Federal Government, in short, was despised abroad and
disobeyed at home. The apparent remedy was the possession by
Congress of the power of levying and collecting internal taxes
and duties on imports, but, after long urging, it was found
impossible to gain the necessary consent of all the States to
the article of taxation by Congress. In 1786, therefore, this
was abandoned, and, as a last resort, the States were asked to
pass an Amendment intrusting to Congress the collection of a
revenue from imports. This Amendment was agreed to by all the
States but one. New York alone rejected it, after long debate,
and her veto seemed to destroy the last hope of a continuance
of national union in America. Perhaps the dismay caused by the
action of New York was the most powerful argument in the minds
of many for an immediate and complete revision of the
government. The first step to Revision was not so designed. In
1785 the Legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, in pursuance
of their right to regulate commerce, had appointed
Commissioners to decide on some method of doing away with
interruptions to the navigation of Chesapeake Bay. The
Commissioners reported their inability to agree, except in
condemning the Articles of Confederation. The Legislature of
Virginia followed the report by a resolution, inviting the
other States to meet at Annapolis, consider the defects of the
government, and suggest some remedy. In September, 1786,
delegates from five of the Middle States assembled, but
confined themselves to discussion, since a majority of the
States were not represented. The general conclusion was that
the government, as it then stood, was inadequate for the
protection, prosperity or comfort, of the people, and that
some immediate and thorough reform was needed. After drawing
up a report for their States and for Congress, recommending
another Convention to be held at Philadelphia, in May, 1787,
they adjourned. Congress, by resolution, approved their report
and the proposed Convention. The Convention met, as proposed,
May 14th, 1787."
_A. Johnston,
History of American Politics,
2d edition, chapter 1._
"Four years only elapsed, between the return of peace and the
downfall of a government which had been framed with the hope
and promise of perpetual duration. … But this brief interval
was full of suffering and peril. There are scarcely any evils
or dangers, of a political nature, and springing from
political and social causes, to which a free people can be
exposed, which the people of the United States did not
experience during that period."
_G. T. Curtis,
History of the Constitution,
book 3, chapter 1_.
"It is not too much to say that the period of five years
following the peace of 1783 was the most critical moment in
all the history of the American people."
_J. Fiske,
Critical Period of American History,
page 55._
ALSO IN:
_J. S. Landon,
Constitutional History and Government of the United States,
lecture 3._
{3292}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783-1789.
Depressed state of Trade and Industry.
Commercial consequences of the want of nationality.
"The effect of the Revolutionary War on the merchant marine of
the colonies, which thereby secured their independence as the
United States, was not so disastrous as might have been
expected. Many ships were lost or captured, and the gains of
maritime commerce were reduced; but to offset these losses an
active fleet of privateers found profitable employment in the
seizure of English merchantmen, and thus kept alive the
maritime spirit of the country, and supplied a revenue to the
shipowners whose legitimate pursuits were suspended by the
war. In 1783, therefore, the American merchant marine was in a
fairly healthy condition. During the next six years the
disadvantages of the new situation made themselves felt.
Before the Revolution the colonies had had open trade with
their fellow-subjects in the British West India Islands. The
commerce thus carried on was a very profitable business. The
island colonies were supplied with lumber, corn, fish, live
stock, and surplus farm produce, which the continent furnished
in abundance, together with rough manufactured articles such
as pipe staves, and in return the ships of New York and New
England brought back great quantities of coffee, sugar,
cotton, rum, and indigo. … As a result of independence, the
West India business was entirely cut off. The merchantmen of
the United States then came in on the footing of foreign
vessels, and all such vessels, under the terms of the
Navigation Act, were rigorously excluded from trade with the
British colonies. It was evident, however, that the sudden
cessation of this trade, whatever loss it might inflict on the
newly created state, would be tenfold more harmful to the
islands, which had so long depended upon their neighbors of
the mainland for the necessaries of life. Pitt, then
Chancellor of the Exchequer, appreciated this difficulty, and
in 1783 brought a bill into Parliament granting open trade as
to articles that were the produce of either country. The
measure failed, owing to Pitt's resignation, and the next
ministry, in consequence of the violent opposition of British
shipowners, passed a merely temporary act, vesting in the
crown the power of regulating trade with America. This power
was occasionally exercised by suspending certain provisions of
the navigation laws, under annual proclamations, but it did
not serve to avert the disaster that Pitt had foreseen.
Terrible sufferings visited the population of the West India
colonies, and between 1780 and 1787 as many as 15,000 slaves
perished from starvation, having been unable to obtain the
necessary supply of food when their own crops had been
destroyed by hurricanes. Apart from the unfavorable condition
of the West India trade, another and more important cause had
operated to check the prosperous development of American
commerce. The only bond of political union at this time was
that formed by the Articles of Confederation, constituting a
mere league of independent States, any one of which could pass
laws calculated to injure the commerce of the others."
_J. R. Soley,
Maritime Industries of America
(The United States of America, edition by N. S. Shaler,
volume 1, chapter 10)._
"The general commerce of the granulated mass of communities
called the United States, from 1783 to 1780, was probably the
poorest commerce known in the whole history of the country.
England sent America £3,700,000 worth of merchandise in 1784,
and took in return only £750,000. The drain of specie to meet
this difference was very severe, and merchants could not meet
the engagements so rashly made. They had imported luxuries for
customers who were poor, and non-payment through all the
avenues of trade was the consequence. One circumstance and
detail of the internal management of this commerce added to
the distress and to the necessary difficulties of the time.
Immediately after the peace, British merchants, factors, and
clerks came across the seas in streams, to take advantage of
the new opportunities for trade. It seemed to the citizens to
be a worse invasion of their economic rights than the coming
of the troops had been to the political rights of the old
colonists. The whole country was agitated, but action was
initiated in Boston in 1785. The merchants met and discussed
all these difficulties. They pledged themselves to buy no more
goods of British merchants or factors in Boston. In about
three weeks the mechanics and artisans met in the old Green
Dragon Tavern and committed themselves to the same policy. But
the merchants went beyond mere non-intercourse with traders at
home. The root of the difficulty was in the ill-regulation or
want of regulation of our commerce with all foreign countries.
The confederation was giving and not getting. Where it should
have gotten, foreigners were getting, because the parts of the
country had not agreed to unite in acquiring for the common
benefit, lest some part should be injured in the process.
Congress made treaties for the Confederation. But if unable to
treat with any} power which excluded American shipping from
its ports, or laid duties on American produce, Congress did
not control our ports in an equivalent manner. Each individual
state was to decide whether the unfriendly power should trade
at its own ports. This in effect nullified any retaliatory
action. England, being the best market, virtually controlled
any change in commerce, as it was then conducted. Her ports
were closed to American products unless they were brought in
British vessels. France admitted our vessels to her ports, but
her merchants cried out against the competition. It was feared
that the ministers would be obliged to yield to their clamor
and close the ports. Probably the poor economic condition of
the country affected the foreign trade even more than the bad
adjustment of foreign relations. All causes combined to form
two parties, one advocating imposts upon foreign trade or a
Navigation Act, the other opposing this scheme, and insisting
upon absolute freedom of commerce. It was in this direction
that the Boston people moved, after they had instituted
non-intercourse in their own market with British traders. They
petitioned Congress to remedy these embarrassments of trade,
and sent a memorial to their own legislature. This document
urged that body to insist on action by Congress. They formed a
Committee of Correspondence to enforce these plans upon the
whole country."
_W. B. Weeden,
Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1780,
chapter 22 (volume 2)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784.
Plans for new States in the Northwest Territory.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES: A. D. 1784.
{3293}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784.
Revolt in Tennessee against the
territorial cession to Congress.
The State of Franklin.
See TENNESSEE; A. D. 1776-1784; and 1785.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784.
The first daily Newspaper publication.
See PRINTING and PRESS; A. D. 1784-1813.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784.
The financial administration of Robert Morris.
Cost of the war.
From May, 1781, until April, 1785, the burden of the financial
management of the revolutionary struggle rested upon Robert
Morris, of Philadelphia, who held the office which Congress
had created and entitled "the Superintendent of Finances."
Morris's detractors argued that he deserved no great credit
for his management of the finances as compared with his
predecessors, because in his time everything turned in his
favour. It is true that if things had remained as before, he
could not have restored the finances; for the miracle of
carrying on a war without means has never yet been performed
by anybody. The events which gave him an opportunity to
restore the finances, by intelligent and energetic action,
were as follows. The first was the collapse of the paper
currency and its absolute removal from circulation, in May,
1781, just before he took office. As soon as it was out of the
way, specie came in. He was able to throw aside all the
trammels in which the treasury operations had been entangled
by the paper system. It is true that he did not succeed in his
attempt to relieve himself entirely from these anticipations,
which, inasmuch as they were anticipations, would have used up
the revenues of his time; but it was a great gain for him to
be able to conduct his current operations at least in terms of
specie. The second thing in his favour was the great help
granted by France in 1781, and especially the importation of a
part of this in specie. This enabled him to found the bank,
from which he borrowed six times what he put into it. The
chief use of the bank to him, however, was to discount the
notes which he took for bills of exchange. Then also it was
possible for him to reduce the expenses in a way which his
predecessors had not had the courage or the opportunity to
accomplish, because in their time the abuses of the old method
had not gone far enough to force acquiescence in the reforms.
In Morris's time, and chiefly, as it appears, by his exertions
and merit, the expenditures were greatly reduced for an army
of a given size. When the war came to an end, it was possible
for him to reduce the entire establishment to a very low
scale. Next we notice that the efforts to introduce taxation
bore fruit which, although it was trivial in one point of
view, was large enough to be very important to him in his
desperate circumstances. Finally, when his need was the
greatest, and these advantages and opportunities proved
inadequate, the rise of American credit made the loan in
Holland possible, and this carried him through to the result.
… By the Report of 1790 the total amount of expenditures and
advances at the treasury of the United States, during the war,
in specie value, was estimated as follows;
1775 and 1776, $20,064,666.
1777, $24,986,646.
1778, $24,289,438.
1779, $10,794,620.
1780, $3,000,000.
1781, $1,942,465.
1782, $3,632,745.
1783, $3,226,583.
1784, $548,525 to November 1.
Total $92,485,693.
This table shows how the country lapsed into dependence on
France after the alliance was formed. The round number
opposite 1780 is very eloquent. It means anarchy and
guesswork. … According to the best records we possess, the
cost of the war to the United States, reduced to specie value
year by year at the official scale of depreciation, which,
being always below the truth, makes these figures too high,
was, as above stated, $92,485,693, at the treasury. There were
also certificates of indebtedness out for $16,708,009. There
had been expended in Europe, which never went through the
treasury, $5,000,000. The States were estimated to have
expended $21,000,000. Total, $135,000,000. Jefferson
calculated it at $140,000,000, by adding the debts incurred
and the continental currency. The debt contracted by England
during the war was £115,000,000, for which £91,000,000 were
realized. The Comptroller of the Treasury of France said that
it cost 60,000,000 livres a year to support the army in
America. Vergennes told Lafayette, in November, 1782, that
France had expended 250,000,000 livres in the war. There is an
often-repeated statement that the war cost France
1,200,000,000 livres, or 1,280,000,000, or 1,500,000,000.
Arthur Young put it at £50,000,000, sterling. Probably if
60,000,000 a year for five years, or $60,000,000, was taken as
the amount directly expended for and in America by France, it
would be as fair a computation as could be made of her
contribution to American independence. She had large
expenditures elsewhere in the prosecution of her war against
Great Britain, and her incidental losses of ships, etc., were
great. When England abandoned the effort to subdue the
colonies, she was in a far better position for continuing it
than either of her adversaries. George III. was by no means
stupid in his comments and suggestions about the war. No
Englishman of the period said things which now seem wiser in
the retrospect. As early as September, 1780, he said: 'America
is distressed to the greatest degree. The finances of France,
as well as Spain, are in no good situation: This war, like the
last, will prove one of credit.' This opinion was fully
justified in 1782. French finances were then hastening toward
bankruptcy, so that France could not continue the war expenses
or the loans and subsidies to America. English credit was
high. October 2, 1782, Vergennes wrote to Montmorin, that the
English fleet was stronger than at the beginning of the war,
while the fleets of France and Spain were weaker; that French
finances were greatly weakened, while English credit was high;
that England had recovered influence in Russia, and through
Russia on Prussia and Austria. He wanted peace and
reconciliation with England in order to act with her in
eastern Europe. If England had chosen to persevere in the war,
the matter of credit would have been the most important
element in her chances of success, aside from the natural
difficulties of the enterprise."
_W. G. Sumner,
The Financier and the Finances of the American Revolution,
chapter 23 (volume 2)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784-1788.
Disputes with England over the execution of the Treaty of Peace.
Difficulties with Spain.
The question of the Navigation of the Mississippi.
Eastern jealousy and Western excitement.
{3294}
"Serious disputes soon arose, concerning the execution of the
treaty of peace; and each nation complained of infractions by
the other. On the part of the United States, it was alleged
that negroes had been carried away, contrary to the treaty;
and as early as May, 1783, congress instructed their ministers
for negotiating peace to remonstrate to the British court
against this conduct of their commander in America, and to
take measures to obtain reparation. The United States, also,
complained that the western posts had not been sur·rendered,
agreeably to treaty stipulations. Great Britain, on her part,
alleged that legal impediments had been interposed to prevent
the collection of British debts in America; and that the 5th
and 6th articles, relating to the property of the loyalists,
had not been complied with. In June, 1784, the legislature of
Virginia not only declared that there had been an infraction
on the part of Great Britain of the 7th article, in detaining
the slaves and other property of the citizens of the United
States, but instructed their delegates in congress to request
that a remonstrance be presented to the British court against
such infraction and to require reparation. They also directed
them to inform congress that the state of Virginia conceived a
just regard to the national honor and interest obliged her
assembly to withhold their co-operation in the complete
fulfilment of the treaty until the success of such
remonstrance was known, or they should have further directions
from congress. They at the same time declared, that as soon as
reparation for such infraction should be made, or congress
should judge it indispensably necessary, such acts as
inhibited the recovery of British debts should be repealed,
and payment made, in such time and manner as should consist
with the exhausted situation of the state. In consequence of
these difficulties and disputes, congress, early in the year
1785, determined to send a minister plenipotentiary to Great
Britain; and on the 24th of February John Adams was appointed
to represent the United States at the court of London. He was
instructed 'in a respectful but firm manner to insist that the
United States be put, without further delay, into possession
of all the posts and territories within their limits which are
now held by British garrisons.' … Mr. Jefferson was soon after
appointed to represent the United States at the court of
Versailles, in the room of Dr. Franklin, who had leave to
return home, after an absence of nine years. Mr. Livingston
having resigned the office of secretary of foreign affairs,
Mr. Jay, in March, 1784, and before his return from Europe,
was appointed in his place. Mr. Adams repaired to the British
court, and was received as the first minister from the United
States since their independence was acknowledged. … In
December, 1785, Mr. Adams presented a memorial to the British
secretary of state, in which, after stating the detention of
the western posts contrary to the stipulations in the treaty
of peace, he in the name and in behalf of the United States
required 'that all his majesty's armies and garrisons be
forthwith withdrawn from the said United States, from all and
every of the posts and fortresses before enumerated, and from
every port, place and harbor, within the territory of the said
United States, according to the true intention of the
treaties.' To this memorial the British secretary, lord
Carmarthen, returned an answer, on the 28th of February, 1786,
in which he acknowledges the detention of the posts, but
alleges a breach of the 4th article of the treaty of peace on
the part of the United States, by interposing impediments to
the recovery of British debts in America. … This answer was
accompanied with a statement of the various instances in which
the 4th article had been violated by acts of the states. The
complaints of Great Britain also extended to breaches of the
5th and 6th articles of the treaty, relating to the recovery
of certain property and to confiscations. The answer of the
British secretary was submitted to congress; and in order to
remove the difficulties complained of, that body, in March,
1787, unanimously declared that all the acts, or parts of
acts, existing in any of the states, repugnant to the treaty
of peace, ought to be repealed; and they recommended to the
states to make such repeal by a general law. … A circular
letter to the states accompanied these declarations, in which
congress say, 'we have deliberately and dispassionately
examined and considered the several facts and matters urged by
Great Britain, as infractions of the treaty of peace, on the
part of America, and we regret that, in some of the states,
too little attention has been paid to the public faith pledged
by that treaty.' In consequence of this letter, the states of
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, passed acts
complying with the recommendations contained in it. The
operation of the act of Virginia, however, which repealed all
acts preventing the recovery of debts due to British subjects,
was suspended until the governor of that state should issue a
proclamation, giving notice that Great Britain had delivered
up the western posts, and was also taking measures for the
further fulfilment of the treaty of peace by delivering up the
negroes belonging to the citizens of that state, carried away
contrary to the 7th article of the treaty, or by making
compensation for the same. … The British court was not yet
disposed to enter into any commercial treaty with the United
States. The ministers were, no doubt, satisfied that the
advantages they enjoyed under their own regulations were
greater than could be obtained by any treaty they could make
with America. And this was, probably, one of the principal
reasons of their refusal to enter into any such treaty. As the
British court declined sending a minister to the United
States, Mr. Adams, in October, 1787, at his request, had leave
to return home. … The United States had also at this period to
encounter difficulties with Spain as well as Great Britain.
The two Floridas having been ceded to his catholic majesty,
serious disputes soon arose, not only on the old subject of
the navigation of the Mississippi, but with respect to the
boundaries of Louisiana and the ceded territory. The Spanish
court still persisted in its determination to exclude the
Americans from the navigation of the Mississippi. … In
December, 1784, congress declared it necessary to send a
minister to Spain, for the purpose of adjusting the
interfering claims of the two nations respecting the
navigation of the Mississippi, and other matters highly
interesting to the peace and good understanding which ought to
subsist between them. This was prevented by the appointment of
Don Diego Gardoqui, a minister from Spain, who arrived in the
United States and was acknowledged by congress in the summer
of 1785.
{3295}
Soon after his arrival, Mr. Jay, then secretary of foreign
affairs, was appointed to treat with the Spanish minister on
the part of the United States. … As Mr. Jay, by his
instructions, was not to conclude a treaty until the same was
communicated to congress and approved by them, and was also
specially directed to obtain a stipulation acknowledging the
right of the United States to their territorial claims and the
free navigation of the Mississippi, as established in their
treaty with Great Britain, he, on the 3d of August, 1786,
submitted to congress the … plan of a commercial treaty, and
stated the difficulties in obtaining the stipulation required.
… 'Circumstanced as we are [said Mr. Jay] I think it would be
expedient to agree that the treaty should be limited to twenty
five or thirty years, and that one of the articles should
stipulate that the United States would forbear to use the
navigation of that river below their territories to the ocean.
Thus the duration of the treaty and of the forbearance in
question should be limited to the same period.' … Among other
reasons, Mr. Jay stated that the navigation of the Mississippi
was not at that time very important, and would not probably
become so in less than twenty five or thirty years, and that a
forbearance to use it, while it was not wanted, was no great
sacrifice—that Spain then excluded the people of the United
States from that navigation; and that it could only be
acquired by war, for which the United States were not then
prepared; and that in case of war France would no doubt join
Spain. Congress were much divided on this interesting subject.
The seven states at the north, including Pennsylvania, were
disposed, in case a treaty could not otherwise be made, to
forbear the use of the navigation of the Mississippi below the
southern boundary of the United States, for a limited time,
and a resolution was submitted to congress repealing Mr. Jay's
instructions of the 25th of August, 1785, and which was
carried, seven states against five. … This, however, was to be
on the express condition that a stipulation of forbearance
should not be construed to extinguish the right of the United
States, independent of such stipulation, to use and navigate
said river from its source to the ocean; and that such
stipulation was not to be made unless it should be agreed in
the same treaty that the navigation and use of the said river
above such intersection to its source should be common to both
nations—and Mr. Jay was to make no treaty unless the
territorial limits of the United States were acknowledged and
secured according to the terms agreed between the United
States and Great Britain. … As by the confederation the assent
of nine states was necessary in making a treaty the same
number was considered requisite in giving specific
instructions in relation to it; … and it was questioned
whether the previous instructions given to Mr. Jay could be
rescinded without the assent of nine states. These proceedings
in congress, though with closed doors, soon became partly
known, and excited great alarm in Virginia and in the western
settlements. … While these negociations were pending, the
fertile country at the west was settling with a rapidity
beyond the most sanguine calculations; and it is not
surprising that the news of an actual or intended abandonment
of the navigation of the Mississippi, the only outlet for
their productions, should have excited great alarm among its
inhabitants. They were much exasperated by the seizure and
confiscation of American property by the Spaniards, on its way
down the river, which took place about the same time. The
proposition made in congress was magnified into an actual
treaty, and called from the western people most bitter
complaints and reproaches. … To quiet the apprehensions of the
western inhabitants, the delegates from North Carolina, in
September, 1788, submitted to congress a resolution declaring
that 'whereas many citizens of the United States, who possess
lands on the western waters, have expressed much uneasiness
from a report that congress are disposed to treat with Spain
for the surrender of their claim to the navigation of the
river Mississippi; in order therefore to quiet the minds of
our fellow citizens by removing such ill founded
apprehensions, resolved, that the United States have a clear,
absolute, and unalienable claim to the free navigation of the
river Mississippi, which claim is not only supported by the
express stipulations of treaties, but by the great law of
nature.' The secretary of foreign affairs, to whom this
resolution was referred, reported, that as the rumor mentioned
in the resolution was not warranted by the negociations
between the United States and Spain, the members be permitted
to contradict it, in the most explicit terms. Mr. Jay also
stated, there could be no objection to declaring the right of
the United States to the navigation of the river clear and
absolute—that this had always been his opinion; and that the
only question had been whether a modification of that right
for equivalent advantages was advisable; and though he
formerly thought such a modification might be proper, yet that
circumstances and discontents had since interposed to render
it questionable. He also advised that further negociations
with Spain be transferred to the new general government. On
this report, congress, on the 16th of September, 1788, in
order to remove the apprehensions of the western settlers,
declared that the members be permitted to contradict the
report referred to by the delegates from North Carolina; and
at the same time resolved 'that the free navigation of the
river Mississippi is a clear and essential right of the United
States, and that the same ought to be considered and supported
as such.' All further negociations with Spain were also
referred to the new federal government."
_T. Pitkin,
Political and Civil History of the United States,
chapter 17 (volume 2)._
"It was important for the frontiersmen to take the Lake Posts
from the British; but it was even more important to wrest from
the Spaniards the free navigation of the Mississippi. While
the Lake Posts were held by the garrisons of a foreign power,
the work of settling the northwestern territory was bound to
go forward slowly and painfully; but while the navigation of
the Mississippi was barred, even the settlements already
founded could not attain to their proper prosperity and
importance. … The Westerners were right in regarding as
indispensable the free navigation of the Mississippi. They
were right also in their determination ultimately to acquire
the control of the whole river, from the source to the mouth.
However, the Westerners wished more than the privilege of
sending down stream the products of their woods and pastures
and tilled farms.
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They had already begun to cast longing eyes on the fair
Spanish possessions. … Every bold, lawless, ambitious leader
among the frontier folk dreamed of wresting from the Spaniard
some portion of his rich and ill-guarded domain. It was not
alone the attitude of the frontiersmen towards Spain that was
novel, and based upon a situation for which there was little
precedent. Their relations with one another, with their
brethren of the seaboard, and with the Federal Government,
likewise had to be adjusted without much chance of profiting
by antecedent experience. Many phases of these relations
between the people who stayed at home and those who wandered
off to make homes, between the frontiersmen as they formed
young States, and the Central Government representing the old
States, were entirely new, and were ill-understood by both
parties. … The attitude towards the Westerners of certain
portions of the population in the older States, and especially
in the northeastern States, was one of unreasoning jealousy
and suspicion; and though this mental attitude rarely
crystallized into hostile deeds, its very existence, and the
knowledge that it did exist, embittered the men of the West. …
In the northeastern States, and in New England especially,
this feeling showed itself for two generations after the close
of the Revolutionary War. On the whole the New Englanders have
exerted a more profound and wholesome influence upon the
development of our common country than has ever been exerted
by any other equally numerous body of our people. They have
led the nation in the path of civil liberty and sound
governmental administration. But too often they have viewed
the nation's growth and greatness from a narrow and provincial
standpoint, and have grudgingly acquiesced in, rather than led
the march towards, continental supremacy. In shaping the
nation's policy for the future their sense of historic
perspective seemed imperfect. … The extreme representatives of
this northeastern sectionalism not only objected to the growth
of the West at the time now under consideration, but even
avowed a desire to work it harm, by shutting the Mississippi,
so as to benefit the commerce of the Atlantic States. … These
intolerant extremists not only opposed the admission of the
young western States into the Union, but at a later date
actually announced that the annexation by the United States of
vast territories beyond the Mississippi offered just cause for
the secession of the northeastern States. Even those who did
not take such an advanced ground felt an unreasonable dread
lest the West might grow to overtop the East in power. … A
curious feature of the way many honest men looked at the West
was their inability to see how essentially transient were some
of the characteristics to which they objected. Thus they were
alarmed at the turbulence and the lawless shortcomings of
various kinds which grew out of the conditions of frontier
settlement and sparse population. They looked with anxious
foreboding to the time when the turbulent and lawless people
would be very numerous, and would form a dense and powerful
population; failing to see that in exact proportion as the
population became dense, the conditions which caused the
qualities to which they objected would disappear. Even the men
who had too much good sense to share these fears, even men as
broadly patriotic as Jay, could not realize the extreme
rapidity of western growth. Kentucky and Tennessee grew much
faster than any of the old frontier colonies had ever grown;
and from sheer lack of experience, eastern statesmen could not
realize that this rapidity of growth made the navigation of
the Mississippi a matter of immediate and not of future
interest to the West. … While many of the people on the
eastern seaboard thus took an indefensible position in
reference to the trans-Alleghany settlements, in the period
immediately succeeding the Revolution, there were large bodies
of the population of these same settlements, including very
many of their popular leaders, whose own attitude towards the
Union was, if anything, more blameworthy. They were clamorous
about their rights, and were not unready to use veiled threats
of disunion when they deemed these rights infringed; but they
showed little appreciation of their own duties to the Union. …
They demanded that the United States wrest from the British
the Lake Posts, and from the Spaniards the navigation of the
Mississippi. Yet they seemed incapable of understanding that
if they separated from the Union they would thereby forfeit
all chance of achieving the very purposes they had in view,
because they would then certainly be at the mercy of Britain,
and probably, at least for some time, at the mercy of Spain
also. They opposed giving the United States the necessary
civil and military power, although it was only by the
possession and exercise of such power that it would be
possible to secure for the westerners what they wished. In all
human probability, the whole country round the Great Lakes
would still be British territory, and the mouth of the
Mississippi still in the hands of some European power, had the
folly of the separatists won the day and had the West been
broken up into independent states. … This final triumph of the
Union party in these first-formed frontier States was fraught
with immeasurable good."
_T. Roosevelt,
The Winning of the West,
volume 3, chapter 3._
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787;
and LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1785-1787.
First troubles and dealings with the Barbary pirates.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1785-1801.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1786-1787.
Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1786-1787.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787.
The, Ordinance for the Government of the Northwest Territory.
Exclusion of Slavery forever.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1787;
also, EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1785-1880.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787.
The framing of the Federal Constitution.
The Union constructed of compromises.
The convention of delegates appointed to revise the Articles
of Confederation, but which took upon itself the task of
framing anew a Federal Constitution for the States, assembled
at Philadelphia on the 25th of May, 1787, eleven days later
than the day appointed for its meeting. "The powers conferred
by the several states were not uniform. Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and New Jersey appointed their delegates 'for
the purpose of revising the Federal Constitution;' North
Carolina, New Hampshire, Delaware, and Georgia 'to decide upon
the most effectual means to remove the defects of the Federal
Union;' New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut 'for the sole
and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation;'
South Carolina and Maryland 'to render the Federal
Constitution entirely adequate to the actual situation.'
{3297}
Rhode Island held aloof. She was governed by a class of men
who wanted to pay their debts in paper money, and she did not
wish to surrender her power to collect duties upon the goods
that came into her port. The trade of Newport at that day
surpassed that of New York. Connecticut came in reluctantly,
and New Hampshire late in July, 1787. … Washington was made
president of the convention. … Many names great in the
revolutionary struggle were absent from the roll of delegates.
John and Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, were not there.
Patrick Henry of Virginia refused to attend. Thomas Jefferson
and John Jay were absent from the country. George Washington
and Benjamin Franklin, however, were there. … Among the
younger men was James Madison of Virginia. … Alexander
Hamilton came from New York. … Charles C. Pinckney was a
delegate from South Carolina. … James Wilson of Pennsylvania
was a Scotchman. He surpassed all others in his exact
knowledge of the civil and common law, and the law of nations.
… Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman came from Connecticut. …
Many of the 55 delegates shared Hamilton's contempt for a
democracy, but the strength they would repose in a government
they preferred to retain in the states. … The first business
of the convention was the adoption of rules. Each state was to
have one vote. Such was the rule in the Confederate Congress.
Seven states made a quorum. The convention was to sit with
closed doors, and everything was to be kept secret: nothing
was to be given to the public except the completed work. This
injunction of secrecy was never removed. Fortunately James
Madison kept a pretty full account of the debates and
proceedings, all in his own hand."
_J. S. Landon,
Constitutional History and Government of the United States,
lecture 3._
"Madison tells us in his report of these debates that previous
to the opening of the Convention it had been a subject of
discussion among the members present, as to how the States
should vote in the Convention. Several of the members from
Pennsylvania had urged that the large States unite in refusing
to the small States an equal vote, but Virginia, believing
this to be injudicious if not unjust, ' discountenanced and
stilled the project.' On the 29th the real business of the
Convention was opened by Edmund Randolph, who as Governor of
Virginia was put forward as spokesman by his colleagues. He
began by saying that as the Convention had originated from
Virginia, and the delegation from this State supposed that
some proposition was expected from them, the task had been
imposed on him. After enumerating the defects of the
Confederation, he detailed the remedy proposed. This latter
was set forth in fifteen resolutions and was called afterwards
the Virginia plan of government. Charles Pinckney from South
Carolina had also a draft of a federal government, which was
read and like the former referred to a committee of the whole
House. … The Committee of the Whole … debated from day to day
the resolutions contained in the Virginia plan, and on the
13th of June they reported nineteen resolutions based upon
those of Virginia, forming a system of government in outline.
On the following day Mr. Paterson, of New Jersey, asked for
time to prepare another plan founded on the Articles of
Confederation. This was submitted to the Convention on the
15th. The Virginia and the New Jersey plan were contrasted
briefly by one of the members: Virginia plan proposes two
branches in the legislature, Jersey, a single legislative
body; Virginia, the legislative powers derived from the
people, Jersey, from the States; Virginia, a single executive,
Jersey, more than one; Virginia, a majority of the legislature
can act, Jersey, a small majority can control; Virginia, the
legislature can legislate on all national concerns, Jersey,
only on limited objects; Virginia, legislature to negative all
State laws, Jersey, giving power to the executive to compel
obedience by force; Virginia, to remove the executive by
impeachment, Jersey, on application of a majority of the
States; Virginia, for the establishment of inferior judiciary
tribunals, Jersey, no provision. Neither of these plans
commended themselves to men like Hamilton, who wanted a strong
government, and were afraid of democracy or giving power to
the people. He thought the Virginia plan 'but pork still with
a little change of the sauce.' The Articles of Confederation
amended, as in the New Jersey plan, set forth a government
approved of by the opposite wing of the Convention, consisting
of men like Lansing, who professed an ultra devotion to the
rights and autonomy of the States. … The Convention did not go
again into committee of the whole, but continued to debate the
nineteen resolutions from the 19th of June until the 23d of
July. Some of these were referred to grand committees,
consisting of one member from each State, or they were
referred to select committees consisting of five members."
_K. M. Rowland,
Life of George Mason,
volume 2, chapter 4._
"The plan presented by Mr. Patterson, called the New Jersey
plan, was concerted and arranged between the deputations of
that State, of Delaware, of New York, and of Connecticut, with
the individual cooperation of Mr. Luther Martin, one of the
delegates of Maryland. The extreme jealousy … manifested by
the representatives of the two first-named States with regard
to the equal suffrage of the States in the common councils of
the Confederacy, was the principal source of their aversion to
the plan reported by the committee of the whole. The delegates
of Connecticut, and Messrs. Lansing and Yates,—forming a
majority of the delegation of New York,—united with the
deputations of New Jersey and Delaware, not so much from an
exclusive attachment to the principle of the sovereignty and
equality of the States, as from the policy of preserving the
existing framework of the confederation, and of simply vesting
in Congress, as then organized, a few additional powers. It
was under the influence of these mixed political views that
the New Jersey plan was conceived and prepared. It proposed to
vest in the existing Congress,—a single body in which all the
States had an equal suffrage,—in addition to the powers
already given to it by the articles of confederation, that of
raising revenue by imposts and stamp and postage duties, and
also that of passing acts for the regulation of commerce with
foreign nations and between the States; leaving the
enforcement of all such acts, in the first instance, to the
State courts, with an ultimate appeal to the tribunals of the
United States.
{3298}
Whenever requisitions on the States for contributions should
be made, and any State should fail to comply with such
requisitions within a specified time, Congress was to be
authorized to direct their collection in the non-complying
States, and to pass the requisite acts for that purpose. None
of the foregoing powers, however, were to be exercised by
Congress without the concurrence of a certain number of the
States, exceeding a bare majority of the whole. The plan also
proposed the organization of a Federal executive and a Federal
judiciary. … It was, finally, provided that if any State, or
any body of men in any State, shall oppose or prevent the
carrying into execution any act of Congress passed in virtue
of the powers granted to that body, or any treaty made and
ratified under the authority of the United States, the Federal
executive shall be authorized to call forth the power of the
confederated States, or so much thereof as may be necessary,
to enforce and compel an obedience to the acts, or an
observance of the treaties, whose execution shall have been so
opposed or prevented. Such were the salient features of the
plan now brought forward as a substitute for the Virginia
propositions, as reported by the committee of the whole. … In
the progress of the discussion upon the two plans, Colonel
Hamilton, of New York, made an elaborate speech, declaring
himself to be opposed to both, and suggesting a third and more
absolute plan, which he thought was alone adequate to the
exigencies of the country. He frankly avowed his distrust of
both republican and federal government, under any
modification. He entered into a minute analysis of the various
sources and elements of political power, in order to show that
all these would be on the side of the State governments, so
long as a separate political organization of the States was
maintained, and would render them an over-match for any
general government that could be established, unless a
'complete sovereignty' was vested in the latter. He thought it
essential, therefore, to the ends of a good and efficient
government of the whole country, that the State governments,
with their vast and extensive apparatus, should be
extinguished; though 'he did not mean,' he said, 'to shock
public opinion by proposing such a measure.' He also expressed
his despair of the practicability of establishing a republican
government over so extensive a country as the United States.
He was sensible, at the same time, that it would be unwise to
propose one of any other form. Yet 'he had no scruple,' he
said, 'in declaring that, in his private opinion, the British
government was the best in the world, and that he doubted much
whether any thing short of it would do in America.' He
descanted upon the securities against injustice, violence, and
innovation, afforded, in the English system, by the permanent
constitution of the House of Lords, and by the elevated and
independent position of the monarch. He thence deduced the
necessity of as permanent a tenure as public opinion in this
country would bear, of the leading branches of the new
government. 'Let one branch of the legislature,' he said,
'hold their places for life, or at least during good behavior.
Let the executive also be for life.' In concluding, he
expressed his conviction that 'a great progress was going on
in the public mind; that the people will, in time, be
unshackled from their prejudices; and, whenever that happens,
they will themselves not be satisfied at stopping where the
plan brought forward by Mr. Randolph [the Virginia plan] would
place them, but would be ready to go as far, at least, as he
proposed.' He then read a plan of government he had prepared,
which, he said, he did not submit as a proposition to the
convention, but as giving a correct sketch of his ideas, and
to suggest the amendment which he should probably offer to the
Virginia plan in the future stages of its consideration. … The
convention now had presented for their consideration three
distinct schemes of government: one purely Federal, founded
upon the idea of preserving undiminished the sovereignty and
equality of the States, and of constituting a special
political agency in Congress for certain purposes, but still
under the dependence and control of the States; another of a
consolidated character, bottomed on the principle of a virtual
annihilation of the State sovereignties and the creation of a
central government, with a supreme and indefinite control over
both individuals and communities; the third a mixed and
balanced system, resting upon an agreed partition of the
powers of sovereignty between the States and the Union,—one
portion to be vested in the Union for certain objects of
common and national concern, the residue retained by the
States for the regulation of the general mass of their
interior and domestic interests. … On the 19th of June … Mr.
King, of Massachusetts, moved that 'the committee do now rise,
and report that they do not agree to the propositions offered
by the Honorable Mr. Patterson; and that they report to the
House the resolutions offered by the Honorable Mr. Randolph,
heretofore reported from a committee of the whole.' The motion
was carried by the votes of Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia, in the affirmative,—New York, New Jersey, and
Delaware voting in the negative; and Maryland, divided."
_W. C. Rives,
Life and Times of James Madison,
chapter 29._
"It appeared," wrote Madison, in a letter to Jefferson,
October 24th "to be the sincere and unanimous wish of the
Convention to cherish and preserve the Union of the States. No
proposition was made, no suggestion was thrown out, in favor
of a partition of the Empire into two or more Confederacies.
It was generally agreed that the objects of the Union could
not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a
confederation of Sovereign States. A voluntary observance of
the federal law by all the members could never be hoped for. A
compulsive one could evidently never be reduced to practice,
and if it could, involved equal calamities to the innocent and
the guilty, the necessity of a military force, both obnoxious
and dangerous, and, in general, a scene resembling much more a
civil war than the administration of a regular Government.
Hence was embraced the alternative of a Government which,
instead of operating on the States, should operate without
their intervention on the individuals composing them; and
hence the change in the principle and proportion of
representation.
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This ground-work being laid, the great objects
which presented themselves were:
1. To unite a proper energy in the Executive, and a proper
stability in the Legislative departments, with the essential
characters of Republican Government:
2. To draw a line of demarkation which would give to the
General Government every power requisite for general purposes,
and leave to the States every power which might be most
beneficially administered by them.
3. To provide for the different interests of different parts
of the Union.
4. To adjust the clashing pretensions of the large and small
States.
Each of these objects was pregnant with difficulties. The
whole of them together formed a task more difficult than can
well be conceived by those who were not concerned in the
execution of it. Adding to these considerations the natural
diversity of human opinions on all new and complicated
subjects, it is impossible to consider the degree of concord
which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle. The first
of these objects, as respects the Executive, was peculiarly
embarrassing. On the question whether it should consist of a
single person or a plurality of co-ordinate members, on the
mode of appointment, on the duration in office, on the degree
of power, on the re-eligibility, tedious and reiterated
discussions took place. The plurality of co-ordinate members
had finally but few advocates. Governor Randolph was at the
head of them. The modes of appointment proposed were various;
as by the people at large, by electors chosen by the people,
by the Executives of the States, by the Congress; some
preferring a joint ballot of the two Houses; some, a separate
concurrent ballot, allowing to each a negative on the other
house; some, a nomination of several candidates by one House,
out of whom a choice should be made by the other. Several
other modifications were started. The expedient at length
adopted seemed to give pretty general satisfaction to the
members. As to the duration in office, a few would have
preferred a tenure during good behaviour; a considerable
number would have done so in case an easy and effectual
removal by impeachment could be settled. It was much agitated
whether a long term, seven years for example, with a
subsequent and perpetual ineligibility, or a short term, with
a capacity to be re-elected, should be fixed. In favor of the
first opinion were urged the danger of a gradual degeneracy of
re-elections from time to time, into first a life and then a
hereditary tenure, and the favorable effect of an incapacity
to be reappointed on the independent exercise of the Executive
authority. On the other side it was contended that the
prospect of necessary degradation would discourage the most
dignified characters from aspiring to the office; would take
away the principal motive to the faithful discharge of its
duties—the hope of being rewarded with a reappointment; would
stimulate ambition to violent efforts for holding over the
constitutional term; and instead of producing an independent
administration and a firmer defence of the constitutional
rights of the department, would render the officer more
indifferent to the importance of a place which he would soon
be obliged to quit forever, and more ready to yield to the
encroachments of the Legislature, of which he might again be a
member. The questions concerning the degree of power turned
chiefly on the appointment to offices, and the controul on the
Legislature. An absolute appointment to all offices, to some
offices, to no offices, formed the scale of opinions on the
first point. On the second, some contended for an absolute
negative, as the only possible means of reducing to practice
the theory of a free Government, which forbids a mixture of
the Legislative and Executive powers. Others would be content
with a revisionary power, to be overruled by three-fourths of
both Houses. It was warmly urged that the judiciary department
should be associated in the revision. The idea of some was,
that a separate revision should be given to the two
departments; that if either objected, two-thirds, if both,
three-fourths, should be necessary to overrule. In forming the
Senate, the great anchor of the government, the questions, as
they come within the first object, turned mostly on the mode
of appointment, and the duration of it. The different modes
proposed were:
1. By the House of Representatives.
2. By the Executive.
3. By electors chosen by the people for the purpose.
4. By the State Legislatures.
On the point of duration, the propositions descended from good
behaviour to four years, through the intermediate terms of
nine, seven, six, and five years. The election of the other
branch was first determined to be triennial, and afterwards
reduced to biennial. The second object, the due partition of
power between the General and local Governments, was perhaps,
of all, the most nice and difficult. A few contended for an
entire abolition of the States; some, for indefinite power of
Legislation in the Congress, with a negative on the laws of
the States; some, for such a power without a negative; some,
for a limited power of legislation, with such a negative; the
majority, finally, for a limited power without the negative.
The question with regard to the negative underwent repeated
discussions, and was finally rejected by a bare majority. … I
return to the third object above mentioned, the adjustments of
the different interests of different parts of the continent.
Some contended for an unlimited power over trade, including
exports as well as imports, and over slaves as well as other
imports; some, for such a power, provided the concurrence of
two-thirds of both Houses were required; some, for such a
qualification of the power, with an exemption of exports and
slaves; others, for an exemption of exports only. The result
is seen in the Constitution. South Carolina and Georgia were
inflexible on the point of the slaves. The remaining object
created more embarrassment, and a greater alarm for the issue
of the Convention, than all the rest put together. The little
States insisted on retaining their equality in both branches,
unless a compleat abolition of the State Governments should
take place; and made an equality in the Senate a sine qua non.
The large States, on the other hand, urged that as the new
Government was to be drawn principally from the people
immediately, and was to operate directly on them, not on the
States; and, consequently, as the States would lose that
importance which is now proportioned to the importance of
their voluntary compliance with the requisitions of Congress,
it was necessary that the representation in both Houses should
be in proportion to their size. It ended in the compromise
which you will see, but very much to the dissatisfaction of
several members from the large States."
_J. Madison,
Letters and other Writings,
volume 1, pages 344-354._
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"Those who proposed only to amend the old Articles of
Confederation and opposed a new Constitution, objected that a
government formed under such a Constitution would be not a
federal, but a national, government. Luther Martin said, when
he returned to Maryland, that the delegates 'appeared totally
to have forgot the business for which we were sent. … We had
not been sent to form a government over the inhabitants of
America considered as individuals. … That the system of
government we were intrusted to prepare was a government over
these thirteen States; but that in our proceedings we adapted
principles which would be right and proper only on the
supposition that there were no state governments at all, but
that all the inhabitants of this extensive continent were in
their individual capacity, without government, and in a state
of nature.' He added that, 'in the whale system there was but
one federal feature, the appointment of the senators by the
States in their sovereign capacity, that is by their
legislatures, and the equality of suffrage in that branch; but
it was said that this feature was only federal in appearance.'
The Senate, the second house as it was called in the
convention, was in part created, it is needless to say, to
meet, or rather in obedience to, reasoning like this. … The
Luther Martin protestants were too radical to remain in the
convention to the end, when they saw that such a confederacy
as they wanted was impossible. But there were not many who
went the length they did in believing that a strong central
government was necessarily the destruction of the state
governments. Still fewer were those who would have brought
this about if they could. … The real difficulty, as Madison
said in the debate on that question, and as he repeated again
and again after that question was settled, was not between the
larger and smaller States, but between the North and South;
between those States that held slaves and those that had none.
Slavery in the Constitution, which has given so much trouble
to the Abolitionists of this century, and, indeed, to
everybody else, gave quite as much in the last century to
those who put it there. Many of the wisest and best men of the
time, Southerners as well as Northerners, and among them
Madison, were opposed to slavery. … Everywhere north of South
Carolina, slavery was looked upon as a misfortune which it was
exceedingly desirable to be free from at the earliest possible
moment; everywhere north of Mason and Dixon's Line, measures
had already been taken, or were certain soon to be taken, to
put an end to it; and by the Ordinance for the government of
all the territory north of the Ohio River, it was absolutely
prohibited by Congress, in the same year in which the
Constitutional Congress met. But it was, nevertheless, a thing
to the continued existence of which the anti-slavery people of
that time could consent without any violation of conscience.
Bad as it was, unwise, wasteful, cruel, a mockery of every
pretense of respect for the rights of man, they did not
believe it to be absolutely wicked. … The question with the
North was, how far could it yield; with the South, how far
could it encroach. It turned mainly an representation. … There
were some who maintained at first that the slave population
should not be represented at all. Hamilton proposed in the
first days of the convention 'that the rights of suffrage in
the national legislature ought to be proportioned to the
number of free inhabitants.'"
_S. H. Gay,
James Madison,
chapters 7-8._
"When the great document was at last drafted by Gouverneur
Morris, and was all ready far the signatures [September 17,
1787], the aged Franklin produced a paper, which was read for
him, as his voice was weak. Same parts of this Constitution,
he said, he did not approve, but he was astonished to find it
so nearly perfect. Whatever opinion he had of its errors he
would sacrifice to the public good, and he hoped that every
member of the convention who still had objections would on
this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and for
the sake of unanimity put his name to this instrument.
Hamilton added his plea. A few members, he said, by refusing
to sign, might do infinite mischief. … From these appeals, as
well as from Washington's solemn warning at the outset, we see
how distinctly it was realized that the country was on the
verge of civil war. Most of the members felt so, but to some
the new government seemed far too strong, and there were three
who dreaded despotism even more than anarchy. Mason, Randolph,
and Gerry refused to sign. … In the signatures the twelve
states which had taken part in the work were all represented,
Hamilton signing alone for New York."
_J. Fiske,
The Critical Period of American History,
page 303._
A "popular delusion with regard to the Constitution is that it
was created out of nothing; or, as Mr. Gladstone puts it, that
·It is the greatest work ever struck off at any one time by
the mind and purpose of man.' The radical view on the other
side is expressed by Sir Henry Maine, who informs us that the
'Constitution of the United States is a modified version of
the British Constitution … which was in existence between 1760
and 1787.' The real source of the Constitution is the
experience of Americans. They had established and developed
admirable little commonwealths in the colonies; since the
beginning of the Revolution they had had experience of State
governments organized on a different basis from the colonial;
and, finally, they had carried on two successive national
governments, with which they had been profoundly discontented.
The general outline of the new Constitution seems to be
English; it was really colonial. The President's powers of
military command, of appointment, and of veto were similar to
those of the colonial governor. National courts were created
on the model of colonial courts. A legislature of two houses
was accepted because such legislatures had been common in
colonial times. In the English Parliamentary system as it
existed before 1760 the Americans had had no share; the later
English system of Parliamentary responsibility was not yet
developed, and had never been established in colonial
governments; and they expressly excluded it from their new
Constitution. They were little more affected by the experience
of other European nations. … The chief source of the details
of the Constitution was the State constitutions and laws then
in force. Thus the clause conferring a suspensive veto on the
President is an almost literal transcript from the
Massachusetts constitution. In fact, the principal experiment
in the Constitution was the establishment of an electoral
college; and of all parts of the system this has worked least
as the framers expected. The Constitution represents,
therefore, the accumulated experience of the time. … The real
boldness of the Constitution is the novelty of the federal
system which it set up."
_A. B. Hart,
Formation of the Union
(Epochs of American History),
section 62._
{3301}
"That a constitution should be framed in detail by a body of
uninstructed delegates, expressly chosen for that purpose, was
familiar in the States of the Union; but was perhaps
unexampled elsewhere in the world, and was certainly
unexampled in the history of federations. That the instrument
of federal government should provide for proportional
representation in one house, and for a federal court, was a
step in federal organization which marks a new federal
principle. For many purposes the Union then created was
stronger than the Prussian monarchy at that moment. In many
respects the States were left stronger than the little
nominally independent German principalities. The great merit
of the members of the convention is their understanding of the
temper of their own countrymen. They selected out Of English,
or colonial, or State usages such practices and forms as
experience had shown to be acceptable to the people. … The
Convention had further the wisdom to express their work in
general though carefully stated principles. All previous
federal governments had been fettered either by an imperfect
and inadequate statement, as in the constitution of the United
Netherlands, or by an unwritten constitution with an
accumulation of special precedents, as in the Holy Roman
Empire. The phrases of the Constitution of 1787 were broad
enough to cover cases unforeseen. A third distinction of the
federal Convention is the skill with which it framed
acceptable compromises upon the three most difficult questions
before it. The two Houses of Congress satisfied both large and
small States; the three-fifths representation of slaves
postponed an inevitable conflict; the allowance of the slave
trade for a term of years made it possible for Congress to
perfect commercial legislation. The Convention had profited by
the experience of the Confederation: on every page of the
Constitution may be found clauses which would not have stood
there had it been framed in 1781. An adequate revenue was
provided; foreign and interstate commerce was put under the
control of Congress; the charge of foreign affairs was given
entirely to the central authority; the powers of government
were distributed among three departments."
_A. B. Hart,
Introduction to the Study of Federal Government,
chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_I. Eliot,
Debates in the Convention at Philadelphia, 1787._
_J. Madison,
Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution._
_W. C. Rives,
Life and Times of James Madison,
chapters 27-33 (volume 2)._
_G. Bancroft,
History of the Formation of the Constitution of
the United States._
_G. T. Curtis,
History of the Constitution of the United States._
_C. E. Stevens,
Sources of the Constitution of the United States._
_J. H. Robinson,
The Original and Derived Features of the Constitution.
(Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, volume l)._
For the text of the Constitution.
See CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.
The struggle for the Federal Constitution in the States.
Its ratification.
The end of the Confederation.
The fate of the proposed Constitution remained doubtful for
many months after the adjournment of the convention. Hamilton
said it would be arrogance to conjecture the result. …
Delaware was the first state to accept it, [December 7, 1787].
Gratified by the concession of equality in the federal Senate,
the ratification was prompt, enthusiastic, and unanimous.
Pennsylvania was the second [December 12]. The opposition was
sharp, but Franklin was president of the state, and Wilson a
delegate to the state convention. Their influence was great. …
The ratification was effected by a vote of 46 to 23. Then New
Jersey [December 18] and Georgia [January 2, 1788] followed
unanimously. Next came Connecticut [January 9] by a vote of
128 to 40. The result in these five states was the more easily
obtained because the friends of the Constitution were prompt
to act. With delay in the other states came a bitterness of
contention which made the result doubtful. The first close
struggle was in Massachusetts. The public creditor favored the
proposed Constitution. He saw in it some hope of his long
deferred pay. But the debtor class opposed it; for it would
put an end to cheap paper money, with which they hoped to pay
their debts, when it became still cheaper. … Hancock and Adams
scarcely favored the Constitution. They feared it infringed
upon the rights of the people, and especially upon the rights
of the states. … Hancock finally came forward as a mediator.
He proposed that the Constitution be ratified, with an
accompanying recommendation that it be amended in the
particulars in which it was thought to be defective. His
proposition was adopted, and the Constitution was ratified
[February 6] by a vote of 187 to 168. Maryland next ratified
the Constitution with much unanimity [April 28],
notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of Luther Martin. …
South Carolina followed next [May 23], and ratified the
Constitution by a majority of 76, but recommended amendments
substantially like those of Massachusetts. South Carolina was
the eighth state; and, if one more could be obtained, the
Constitution would take effect between the nine ratifying
states. There remained the five states of Virginia, New York,
New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. The state
convention of Virginia was called for the 2d of June 1788, of
New York for the 17th, and of New Hampshire for the 18th of
the same month. The result was expected to be adverse in
everyone of these states. In Virginia the opposition was led
by Patrick Henry. … Henry was ably seconded by Richard Henry
Lee, William Grayson, and George Mason. … James Monroe
followed their lead. James Madison and Governor Randolph were
the leading champions of the new Constitution. … John
Marshall, afterwards chief justice, came to their assistance.
… The debate lasted a month. It may be read with instruction,
as it is reported in the volumes of Elliot. The ratification
prevailed [June 25] by a majority of ten in a vote of 186.
After all, the influence of Washington procured the result. …
Meanwhile, the state of New Hampshire had ratified the
Constitution [June 21], but the fact was not known in
Virginia. The opposition to the Constitution was great and
bitter in the State of New York. Fortunately the convention
was held so late that New Hampshire, the ninth state, had
ratified while the New York convention was engaged in its
heated discussions. Two thirds of the delegates were elected
to oppose it. … The friends of the Constitution felt, long
before the convention assembled, that public discussion might
be useful in overcoming the hostile attitude of the state.
{3302}
Accordingly, a series of essays in exposition of the
Constitution was written by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, over
the common signature of 'Publius.' These essays were published
in a newspaper, between October, 1787, and June, 1788. … They
were subsequently collected and published in a volume styled
'The Federalist.' From that day to this, 'The Federalist' has
held unequalled rank as an authority upon the construction of
the Constitution." On the 24th of June a fleet courier,
employed by Hamilton, brought from Concord to Poughkeepsie,
where the New York convention sat, news of the ratification of
the Constitution by New Hampshire, the ninth state. "Now,
indeed, the situation was changed. There was no longer a
confederacy; the Union was already formed. … The state must
either join the new system or stay out of it. New York was not
favorably situated for a separate nation. New England on the
east, and New Jersey and Pennsylvania on the south, belonged
to the new Union. Canada was on the north. … Delay, with its
altered circumstances, finally brought to Hamilton and his
party the victory that had been denied to argument and
eloquence. But the Anti-Federalists were reluctant to yield,
and the debate was prolonged," until the 26th of July, when
the ratification was carried by 30 votes against 27. "North
Carolina remained out of the Union until November, 1789, and
Rhode Island until June, 1790. … The ratification by nine
states having been certified to the Congress of the
Confederacy, that body adopted a resolution fixing the first
Wednesday of March, 1789, as the day when the new government
should go into operation. As the day fell on the 4th of March,
that day became fixed for the beginning and the end of
congressional and presidential terms."
_J. S. Landon,
Constitutional History and Government of the United States,
lecture 4._
ALSO IN:
_J. Fiske,
The Critical Period of American History,
chapter 7._
_G. T. Curtis, History of the Constitution of
the United States,
book 5 (volume 2)._
_G. Bancroft,
History of the Formation of the Constitution,
book 4 (volume 2)._
_J. Elliot, editor,
Debates in the State Convention on the Adoption
of the Federal Constitution._
_The Federalist._
_A. Hamilton,
Works,
volume 2._
_W. C. Rives,
Life and Times of Madison,
chapters 34-36 (volume 2)._
_K. M. Rowland,
Life of George Mason.
volume 2, chapters 6-8_.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789.
The First Presidential Election.
Washington called to the head of the new Government.
"The adoption of the Federal constitution was another epoch in
the life of Washington. Before the official forms of an
election could be carried into operation a unanimous sentiment
throughout the Union pronounced him the nation's choice to
fill the presidential chair. He looked forward to the
possibility of his election with characteristic modesty and
unfeigned reluctance; as his letters to his confidential
friends bear witness. … The election took place at the
appointed time [the first Wednesday in January, 1789], and it
was soon ascertained that Washington was chosen President for
the term of four years from the 4th of March. By this time the
arguments and entreaties of his friends, and his own
convictions of public expediency, had determined him to
accept. … From a delay in forming a quorum of Congress the
votes of the electoral college were not counted until early in
April, when they were found to be unanimous in favor of
Washington 'The delay,' said he in a letter to General Knox,
'may be compared to a reprieve; for in confidence I tell you
(with the world it would obtain little credit), that my
movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by
feelings not unlike those of a culprit, who is going to the
place of his execution; so unwilling am I, in the evening of a
life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode
for an ocean of difficulties, without that competency of
political skill, abilities and inclination, which are
necessary to manage the helm.' … At length on the 14th of
April he received a letter from the president of Congress,
duly notifying him of his election; and he prepared to set out
immediately for New York, the seat of government."
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 4, chapter 37._
The secondary electoral votes, by which the Vice President
was, at that time, chosen, were scattered among eleven
candidates. John Adams received the greater number (34) though
not quite a majority of the 69, and was elected.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789.
Passage of the Act of Congress organizing the
Supreme Court of the United States.
See SUPREME COURT.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792.
Hamilton's report on Manufactures.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1789-1791.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792;
Organization of the Federal government
and first administration of Washington.
The dividing of Parties.
Federalists and Democratic Republicans.
"March 4th, 1789, had been appointed for the formal
inauguration of the new Government, but the members elect had
not yet unlearned the Confederacy's slovenly habits. It was
not until April 6th that a sufficient number of members of
Congress arrived in New York to form a quorum and count the
electoral votes. At that time, and until 1805, no electoral
votes were cast distinctively for President and
Vice-President. Each elector voted by ballot for two persons.
If a majority of all the votes were cast for any person, he
who received the greatest number of votes became President,
and he who received the next greatest number became
Vice-President. When the votes were counted in 1789 they were
found to be, for George Washington, of Virginia, 69 (each of
the electors having given him one vote), for John Adams, of
Massachusetts, 34, and 35 for various other candidates.
Washington received notice of his election, and, after a
triumphal progress northward from his home at Mount Vernon,
was sworn into office April 30th [at Federal Hall, corner Wall
and Nassau Streets, New York]. The Vice-President had taken
his place as presiding officer of the Senate a few days
before. Frederick A. Muhlenberg, of Pennsylvania, was chosen
Speaker of the House, but the vote had no party divisions, for
Parties were still in a state of utter confusion. Between the
extreme Anti-federalists, who considered the Constitution a
long step toward a despotism, and the extreme Federalists, who
desired a monarchy modeled on that of England, there were all
varieties of political opinion. … The extreme importance of
Washington lay in his ability, through the universal
confidence in his integrity and good judgment, to hold
together this alliance of moderate men for a time, and to
prevent party contests upon the interpretation of federal
powers until the Constitution should show its merit and be
assured of existence.
{3303}
The President selected his Cabinet with a careful regard to
the opposite opinions of his supporters. The Treasury
Department was given to Alexander Hamilton, of New York, a
Federalist. … The War Department was given to General Henry
Knox, of Massachusetts, also a Federalist. The State
Department was given to Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, an
Anti-federalist. … Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, also an
Anti-federalist, was appointed Attorney-General, and John Jay,
of New York, a Federalist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Twelve Amendments were adopted by this Session of Congress, in
order to meet the conscientious objections of many moderate
Anti-federalists, and to take the place of a 'Bill of Rights.'
Ten of these, having received the assent of the necessary
number of States, became a part of the Constitution, and now
stand the first ten of the Amendments. They were intended to
guarantee freedom of religion, speech, person, and property. …
January 9th [1790] Hamilton offered his famous Report on the
Settlement of the Public Debt. It consisted of three
recommendations, first, that the foreign debt of the
Confederacy should be assumed land paid in full; second, that
the domestic debt of the Confederacy, which had fallen far
below par and had become a synonym for worthlessness, should
also be paid at its par value; and third, that the debts
incurred by the States during the Revolution, and still
unpaid, should be assumed and paid in full by the Federal
Government. Hamilton's First recommendation was adopted
unanimously. The Second was opposed, even by Madison and many
moderate Anti-federalists, on the ground that the domestic
debt was held by speculators, who had bought it at a heavy
discount, and would thus gain usurious interest on their
investment. Hamilton's supporters argued that, if only for
that reason, they should be paid in full, that holders of
United States securities might learn not to sell them at a
discount, and that the national credit might thus be
strengthened for all time to come. After long debate the
second recommendation was also adopted. Hamilton's Third
recommendation involved a question of the powers of the
Federal Government. It therefore for the first time united all
the Anti-federalists in opposition to it. They feared that the
rope of sand of the Confederacy was being carried to the
opposite extreme; that the 'money power' would, by this
measure, be permanently attached to the Federal Government;
and that the States would be made of no importance. But even
this recommendation was adopted, though only by a vote of 31
to 26 in the House. A few days later, however, the
Anti-federalists received a reinforcement of seven newly
arrived North Carolina members. The third resolution was at
once reconsidered, and voted down by a majority of two.
Hamilton secured the final adoption of the third resolution by
a bargain which excited the deep indignation of the
Anti-federalists. A National Capital was to be selected. The
Federalists agreed to vote that it should be fixed upon the
Potomac River [see WASHINGTON (CITY): A. D. 1791], after
remaining ten years in Philadelphia, and two Anti-federalist
members from the Potomac agreed in return to vote for the
third resolution, which was then finally adopted. Hamilton's
entire report was thus successful. Its immediate effects were
to appreciate the credit of the United States, and to enrich
the holders of the Continental debt. Its further effect was to
make Hamilton so much disliked by Anti-federalists that,
despite his acknowledged talents, his party never ventured to
nominate him for any elective office. … Party Organization may
be considered as fairly begun about the close [of the first
Session of the Second Congress, in 1792]. … The various
Anti-federalist factions, by union in resisting the
Federalists, had learned to forget minor differences and had
been welded into one party which only lacked a name. That of
Anti-federalist was no longer applicable, for its opposition
to the Federal Union had entirely ceased. A name was supplied
by Jefferson, the recognized leader of the party, after the
French Revolution had fairly begun its course. That political
convulsion had, for some time after 1789, the sympathy of both
Federalists and Anti-federalists, for it seemed the direct
outgrowth of the American Revolution. But, as its leveling
objects became more apparent, the Federalists grew cooler and
the Anti-federalists warmer towards it. The latter took great
pains, even by dress and manners, to show the keenness of
their sympathy for the Republicans of France, and about this
time adopted the name Democratic-Republican, which seemed
sufficiently comprehensive for a full indication of their
principles. This has always been the official party title. It
is now abbreviated to Democratic, though the name Democrat was
at first used by Federalists as one of contempt, and the party
called itself Republican, a title which it could hardly claim
with propriety, for its tendency has always been toward a
democracy, as that of its opponents has been toward a strong
republic. The name Republican, therefore, belongs most
properly to its present possessors (1879). But it must be
remembered that the party which will be called Republican
until about 1828 was the party which is now called
Democratic."
_A. Johnston,
History of American Politics,
chapter 2._
Jefferson's bitterness of hostility to the Federalists was due
to the belief that they aimed at the overthrow of the
Republic. His conviction as to these really treasonable
purposes in the leaders of the party was often expressed, but
never more distinctly than in a letter written in 1813 to an
English traveller, Mr. Melish. At the same time, he set forth
the principles and aims of his own party: "Among that section
of our citizens called federalists," he wrote, "there are
three shades of opinion. Distinguishing between the leaders
and people who compose it, the leaders consider the English
constitution as a model of perfection, some, with a correction
of its vices, others, with all its corruptions and abuses.
This last was Alexander Hamilton's opinion, which others, as
well as myself, have often heard him declare, and that a
correction of what are called its vices would render the
English an impracticable government. This government they
wished to have established here, and only accepted and held
fast, at first, to the present constitution, as a
stepping-stone to the final establishment of their favorite
model. This party has therefore always clung to England as
their prototype and great auxiliary in promoting and effecting
this change. A weighty minority, however, of these leaders,
considering the voluntary conversion of our government into a
monarchy as too distant, if not desperate, wish to break off
from our Union its eastern fragment, as being, in truth, the
hot-bed of American monarchism, with a view to a commencement
of their favorite government, from whence the other States may
gangrene by degrees, and the whole be thus brought finally to
the desired point.
{3304}
For Massachusetts, the prime mover in this enterprise, is the
last State in the Union to mean a final separation, as being
of all the most dependent on the others. Not raising bread for
the sustenance of her own inhabitants, not having a stick of
timber for the construction of vessels, her principal
occupation, nor an article to export in them, where would she
be, excluded from the ports of the other States, and thrown
into dependence on England, her direct, and natural, but now
insidious rival? At the head of this minority is what is
called the Essex Junto of Massachusetts. But the majority of
these leaders do not aim at separation. In this, they adhere
to the known principle of General Hamilton, never, under any
views, to break the Union. Anglomany, monarchy, and
separation, then, are the principles of the Essex federalists.
Anglomany and monarchy, those of the Hamiltonians, and
Anglomany alone, that of the portion among the people who call
themselves federalists. These last are as good republicans as
the brethren whom they oppose, and differ from them only in
their devotion to England and hatred of France which they have
imbibed from their leaders. The moment that these leaders
should avowedly propose a separation of the Union, or the
establishment of regal government, their popular adherents
would quit them to a man, and join the republican standard;
and the partisans of this change, even in Massachusetts, would
thus find themselves an army of officers without a soldier.
The party called republican is steadily for the support of the
present constitution. They obtained at its commencement all
the amendments to it they desired. These reconciled them to it
perfectly, and if they have any ulterior view, it is only,
perhaps, to popularize it further, by shortening the
Senatorial term, and devising a process for the responsibility
of judges, more practicable than that of impeachment. They
esteem the people of England and France equally, and equally
detest the governing powers of both. This I verily believe,
after an intimacy of forty years with the public councils and
characters, is a true statement of the grounds on which they
are at present divided, and that it is not merely an ambition
for power. An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise
of power over his fellow citizens. And considering as the only
offices of power those conferred by the people directly, that
is to say, the executive and legislative functions of the
General and State governments, the common refusal of these,
and multiplied resignations, are proofs sufficient that power
is not alluring to pure minds, and is not, with them, the
primary principle of contest. This is my belief of it; it is
that on which I have acted; and had it been a mere contest who
should be permitted to administer the government according to
its genuine republican principles, there has never been a
moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it
the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends and books.
You expected to discover the difference of our party
principles in General Washington's valedictory, and my
inaugural address. Not at all. General Washington did not
harbor one principle of federalism. He was neither an
Angloman, a monarchist, nor a separatist. He sincerely wished
the people to have as much self-government as they were
competent to exercise themselves. The only point on which he
and I ever differed in opinion, was, that I had more
confidence than he had in the natural integrity and discretion
of the people, and in the safety and extent to which they
might trust themselves with a control over their government.
He has asseverated to me a thousand times his determination
that the existing government should have a fair trial, and
that in support of it he would spend the last drop of his
blood. He did this the more repeatedly, because he knew
General Hamilton's political bias, and my apprehensions from
it."
_T. Jefferson,
Letter to Mr. Melish, January 13, 1813
(Writings, edited by Washington, volume 6)._
The view taken at the present day of the Federalism and the
Federalists of the first three decades of the Union, among
those who see more danger in the centrifugal than in the
centripetal forces in government, are effectively stated in
the following: "The popular notion in regard to Federalism is
that to which the name naturally gives rise. By Federalists
are commonly understood those men who advocated a union of the
States and an efficient Federal government. This conception is
true, but is at the same time so limited that it may fairly be
called superficial. The name arose from its first object which
the friends of the Constitution strove to achieve; but this
object, the more perfect union, and even the Constitution
itself, were but means to ends of vastly more importance. The
ends which the Federalists sought formed the great principles
on which the party was founded, and it can be justly said that
no nobler or better ends were ever striven for by any
political party or by any statesmen. The first and paramount
object of the Federalists was to build up a nation and to
create a national sentiment. For this they sought a more
perfect union. Their next object was to give the nation they
had called into existence not only a government, but a strong
government. To do this, they had not only to devise a model,
to draw a constitution, to organize a legislature, executive,
and judiciary, but they had to equip the government thus
formed with all those adjuncts without which no government can
long exist under the conditions of modern civilization. The
Federalists had to provide for the debt, devise a financial
and foreign policy, organize an army, fortify the ports, found
a navy, impose and collect taxes, and put in operation an
extensive revenue system. We of the English race—whose creed
is that governments and great political systems grow and
develop slowly, are the results of climate, soil, race,
tradition, and the exigencies of time and place, who wholly
disavow the theory that perfect governments spring in a night
from the heated brains of Frenchmen or Spaniards—can best
appreciate the task with which our ancestors grappled. … Upon
a people lately convulsed by civil war, upon a people who had
lost their old political habits and traditions without finding
new ones in their stead, it was necessary to impose a
government, and to create a national sentiment. This the
Federalists did, and they need no other eulogy.
{3305}
With no undue national pride, we can justly say that the
adoption and support of the Constitution offer an example of
the political genius of the Anglo-Saxon race to which history
cannot furnish a parallel. The political party to whose
exertions these great results were due was the Federal party.
They were the party of order, of good government, and of
conservatism. Against them was ranged a majority of their
fellow-citizens. But this majority was wild, anarchical,
disunited. The only common ground on which they could meet was
that of simple opposition. The only name they had was
anti-Federalists. They had neither leaders, discipline,
objects, nor even a party cry. Before the definite aims and
concentrated ability of the Federalists, they fled in helpless
disorder, like an unarmed mob before advancing soldiers. But,
though dispersed, the anti-Federalists were still in a
numerical majority. They needed a leader, organization, and
opportunity, and they soon found all three. Thomas Jefferson
arrived in New York, not only to enter into Washington's
cabinet, and lend the aid of his great talents to the success
of the new scheme, but soon also to put himself at the head of
the large though demoralized opposition to the administration
he had sworn to support. Filled with the wild democratic
theories which his susceptible nature had readily imbibed in
France, Jefferson soon infused them into the minds of most of
his followers. Instead of a vague dislike to any and all
government, he substituted a sharp and factious opposition to
each and every measure proposed by the friends of the
Constitution."
_H. C. Lodge,
Life and Letters of George Cabot,
chapter 11._
ALSO IN:
_W. C. Rives,
Life and Times of Madison,
chapters 37-46 (volume 3)._
_J. Parton,
Life of Jefferson,
chapters 42-47._
_M. Van Buren,
Political Parties in the United States,
chapters 2-4._
_J. D. Hammond,
History of Political Parties in New York,
volume 1, chapters 1-2._
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 5, chapters 1-16._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1810.
Founding of the Roman Episcopate.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1789-1810.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1790.
The First Census.
Total population, 3,929,827,
classed and distributed as follows:
North.
White. Free black. Slave.
Connecticut. 232,581 2,801 2,759
Maine. 96,002 538 0
Massachusetts. 373,254 5,463 0
New Hampshire. 141,111 630 158
New Jersey. 169,954 2,762 11,423
New York. 314,142 4,654 21,324
Pennsylvania. 424,099 6,537 3,737
Rhode Island. 64,689 3,469 952
Vermont. 85,144 255 17
--- --- ---
Total 1,900,976 27,109 40,370
South.
White. Free black. Slave.
Delaware. 46,310 3,899 8,887
Georgia. 52,886 398 29,264
Kentucky. 61,133 114 11,830
Maryland. 208,649 8,043 103,036
North Carolina. 288,204 4,975 100,572
South Carolina. 140,178 1,801 107,094
Tennessee. 32,013 361 3,417
Virginia. 442,115 12,766 293,427
--- --- ---
Total 1,271,488 32,357 657,527
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1790-1795.
War with the Indian tribes of the Northwest.
Disastrous expeditions of Harmar and St. Clair,
and Wayne's decisive victory.
See NORTHWESTERN TERRITORY: A. D. 1790-1795.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1791.
Admission of Vermont to the Union.
See VERMONT: A. D. 1790-1791.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1791.
Incorporation of the first Bank of the United States.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1791-1816.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1791.
The founding of the Federal Capital.
See WASHINGTON (CITY): A. D. 1791.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1791.
Adoption of the first ten Amendments
to the Federal Constitution.
The first ten amendments to the Constitution (see CONSTITUTION
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA), embodying a declaration of
rights which was thought to be necessary by many who had
consented to the adoption of the Constitution, but only with
the understanding that such amendments should be added, were
proposed to the legislatures of the several States by the
First Congress, on the 25th of September, 1789. At different
dates between November 20, 1789 and December 15, 1791, they
were ratified by eleven of the then fourteen States. "There is
no evidence on the journals of Congress that the legislatures
of Connecticut, Georgia, and Massachusetts ratified them."
_Constitution,
Rules and Manual of the UNITED STATES SENATE (1885)
page 61._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1792.
Admission of Kentucky to the Union.
Slavery in the Constitution of the new State.
See KENTUCKY: A. D. 1789-1792.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1792.
Second Presidential Election.
George Washington re-elected with unanimity, receiving 132
votes of the Electoral College, John Adams, Vice President,
receiving 77 votes, with 50 cast for George Clinton, 4 for
Jefferson and 1 for Burr.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.
The First Fugitive Slave Law.
For some time after the adoption of the Federal Constitution,
its provision relating to the rendition of persons "held to
service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another" remained without legislation to execute
it; "and it is a striking fact that the call for legislation
came not from the South, but from a free State; and that it
was provoked, not by fugitive slaves, but by kidnappers. … A
free negro named John was seized at Washington, Pennsylvania,
in 1791, and taken to Virginia. The Governor of Pennsylvania,
at the instigation of the Society for the Abolition of
Slavery, asked the return of the three kidnappers; but the
Governor of Virginia replied that, since there was no national
law touching such a case, he could not carry out the request.
On the matter being brought to the notice of Congress by the
Governor of Pennsylvania," a bill was passed which "became law
by the signature of the President, February 12, 1793. … The
act provided at the same time for the recovery of fugitives
from justice and from labor; but the alleged criminal was to
have a protection through the requirement of a requisition, a
protection denied to the man on trial for his liberty only.
The act was applicable to fugitive apprentices as well as to
slaves, a provision of some importance at the time. In the
Northwest Territory there were so-called negro apprentices,
who were virtually slaves, and to whom the law applied, since
it was in terms extended to all the Territories. Proceedings
began with the forcible seizure of the alleged fugitive. The
act, it will be observed, does not admit a trial by jury.
{3306}
It allowed the owner of the slave, his agent or attorney, to
seize the fugitive and take him before any judge of a United
States Circuit or District Court, or any local magistrate. The
only requirement for the conviction of the slave was the
testimony of his master, or the affidavit of some magistrate
in the State from which he came, certifying that such a person
had escaped. Hindering arrest or harboring a slave was
punishable by a fine of five hundred dollars. The law thus
established a system allowing the greatest harshness to the
slave and every favor to the master. Even at that time, when
persons might still be born slaves in New York and New Jersey,
and gradual emancipation had not yet taken full effect in
Rhode Island and Connecticut, it was repellent to the popular
sense of justice; there were two cases of resistance 'to the
principle of the act before the close of 1793. Until 1850 no
further law upon this subject was passed, but as the
provisions of 1793 were found ineffectual, many attempts at
amendment were made."
_M. G. McDougall,
Fugitive Slaves, 1619-1865
(Fay House Monographs, number 3), pages 17-19._
"The fugitive-slave clause in the Constitution is of course
obligatory, but there is a wide distinction between the
fugitive-slave clause and the fugitive-slave law. The
Constitution gives no power to Congress to legislate on the
subject, but imposes on the States the obligation of
rendition. Chief-Justice Hornblower, of New York, and
Chancellor Walworth, of New York, long since pronounced the
fugitive law of '93 unconstitutional on this very ground."
_William Jay,
Letter to Josiah Quincy
(quoted in B. Tuckerman's "William Jay and the
Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery")._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.
Popular sympathy with the French Revolution.
Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality.
Insolent conduct of the French minister, Genet.
"The French Revolution, as was natural from the all-important
services rendered by France to the United States in their own
revolutionary struggle, enlisted the warm sympathy of the
American people. … As the United States were first introduced
to the family of nations by the alliance with France of 1778,
the very important question arose, on the breaking out of the
war between France and England, how far they were bound to
take part in the contest. The second article of the treaty of
alliance seemed to limit its operation to the then existing
war between the United States and Great Britain; but by the
eleventh article the two contracting powers agreed to
'guarantee mutually from the present time and forever, against
all other powers,' the territories of which the allies might
be in possession respectively at the moment the war between
France and Great Britain should break out, which was
anticipated as the necessary consequence of the alliance. Not
only were the general sympathies of America strongly with
France, but the course pursued by Great Britain toward the
United States, since the peace of 1783, was productive of
extreme irritation, especially her refusal to give up the
western posts, which … had the effect of involving the
northwestern frontier in a prolonged and disastrous Indian
war. These causes, together with the recent recollections of
the revolutionary struggle, disposed the popular mind to make
common cause with France, in what was regarded as the war of a
people struggling for freedom against the combined despots of
Europe. Washington, however, from the first, determined to
maintain the neutrality of the country;" and, with the
unanimous advice of his cabinet, he issued (April 22, 1793) a
proclamation of neutrality. "This proclamation, though
draughted by Mr. Jefferson and unanimously adopted by the
Cabinet, was violently assailed by the organs of the party
which followed his lead. … The growing excitement of the
popular mind was fanned to a flame by the arrival at
Charleston, South Carolina [April 9], of 'Citizen' Genet, who
was sent as the minister of the French Republic to the United
States. Without repairing to the seat of government, or being
accredited in any way, in his official capacity, he began to
fit out privateers in Charleston, to cruise against the
commerce of England. Although the utmost gentleness and
patience were observed by the executive of the United States
in checking this violation of their neutrality, Genet assumed
from the first a tone of defiance, and threatened before long
to appeal from the government to the people. These insolent
demonstrations were of course lost upon Washington's firmness
and moral courage. They distressed, but did not in the
slightest degree intimidate him; and their effect on the
popular mind was to some extent neutralized by the facts, that
the chief measures to maintain the neutrality of the country
had been unanimously advised by the Cabinet, and that the duty
of rebuking his intemperate course had devolved upon the
secretary of state [Jefferson], the recognized head of the
party to which Genet looked for sympathy."
_E. Everett,
Life of Washington,
chapter 8._
A demand for "Genet's recall was determined on during the
first days of August. There was some discussion over the
manner of requesting the recall, but the terms were made
gentle by Jefferson, to the disgust of the Secretary of the
Treasury and the Secretary of War [Hamilton and Knox], who
desired direct methods and stronger language. As finally toned
up and agreed upon by the President and cabinet, the document
was sufficiently vigorous to annoy Genet, and led to bitter
reproaches addressed to his friend in the State Department. …
The letter asking Genet's recall, as desired by Washington,
went in due time, and in the following February came a
successor. Genet, however, did not go back to his native land,
for he preferred to remain here and save his head, valueless
as that article would seem to have been. He spent the rest of
his days in America, married, harmless, and quite obscure. His
noise and fireworks were soon over, and one wonders now how he
could ever have made as much flare and explosion as he did."
_H. C. Lodge,
George Washington,
volume 2, pages 155-156._
ALSO IN:
_H. S. Randall,
Life of Jefferson,
volume 2, chapter 4._
_J. T. Morse,
Life of Hamilton,
volume 2, chapter 3._
_American State Papers,
volume 1, pages 140-188, 243-246, and 311-314._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.
Whitney's Cotton-gin and the series of inventions
which it made complete.
Their political effect.
The strengthening of the Slave Power, and the
strengthening of Unionism.
"Some English artisans, who, about the middle of the last
century, were obtaining a scanty living by spinning, weaving
and other such occupations, turned their inventive talent to
the improvement of their art.
{3307}
Paul and Wyatt introduced the operation of spinning by
rollers; Highs, or Hargreaves, invented the jenny, by which a
great many threads could be spun as easily as one. Paul
devised the rotating carding-engine; Crompton the mule;
Arkwright the water-frame, which produced any number of
threads of any degree of fineness and hardness. These
ingenious machines constituted a very great improvement on the
spindle and distaff of ancient times, and on the
spinning-wheel, originally brought from Asia, or perhaps
reinvented in Europe. At length one spinner was able to
accomplish as much work as one hundred could have formerly
done. While the art of producing threads was undergoing this
singular improvement, Cartwright, a clergyman, invented, in
1785, the power-loom, intended to supersede the operation of
weaving by hand, and to make the production of textile fabrics
altogether the result of machinery. After some modifications,
that loom successfully accomplished the object for which it
was devised. As these inventions succeeded, they necessarily
led to a demand for motive power. In the first little cotton
factory, the germ of that embodiment of modern industry, the
cotton-mill, a water-wheel was employed to give movement to
the machinery. The establishment was, therefore, necessarily
placed near a stream, where a sufficient fall could be
obtained. The invention of the steam-engine by Watt, which was
the consequence of the new and correct views of the nature of
vapors that had been established by Dr. Black, supplied, in
due time, the required motive power, and by degrees the
water-wheel went almost out of use. Textile manufacture needed
now but one thing more to become of signal importance—it
needed a more abundant supply of raw material. … Cotton, the
fibre chiefly concerned in these improvements, was obtained in
limited quantities from various countries; but, at the time of
the adoption of the Constitution, not a single pound was
exported from the United States. What was grown here was for
domestic consumption. Every good housewife had her
spinning-wheel, every plantation its hand-loom. The difficulty
of supplying cotton fibre in quantity sufficient to meet the
demands of the new machinery was due to the imperfect means in
use for separating the cotton from its seeds—a tedious
operation, for the picking was done by hand. Eli Whitney, a
native of Massachusetts, by his invention of the cotton-gin in
1793, removed that difficulty. The fibre could be separated
from the seeds with rapidity and at a trifling cost. There was
nothing now to prevent an extraordinary development in the
English manufactures. A very few years showed what the result
would be. In 1790 no cotton was exported from the United
States. Whitney's gin was introduced in 1793. The next year
about 1½ million of pounds were exported; in 1795, about 5¼
millions; in 1860, the quantity had reached 2,000 millions of
pounds. The political effect of this mechanical invention,
which thus proved to be the completion of all the previous
English inventions, being absolutely necessary to give them
efficacy, was at once seen in its accomplishing a great
increase and a redistribution of population in England. … In
the United States the effects were still more important.
Cotton could be grown through all the Southern Atlantic and
the Gulf States. It was more profitable than any other
crop—but it was raised by slaves. Whatever might have been the
general expectation respecting the impending extinction of
slavery, it was evident that at the commencement of this
century the conditions had altogether changed. A powerful
interest had come into unforeseen existence both in Europe and
America which depended on perpetuating that mode of labor.
Moreover, before long it was apparent that, partly because of
the adaptation of their climate to the growth of the plant,
partly because of the excellence of the product, and partly
owing to the increasing facilities for interior
transportation, the cotton-growing states of America would
have a monopoly in the supply of this staple. But, though
mechanical invention had reinvigorated the slave power by
bestowing on it the cotton-gin, it had likewise strengthened
unionism by another inestimable gift—the steam-boat. At the
very time that the African slave-trade was prohibited, Fulton
was making his successful experiment of the navigation of the
Hudson River by steam. This improvement in inland navigation
rendered available, in a manner never before contemplated, the
river and lake system of the continent; it gave an
instantaneous value to the policy of Jefferson, by bringing
into effectual use the Mississippi and its tributaries; it
crowded with population the shores of the lakes; it threw the
whole continent open to commerce, it strengthened the central
power at Washington by diminishing space, and while it
extended geographically the domain of the republic, it
condensed it politically. It bound all parts of the Union more
firmly together. … In the Constitution it had been agreed that
three fifths of the slaves should be accounted as federal
numbers in the apportionment of federal representation. A
political advantage was thus given to slave labor. This closed
the eyes of the South to all other means of solving its
industrial difficulties. … To the cotton-planter two courses
were open. He might increase his manual force, or he might
resort to machinery. … It required no deep political
penetration for him to perceive that the introduction of
machinery must in the end result in the emancipation of the
slave. Machinery and slavery are incompatible—the slave is
displaced by the machine. In the Southern States political
reasons thus discouraged the introduction of machinery. Under
the Constitution an increased negro force had a political
value, machinery had none. The cotton interest was therefore
persuaded by those who were in a position to guide its
movements, that its prosperity could be secured only through
increased manual labor."
_Dr. J. W. Draper,
History of the American Civil War,
section 3, chapter 16 (volume 1)._
See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794.
Resistance to the Excise.
The Whisky Insurrection in Pennsylvania.
See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1794.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794-1795.
Threatening relations with Great Britain.
The Jay Treaty.
"The daily increasing 'love-frenzy for France,' and the
intemperate language of the Democratic press, naturally
emphasized in England that reaction against America which set
in with the treaty of peace. On the other hand, the retention
of the frontier posts in violation of that treaty was a thorn
in the side of the young Republic. In the course of the war
England had adopted, by successive Orders in Council, a policy
ruinous to the commerce of neutral nations, especially of the
United States.
{3308}
In the admiralty courts of the various British West India
islands hundreds of ships from New England were seized and
condemned, for carrying French produce or bearing cargoes of
provisions chartered to French ports. The New England
fishermen and shipowners were vociferous for war, and the
Democratic clubs denounced every British insult and celebrated
every French victory. On March 26, 1794, an embargo against
British ships was proclaimed for thirty days, and then
extended for thirty days longer. The day after the embargo was
laid, Dayton, of New Jersey, moved in Congress to sequester
all moneys due to British creditors, and apply it towards
indemnifying shipowners for losses incurred through the Orders
in Council; and on April 21st the Republicans moved a
resolution to suspend, all commercial intercourse with Great
Britain till the western posts should be given up, and
indemnity be paid for injuries to American commerce in
violation of the rights of neutrals. The passage of such an
act meant war; and for war the United States was never more
unprepared. … Peace could be secured only by immediate
negotiation and at least a temporary settlement of the causes
of neutral irritation, and for such a task the ministers at
London and Washington were incompetent or unsuited. … In this
crisis Washington decided to send to England a special envoy.
Hamilton was his first choice, but Hamilton had excited bitter
enmities." On Hamilton's recommendation, John Jay, the Chief
Justice, was chosen for the difficult mission, and he sailed
for England in May, 1794, landing at Falmouth on the 8th of
June. Within the succeeding five months he accomplished the
negotiation of a treaty, which was signed on the 19th of
November. "The main points that Jay had been instructed to
gain were compensation for negroes [carried away by the
British armies on the evacuation of the country in 1783],
surrender of the posts, and compensation for spoliations; in
addition, a commercial treaty was desired. When Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, Jay had argued that the negroes, some 3,000
in number, who, at the time of the evacuation, were within the
British lines, relying on proclamations that offered freedom,
and who followed the troops to England, came within that
clause of the treaty of peace which provided that the army
should be withdrawn without 'carrying away any negroes or
other property.' Lord Grenville, however, insisted upon
refusing any compensation. Once within the British lines, he
said, slaves were free for good and all. … From any point of
view the matter was too insignificant to wreck the treaty upon
it, and Jay waived the claim. As to the western posts [Oswego,
Niagara, Detroit, Mackinaw, etc.], it was agreed that they
should be surrendered by June 12, 1796. But compensation for
the detention was denied on the ground that it was due to the
breach of the treaty by the United States in permitting the
States to prevent the recovery of British debts." For the
determination and payment of such debts, it was now provided
that a board of five commissioners should sit at Philadelphia;
while another similar board at London should award
compensation for irregular and illegal captures or
condemnations made during the war between Great Britain and
France. "Under this clause American merchants received
$10,345,000. … The disputed questions of boundaries, arising
from the construction of the treaty of peace, were referred to
joint commissioners: properly enough, as the confusion was due
to ignorance of the geography of the Northwest. British and
American citizens holding lands at the time respectively in
the United States and in any of the possessions of Great
Britain were secured in their rights; a clause much objected
to in America, but which was obviously just. A still more
important provision followed, a novelty in international
diplomacy, and a distinct advance in civilization: that war
between the two countries should never be made the pretext for
confiscation of debts or annulment of contracts between
individuals. In the War of 1812 the United States happened for
the moment to be the creditor nation, and the millions which
this provision saved to her citizens it would be difficult to
estimate. … It was the commercial articles which excited the
most intense hostility in America. … To unprejudiced eyes,
after the lapse of a hundred years, considering the mutual
exasperation of the two peoples, the pride of England in her
successes in the war with France, the weakness and division of
the United States, the treaty seems a very fair one. Certainly
one far less favorable to America would have been infinitely
preferable to a war, and would probably in the course of time
have been accepted as being so. The commercial advantages were
not very considerable, but they at least served as 'an
entering wedge,' to quote Jay's expression, and they were 'pro
tanto' a clear gain to America. … The treaty was not published
till July 2d. … Even before its contents were known, letters,
signed 'Franklin,' appeared abusing the treaty; and in
Philadelphia an effigy of Jay was placed in the pillory, and
finally taken down, guillotined, the clothes fired, and the
body blown up. It was clear, then, that it was not this
particular treaty, but any treaty at all with Great Britain,
that excited the wrath of the Republicans. On July 4th toasts
insulting Jay or making odious puns on his name, were the
fashion. … On June 24th the treaty was ratified by the Senate,
with the exception of the article about the West India trade.
On August 15th it was signed, with the same exception by
Washington."
_G. Pellew,
John Jay,
chapter 11._
"The reception given to the treaty cannot be fully explained
by the existing relations between the United States and
England. It was only in consequence of its Francomania that
the opposition assumed the character of blind rage."
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, page 124._
ALSO IN:
_H. S. Randall,
Life of Jefferson,
volume 2, chapters 4-6._
_W. Jay,
Life of John Jay,
volume 1, chapters 8-10
and volume 2, pages 216-264._
_American State Papers,
volume 1, pages 464-525._
_J. B. McMaster,
History of the People of the United States,
volume 2, chapter 9._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1796.
Admission of Tennessee to the Union.
See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785-1796.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1796.
Washington's Farewell Address.
"The period for the presidential election was drawing near,
and great anxiety began to be felt that Washington would
consent to stand for a third term. No one, it was agreed, had
greater claim to the enjoyment of retirement, in consideration
of public services rendered; but it was thought the affairs of
the country would be in a very precarious condition should he
retire before the wars of Europe were brought to a close.
{3309}
Washington, however, had made up his mind irrevocably on the
subject, and resolved to announce, in a farewell address, his
intention of retiring. Such an instrument, it will be
recollected, had been prepared for him from his own notes, by
Mr. Madison, when he had thought of retiring at the end of his
first term. As he was no longer in confidential intimacy with
Mr. Madison, he turned to Mr. Hamilton as his adviser and
coadjutor, and appears to have consulted him on the subject
early in the present year [1796], for, in a letter dated New
York, May 10th, Hamilton writes: 'When last in Philadelphia,
you mentioned to me your wish that I should "re-dress" a
certain paper which you had prepared. As it is important that
a thing of this kind should be done with great care and much
at leisure, touched and retouched, I submit a wish that, as
soon as you have given it the body you mean it to have, it may
be sent to me.' The paper was accordingly sent, on the 15th of
May, in its rough state, altered in one part since Hamilton
had seen it. 'If you should think it best to throw the whole
into a different form,' writes Washington, 'let me request,
notwithstanding, that my draft may be returned to me (along
with yours) with such amendments and corrections as to render
it as perfect as the formation is susceptible of; curtailed if
too verbose, and relieved of all tautology not necessary to
enforce the ideas in the original or quoted part. My wish is,
that the whole may appear in a plain style; and be handed to
the public in an honest, unaffected, simple garb.' We forbear
to go into the vexed question concerning this address; how
much of it is founded on Washington's original 'notes and
heads of topics'; how much was elaborated by Madison, and how
much is due to Hamilton's recasting and revision. The whole
came under the supervision of Washington; and the instrument,
as submitted to the press, was in his handwriting, with many
ultimate corrections and alterations. Washington had no pride
of authorship; his object always was to effect the purpose in
hand, and for that he occasionally invoked assistance, to
ensure a plain and clear exposition of his thoughts and
intentions. The address certainly breathes his spirit
throughout, is in perfect accordance with all his words and
actions, and 'in an honest, unaffected, simple garb,' embodies
the system of policy on which he had acted throughout his
administration. It was published in September [17], in a
Philadelphia paper called the Daily Advertiser. The
publication of the Address produced a great sensation. Several
of the State legislatures ordered it to be put on their
journals."
_W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 5, chapter 30._
The following is the text of the Address.
"To the people of the United States.
Friends and Fellow-Citizens:
The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer the
executive government of the United States, being not far
distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts
must be employed in designating the person, who is to be
clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper,
especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of
the public voice, that I should now apprize you of the
resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among
the number of those, out of whom a choice is to be made. I beg
you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured,
that this resolution has not been taken without a strict
regard to an the considerations appertaining to the relation,
which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that, in
withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my
situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of
zeal for your future interest; no deficiency of grateful
respect for your past kindness; but am supported by a full
conviction that the step is compatible with both. The
acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to
which your suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform
sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a
deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly
hoped, that it would have been much earlier in my power,
consistently with motives, which I was not at liberty to
disregard, to return to that retirement, from which I had been
reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this,
previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation
of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on
the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with
foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled
to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea. I rejoice,
that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal,
no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with
the sentiment of duty, or propriety; and am persuaded,
whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that, in
the present circumstances of our country, you will not
disapprove my determination to retire. The impressions, with
which I first undertook the arduous trust, were explained on
the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will
only say, that I have, with good intentions, contributed
towards the organization and administration of the government
the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was
capable. Not unconscious, in the outset, of the inferiority of
my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still
more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to
diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of
years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of
retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.
Satisfied, that, if any circumstances have given peculiar
value to my services, they were temporary, I have the
consolation to believe, that, while choice and prudence invite
me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment, which is intended to
terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not
permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of
gratitude, which I owe to my beloved country for the many
honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast
confidence with which it has supported me; and for the
opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my
inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering,
though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have
resulted to our country from these services, let it always be
remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in
our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions,
agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst
appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often
discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of
success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the
constancy of your support was the essential prop of the
efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were
effected.
{3310}
Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me
to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that
Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its
beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be
perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of
your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its
administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom
and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of
these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made
complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of
this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of
recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption
of every nation, which is yet a stranger to it. Here, perhaps,
I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which
cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger,
natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the
present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to
recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments, which are
the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable
observation, and which appear to me all-important to the
permanency of your felicity as a People. These will be offered
to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the
disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly
have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget,
as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my
sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion. Interwoven
as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts,
no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm
the attachment. The unity of Government, which constitutes you
one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so: for it
is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the
support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of
your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which
you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that, from
different causes and from different quarters, much pains will
be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the
conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your
political fortress against which the batteries of internal and
external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though
often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite
moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of
your national Union to your collective and individual
happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and
immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think
and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety
and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous
anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a
suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and
indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt
to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to
enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various
parts. For this you have every inducement of sympathy and
interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country,
that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The
name of American, which belongs to you, in your national
capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more
than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With
slight shades of difference, you have the same religion,
manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a
common cause fought and triumphed together; the Independence
and Liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and
joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address
themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by
those, which apply more immediately to your interest. Here
every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives
for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South,
protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds, in
the productions of the latter, great additional resources of
maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of
manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse,
benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture
grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own
channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular
navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in
different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of
the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of
a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The
East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and
in the progressive improvement of interior communications by
land and water, will more and more find, a valuable vent for
the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures
at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to
its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater
consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of
indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight,
influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic
side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of
interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can
hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own
separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connexion
with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate
and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined
cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts
greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater
security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of
their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable
value, they must derive from Union an exemption from those
broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently
afflict neighbouring countries not tied together by the same
governments, which their own rivalships alone would be
sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances,
attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter.
Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those
overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of
government, are inauspicious to liberty and which are to be
regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In
this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a
main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought
to endear to you the preservation of the other.
{3311}
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every
reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of
the Union as a primary object of Patriotic desire. Is there a
doubt, whether a common government can embrace so large a
sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation
in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope, that
a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency
of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a
happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and
full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to
Union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience
shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will
always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those, who in
any quarter may endeavour to weaken its bands. In
contemplating the causes, which may disturb our Union, it
occurs as matter of serious concern, that any ground should
have been furnished for characterizing parties by Geographical
discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western;
whence designing men may endeavour to excite a belief, that
there is a real difference of local interests and views. One
of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within
particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims
of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much
against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring from
these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each
other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal
affection. The inhabitants of our western country have lately
had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the
negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous
ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in
the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the
United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the
suspicious propagated among them of a policy in the General
Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their
interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been
witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great
Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them every thing
they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations,
towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their
wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the
Union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be
deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever
them from their brethren, and connect them with aliens? To the
efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the
whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between
the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably
experience the infractions and interruptions, which all
alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this
momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by
the adoption of a Constitution of Government better calculated
than your former for an intimate Union, and for the
efficacious management of your common concerns. This
Government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and
unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature
deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the
distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and
containing within itself a provision for its own amendment,
has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect
for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in
its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of
true Liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right
of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of
Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists,
till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole
people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the
power and the right of the people to establish Government
presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the
established Government. All obstructions to the execution of
the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever
plausible character, with the real design to direct, control,
counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the
constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental
principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize
faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to
put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the
will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising
minority of the community; and, according to the alternate
triumphs of different parties, to make the public
administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous
projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and
wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by
mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the
above descriptions may now and then answer popular ends, they
are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent
engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men
will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to
usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying
afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust
dominion. Towards the preservation of your government, and the
permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not
only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to
its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care
the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious
the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the
forms of the constitution, alterations, which will impair the
energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be
directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be
invited, remember that time and habit are at least as
necessary to fix the true character of governments, as of
other human institutions; that experience is the surest
standard, by which to test the real tendency of the existing
constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the
credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual
change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion;
and remember, especially, that, for the efficient management
of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a
government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect
security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find
in such a government, with powers properly distributed and
adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than
a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the
enterprise of faction, to confine each member of the society
within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all
in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person
and property.
{3312}
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the
state, with particular reference to the founding of them on
geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more
comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner
against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature,
having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind.
It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or
less stilled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the
popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is
truly their worst enemy. The alternate domination of one
faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge,
natural to party dissension, which in different ages and
countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is
itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a
more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and
miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to
seek security and repose in the absolute power of an
individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing
faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors,
turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation,
on the ruins of Public Liberty. Without looking forward to an
extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be
entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of
the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and
duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves
always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the
Public Administration. It agitates the Community with
ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity
of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and
insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and
corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government
itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy
and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and
will of another. There is an opinion, that parties in free
countries are useful checks upon the administration of the
Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty.
This within certain limits is probably true; and in
Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with
indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But
in those of the popular character, in Governments purely
elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their
natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of
that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being
constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of
public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be
quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its
bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should
consume. It is important, likewise, that the habits of
thinking in a free country should inspire caution, in those
intrusted with its administration, to confine themselves
within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in
the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon
another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the
powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create,
whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just
estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it,
which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to
satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of
reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by
dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and
constituting each the Guardian of the Public Weal against
invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments
ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our
own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to
institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the
distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be
in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment
in the way, which the constitution designates. But let there
be no change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance,
may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by
which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must
always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or
transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield. Of all
the dispositions and habits, which lead to political
prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.
In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who
should labor to subvert these great pillars of human
happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and
Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man,
ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace
all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it
simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for
reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation
desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation
in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the
supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education
on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both
forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in
exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true,
that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular
government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force
to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere
friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to
shake the foundation of the fabric? Promote, then, as an
object of primary importance, institutions for the general
diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a
government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that
public opinion should be enlightened. As a very important
source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One
method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as
possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace,
but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for
danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel
it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by
shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in
time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars
may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity
the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution
of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is
necessary that public opinion should cooperate.
{3313}
To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is
essential that you should practically bear in mind, that
towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue; that to
have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be
devised, which are not more or less inconvenient and
unpleasant, that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from
the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice
of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid
construction of the conduct of the government in making it,
and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining
revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.
Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate
peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this
conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally
enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at
no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the
magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by
an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in
the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would
richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by
a steady adherence to it? Can it be, that Providence has not
connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue?
The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment
which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible
by its vices? In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more
essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against
particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others,
should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and
amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The
Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or
an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave
to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is
sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.
Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more
readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight
causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when
accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence
frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody
contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment,
sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best
calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates
in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what
reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of
the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by
pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives.
The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has
been the victim. So likewise, a passionate attachment of one
Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for
the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary
common interest, in cases where no real common interest
exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other
betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and
wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or
justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite
Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to
injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily
parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting
jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the
parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives
to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote
themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or
sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium,
sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances
of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for
public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base
of foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or
infatuation. As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable
ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly
enlightened and independent Patriot. How many opportunities do
they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practise the
arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or
awe the Public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or
weak, towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to
be the satellite of the latter. Against the insidious wiles of
foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me,
fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be
constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that
foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of
Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must
be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very
influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it.
Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive
dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see
danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the
arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist
the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected
and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and
confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. The
great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations,
is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them
as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have
already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect
good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary
interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation.
Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the
causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns.
Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate
ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of
her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of
her friendships or enmities. Our detached and distant
situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course.
If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the
period is not far off, when we may defy material injury from
external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will
cause the neutrality, we may at any time resolve upon, to be
scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the
impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly
hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or
war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. Why
forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our
own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our
destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace
and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship,
interest, humor, or caprice? It is our true policy to steer
clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign
world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for
let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity
to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable
to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the
best policy.
{3314}
I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in
their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and
would be unwise to extend them. Taking care always to keep
ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectable
defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances
for extraordinary emergencies. Harmony, liberal intercourse
with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and
interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal
and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive
favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of
things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams
of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, with powers so
disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define
the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to
support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that
present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but
temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or
varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate;
constantly keeping in view, that it is folly in one nation to
look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay
with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept
under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place
itself in the condition of having given equivalents for
nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude
for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to
expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It
is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride
ought to discard. In offering to you, my countrymen, these
counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope
they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish;
that they will control the usual current of the passions, or
prevent our nation from running the course, which has hitherto
marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter
myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit,
some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to
moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the
mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures
of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense
for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been
dictated. How far in the discharge of my official duties, I
have been guided by the principles which have been delineated,
the public records and other evidences of my conduct must
witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of
my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to
be guided by them. In relating to the still subsisting war in
Europe, my Proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the
index to my Plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by
that of your Representatives in both Houses of Congress, the
spirit of that measure has continually governed me,
uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.
After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights
I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under
all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and
was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position.
Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon
me, to maintain it, with moderation, perseverance, and
firmness. The considerations, which respect the right to hold
this conduct, it is not necessary on this occasion to detail.
I will only observe, that, according to my understanding of
the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the
Belligerent Powers, has been virtually admitted by all. The
duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without
anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity
impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act,
to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards
other nations. The inducements of interest for observing that
conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and
experience. With me, a predominant motive has been to
endeavour to gain time to our country to settle and mature its
yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption
to that degree of strength and consistency, which is necessary
to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.
Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am
unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too
sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may
have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently
beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which
they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my
Country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and
that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its
service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent
abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon
be to the mansions of rest. Relying on its kindness in this as
in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it,
which is so natural to a man, who views in it the native soil
of himself and his progenitors for several generations; I
anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I
promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment
of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign
influence of good laws under a free government, the ever
favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust,
of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
GEORGE WASHINGTON."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1796.
Third Presidential Election.
Washington succeeded by John Adams.
After the appearance of Washington's Farewell Address, the
result of the Presidential election became exceedingly
doubtful. "There was no second man to whom the whole of the
nation could be won over. The Federalists … could not bring
forward a single candidate who could calculate on the
unanimous and cheerful support of the entire party. There
still prevailed at the time a feeling among the people that
the vice-president had a sort of claim to the succession to
the presidency. But even apart from this, Adams would have
been one of the most prominent candidates of the Federalists.
The great majority of them soon gave him a decided preference
over all other possible candidates. On the other hand, some of
the most distinguished and influential of the Federalists
feared serious consequences to the party and the country from
the vanity and violence as well as from the egotism and
irresolution with which he was charged. But to put him aside
entirely was not possible, nor was it their wish. They
thought, however, to secure a greater number of electoral
votes for Thomas Pinckney, the Federal candidate for the
vice-presidency, which, as the constitution then stood, would
have made him president and Adams vice-president.
{3315}
Although this plan was anxiously concealed from the people, it
caused the campaign to be conducted by the party with less
energy than if the leaders had been entirely unanimous. France
was naturally desirous of Jefferson's success. … Wolcott
asserted that Adet had publicly declared that France's future
policy towards the United States would depend on the result of
the election. Some did not hesitate to say that, on this
account, Jefferson should have the preference, but on the more
thoughtful Federalists it exerted the very opposite influence.
There is no reason for the assumption that the issue of the
election would have been different, had Adet behaved more
discreetly. But his indiscretion certainly contributed to make
the small majority expected for Adams completely certain,
while Hamilton's flank movement in favor of Pinckney helped
Jefferson to the vice-presidency. … The result of the
election, however, left the country in a very serious
condition. Washington's withdrawal removed the last restraint
from party passion."
_H. von Holst,
The Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 3._
Adams received 71 votes in the Electoral College and Jefferson
68. As the constitution then provided, the majority of votes
elected the President and the next greatest number of votes
elected the Vice President.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1797-1799.
Troubles with the French Republic.
The X, Y, Z correspondence.
On the brink of war.
"Mr. Adams took his cabinet from his predecessor; it was not a
strong one, and it was devoted to Hamilton, between whom and
the new President there was soon a divergence, Hamilton being
fond of power, and Adams having a laudable purpose to command
his own ship. The figure of speech is appropriate, for he
plunged into a sea of troubles, mainly created by the
unreasonable demands of the French government. The French
'Directory,' enraged especially by Jay's treaty with England,
got rid of one American minister by remonstrance, and drove
out another [Pinckney] with contempt. When Mr. Adams sent
three special envoys [Gerry, Marshall, and Pinckney], they
were expected to undertake the most delicate negotiations with
certain semi-official persons designated in their
correspondence only by the letters X, Y, Z. The plan of this
covert intercourse came through the private secretary of M. de
Talleyrand, then French Minister for Foreign Affairs; and the
impudence of these three letters of the alphabet went so far
as to propose a bribe of 1,200,000 francs (some $220,000) to
be paid over to this minister. 'You must pay money, a great
deal of money,' remarked Monsieur Y ('Il faut de l'argent,
beaucoup de l'argent'). The secret of these names was kept,
but the diplomatic correspondence was made public, and created
much wrath in Europe as well as in America. Moreover, American
vessels were constantly attacked by France, and yet Congress
refused to arm its own ships. At last the insults passed
beyond bearing, and it was at this time that 'Millions for
defence, not one cent for tribute,' first became a proverbial
phrase, having been originally used by Charles C. Pinckney. …
Then, with tardy decision, the Republicans yielded to the
necessity of action, and the Federal party took the lead. War
was not formally proclaimed, but treaties with France were
declared to be no longer binding. An army was ordered to be
created, with Washington as Lieutenant-general and Hamilton as
second in command; and the President was authorized to appoint
a Secretary of the Navy and to build twelve new ships-of-war.
Before these were ready, naval hostilities had actually begun;
and Commodore Truxtun, in the United States frigate
Constellation, captured a French frigate in West Indian waters
(February 9. 1799), and afterwards silenced another, which
however escaped. Great was the excitement over these early
naval successes of the young nation. Merchant-ships were
authorized to arm themselves, and some 300 acted upon this
authority. … The result of it all was that France yielded.
Talleyrand, the very minister who had dictated the insults,
now disavowed them, and pledged his government to receive any
minister the United States might send. The President, in the
most eminently courageous act of his life, took the
responsibility of again sending ambassadors; and did this
without even consulting his cabinet, which would, as he well
knew, oppose it. They were at once received, and all danger of
war with France was at an end. This bold stroke separated the
President permanently from at least half of his own party,
since the Federalists did not wish for peace with France. His
course would have given him a corresponding increase of favor
from the other side, but for the great mistake the Federalists
had made in passing certain laws, called the 'Alien' law and
the 'Sedition' law."
_T. W. Higginson,
Larger History of the United States,
chapter 14._
ALSO IN:
_J. T. Austin,
Life of Elbridge Gerry,
volume 2, chapters 5-8._
_John Quincy and Charles Francis Adams,
Life of John Adams,
chapter 10 (volume 2)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1797-1800.
Early attitude of the Slavocracy in Congress.
Treatment of Free Blacks.
"Many people will not allow the least blame to be cast on this
period [the later years of the 18th century], because it does
not harmonize with their admiration of the 'fathers,' and
because they have adopted, without any proof, the common view
that the deeper shadows of slavery and slavocracy first
appeared comparatively late. … In reading through the debates
[in Congress], single striking instances of injustice do not
make the deepest impression. It is the omnipresent
unwillingness to practice justice towards colored
persons,—yes, even to recognize them as actual beings. When
the defense of their rights is demanded, then congress has
always a deaf ear. … Swanwick of Pennsylvania laid before the
house of representatives, January 30, 1797, a petition from
four North Carolina negroes who had been freed by their
masters. Since a state law condemned them to be sold again,
they had fled to Philadelphia. There they had been seized
under the fugitive slave law … and now prayed congress for its
intervention. Blount of North Carolina declared that only when
it was 'proved' that these men were free, could congress
consider the petition. Sitgreaves of Pennsylvania asked, in
reply to this, what sort of proof was offered that the four
negroes were not free. This question received no answer. Smith
of South Carolina and Christie of Maryland simply expressed
their amazement that any member whatever could have presented
a petition of 'such an unheard-of nature.'
{3316}
Swanwick and some other representatives affirmed that the
petition must be submitted to a committee for investigation
and consideration, because the petitioners complained of
violation of their rights under a law of the Union. No reply
could be made to this and no reply was attempted. This
decisive point was simply set aside, and it was voted by fifty
ayes to thirty-three noes not to receive the petition. … In
order to reach this result, Smith had produced the customary
impression by the declaration that the refusal of the demand
made by the representatives from the southern states would
drive a 'wedge' into the Union. When, three years later, the
same question was brought before congress again by a petition
of the free negroes of Philadelphia, Rutledge of South
Carolina declared in even plainer terms that the south would
be forced to the sad necessity of going its own way. … The
whites who troubled themselves about slaves or free colored
persons had no better reception. Year after year the Quakers
came indefatigably with new petitions, and each time had to
undergo the same scornful treatment. … In all the cases
mentioned, the tactics of the representatives of the
slaveholding interest were the same and they maintained them
unchanged up to the last. If congress was urged to act in any
way which did not please them, then slavery was always a
'purely municipal affair.'"
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 8._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1798.
The Alien and Sedition Laws and
the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
"The outrages which we suffered from the injustice of England
and France gave additional bitterness to the strife between
parties at home. The anti-federal press was immoderate in its
assaults upon the administration. It so happened that several
of the anti-federal papers were conducted by foreigners.
Indeed, there were many foreigners in the country whose
sympathies were with the French, and their hostility to the
administration was open and passionate. The federal leaders
determined to crush out by the strong arm of the law these
publishers of slanders and fomenters of discontent. Hence the
famous 'alien and sedition laws' were passed. The remedy
devised was far worse than the disease. It hastened the
federal party to its tomb, and was the occasion of the
formulation of that unfortunate creed of constitutional
construction and of state sovereignty known as the 'Virginia
and Kentucky Resolutions' of 1798-99."
_J. S. Landon,
Constitutional History and Government of the United States,
lecture 6._
The series of strong measures carried by the Federalists
comprised the Naturalization Act of June 18, the Alien Act of
June 25, the second Alien Act, of July 6, and the Sedition Act
of July 14, 1798.
The text of the Naturalization Act is as follows:
June 18, 1798. Acts of the Fifth Congress,
Statute II., Chapter liv.:
"An Act supplementary to, and to amend the act, intituled 'An
act to establish an uniform rule of naturalization; and to
repeal the act heretofore passed on that subject.'
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, That no alien shall be admitted to become a citizen
of the United States, or of any state, unless in the manner
prescribed by the act, intituled 'An act to establish an
uniform rule of naturalization; and to repeal the act
heretofore passed on that subject,' he shall have declared his
intention to become a citizen of the United States, five
years, at least, before his admission, and shall, at the time
of his application to be admitted, declare and prove, to the
satisfaction of the court having jurisdiction in the case,
that he has resided within the United States fourteen years,
at least, and within the state or territory where, or for
which such court is at the time held, five years, at least,
besides conforming to the other declarations, renunciations
and proofs, by the said act required, anything therein to the
contrary hereof notwithstanding: Provided, that any alien, who
was residing within the limits, and under the jurisdiction of
the United States, before the twenty-ninth day of January, one
thousand seven hundred and ninety-five, may, within one year
after the passing of this act—and any alien who shall have
made the declaration of his intention to become a citizen of
the United States, in conformity to the provisions of the act,
intituled 'An act to establish an uniform rule of
naturalization; and to repeal the act heretofore passed on
that subject,' may, within four years after having made the
declaration aforesaid, be admitted to become a citizen, in the
manner prescribed by the said act, upon his making proof that
he has resided five years, at least, within the limits, and
under the jurisdiction of the United States: And provided
also, that no alien, who shall be a native, citizen, denizen
or subject of any nation or state with whom the United States
shall be at war, at the time of his application, shall be then
admitted to become a citizen of the United States."
_Statutes at Large of the United States, edition 1850.
volume 1, pages 566-567._
The following is the text of the two Alien Acts:
June 25, 1798. Statute II., Chapter lviii.
"An Act Concerning Aliens.
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, That it shall be lawful for the President of the
United States at any time during the continuance of this act,
to order all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the
peace and safety of the United States, or shall have
reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any treasonable
or secret machinations against the government thereof, to
depart out of the territory of the United States, within such
time as shall be expressed in such order, which order shall be
served on such alien by de·livering him a copy thereof, or
leaving the same at his usual abode, and returned to the
office of the Secretary of State, by the marshal or other
person to whom the same shall be directed. And in case any
alien, so ordered to depart, shall be found at large within
the United States after the time limited in such order for his
departure, and not having obtained a license from the
President to reside therein, or having obtained such license
shall not have conformed thereto, every such alien shall, on
conviction thereof, be imprisoned for a term not exceeding
three years, and shall never after be admitted to become a
citizen of the United States.
{3317}
Provided always and be it further enacted, that if any alien
so ordered to depart shall prove to the satisfaction of the
President, by evidence to be taken before such person or
persons as the President shall direct, who are for that
purpose hereby authorized to administer oaths, that no injury
or danger to the United States will arise from suffering such
alien to reside therein, the President may grant a license to
such alien to remain within the United States for such time as
he shall judge proper, and at such place as he may designate.
And the President may also require of such alien to enter into
a bond to the United States, in such penal sum as he may
direct, with one or more sufficient sureties to the
satisfaction of the person authorized by the President to take
the same, conditioned for the good behavior of such alien
during his residence in the United States, and not violating
his license, which license the President may revoke whenever
he shall think proper.
Section 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful
for the President of the United States, whenever he may deem
it necessary for the public safety, to order to be removed out
of the territory thereof, any alien who may or shall be in
prison in pursuance of this act; and to cause to be arrested
and sent out of the United States such of those aliens as
shall have been ordered to depart therefrom and shall not have
obtained a license as aforesaid, in all cases where, in the
opinion of the President, the public safety requires a speedy
removal. And if any alien so removed or sent out of the United
States by the President shall voluntarily return thereto,
unless by permission of the President of the United States,
such alien on conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned so long
as, in the opinion of the President, the public safety may
require.
Section 3. And be it further enacted, That every master or
commander of any ship or vessel which shall come into any port
of the United States after the first day of July next, shall
immediately on his arrival make report in writing to the
collector, or other chief officer of the customs of such port,
of all aliens, if any, on board his vessel, specifying their
names, age, the place of nativity, the country from which they
shall have come, the nation to which they belong and owe
allegiance, their occupation and a description of their
persons, as far as he shall be informed thereof, and on
failure, every such master and commander shall forfeit and pay
three hundred dollars, for the payment whereof on default of
such master or commander, such vessel shall also be holden,
and may by such collector or other officer of the customs be
detained. And it shall be the duty of such collector, or other
officer of the customs, forthwith to transmit to the officer
of the department of state true copies of all such returns.
Section 4. And be it further enacted, That the circuit and
district courts of the United States, shall respectively have
cognizance of all crimes and offences against this act. And
all marshals and other officers of the United States are
required to execute all precepts and orders of the President
of the United States issued in pursuance or by virtue of this
act.
Section 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful
for any alien who may be ordered to be removed from the United
States, by virtue of this act, to take with him such part of
his goods, chattels, or other property, as he may find
convenient; and all property left in the United States by any
alien, who may be removed, as aforesaid, shall be, and remain
subject to his order and disposal, in the same manner as if
this act had not been passed.
Section 6. And be it further enacted, That this act shall
continue and be in force for and during the term of two years
from the passing thereof.
Approved, June 25, 1798."
_Statutes at Large of the United States, edition 1850,
Volume I., pages 570-572._
July 6, 1798. Statute II., Chapter lxvi.
"An Act respecting Alien Enemies.
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, That whenever there shall be a declared war between
the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any
invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated,
attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United
States, by any foreign nation or government, and the President
of the United States shall make public proclamation of the
event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the
hostile nation or government, being males of the age of
fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United
States, and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be
apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien
enemies. And the President of the United States shall be, and
he is hereby authorized, in any event, as aforesaid, by his
proclamation thereof or other public act, to direct the
conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States,
towards the aliens who shall become liable as aforesaid; the
manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be
subject, and in what cases, and upon what security their
residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal
of those, who, not being permitted to reside within the United
States, shall refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to
establish any other regulations which shall be found necessary
in the premises and for the public safety; Provided, that
aliens resident within the United States, who shall become
liable as enemies, in the manner aforesaid, and who shall not
be chargeable with actual hostility, or other crime against
the public safety, shall be allowed for the recovery,
disposal, and removal of their goods and effects, and for
their departure, the full time which is, or shall be
stipulated by any treaty, where any shall have been between
the United States and the hostile nation or government, of
which they shall be natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects:
and when no such treaty shall have existed, the President of
the United States may ascertain and declare such reasonable
time as may be consistent with the public safety, and
according to the dictates of humanity and national
hospitality.
Section 2. And be it further enacted, That after any
proclamation shall be made as aforesaid, it shall be the duty
of the several courts of the United States, and of each state,
having criminal jurisdiction, and of the several judges and
justices of the courts of the United States, and they shall
be, and are hereby respectively, authorized upon complaint,
against any alien or alien enemies, as aforesaid, who shall be
resident and at large within such jurisdiction or district, to
the danger of the public peace or safety, and contrary to the
tenor or intent of such proclamation, or other regulations
which the President of the United States shall and may
establish in the premises, to cause such alien or aliens to be
duly apprehended and convened before such court, judge or
Justice; and after a full examination and hearing on such
complaint, and sufficient cause therefor appearing, shall and
may order such alien or aliens to be removed out of the
territory of the United States, or to give such sureties for
their good behaviour, or to be otherwise restrained,
conformably to the proclamation or regulations which shall or
may be established as aforesaid, and may imprison, or
otherwise secure such alien or aliens, until the order which
shall and may be made, as aforesaid, shall be performed.
{3318}
Section 3. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the
duty of the marshal of the district in which any alien enemy
shall be apprehended, who by the President of the United
States, or by the order of any court, judge or justice, as
aforesaid, shall be required to depart, and to be removed, as
aforesaid, to provide therefor, and to execute such order, by
himself or his deputy, or other discreet person or persons to
be employed by him, by causing a removal of such alien out of
the territory of the United States; and for such removal the
marshal shall have the warrant of the President of the United
States, or of the court, judge or justice ordering the same,
as the case may be.
Approved, July 6, 1798."
_Statutes at Large of the United States, edition of 1850,
Volume I, page 577._
The text of the Sedition Act is as follows:
JULY 14, 1798. Chapter lxxiv.
"An Act in addition to the act, entitled 'An Act for the
punishment of certain crimes against the United States.'
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress
assembled, That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or
conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or
measures of the government of the United States, which are or
shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the
operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or
prevent any person holding a place or office in or under the
government of the United States, from undertaking, performing
or executing, his trust or duty; and if any person or persons,
with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to
procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or
combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel,
advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not, he
or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and on
conviction before any court of the United States having
jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not
exceeding five thousand dollars and by imprisonment during a
term not less than six months nor exceeding five years; and
further at the discretion of the court may be holden to find
sureties for his good behavior in such sum, and for such time,
as the said court may direct.
Section 2. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall
write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to
be written, printed, uttered or published or shall knowingly
and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or
publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or
writings against the government of the United States, or
either house of the Congress of the United States, or the
President of the United States, with intent to defame the said
government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said
President, or to bring them or either of them, into contempt
or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either, or any of
them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or
to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any
unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any
law of the United States, or any act of the President of the
United States, and one in pursuance of any such law, or of the
powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States,
or to resist, oppose or defeat any such law or act, or to aid,
encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation
against the United States, their people or government, then
such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the
United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished
by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by
imprisonment not exceeding two years.
Section 3. And be it further enacted and declared, That if any
person shall be prosecuted under this act, for the writing or
publishing any libel aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the
defendant, upon the trial of the cause, to give in evidence in
his defence, the truth of the matter contained in the
publication charged as a libel. And the jury who shall try the
cause, shall have a right to determine the law and the fact,
under the direction of the court, as in other cases.
Section 4. And be it further enacted, That this act shall
continue and be in force until the third day of March, one
thousand eight hundred and one, and no longer: Provided that
the expiration of the act shall not prevent or defeat a
prosecution and punishment of any offence against the law,
during the time it shall be in force. Approved July 14, 1798."
"There has been a general effort on the part of biographers to
clear their respective heroes from all responsibility for
these ill-fated measures. The truth is, that they had the full
support of the congressmen and senators who passed, them, of
the President who signed them, and of all the leaders in the
States, who almost all believed in them; and they also met
with very general acceptance by the party in the North.
Hamilton went as far in the direction of sustaining the
principle of these laws as any one. He had too acute a mind to
believe with many of the staunch Federalist divines of New
England, that Jefferson and Madison were Marats and
Robespierres, and that their followers were Jacobins who, when
they came to power, were ready for the overthrow of religion
and society, and were prepared to set up a guillotine and pour
out blood in the waste places of the federal city. But he did
believe, and so wrote to Washington, after the appearance of
the X. Y. Z. letters that there was a party in the country
ready to 'new model' the constitution on French principles, to
form an offensive and defensive alliance with France, and make
the United States a French province. He felt, in short, that
there was a party in America ready for confiscation and social
confusion. A year later, in 1799, he wrote to Dayton, the
speaker of the national House of Representatives, a long
letter in which he set forth very clearly the policy which he
felt ought to be pursued.
{3319}
He wished to give strength to the government, and increase
centralization by every means, by an extension of the national
judiciary, a liberal system of internal improvements, an
increased and abundant revenue, an enlargement of the army and
navy, permanence in the laws for the volunteer army, extension
of the powers of the general government, subdivision of the
States as soon as practicable, and finally a strong sedition
law, and the power to banish aliens. This was what was termed
at that day a 'strong and spirited' policy; it would now be
called repressive, but by whatever name it is designated, it
was the policy of Hamilton, and is characteristic of both his
talents and temperament. Except as to the subdivision of
States, it was carried out pretty thoroughly in all its main
features by the Federalists. The alien and sedition laws,
although resisted in Congress, did not much affect public
opinion at the elections which immediately ensued, and the
Federalists came into the next Congress with a large
majority."
_Henry Cabot Lodge,
Alexander Hamilton,
chapter 9._
"The different portions of the country were affected according
to the dominant political opinion. Where the Federalists were
strong political feeling bore them headlong into prosecutions
under the new powers. In the Republican States a sense of
injury and danger went hand in hand, and the question of the
hour was how to repel the threatening destruction. Mr.
Jefferson did not fail to see that the great opportunity for
his party had come. His keen political sagacity detected in an
instant the fatal mistake the administration had made, and he
began at once to look about him for the best means to turn his
opponents' mistake to his own advantage. Naturally he felt
some delicacy in appearing too forward in assailing a
government of which he himself was the second in office.
Nevertheless he lent himself willingly to the task of
organizing, in a quiet way, a systematic assault upon these
laws of Congress, and at once opened a correspondence
calculated to elicit the best judgment of his coadjutors and
gradually drew out a programme of action. Virginia was by no
means unanimous in reprobating these laws. She had a large and
influential body of Federalists. … But the influence of
Jefferson was paramount and the result of Jeffersonian
principles soon appeared on every hand. Meetings were held in
many of the counties upon their county court days at which
were adopted addresses or series of resolutions condemning or
praying for the repeal of these laws. … New York, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania sent petitions of appeal to Congress. … But
it was in Kentucky that the greatest resistance was evoked.
The feeling in that State was, indeed, little short of frenzy,
and a singular unanimity was displayed even in the most
extreme acts and sentiments. This grew out of no passing
passion. It was based upon the most vigorous elements in her
character as a people. Kentucky was at this time somewhat
apart from the rest of the Union. … Her complaints, just and
unjust, had been many, but hitherto she had not gained the
nation's ear. But the time was now ripe for her to assert
herself."
_E. D. Warfield,
The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798,
chapter 1._
The famous Kentucky Resolutions, substantially drafted by
Jefferson, as he acknowledged fifteen years afterwards, but
introduced in the Legislature of Kentucky by John
Breckenridge, on the 8th of November, 1798, were adopted by
that body, in the lower branch on the 10th and in the upper on
the 13th. Approved by the Governor on the 16th, they were
immediately printed and copies officially sent to every other
state and to members of Congress. They were as follows:
"I. Resolved, that the several states composing the United
States of America, are not united on the principle of
unlimited submission to their General Government; but that by
compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the
United States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a
General Government for special purposes, delegated to that
Government certain definite powers, reserving each state to
itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self
Government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes
undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and
are of no force: That to this compact each state acceded as a
state, and is an integral party, its co-states forming as to
itself, the other party: That the Government created by this
compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the
extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would
have made its discretion, and not the constitution, the
measure of its powers; but that as in all other cases of
compact among parties having no common judge, each party has
an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as
of the mode and measure of redress.
II. Resolved, that the Constitution of the United States
having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason,
counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United
States, piracies and felonies committed on the High Seas, and
offences against the laws of nations, and no other crimes
whatever, and it being true as a general principle, and one of
the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, 'that
the powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved
to the states respectively, or to the people,' therefore also
the same act of Congress passed on the 14th day of July, 1798,
and entitled 'An act in addition to the act entitled an act
for the punishment of certain crimes against the United
States;' as also the act passed by them on the 27th of June,
1798, entitled 'An act to punish frauds committed on the Bank
of the United States' (and all other their acts which assume
to create, define, or punish crimes other than those
enumerated in the constitution) are altogether void and of no
force, and that the power to create, define, and punish such
other crimes is reserved, and of right appertains solely and
exclusively to the respective states, each within its own
Territory.
{3320}
III. Resolved, that it is true as a general principle, and is
also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the
Constitution that 'the powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the
people;' and that no power over the freedom of religion,
freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to
the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right
remain, and were reserved to the states, or to the people:
That thus was manifested their determination to retain to
themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of
speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening
their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be
separated from their use, should be tolerated, rather than the
use be destroyed; and thus also they guarded against all
abridgment by the United States of the freedom of religious
opinions and exercises, and retained to themselves the right
of protecting the same, as this state by a Law passed on the
general demand of its Citizens, had already protected them
from all human restraint or interference; and that in addition
to this general principle and express declaration, another and
more special provision has been made by one of the amendments
to the Constitution which expressly declares that 'Congress
shall make no law respecting an Establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press,' thereby guarding in the
same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of
religion, of speech, and of the press, insomuch, that whatever
violates either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the
others, and that libels, falsehoods, and defamation, equally
with heresy and false religion, are withheld from the
cognizance of federal tribunals. That therefore the act of the
Congress of the United States passed on the 14th day of July,
1798, entitled 'An act in addition to the act for the
punishment of certain crimes against the United States,' which
does abridge the freedom of the press, is not law, but is
altogether void and of no effect.
IV. Resolved, that alien friends are under the jurisdiction
and protection of the laws of the state wherein they are; that
no power over them has been delegated to the United States,
nor prohibited to the individual states distinct from their
power over citizens; and it being true as a general principle,
and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also
declared, that 'the powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are
reserved to the states respectively or to the people,' the act
of the Congress of the United States passed on the 22d day of
June, 1798, entitled 'An act concerning aliens,' which assumes
power over alien friends not delegated by the Constitution, is
not law, but is altogether void and of no force.
V. Resolved, that in addition to the general principle as well
as the express declaration, that powers not delegated are
reserved, another and more special provision inserted in the
Constitution from abundant caution has declared, 'that the
migration or importation of such persons as any of the states
now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808.' That this
Commonwealth does admit the migration of alien friends
described as the subject of the said act concerning aliens;
that a provision against prohibiting their migration, is a
provision against all acts equivalent thereto, or it would be
nugatory; that to remove them when migrated is equivalent to a
prohibition of their migration, and is therefore contrary to
the said provision of the Constitution, and void.
VI. Resolved, that the imprisonment of a person under the
protection of the Laws of this Commonwealth on his failure to
obey the simple order of the President to depart out of the
United States, as is undertaken by the said act entitled 'An
act concerning aliens,' is contrary to the Constitution, one
amendment to which has provided, that 'no person shall be
deprived of liberty without due process of law,' and that
another having provided 'that in all criminal prosecutions the
accused shall enjoy the right to a public trial by an
impartial jury, to be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him,
to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his
favour, and to have the assistance of counsel for his
defence,' the same act undertaking to authorize the President
to remove a person out of the United States who is under the
protection of the Law, on his own suspicion, without
accusation, without jury, without public trial, without
confrontation of the witnesses against him, without having
witnesses in his favour, without defence, without counsel, is
contrary to these provisions also of the Constitution, is
therefore not law but utterly void and of no force. That
transferring the power of judging any person who is under the
protection of the laws, from the Courts to the President of
the United States, as is undertaken by the same act concerning
Aliens, is against the article of the Constitution which
provides, that 'the judicial power of the United States shall
be vested in Courts, the Judges of which shall hold their
offices during good behaviour,' and that the said act is void
for that reason also; and it is further to be noted, that this
transfer of Judiciary powers is to that magistrate of the
General Government who already possesses all the Executive,
and a qualified negative in all the Legislative power.
VII. Resolved, that the construction applied by the General
Government (as is evinced by sundry of their proceedings) to
those parts of the Constitution of the United States which
delegate to Congress a power to lay and collect taxes, duties,
imposts, and excises; to pay the debts, and provide for the
common defence, and general welfare of the United States, and
to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for
carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution
in the Government of the United States, or any department
thereof, goes to the destruction of all the limits prescribed
to their power by the Constitution—That words meant by that
instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of the
limited powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to
give unlimited powers, nor a part so to be taken, as to
destroy the whole residue of the instrument: That the
proceedings of the General Government under colour of these
articles, will be a fit and necessary subject for revisal and
correction at a time of greater tranquility, while those
specified in the preceding resolutions call for immediate
redress.
VIII. Resolved, that the preceding Resolutions be transmitted
to the Senators and Representatives in Congress from this
Commonwealth, who are hereby enjoined to present the same to
their respective Houses, and to use the best endeavours to
procure at the next session of Congress, a repeal of the
aforesaid unconstitutional and obnoxious acts.
{3321}
IX. Resolved lastly, that the Governor of this Commonwealth
be, and is hereby authorised and requested to communicate the
preceding Resolutions to the Legislatures of the several
States, to assure them that this Commonwealth considers Union
for specified National purposes, and particularly for those
specified in their late Federal compact, to be friendly to the
peace, happiness, and prosperity of all the states: that
faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent and
meaning in which it was understood and acceded to by the
several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation:
that it does also believe, that to take from the states all
the powers of self government, and transfer them to a general
and consolidated Government, without regard to the special
delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that
compact, is not for the peace, happiness, or prosperity of
these states: And that therefore, this Commonwealth is
determined, as it doubts not its Co-states are, tamely to
submit to undelegated and consequently unlimited powers in no
man or body of men on earth: that if the acts before specified
should stand, these conclusions would flow from them; that the
General Government may place any act they think proper on the
list of crimes and punish it themselves, whether enumerated or
not enumerated by the Constitution as cognizable by them: that
they may transfer its cognizance to the President or any other
person, who may himself be the accuser, counsel, judge, and
jury, whose suspicions may be the evidence, his order the
sentence, his officer the executioner, and his breast the sole
record of the transaction: that a very numerous and valuable
description of the inhabitants of these states, being by this
precedent reduced as outlaws to the absolute dominion of one
man and the barrier of the Constitution thus swept away from
us all, no rampart now remains against the passions and the
power of a majority of Congress, to protect from a like
exportation or other more grievous punishment the minority of
the same body, the Legislatures, Judges, Governors, and
Counsellors of the states, nor their other peaceable
inhabitants who may venture to reclaim the constitutional
rights and liberties of the states and people, or who for
other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious to the views or
marked by the suspicions of the President, or be thought
dangerous to his or their elections or other interests public
or personal: that the friendless alien has indeed been
selected as the safest subject of a first experiment: but the
citizen will soon follow, or rather has already followed; for
already has a Sedition Act marked him as its prey: that these
and successive acts of the same character, unless arrested on
the threshold, may tend to drive these states into revolution
and blood, and will furnish new calumnies against Republican
Governments, and new pretexts for those who wish it to be
believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron:
that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the
men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our
rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism:
free government is founded in jealousy and not in confidence;
it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited
Constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust
with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the
limits to which and no further our confidence may go; and let
the honest advocate of confidence read the Alien and Sedition
Acts, and say if the Constitution has not been wise in fixing
limits to the Government it created, and whether we should be
wise in destroying those limits? Let him say what the
Government is if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our
choice have conferred on the President, and the President of
our choice has assented to and accepted over the friendly
strangers, to whom the mild spirit of our Country and its laws
had pledged hospitality and protection: that the men of our
choice have more respected the bare suspicions of the
President than the solid rights of innocence, the claims of
justification, the sacred force of truth, and the forms and
subsistence of law and justice. In questions of power then let
no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from
mischief by the chains of the Constitution. That this
Commonwealth does therefore call on its Co-states for an
expression of their sentiments on the acts concerning Aliens,
and for the punishment of certain crimes hereinbefore
specified, plainly declaring whether these acts are or are not
authorized by the Federal Compact? And it doubts not that
their sense will be so announced as to prove their attachment
unaltered to limited Government, whether general or
particular, and that the rights and liberties of their
Co-states will be exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked
on a common bottom with their own: That they will concur with
this Commonwealth, in considering the said acts so palpably
against the Constitution as to amount to an undisguised
declaration, that the compact is not meant to be the measure
of the powers of the General Government, but that it will
proceed in the exercise over these states of all powers
whatsoever: That they will view this as seizing the rights of
the states and consolidating them in the hands of the General
Government with a power assumed to bind the states (not merely
in cases made federal) but in all cases whatsoever, by laws
made, not with their consent, but by others against their
consent: That this would be to surrender the form of
Government we have chosen, and to live under one deriving its
powers from its own will, and not from our authority; and that
the Co-states recurring to their natural right in cases not
made federal, will concur in declaring these acts void and of
no force, and will each unite with this Commonwealth in
requesting their repeal at the next session of Congress."
In the month following this declaration from Kentucky, on the
21st of December, Virginia affirmed substantially the same
threatening doctrine, more temperately and cautiously set
forth in resolutions drawn by Madison as follows:
"Resolved, that the General Assembly of Virginia doth
unequivocally express a firm resolution to maintain and defend
the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of
this state against every aggression, either foreign or
domestic, and that they will support the government of the
United States in all measures warranted by the former.
That this Assembly most solemnly declares a warm attachment to
the union of the states, to maintain which, it pledges all its
powers; and that for this end it is their duty to watch over
and oppose every infraction of those principles which
constitute the only basis of that union, because a faithful
observance of them can alone secure its existence, and the
public happiness.
{3322}
That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare
that it views the powers of the Federal Government, as
resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties;
as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument
constituting that compact; as no farther valid than they are
authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact, and that
in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of
other powers not granted by the said compact, the states who
are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound to
interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for
maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities,
rights and liberties appertaining to them.
That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret
that a spirit has in sundry instances, been manifested by the
Federal Government, to enlarge its powers by forced
constructions of the constitutional charter which defines
them; and that indications have appeared of a design to
expound certain general phrases (which having been copied from
the very limited grant of powers in the former articles of
confederation were the less liable to be misconstrued), so as
to destroy the meaning and effect of the particular
enumeration, which necessarily explains and limits the general
phrases; and so as to consolidate the states by degrees into
one sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable
consequence of which would be to transform the present
republican system of the United States into an absolute, or at
best a mixed monarchy. That the General Assembly doth
particularly protest against the palpable and alarming
infractions of the Constitution, in the two late cases of the
'Alien and Sedition Acts,' passed at the last session of
Congress, the first of which exercises a power nowhere
delegated to the Federal Government; and which by uniting
legislative and judicial powers to those of executive,
subverts the general principles of free government, as well as
the particular organization and positive provisions of the
federal constitution: and the other of which acts, exercises
in like manner a power not delegated by the constitution, but
on the contrary expressly and positively forbidden by one of
the amendments thereto; a power which more than any other
ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled
against the right of freely examining public characters and
measures, and of free communication among the people thereon,
which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian
of every other right.
That this state having by its convention which ratified the
federal constitution, expressly declared, 'that among other
essential rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press
cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified by any
authority of the United States,' and from its extreme anxiety
to guard these rights from every possible attack of sophistry
or ambition, having with other states recommended an amendment
for that purpose, which amendment was in due time annexed to
the constitution, it would mark a reproachful inconsistency
and criminal degeneracy, if an indifference were now shown to
the most palpable violation of one of the rights thus declared
and secured, and to the establishment of a precedent which may
be fatal to the other.
That the good people of this commonwealth having ever felt and
continuing to feel the most sincere affection to their
brethren of the other states, the truest anxiety for
establishing and perpetuating the union of all, and the most
scrupulous fidelity to that constitution which is the pledge
of mutual friendship, and the instrument of mutual happiness:
The General Assembly doth solemnly appeal to the like
dispositions of the other states, in confidence that they will
concur with this commonwealth in declaring, as it does hereby
declare, that the acts aforesaid are unconstitutional, and
that the necessary and proper measures will be taken by each
for cooperating with this state, in maintaining unimpaired the
authorities, rights, and liberties, reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people. That the Governor be desired
to transmit a copy of the foregoing resolutions to the
executive authority of each of the other states, with a
request, that the same may be communicated to the legislature
thereof.
And that a copy be furnished to each of the Senators and
Representatives, representing this state in the Congress of
the United States."
In later years, after Calhoun and his school had pushed these
doctrines to their logical conclusion, Madison shrank from the
result, and endeavored to disown the apparent meaning of what
Jefferson had written and he had seemed to endorse in 1798. He
denounced Nullification and Secession as "twin heresies," and
denied that they were contained or implied in the resolutions
of 1798—either those adopted in Kentucky or the responsive
ones written by himself for the legislature of Virginia. The
Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 were followed in 1799 by another
series, in which the right of a sovereign State to nullify
obnoxious laws of the Federal Government was no longer
asserted by implication, but was put into plain terms—as
follows: "That the principle and construction, contended for
by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general
government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers
delegated to it, stop not short of despotism,—since the
discretion of those who administer the government, and not the
Constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the
several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and
independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of the
infraction; and, That a nullification, by those sovereignties,
of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument,
is the rightful remedy." It was Mr. Madison's desire to cast
on these resolutions of 1799, with which Jefferson had nothing
to do, the odium of the nullification doctrine, and to remove
the stigma from the resolutions of 1798, in which the word
"nullification" makes no appearance; "neither that," pleaded
Madison, "nor any equivalent term." But, when Madison made
this plea, in 1830, "it was not then generally known, whether
Mr. Madison knew it or not, that one of the resolutions and
part of another which Jefferson wrote to be offered in the
Kentucky legislature in 1798 were omitted by Mr. Nicholas [to
whom Mr. Jefferson had entrusted them], and that therein was
the assertion … 'where powers are assumed which have not been
delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.'
{3323}
The next year, when additional resolutions were offered by Mr.
Breckenridge, this idea in similar, though not in precisely the
same language, was presented [as quoted above]. … In 1832,
this fact, on the authority of Jefferson's grandson and
executor, was made public; and further, that another
declaration of Mr. Jefferson's in the resolution not used was
an exhortation to the co-States, 'that each will take measures
of its own for providing that neither these acts nor any
others of the general government, not plainly and
intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be
exercised within their respective territories.'"
_S. H. Gay,
James Madison,
chapter 15._
"The publication of the Kentucky resolutions … was instantly
followed by a new crop of remonstrances and petitions from the
people. … Memorials by scores came in from each State, and the
signatures appended to some were as many as sixteen hundred.
Those from Pennsylvania alone bore over eighteen thousand
names. … Such memorials as reached the House were sent to a
committee, who, late in February, reported. … The report
closed with three resolutions, and these were: that it was not
in the interest of the public good to repeal either the Alien
Law, or the Sedition Law, or any of the laws respecting the
army, the navy, or the revenue of the United States. On the
twenty-fifth of February, the House being in Committee of the
Whole, the three resolutions were taken up one by one.
Gallatin spoke long and well against the first; but it was
carried. Mr. Nicholas spoke at greater length against
agree·ing to the second. But the Federalists had made up their
minds to accept the report, and, as Nicholas went on, treated
him with great disrespect. They assembled in groups about the
House, laughed, coughed, and talked at the top of their
voices; nor would the Speaker command order in the room. When
Nicholas finished, shouts of 'Question! Question!' rose from
all sides. A member from North Carolina hoped the question
would not be taken. The hour was late. Other members had
something to say. An hour or two on the morrow might well be
spent in discussion. He moved the committee should rise. … The
motion to rise was lost, the question on the second resolution
was carried, the question on the third resolution was carried,
then the committee rose. The House then agreed to the action
of the committee on each of the three resolutions. The Federal
party was now at the height of its prosperity and power. It
controlled the Senate. It controlled the House. Outwardly it
was great and powerful, but within that dispute had begun
which, in a few short months, drove Pickering and M'Henry from
the Cabinet, split the party in twain, and gave to the country
the strange spectacle of staunch and earnest Federalists
wrangling and contending and overwhelming each other with
abuse."
_J. B. McMaster,
A History of the United States,
chapter 11 (volume 2)._
ALSO IN:
_H. S. Randall,
Life of Jefferson,
volume 2, chapter 8._
_J. Madison,
Works,
volume 4, pages 95-110, and 506-555._
_T. Jefferson,
Works,
volume 7, page 229;
and volume 9, pages 464-471._
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, page 148._
_J. T. Morse,
Life of Hamilton,
volume 2, chapter 6._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1800.
The convention with France and the French Spoliation Claims
incident to it.
"In the instructions to the American envoys in France they had
been directed to secure a claims commission, the abrogation of
the former treaties, and the abolition of the guarantee of
1778, as it was called, contained in Article XI. of the Treaty
of Alliance of that year, and covering 'the present
possessions of the Crown of France in America, as well as
those which it may acquire by the future treaty of peace.'
Upon none of these points were the envoys able to carry out
their instructions. In reference to claims, a distinction,
which was finally embodied in the treaty, was drawn by the
French government between two classes of claims: first, debts
due from the French government to American citizens for
supplies furnished, or prizes whose restoration had been
decreed by the courts; and secondly, indemnities for prizes
alleged to have been wrongfully condemned. The treaty provided
that the first class, known as debts, should be paid, but
excluded the second, or indemnity class. In reference to the
indemnity claims, and to the questions involved in the old
treaties, including, of course, the guarantee of 1778, as the
envoys were not able to come to an agreement, the treaty
declared that the negotiation was postponed. The Senate of the
United States expunged this latter article, inserting in its
place a clause providing for the duration of the present
convention; and this amendment was accepted by the French
government, with the proviso that both governments should
renounce the pretensions which were the object of the original
article. To this the Senate also agreed, and upon this basis
the convention was finally ratified. It thus appears that the
United States surrendered the claims of its citizens against
France for wrongful seizures, in return for the surrender by
France of whatever claim it might have had against the United
States for the latter's failure to fulfil the obligations
assumed in the earlier treaties [especially the guaranty of
the possessions of France in America, which was undertaken in
the treaty of 1778]. The United States, therefore, having
received a consideration for its refusal to prosecute the
claims of its citizens, thereby took the place, with respect
to the claimants, of the French government, and virtually
assumed the obligations of the latter. … The claims for
indemnity thus devolving upon the United States, known as the
French Spoliation Claims, have been from that day to this the
subject of frequent report and discussion in Congress, but
with no result until the passage of the act of January 20,
1885, referring them to the Court of Claims. At the present
time (1888) they are undergoing judicial examination before
that tribunal."
_J. R. Soley,
The Wars of the United States, 1789-1850
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 7, chapter 6; and editor's foot-note)._
ALSO IN:
_F. Wharton,
Digest of the International Law of the United States,
section 248 (volume 2, pages 714-728)._
_D. Webster,
Works,
volume 4, pages 152-178._
_T. H. Benton,
Thirty Years' View,
volume 1, chapters 117-120._
_W. H. Seward,
Works,
volume 1, pages 132-155._
_Report of Secretary of State
(United States Senate, Ex. Doc. no. 74 and 102,
49th Congress 1st session)._
Spoliations committed by the French in the Revolutionary and
Napoleonic wars subsequently to the year 1800, were
indemnified under the provisions of the treaty for the
Louisiana purchase (see LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803); under the
treaty with Spain in 1819, and under a later treaty with
France which was negotiated in Andrew Jackson's most
imperative manner in 1831. These do not enter into what have
become historically specialized as the French Spoliation
Claims.
{3324}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1800.
The Second Census.
Total population, 5,305,937, (an increase of slightly more
than 35 per cent. since 1790), classed and distributed as
follows:
North.
White. Free black. Slave.
Connecticut. 244,721 5,330 951
Indiana. 4,577 163 135
Maine. 150,901 818 0
Massachusetts. 416,793 6,452 0
New Hampshire. 182,898 856 8
New Jersey. 195,125 4,402 12,422
New York. 556,039 10,374 20,343
Ohio. 45,028 337 0
Pennsylvania. 586,094 14,561 1,706
Rhode Island. 65,437 3,304 381
Vermont. 153,908 557 0
--- --- ---
Total 2,601,521 47,154 35,946
South.
White. Free black. Slave.
Delaware. 49,852 8,268 6,153
District of Columbia. 10,066 783 3,244
Georgia. 101,678 1,019 59,404
Kentucky. 179,871 741 40,343
Maryland. 216,326 19,587 105,635
Mississippi. 5,179 182 3,489
North Carolina. 337,764 7,043 133,296
South Carolina. 196,255 3,185 146,151
Tennessee. 91,709 309 13,584
Virginia. 514,280 20,124 345,796
--- --- ---
Total 1,702,980 61,241 857,095
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1800-1801.
The Fourth Presidential Election
Inauguration of Jefferson.
"Adams, whom Dr. Franklin aptly described as 'always an honest
man, often a wise one, but sometimes and in some things
absolutely out of his senses,' was approaching the end of his
term as President, and public attention was absorbed in the
task of choosing a successor. … At the time of Adams's
election, a sectional feeling, destined in the future to work
so much evil, had already been developed; and he in
consequence received from States south of the Potomac but two
electoral votes. New York had given him her twelve, yet the
entire majority over his competitor was but three in all the
colleges. The national parties were not unequally matched in
the State; and it was evident that, could its vote be diverted
to Jefferson in the next contest, his victory would be
assured. Hence, strenuous efforts were made to accomplish this
end, and for months society was like a seething caldron. The
trouble with France had, for the moment, swelled the numbers
of the Federalists, and closed up their ranks; but the
capricious course of the President, and the violent disruption
of the cabinet, rent them asunder, never to be re-united. …
During the French excitement, it seemed almost certain that,
after the local election, they would have a majority in the
new Legislature, and thus retain for their candidate the
electoral vote of New York. This pleasing prospect was soon
obscured. When its people found Mr. Adams sternly enforcing
the Sedition Law, and exercising the power it conferred in an
unfeeling manner upon one of their most esteemed citizens
[Judge Peck], they turned with disgust from a party which they
held responsible for its enactment, as well as for this
violent procedure. The permanent ascendency which the
Republicans seemed to have acquired in the metropolis had been
wrested from them, in the spring of 1799, by the unpopularity
of a scheme of Burr's, already conspicuous in the State as an
unscrupulous political tactician. He had been a member of the
assembly the preceding year, and, under the pretence of
supplying pure and wholesome water, obtained a charter which
enabled the corporators to engage in banking. In consequence
of the feeling this aroused, he did not dare present himself
again as a candidate, but, with great tact and unwearied
efforts, succeeded in healing divisions in his party, and
nominating a delegation for the assembly, which embraced the
Republicans most eminent for wealth, station, or family
influence. Governor Clinton headed the list. … The result
followed which Burr had anticipated. The Federal majority of
the last year was overcome, and New York City secured by the
Republicans, giving them control of the State. Adams
subsequently received but four electoral votes south of
Maryland, and Jefferson became his successor. Burr, to whose
untiring exertions this great victory was due, was thereby
inducted into the office of Vice-President. At that time, the
Legislature appointed the electors for the State; and the
Republicans, then anticipating a defeat, had at a previous
session advocated that, for the future, these should be chosen
directly by the people in separate districts, hoping thus to
secure a sufficient number to elect their Presidential
candidate. The Federalists, thinking their supremacy in the
assembly assured, refused to support the plan. Now, however,
when it became known that their adversaries had gained a
majority in the Legislature on which would devolve the duty of
choosing the electors, Hamilton addressed a letter to Governor
Jay, suggesting that the present body, whose term would not
expire before July, should be again convened, in order to pass
a measure which, when before proposed by the Republicans, had
been denounced as unconstitutional. Jay had too much regard
for principle to entertain the idea. After his death, the
letter was found among his papers, endorsed, 'Proposing a
measure for party purposes which I think it would not become
me to adopt.' It is related that a noted French duellist, when
required to forgive his enemies before receiving absolution,
exclaimed, My enemies? I have none. I have killed them all!
Mr. Jefferson might have responded in the same manner, the
morrow after the Presidential election. To the one party, the
result seemed like the breaking up of an ice gorge—the
harbinger of spring. To the other it appeared as an avalanche
of French principles, destructive alike of religion and
established government. Both were at fault. President
Jefferson was quite as unable to destroy the work of his
predecessors as he was to depart from their policy of
neutrality. The Sedition and Alien Laws soon expired by
limitation; but the great measures of the former
administrations were too wise, and had struck their roots too
deep into the national sentiment, to be suddenly overturned."
_W. Whitelock,
Life and Times of John Jay,
chapter 22._
{3325}
In the Electoral College, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr,
both Democratic Republicans, received an equal number of votes
(73), and the election was carried into the House of
Representatives, where Jefferson was chosen President and Burr
Vice President. "Adams, stung to the heart by the election of
Jefferson, refused to witness the hateful spectacle of his
successor's inauguration. He spent his last hours in filling
up vacancies to place patronage out of Jefferson's reach; then
he departed, the old order in his person giving place with a
frown and a shudder to the new. Adams did not hate monarchy,
he thought that for England it was good. In the eyes of
Jefferson monarchy was the incarnate spirit of evil and to rid
mankind of it by example was the mission of the American
Republic. Every vestige of the half monarchical state which
Washington had retained was now banished from the President's
mansion and life. No more coaches-and-six, no more court
dress, no more levees. Although Jefferson did not, as legend
says, ride to his inauguration and tie his horse to the fence,
he was inaugurated with as little ceremony as possible. He
received an ambassador in slippers down at the heel, and in
the arrangement of his dinner parties was so defiant of the
rules of etiquette as to breed trouble in the diplomatic
circle. Yet with all his outward simplicity the Virginian
magnate and man of letters, though he might be a Republican,
could not in himself be a true embodiment of democracy. He was
the friend of the people, but not one of them. … The desired
day had come when the philosopher was to govern. The words of
the address which Jefferson, unlike the demagogic sons of
thunder in the present day, read in a very low voice, are the
expression by its great master and archetype of the republican
idea which has hitherto reigned supreme in the mind of the
American people. These words are monumental, 'Equal and exact
justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious
or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all
nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the
State governments in all their rights, as the most competent
administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest
bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies, the preservation
of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour,
as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a
jealous care of the right of election by the People; a mild
and safe correction of abuses which are lopped by the sword of
revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute
acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital
principle of republics, from which there is no appeal but to
force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;
a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for
the first movements in war, till regulars may relieve them;
the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;
economy in the public expense, that labour may be lightly
burdened; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred
preservation of the public faith; encouragement of
agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid, the diffusion of
information, and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of
public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and
freedom of person under the protection of the "habeas corpus,"
and trial by jurors impartially selected;—these principles
form the bright constellation which has gone before us and
guided our steps through an age of revolution and
reformation.' Jefferson's wand was the pen. Yet he is
strangely apt to fall into mixed metaphors and even into
platitudes. This address has not escaped criticism."
_Goldwin Smith,
The United States,
chapter 3._
"Jefferson had reached the presidential chair at a most
fortunate moment. … The prospect of a speedy peace in Europe
promised effectual and permanent relief from those serious
embarrassments to which, during war on the ocean, American
commerce was ever exposed from the aggressions of one or of
all the belligerents. The treasury was fuller, the revenue
more abundant than at any previous period. Commerce was
flourishing, and the pecuniary prosperity of the country very
great. All the responsibility of framing institutions, laying
taxes, find providing for debts, had fallen on the ousted
administration. Succeeding to the powers and the means of the
Federal government without sharing any of the unpopularity at
the expense of which they had been attained, and ambitious not
so much of a splendid as of a quiet and popular
administration, the new president seemed to have before him a
very plain and easy path. … To the offices of Secretary of
State, Secretary of the Treasury, and Attorney General, left
vacant by the resignation of the late incumbents, Jefferson
nominated James Madison, Henry Dearborn, and Levi Lincoln, the
latter an early leader of the opposition in Massachusetts. …
As the Senate stood at present, still containing, as it did,
of the members present a majority of Federalists, Jefferson
did not think proper to make any further nominations; but,
soon after the adjournment, he appointed as Secretary of the
Treasury Albert Gallatin, all along the financial member of
the opposition. … The Navy Department, after being refused by
Chancellor Livingston, was given to Robert Smith, brother of
the Baltimore member of Congress. Livingston, however, having
reached the age of sixty, and being obliged, under a
Constitutional provision, to vacate the chancellorship of New
York, consented to accept the embassy to France. … Habersham
was continued as post-master-general for some six months, …
but he presently gave way to Gideon Granger, a leader of the
Connecticut Republicans."
_R. Hildreth,
History of the United States, 2d series,
chapter 16 (volume 2, or volume 5 of whole work)._
"The first act of the new Cabinet was to reach a general
understanding in regard to the objects of the Administration.
These appear to have been two only in number: reduction of
debt and reduction of taxes, and the relation to be preserved
between them."
_H. Adams,
Life of Albert Gallatin,
page 276._
"Under President Jefferson, the heads of the great departments
of the government were changed, nor was there any just reason
to complain of this measure; as they formed a part of his
political council; and, as the chief executive officer of
government, he had a perfect right to select his confidential
friends and advisers. But when afterwards, and within a few
months, he removed able and upright men from offices of a
subordinate grade, his conduct was considered improper and
arbitrary, and as partaking somewhat of the 'right of
prerogative,' usually claimed and exercised by royal princes.
… In his inaugural address, Mr. Jefferson said, 'We have
gained little, if we encourage a political intolerance as
wicked as impolitic. We are all brethren of the same
principles; we are all republicans, and all federalists.'
{3326}
Yet in less than fifty days he removed fourteen federal
officers; without any allegation of unfaithfulness or
inefficiency: on the plea, indeed, that his predecessor had
removed two public officers on account of their political
opinions; and had appointed none to office in the government
but such as were of the same sentiments and views as the
administration. 'Few died, and none resigned,' he said; and
therefore, to equalize public offices between the two great
political parties, it was necessary, in his opinion, to remove
a part of those then employed, and to appoint others more
friendly to the new administration. For a very few of the
removals there might have been sufficient or justifiable
reasons offered; but in most instances the changes were made
merely for political opinions."
_A. Bradford,
History of the Federal Government, 1789-1839,
chapter 6._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1801.
Appointment of John Marshall to be
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
His Constitutional decisions.
On the 31st of January, 1801, near the close of the term of
President Adams, the latter appointed John Marshall, who had
been Secretary of State in his cabinet since the previous May,
to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It was a memorable
appointment,—the most memorable, perhaps, that has ever been
made by official and not popular selection, in America, since
Washington was appointed to the command of the continental
army. Its result was to place the new, uninterpreted, plastic
Constitution of the Federal Republic under the hands of a
master, during thirty-four years of the period in which it
hardened into practical, determined law. It decided the
character of the Constitution, and by that decision the great
instrument was made a bond of nationality, firm, strenuous and
enduring. "The abilities of the new Chief Justice were
recognized by the profession and the public at the time of his
appointment, but the attractive qualities of his heart and his
kindly manners soon caused respect and reverence to ripen into
affection. Perhaps no American citizen except Washington ever
conciliated so large a measure of popularity and public
esteem. … In surveying the results of the labors of
thirty-four years recorded in thirty-two volumes of reports,
it is obvious that it was in the decision of cases involving
international and constitutional law that the force and
clearness of the Chief Justice's intellect shone most
conspicuous. Such was the ready assent of his colleagues on
the bench to his supremacy in the exposition of constitutional
law, that in such causes a dissenting opinion was almost
unknown. Having had occasion to discuss and thoroughly study
the Constitution, both in the Virginia convention which
adopted it and afterward in the legislature, he had
preconceived opinions concerning it, as well as perfect
familiarity with it. But in the hot contest waging between the
friends of a strict and those of a liberal construction of its
language, he wished to take no part. He stated that there
should be neither a liberal nor a strict construction, but
that the simple, natural, and usual meaning of its words and
phrases should govern their interpretation. In the case of
Gibbons v. Ogden, in which he is called upon to define the
true rule of construction of the United States Constitution
regarding the rights of the States and the rights and powers
of the general government, he studiously avoids each extreme,
steering safely in the middle course. He lays down his own
rule thus clearly and definitely:—'This instrument contains
an enumeration of powers expressly granted by the people to
their government. It has been said that these powers ought to
be construed strictly; but why ought they to be so construed?
Is there one sentence in the Constitution which gives
countenance to this rule? In the last of the enumerated
powers, that which grants expressly the means for carrying all
others into execution, Congress is authorized to make all laws
that shall be necessary and proper for the purpose. But this
limitation on the means which may be used is not extended to
the powers which are conferred, nor is there one sentence in
the Constitution which has been pointed out by the gentlemen
of the bar, or which we have been able to discern, that
prescribes this rule. We do not therefore think ourselves
justified in adopting it. If they contend only against that
enlarged construction which would extend words beyond their
natural and obvious import, we might question the application
of the term but should not controvert the principle. If they
contend for that narrow construction which, in support of some
theory not to be found in the Constitution, would deny to the
government those powers which the words of the grant, as
usually understood, import, and which are consistent with the
general views and objects of the instrument; for that narrow
construction which would cripple the government, and render it
unequal to the objects for which it is declared to be
instituted, and to which the powers given, as fairly
understood, render it competent; then we cannot perceive the
propriety of this strict construction, nor adopt it as a rule
by which the Constitution is to be expounded.' … Marshall's
dictum that there must be neither a strict nor a liberal
construction of the Constitution, but that the natural meaning
of the words must govern, was undoubtedly sound and wise. The
broad proposition was above criticism; it meant only that the
language of the instrument should not be stretched or wrenched
in any direction; and however politicians or even statesmen
might feel, there was no other possible ground for a judge to
take. Jefferson might regard it as a duty to make the
Constitution as narrow and restricted as possible; Hamilton
might feel that there was an actual obligation upon him to
make it as broad and comprehensive as its words would admit.
But Jefferson and Hamilton, in a different department of
public life from Marshall, had duties and obligations
correspondingly different from his. They might properly try to
make the Constitution mean what it seemed to them for the
public welfare that it should mean. Marshall could not
consider any such matter; he had only to find and declare what
it did mean, what its words actually and properly declared,
not what they might possibly or desirably be supposed or
construed to declare. This was the real force and the only
real force of his foregoing assertion. As an abstract
statement of his function it was impregnable. But, as with
most broad principles, the difficulty lay in the application
of it to particular cases. The constitutional questions which
came before Marshall chiefly took the form of whether or not
the Constitution conferred some power or authority upon
Congress, or upon the Executive. Then the Federalist lawyers
tried to show how much the language could mean, and the
anti-Federalist counsel sought to show how little it could
mean, and each urged that public policy was upon his side.
{3327}
The decision must be yes or no; the authority did or did not
rest in the government. It was easy to talk about the natural
and proper meaning of the words; but after all it was the
question at issue; did they (not could they) say yes, or did
they (not could they) say no, to the special authority sought
to be exercised. Now it is one thing to be impartial and
another to be colorless in mind. Judge Marshall was impartial
and strongly possessed of the judicial instinct or faculty.
But he was by no means colorless. He could no more eliminate
from his mind an interest in public affairs, and opinions as
to the preferable forms of government and methods of
administration, than he could cut out and cast away his mind
itself. Believing that the Constitution intended to create and
did create a national government, and having decided notions
as to what such a government must be able to do, he was
subject to a powerful though insensible influence to find the
existence of the required abilities in the government. … The
great majority of his decisions were in accordance with
Federalist principles of construction and of policy. The
Republicans all denounced him as a Federalist, even of an
extreme type."
_A. B. Magruder,
John Marshall,
chapter 10._
ALSO IN:
_H. Flanders,
Lives and Times of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court,
volume 2._
_J. Story,
John Marshall
(North American Review, volume 26)._
[Image: The United States in 1860.]
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1801.
First American naval demonstration against the Barbary Pirates.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1785-1801.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1802.
Admission of Ohio to the Union.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1788-1802.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1802-1804.
Land cessions of Georgia annexed to Mississippi Territory.
See MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1798-1804.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803.
The Louisiana Purchase.
Its constitutional and political aspects.
"The Mississippi question, which had played so important a
part in the times of the confederation, had arisen again and
demanded a solution, as Spain had, on the 1st of October,
1800, ceded the whole of Louisiana to France. The United
States had had experience enough already of how dangerous and
how great an obstacle in the way of the commercial development
of the country it might become, if the mouth of the
Mississippi were in the possession of a foreign power, even if
it were no stronger than Spain. Jefferson had not shared in
this experience in vain. This was one of the instances in
which he gave evidence of a really statesmanlike insight. He
wrote on the 18th of April, 1802, to his embassador Livingston
in Paris: This cession 'completely reverses all the political
relations of the United States, and will form a new epoch in
our political course. … There is on the globe one single spot,
the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy.'
Livingston was instructed to enter into negotiations
immediately for the cession of New Orleans and the Floridas,
in case France should consider the possession of Louisiana
indispensably necessary. As Bonaparte at this very time
entertained the idea of resuming the old French colonial
policy, the negotiations remained long without result. The
uprising of the negroes in San Domingo and the warlike turn
which the affairs of Europe began again to assume, disposed
him more favorably towards the American offer. On the 30th of
April, 1803, the treaty, ceding the whole of Louisiana to the
United States for $15,000,000, was concluded in Paris.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
Hamilton shared Jefferson's view, that the purchase of
Louisiana was a question of the greatest, and even of vital,
importance for the Union. His opposition on other occasions to
the policy of the administration, and his personal enmity to
the president, did not prevent his lending him a helping hand
in this matter when an opportunity offered. The great majority
of the Federalists opposed this increase of the territory of
the Union with as much decision as Hamilton advocated it. They
showed in their attitude towards this question a
short-sightedness which would have been astonishing even among
the doctrinarians of the opposite party."
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, pages 183-185._
"Mr. Jefferson belonged to the school of strict construction,
and was in fact its leader and apostle. … Under a construction
of the Constitution as strict as he had been insisting upon,
it was plain that the government would have no power to
acquire foreign territory by purchase, and that any attempt in
that direction would be usurpation. … To give the necessary
authority an amendment of the Constitution would be essential,
and amendment would be a slow process which might not be
accomplished in time to meet the emergency. The case would be
complicated by the fact that if the territory was acquired a
considerable population would be brought into the Union and
thus made citizens by a process of naturalization not
contemplated by the Constitution. Mr. Madison, the Secretary
of State, agreed with the President in his views. To use Mr.
Jefferson's words, "The Constitution has made no provision for
our holding foreign territory; still less for incorporating
foreign nations into our Union.' But under circumstances so
imperative he thought the political departments of the
government should meet the emergency by consummating the
purchase, and 'then appeal to the nation for an additional
article in the Constitution approving and confirming an act
which the nation had not previously authorized.' He did not
conceal from himself, however, that in so doing ground would
be occupied which it would be difficult to defend, and he
proceeds to say: 'The less that is said about any
constitutional difficulty the better. Congress should do what
is necessary in silence. I find but one opinion as to the
necessity of shutting up the Constitution for some time.' Mr.
John Quincy Adams held similar views. … But it is difficult to
conceive of any doctrine more dangerous or more distinctly
antagonistic to the fundamental ideas of the American Union
than the doctrine that the Constitution may be 'shut up' for a
time in order that the government may accomplish something not
warranted by it. The political immorality was obvious and
glaring; more so in the case of the apostle of strict
construction than it could have been if advanced by any other
statesman of the day. … But Mr. Jefferson's political mistake
was scarcely greater than that committed by his opponents:
and, indeed, from a party standpoint it was no mistake
whatsoever, but a bold measure of wise policy.
{3328}
… The purchase, according to the Federal view of the
Constitution, was perfectly legitimate. … But the Federalists
in general took narrow and partisan views, and in order to
embarrass the administration resorted to quibbles which were
altogether unworthy the party which had boasted of Washington
as its chief and Hamilton as the exponent of its doctrines. …
The Federal leaders did not stop at cavils; they insisted that
the unconstitutional extension of territory was in effect a
dissolution of the Union, so that they were at liberty to
contemplate and plan for a final disruption."
_Judge T. M. Cooley,
The Acquisition of Louisiana
(Indiana Historical Society Pamphlets, number 3)._
The result of the debates on the Louisiana treaty, in the
Senate and the House, "decided only one point. Every speaker,
without distinction of party, agreed that the United States
government had the power to acquire new territory either by
conquest or by treaty; the only difference of opinion regarded
the disposition of this territory after it was acquired. Did
Louisiana belong to the central government at Washington, or
to the States? … Whether the government at Washington could
possess Louisiana as a colony or admit it as a State, was a
difference of no great matter if the cession were to hold
good; the essential point was that for the first time in the
national history all parties agreed in admitting that the
government could govern. … Even in 1804 the political
consequences of the act were already too striking to be
overlooked. Within three years of his inauguration Jefferson
bought a foreign colony without its consent and against its
will, annexed it to the United States by an act which he said
made blank paper of the Constitution; and then he who had
found his predecessors too monarchical, and the Constitution
too liberal in powers,—he who had nearly dissolved the bonds
of society rather than allow his predecessor to order a
dangerous alien out of the country in a time of threatened
war,—made himself monarch of the new territory, and wielded
over it, against its protests, the powers of its old kings.
Such an experience was final; no century of slow and
half-understood experience could be needed to prove that the
hopes of humanity lay thenceforward, not in attempting to
restrain the government from doing whatever the majority
should think necessary, but in raising the people themselves
till they should think nothing necessary but what was good."
_H. Adams,
History of the United States of America
during the first Administration of Jefferson,
volume 2, chapters 4-6._
ALSO IN:
_Treaties and Conventions between the United States
and other Powers (edition of 1889),
pages 331-342. _
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803.
Report on the British impressment of seamen from American ships.
"In consequence of a resolution of the Senate, calling upon
the President for information respecting the violation of the
national flag, and the impressment of American seamen, he
communicated to that body a letter from the Secretary of
State, specifying all the cases of impressment which had come
to the knowledge of that Department. The Secretary had no
information of the violation of the national flag, except in
the recent aggression of Morocco. It appeared, by this report,
that 43 citizens of the United States had been impressed by
the British, of whom 12 had protections. Ten were natives of
the British dominions, and 17 of other countries, none of whom
were stated to have been naturalized. Thus a practice which,
even within the British dominions, violates the dearest rights
of personal liberty, and which their courts have never
ventured to justify, and which is excused and acquiesced in on
the plea of necessity, was unhesitatingly exercised by British
navy officers on board of American vessels."
_G. Tucker,
History of the United States,
chapter 12 (volume 2)._
"When the captain of a British frigate overhauled an American
merchant-vessel for enemy's property or contraband of war, he
sent an officer on board who mustered the crew, and took out
any seamen whom he believed to be British. The measure, as the
British navy regarded it, was one of self-protection. If the
American government could not or would not discourage
desertion, the naval commander would recover his men in the
only way he could. Thus a circle of grievances was established
on each side. … The growth of American shipping stimulated
desertions from the British service to the extent of injuring
its efficiency; and these desertions in their turn led to a
rigorous exercise of the right of impressment. To find some
point at which this vicious circle could be broken was a
matter of serious consequence to both countries, but most so
to the one which avowed that it did not mean to protect its
interest by force. Great Britain could have broken the circle
by increasing the pay and improving the condition of her
seamen; but she was excessively conservative, and the burdens
already imposed on her commerce were so great that she could
afford to risk nothing. … Conscious of her own power, she
thought that the United States should be first to give way.
Had the American government been willing to perform its
neutral obligations strictly, the circle might have been
broken without much trouble; but the United States wished to
retain their advantage, and preferred to risk whatever England
might do rather than discourage desertion, or enact and
enforce a strict naturalization law, or punish fraud, The
national government was too weak to compel the States to
respect neutral obligations, even if it had been disposed to
make the attempt. The practice of impressment brought the two
governments to a deadlock on an issue of law. No one denied
that every government had the right to command the services of
its native subjects, and as yet no one ventured to maintain
that a merchant-ship on the high seas could lawfully resist
the exercise of this right; but the law had done nothing to
define the rights of naturalized subjects or citizens. The
British government might, no doubt, impress its own subjects;
but almost every British sailor in the American service
carried papers of American citizenship, and although some of
these were fraudulent, many were genuine. The law of England,
as declared from time out of mind by every generation of her
judges, held that the allegiance of a subject was
indefeasible, and therefore that naturalization was worthless.
The law of the United States, as declared by Chief-Justice
Ellsworth in 1799, was in effect the same."
_H. Adams,
History of the United States of America, during
the first Administration of Thomas Jefferson,
volume 2, chapter 14._
{3329}
"Great Britain was clearly in the wrong. She ought to have
kept her seamen by increasing their pay and putting an end to
the grievances which produced the mutiny of the Nore. In
heartlessly neglecting to render the service just to the
common sailor, and at the same time making a brutal use of
impressment, aristocratic government showed its dark side. It
is true that impressment was conscription in a coarse form,
and that the extreme notion of indefeasible allegiance still
prevailed. But the practice, however lawful, was intolerable,
and its offensiveness was sure to be aggravated by the conduct
of British commanders full of the naval pride of their nation
and perhaps irritated by the loss of their crews; for it is
not denied that many British seamen were seduced from the
service and that the American marine, both mercantile and
national, was largely manned in this way."
_Goldwin Smith,
The United States,
chapter 3._
See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803-1804.
Federalist Secession movement.
"In the winter … of 1803-4, immediately after, and as a
consequence of, the acquisition of Louisiana, certain leaders
of the Federal party conceived the project of the dissolution
of the Union, and the establishment of a Northern Confederacy.
The justifying causes to those who entertained it were, that
the annexation of Louisiana to the Union transcended the
constitutional powers of the government of the United States;
that it created, in fact, a new confederacy, to which the
States, united by the former compact, were not bound to
adhere; that it was oppressive to the interests and
destructive to the influence of the Northern section of the
Confederacy, whose right and duty it therefore was to secede
from the new body politic, and to constitute one of their own.
It was lamented that one inevitable consequence of the
annexation of Louisiana to the Union would be to diminish the
relative weight and influence of the Northern section; that it
would aggravate the evil of the slave representation; and
endanger the Union itself, by the expansion of its bulk, and
the enfeebling extension of its line of de·fence against
foreign invasion. A Northern Confederacy was thought to be the
only probable counterpoise to the manufacture of new States in
the South. This project was quietly and extensively discussed
at the time, by the members of Congress from Massachusetts and
Connecticut especially. General Hamilton, indeed, was chosen
as the person to be placed, at the proper time, at the head of
the military movement which, it was foreseen, would be
necessary for carrying the plan into execution. He was
consulted on the subject; and although it is quite certain
that he was opposed to it, he consented to attend a meeting of
Federalists in Boston in the autumn of 1804, but his untimely
death, in the summer of that year, prevented the meeting. To
whatever proportions, however, the project might otherwise
have gone, it was checked by the advantage which was evident
to all of the securing of so large a domain, by the great
desirableness of preventing France from holding the mouth of
our great river, and by the settlement of the question of our
national boundaries. These considerations gave a quietus for a
time to the suggestions of sectional jealousy."
_C. F. Robertson,
The Louisiana Purchase in its Influence
upon the American System
(Papers of the American Historical Association, volume 1),
pages 262-263._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804.
Fifth Presidential Election.
Thomas Jefferson, Democratic Republican, reelected by the vote
of 162 Electors in the College, against 14 voting for Charles
C. Pinckney, Federalist. George Clinton was chosen Vice
President.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1805.
Impeachment and trial of Judge Chase.
In the closing hours of the session of Congress which expired
March 4, 1803, proceedings of impeachment were begun for the
removal from the bench of Judge Pickering, United States
District Judge of New Hampshire, who had become mentally
incapable of discharging the duties of his office. "By the
federalists, the attack on Judge Pickering was taken as the
first of a series of impeachments, intended to revolutionize
the political character of the courts, but there is nothing to
prove that this was then the intent of the majority. The most
obnoxious justice on the supreme bench was Samuel Chase of
Maryland, whose violence as a political partisan had certainly
exposed him to the danger of impeachment; but two years had
now passed without producing any sign of an intention to
disturb him, and it might be supposed that the administration
thus condoned his offences. Unluckily, Judge Chase had not the
good taste or the judgment to be quiet. He irritated his
enemies by new indiscretions, and on May 13, 1803, nearly
three months after Pickering's impeachment, Mr. Jefferson, in
a letter to Joseph H. Nicholson, suggested that it would be
well to take him in hand:—'You must have heard of the
extraordinary charge of Chase to the grand jury at Baltimore.
Ought this seditious and official attack on the principles of
our Constitution and on the proceedings of a State to go
unpunished? And to whom so pointedly as yourself will the
public look for the necessary measures? I ask these questions
for your consideration. As for myself, it is better that I
should not interfere.' … Nicholson seems to have passed on to
Randolph the charge he had received from the President. … On
January 5, 1804, Randolph rose to move for an inquiry into the
conduct of Judge Chase. … After a long debate, the inquiry was
ordered, and Randolph, with his friend Nicholson, was put at
the head of the committee. On March 26, 1804, they reported
seven articles of impeachment. … With this the session ended,
and the trial went over to the next year. … The impeachment of
Justice Chase is a landmark in American history, because it
was here that the Jeffersonian republicans fought their last
aggressive battle, and, wavering under the shock of defeat,
broke into factions which slowly abandoned the field and
forgot their discipline. That such a battle must one day be
fought for the control of the Judiciary was from the beginning
believed by most republicans who understood their own
principles. Without controlling the Judiciary, the people
could never govern themselves in their own way; and although
they might, over and over again, in every form of law and
resolution, both state and national, enact and proclaim that
theirs was not a despotic but a restricted government, which
had no right to exercise powers not delegated to it, and over
which they, as States, had absolute control, it was none the
less certain that Chief Justice Marshall and his associates
would disregard their will, and would impose upon them his
own. The people were at the mercy of their creatures. The
Constitutions of England, of Massachusetts, of Pennsylvania,
authorized the removal of an obnoxious judge on a mere address
of the legislature, but the Constitution of the United States
had so fenced and fortified the Supreme Court that the
legislature, the Executive, the people themselves, could
exercise no control over it.
{3330}
A judge might make any decision, violate any duty, trample on
any right, and if he took care to commit no indictable offence
he was safe in office for life. On this license the
Constitution imposed only one check: it said that all civil
officers should be removed from office 'on impeachment for,
and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and
misdemeanors.' This right of impeachment was as yet undefined,
and if stretched a little beyond strict construction it might
easily be converted into something for which it had not been
intended. … Judge Chase's offences were serious. The immediate
cause of impeachment, his address to the grand jury at
Baltimore on the 2d May, 1803, proved that he was not a proper
person to be trusted with the interpretation of the laws. In
this address he said that those laws were rapidly destroying
all protection to property and all security to personal
liberty. 'The late alteration of the federal Judiciary,' said
he, 'by the abolition of the office of the sixteen circuit
judges, and the recent change in our state Constitution by the
establishing of universal suffrage, and the further alteration
that is contemplated in our state Judiciary, if adopted, will,
in my judgment, take away all security for property and
personal liberty. The independence of the national Judiciary
is already shaken to its foundations, and the virtue of the
people alone can restore it.' That by this reference to the
virtue of the people he meant to draw a contrast with the want
of virtue in their government was made clear by a pointed
insult to Mr. Jefferson: 'The modern doctrines by our late
reformers, that all men in a state of society are entitled to
enjoy equal liberty and equal rights, have brought this mighty
mischief upon us, and I fear that it will rapidly progress
until peace and order, freedom and property, shall be
destroyed.' … There was gross absurdity in the idea that the
people who, by an immense majority, had decided to carry on
their government in one way should be forced by one of their
own servants to turn about and go in the opposite direction;
and the indecorum was greater than the absurdity, for if Judge
Chase or any other official held such doctrines, even though
he were right, he was bound not to insult officially the
people who employed him. On these grounds Mr. Jefferson
privately advised the impeachment, and perhaps Randolph might
have acted more wisely had he followed Mr. Jefferson's hint to
rely on this article alone, which in the end came nearer than
any other to securing conviction. … The articles of
impeachment which Randolph presented to the House on March 26,
1804, and which were, he claimed, drawn up with his own hand,
rested wholly on the theory of Chase's criminality; they
contained no suggestion that impeachment was a mere inquest of
office. But when Congress met again, and, on December 3, the
subject came again before the House, it was noticed that two
new articles, the fifth and sixth, had been quietly
interpolated, which roused suspicion of a change in Randolph's
plan. … No one could doubt that Randolph and his friends,
seeing how little their ultimate object would be advanced by a
conviction on the old charges, inserted these new articles in
order to correct their mistake and to make a foundation for
the freer use of impeachment as a political weapon. The
behavior of Giles and his friends in the Senate strengthened
this suspicion. He made no concealment of his theories, and
labored earnestly to prevent the Senate from calling itself a
court, or from exercising any functions that belonged to a
court of law."
_H. Adams,
John Randolph,
chapters 4-6._
The doctrine of impeachment which Giles (Senator from
Virginia) and John Randolph maintained, in connection with the
trial of Judge Chase, and which seems to have been acquiesced
in by the majority of their party, is reported by John Quincy
Adams from a conversation to which he was a listener. In Mr.
Adams' Memoirs, under date of December 21, 1804, the incident
is related as follows: "There was little business to do [in
the Senate], and the adjournment took place early. Sitting by
the fireside afterwards, I witnessed a conversation between
Mr. Giles and Mr. Israel Smith, on the subject of
impeachments; during which Mr. John Randolph came in and took
part in the discussion. Giles labored with excessive
earnestness to convince Smith of certain principles, upon
which not only Mr. Chase, but all the other Judges of the
Supreme Court, excepting the one last appointed, must be
impeached and removed. He treated with the utmost contempt the
idea of an 'independent' judiciary—said there was not a word
about such an independence in the Constitution, and that their
pretensions to it were nothing more nor less than an attempt
to establish an aristocratic despotism in themselves. The
power of impeachment was given without limitation to the House
of Representatives; the power of trying impeachments was given
equally without limitation to the Senate; and if the Judges of
the Supreme Court should dare, as they had done, to declare an
act of Congress unconstitutional, or to send a mandamus to the
Secretary of State, as they had done, it was the undoubted
right of the House of Representatives to impeach them, and of
the Senate to remove them, for giving such opinions, however
honest and sincere they may have been in entertaining them.
Impeachment was not a criminal prosecution; it was no
prosecution at all. The Senate sitting for the trial of
impeachments was not a court, and ought to discard and reject
all process of analogy to a court of justice. A trial and
removal of a judge upon impeachment need not imply any
criminality or corruption in him. Congress had no power over
the person, but only over the office. And a removal by
impeachment was nothing more than a declaration by Congress to
this effect: You hold dangerous opinions, and if you are
suffered to carry them into effect you will work the
destruction of the nation. We want your offices, for the
purpose of giving them to men who will fill them better. In
answer to all this, Mr. Smith only contended that honest error
of opinion could not, as he conceived, be a subject of
impeachment. And in pursuit of this principle he proved
clearly enough the persecution and tyranny to which those of
Giles and Randolph inevitably lead. It would, he said,
establish 'a tyranny over opinions,' and he traced all the
arguments of Giles to their only possible issue of rank
absurdity. In all this conversation I opened my lips but once,
in which I told Giles that I could not assent to his
definition of the term impeachment."
_J. Q. Adams,
Memoirs,
edited by C. F. Adams,
volume 1, pages 322-323._
{3331}
The trial of Judge Chase was opened on the 9th of February,
1805, and ended on the 23d. By votes ranging from 15 to 34
(the total number of Senators being 34), he was acquitted on
each of the charges—a result attributed considerably to the
offensive and incapable manner in which the prosecution had
been conducted by John Randolph.
_J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
volume 2, page 77._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1805.
Expedition of Lewis and Clark across the continent.
The first exploration of the Missouri and beyond.
Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark "were the
first men to cross the continent in our zone, the truly golden
zone. A dozen years before them, Mackenzie had crossed in
British dominions far north, but settlements are even now
sparse in that parallel. Still earlier had Mexicans traversed
the narrowing continent from the Gulf to the Pacific, but
seemed to find little worth discovery. It was otherwise in the
zone penetrated by Lewis and Clark. There development began at
once and is now nowhere surpassed. Along their route ten
States, with a census in 1890 of eight and a half millions,
have arisen in the wilderness. … The credit of our Great
Western discovery is due to Jefferson, though he never crossed
the Alleghanies. When Columbus saw the Orinoco rushing into
the ocean with irrepressible power and volume, he knew that he
had anchored at the mouth of a continental river. So
Jefferson, ascertaining that the Missouri, though called a
branch, at once changed the color and character of the
Mississippi, felt sure that whoever followed it would reach
the innermost recesses of our America. Learning afterward that
Captain Gray had pushed into the mouth of the Columbia only
after nine days' breasting its outward current, he deemed that
river a worthy counterpart of the Missouri, and was convinced
that their headwaters could not be far apart in longitude.
Inaugurated in 1801, before his first Presidential term was
half over he had obtained, as a sort of secret-service fund,
the small sum which sufficed to fit out the expedition. He had
also selected Lewis, his private secretary, for its head, and
put him in a course of special training. But the actual voyage
up the Missouri, purchased April 30, 1803, was not begun till
the middle of May, 1804. Forty-five persons in three boats
composed the party. … After 171 days the year's advance ended
with October, for the river was ready to freeze. The distance
up stream they reckoned at 1,600 miles, or little more than 9
miles a day, a journey now made by railroad in forty-four
hours. … Winter quarters were thirty miles above the Bismarck
of our day. Here they were frozen in about five months. The
huts they built and abundant fuel kept them warm. Thanks to
their hunters and Indian traffic, food was seldom scarce.
Officials of the Hudson's Bay Company (who had a post within a
week's journey) and many inquisitive natives paid them visits.
From all these it was their tireless endeavor to learn
everything possible concerning the great unknown of the river
beyond. Scarcely one could tell about distant places from
personal observation, but some second-hand reports were
afterward proved strangely accurate, even as to the Great
Falls, which turned out to be a thousand miles away. It was
not long, however, before they learned that the wife of
Chaboneau, whom they had taken as a local interpreter, was a
captive whose birth had been in the Rocky Mountains. She,
named the Bird-woman, was the only person discoverable after a
winter's search who could by possibility serve them as
interpreter and guide among the unknown tongues and
labyrinthine fastnesses which they must encounter. Early in
April, 1805, the explorers, now numbering thirty-two, again
began to urge their boats up the river, for their last year's
labors had brought them no more than half-way to their first
objective, its source. No more Indian purveyors or pilots:
their own rifles were the sole reliance for food. Many a
wigwam, but no Indian, was espied for four months and four
days after they left their winter camp. It was through the
great Lone Land that they groped their dark and perilous way.
In twenty days after the spring start they arrived at the
Yellowstone, and in thirty more they first sighted the Rocky
Mountains. Making the portage at the Great Falls cost them a
month of vexatious delay. Rowing on another month brought them
on August 12 to a point where one of the men stood with one
foot each side of the rivulet, and 'thanked God that he had
lived to bestride the Missouri, heretofore deemed endless.'
They dragged their canoes, however, up the rivulet for five
days longer. It was 460 days since they had left the mouth of
the river, and their mileage on its waters had been 3,096
miles. A mile further they stood on the great divide, and
drank of springs which sent their water to the Pacific. But
meantime they had been ready to starve in the mountains. Their
hunters were of the best, but they found no game: buffaloes
had gone down into the lowlands, the birds of heaven had fled,
and edible roots were mostly unknown to them. For more than
four months they had looked, and lo! there was no man. It was
not till August 13 that, surprising a squaw so encumbered with
pappooses that she could not escape, and winning her heart by
the gift of a looking-glass and painting her cheeks, they
formed friendship with her nation, one of whose chiefs proved
to be a brother of their Bird-woman. Horses were about all
they could obtain of these natives, streams were too full of
rapids to be navigable, or no timber fit for canoes was within
reach. So the party, subsisting on horse-flesh, and afterwards
on dog-meat, toiled on along one of the worst possible routes.
Nor was it till the 7th of October that they were able to
embark in logs they had burned hollow, upon a branch of the
Columbia, which, after manifold portages and perils, bore them
to its mouth and the goal of their pilgrimage, late in
November. Its distance from the starting-point, according to
their estimate, was 4,134 miles. … Many an episode in this
eventful transcontinental march and countermarch will
hereafter glorify with romantic associations islands, rivers,
rocks, cañons, and mountains all along its track. Among these
none can be more touching than the story of the Bird-woman,
her divination of routes, her courage when men quailed, her
reunion with a long-lost brother, her spreading as good a
table with bones as others could with meat, her morsel of
bread for an invalid benefactor, her presence with her infant
attesting to savages that the expedition could not be hostile.
But when bounties in land and money were granted to others,
she was unthought of. Statues of her, however, must yet be
reared by grateful dwellers in lands she laid open for their
happy homes. Western poets will liken her to Ariadne and
Beatrice."
The Nation,
October 26, 1893
(Reviewing Dr. Coues' edition of "History of the
Expedition under the Command of Lewis and Clark").
{3332}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1805,
Jefferson's Plans of National defense.
His Gunboat fleet.
Mr. Jefferson's views as to the measures required for national
defense, in the disturbed foreign relations of the country,
were indicated in his message to Congress, when it assembled
in November, 1804, but were afterwards communicated more fully
to Mr. Nicholson, of Maryland, chairman of the committee to
which the subject was referred. "Concerning fortifications, he
remarks that the plans and estimates of those required for our
principal harbours, made fifty millions of dollars necessary
for their completion. It would require 2,000 men to garrison
them in peace, and 50,000 in war. When thus completed and
manned, they would avail but little, as all military men agree
that when vessels might pass a fort without tacking, though it
may annoy, it cannot prevent them. Two modes of effecting the
same object might be 'adopted in aid of each other.' 1. Heavy
cannon on travelling carriages, with militia trained to the
management of them. 2. Floating batteries or gunboats. There
were, he estimated, fifteen harbours in the United States
needing and deserving defence. They would require 250
gunboats. The cost of these had been estimated at 2,000
dollars each, but he puts it down at 4,000, amounting in all
to 1,000,000 dollars. Such of them as were kept under a
shelter, ready to be launched, when wanted, would cost nothing
more than an inclosure, or sentinel; those that were afloat,
with men enough to take care of them, about 2,000 dollars a
year each; and those fully manned for action about 8,000
dollars a year. He thought twenty-five of the second
description enough, when France and England were at war. When
at war ourselves, some of the third description would be
required, the precise number depending on circumstances. There
were ten then built and building, and fifteen more it was
thought would be sufficient to put every harbour into a
respectable state of defence. Congress, neither fulfilling the
wishes of the President, nor altogether resisting them, gave
the President the means of partially trying his favourite
scheme, by the appropriation of 60,000 dollars. The
sufficiency of this species of naval defence occasioned a good
deal of discussion about this time between the opponents and
the supporters of the administration. … The scheme was
vehemently assailed by his adversaries in every form of
argument and ridicule, and was triumphantly adduced as a
further proof that he was not a practical statesman. The
officers of the navy were believed to be, with scarcely an
exception, opposed to the system of gunboats, especially those
who were assigned to this service, partly because it was found
to be personally very uncomfortable, and yet more, perhaps,
because the power they wielded was so inferior, and their
command so insignificant, compared with that to which they had
been familiarized. It was like compelling a proud man to give
up a fine richly caparisoned charger for a pair of panniers
and a donkey. To stem the current of public opinion, which so
far as it was manifested, set so strong against these
gunboats, and to turn it in their favour, Mr. Jefferson
prevailed on Paine, who had since his return been addressing
the people of the United States on various topics, through the
newspapers, to become their advocate. He set about it with his
wonted self-confidence and real talent in enforcing his views,
and proceeded to show that a gun from a gunboat would do the
same execution as from a seventy-four, and cost no more,
perhaps less; but a ship carrying seventy-four guns, could
bring only one half to bear on an enemy at once, whereas if
they were distributed among seventy-four boats, they could all
be equally effective at once. In spite of this logic, the
public, pinning its faith on experienced men, remained
incredulous; and when, soon afterwards, many of the new marine
were driven ashore in a tempest, or were otherwise destroyed,
no one seemed to regard their loss as a misfortune, and the
officers of the navy did not affect to conceal their
satisfaction: nor has any attempt been since made to replace
them. … The error of Mr. Jefferson was not, as his enemies
charged, in adopting a visionary scheme of defence, but in
limiting his views from a motive of economy, to the protection
of the harbours, and in leaving his country's commerce and
seamen, on the ocean, defenceless."
_G. Tucker,
The Life of Thomas Jefferson,
volume 2, chapter 8._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.
Difficulties with Great Britain.
Neutral rights.
The Right of Search.
Impressment.
Blockade by Orders in Council and the Berlin and Milan Decrees.
Embargo and Non-intercourse.
For a time, after 1803, almost the whole carrying trade of
Europe was in American hands. "The merchant flag of every
belligerent, save England, disappeared from the sea. France
and Holland absolutely ceased to trade under their flags.
Spain for a while continued to transport her specie and her
bullion in her own ships protected by her men-of-war. But
this, too, she soon gave up, and by 1806 the dollars of Mexico
and the ingots of Peru were brought to her shores in American
bottoms. It was under our flag that the gum trade was carried
on with Senegal; that the sugar trade was carried on with
Cuba; that coffee was exported from Caracas; and hides and
indigo from South America. From Vera Cruz, from Carthagena,
from La Plata, from the French colonies in the Antilles, from
Cayenne, from Dutch Guiana, from the Isles of France and
Reunion, from Batavia and Manilla, great fleets of American
merchantmen sailed for the United States, there to neutralize
the voyage and then go on to Europe. They filled the
warehouses at Cadiz and Antwerp to overflowing. They glutted
the markets of Embden and Lisbon, Hamburg and Copenhagen with
the produce of the West Indies and the fabrics of the East,
and, bringing back the products of the looms and forges of
Germany to the New World, drove out the manufactures of
Yorkshire, Manchester, and Birmingham. But this splendid trade
was already marked for destruction. That Great Britain should
long treat it with indifference was impossible. … She
determined … to destroy it, and to destroy it in two ways: by
paper blockades and by admiralty decisions. In January, 1804,
accordingly, Great Britain blockaded the ports of Guadeloupe
and Martinique. In April her commander at Jamaica blockaded
Curaçoa. In August she extended the blockade to the Straits of
Dover and the English Channel."
_J. B. McMaster,
History of the People of the United States,
volume 3, pages 225-226._
{3333}
"It had not yet come to be the acknowledged law of nations
that free ships make free goods. But nearly the same purpose
was answered, if the property of belligerents could be safely
carried in neutral ships under the pretense of being owned by
neutrals. The products of the French colonies, for example,
could be loaded on board of American vessels, taken to the
United States and reshipped there for France as American
property. England looked upon this as an evasion of the
recognized public law that property of belligerents was good
prize. … It was denied that neutrals could take advantage of a
state of war to enter upon a trade which had not existed in
time of peace; and American ships were seized on the high
seas, taken into port, and condemned in the Admiralty Courts
for carrying enemy's goods in such a trade. The exercise of
that right, if it were one by the recognized law of nations,
would be of great injury to American commerce, unless it could
be successfully resisted. … A war with England must be a naval
war; and the United States not only had no navy of any
consequence, but it was a part of Mr. Jefferson's policy, in
contrast with the policy of the preceding administrations,
that there should be none, except … gunboats kept on wheels
and under cover in readiness to repel an invasion. But there
was no fear of invasion, for by that England could gain
nothing. 'She is renewing,' Madison wrote in the autumn of
1805, 'her depredations on our commerce in the most ruinous
shapes, and has kindled a more general indignation among our
merchants than was ever before expressed.' These depredations
were not confined to the seizing and confiscating American
ships under the pretense that their cargoes were contraband.
Seamen were taken out of them on the charge of being British
subjects and deserters, not only on the high seas in larger
numbers than ever before, but within the waters of the United
States. No doubt these seamen were often British subjects and
their seizure was justifiable, provided England could
rightfully extend to all parts of the globe and to the ships
of all nations the merciless system of impressment to which
her own people were compelled to submit at home. … But even if
it could be granted that English naval officers might seize
such men without recourse to law, wherever they should be
found and without respect for the flag of another nation, it
was a national insult and outrage, calling for resentment and
resistance, to impress American citizens under the pretense
that they were British subjects. But what was the remedy? As a
last resort in such cases, nations have but one. Diplomacy and
legislation may be first tried, but if these fail, war must be
the final ordeal. For this the Administration made no
preparation, and the more evident the unreadiness the less was
the chance of redress in any other way. … The first measure
adopted to meet the aggressions of the English was an act
prohibiting the importation of certain British products. This
had always been a favorite policy with Madison. … The
President and Secretary were in perfect accord; for Jefferson
preferred anything to war, and Madison was persuaded that
England would be brought to terms by the loss of the best
market for her manufactures. … But the Administration did not
rely upon legislation alone in this emergency. The President
followed up the act prohibiting the introduction of British
goods by sending William Pinkney to England in the spring of
1806, to join Monroe, the resident minister, in an attempt at
negotiation. These commissioners soon wrote that there was
good reason for hoping that a treaty would be concluded, and
thereupon the non-importation act was for a time suspended. In
December came the news that a treaty was agreed upon, and soon
after it was received by the President. … Monroe and Pinkney
were enjoined, in tho instructions written by the Secretary of
State, to make the abandonment of impressment the first
condition of a treaty. A treaty, nevertheless, was agreed
upon, without this provision. … Without consulting the Senate,
though Congress was in session when the treaty was received,
and although the Senate had been previously informed that one
had been agreed upon, the President rejected it. … As
England's need of seamen increased, the captains of her
cruisers, encouraged by the failure of negotiation, grew
bolder in overhauling American ships. … In the summer of 1807
an outrage was perpetrated on the frigate Chesapeake, as if to
emphasize the contempt with which a nation must be looked upon
which only screamed like a woman at wrongs which it wanted the
courage and strength to resent, or the wisdom to compound for.
The Chesapeake was followed out of the harbor of Norfolk by
the British man-of-war Leopard, and when a few miles at sea,
the Chesapeake being brought to under the pretense that the
English captain wished to put some dispatches on board for
Europe, a demand was made for certain deserters supposed to be
on the American frigate. Commodore Barron replied that he knew
of no deserters on his ship, and that he could permit no
search to be made, even if there were. After some further
altercation the Englishman fired a broadside, killing and
wounding a number of the Chesapeake's crew. Commodore Barron
could do nothing else but surrender, for he had only a single
gun in readiness for use, and that was fired only once and
then with a coal from the cook's galley. The ship was then
boarded, the crew mustered, and four men arrested as
deserters. Three of them were negroes,—two natives of the
United States, the other of South America. The fourth man,
probably, was an Englishman. … For this direct national
insult, explanation, apology, and reparation were demanded,
and at the same time the President put forth a proclamation
forbidding all British ships of war to remain in American
waters. … Some preparation was made for war, but it was only
to call upon the militia to be in readiness, and to order Mr.
Jefferson's gunboats to the most exposed ports. Great Britain
was not alarmed. The captain of the Leopard, indeed, was
removed from his command, as having exceeded his duty; but a
proclamation on that side was also issued, requiring all ships
of war to seize British seamen on board foreign merchantmen,
to demand them from foreign ships of war, and if the demand
was refused to report the fact to the admiral of the fleet. …
New perils all the while were besetting American commerce.
{3334}
In November, 1806, Napoleon's Berlin decree was promulgated,
forbidding the introduction into France of the products of
Great Britain and her colonies, whether in her own ships or
those of other nations. … The decree, it was declared, was a
rightful retaliation of a British order in council of six
months before, which had established a partial blockade of a
portion of the French coast. … In the autumn of 1807 [the
President] called a special session of Congress. … He sent a
special message to the Senate, recommending an embargo. An act
was almost immediately passed, which, if anything more was
needed to complete the ruin of American commerce, supplied
that deficiency. A month before this time the English ministry
had issued a new order in council—the news of which reached
Jefferson as he was about to send in his message—proclaiming a
blockade of pretty much all Europe, and forbidding any trade
in neutral vessels, unless they had first gone into some
British port and paid duties on their cargoes; and within 24
hours of the President's message, recommending the embargo,
Napoleon proclaimed a new decree from Milan, by which it was
declared that any ship was lawful prize that had anything
whatever to do with Great Britain. … Within four months of its
enactment, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts declared, in a
debate in Congress, that 'an experiment, such as is now
making, was never before—I will not say tried—it never before
entered into the human imagination. There is nothing like it
in the narrations of history or in the tales of fiction.' …
The prosperity and tranquillity which marked the earlier years
of Jefferson's administration disappeared in its last year. …
The mischievous results of the embargo policy were evident
enough to a sufficient number of Republicans to secure, in
February, 1809, the repeal [by the Non-intercourse Bill] of
that measure, to take effect the next month as to all
countries except England and France."
_S. H. Gay,
James Madison,
chapter 17._
The Non-intercourse Bill which repealed the general provisions
of the Embargo Act "excluded all public and private vessels of
France and England from American waters; forbade under severe
penalties the importation of British or French goods; … and
gave the President authority to reopen by proclamation the
trade with France or England in case either of these countries
should cease to violate neutral rights. … Such a
non-intercourse merely sanctioned smuggling."
_H. Adams,
History of the United States:
Second Administration of Jefferson,
volume 2, page 445._
ALSO IN:
_H. S. Randall,
Life of Jefferson,
volume 3, chapters 3-7._
_E. Schuyler,
American Diplomacy,
chapters 5 and 7._
_A. T. Mahan,
Influence of Sea Power on the French Revolution,
chapters 17-18 (volume 2)._
_F. Wharton,
Digest of the International Law of the United States,
chapters 7, 16, and 21 (volume 2-3)._
See, also,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803;
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812,
and FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1806-1807.
Aaron Burr's filibustering scheme.
His arrest and trial.
Aaron Burr had been chosen vice-president in 1800. But he had
lost all his friends in both parties in the election. In the
course of a bitter political quarrel in New York, in 1804, he
challenged Hamilton to a duel. Hamilton was mad enough to
accept the challenge and was killed. Burr, "after his duel
with General Hamilton, and after the term of his office as
vice-president had expired, … seemed to be left alone, and
abandoned by all political parties. The state of public
feeling in New York was such, after the death of Hamilton,
that his presence in that city could not be endured. In New
Jersey he had been indicted by a grand jury for murder. Thus
situated, his ambitious, active and restless spirit rendered
his condition intolerable to himself. On the 22nd March, but a
few days after he left forever the presidency of the United
States senate, he wrote to his son-in-law, Mr. Joseph Alston,
that he 'was under ostracism. In New York,' said he, 'I am to
be disfranchised, and in New Jersey to be hanged. Having
substantial objections to both, I shall not, for the present,
hazard either, but shall seek another country.' Accordingly,
early in May, he left Philadelphia for the western country,
and arrived at Lexington, in Kentucky, on the 20th of that
month. After travelling with great rapidity through that
state, he directed his course to Nashville, in Tennessee, and
from thence he journied through the woods to Natchez. From
Natchez he went by land to New Orleans, where he arrived on
the 25th June, 1805. At that time, General Wilkinson was in
that city, or in its neighborhood, and commanded the United
States troops stationed there. It does not appear that he
remained long in New Orleans, but soon again returned to
Lexington, in Kentucky, by the way of Nashville. He was at
Cincinnati, and at several places in Ohio, but in a very short
time made his appearance at St. Louis, in Missouri, and from
thence he travelled to Washington, at which place he arrived
on the 29th day of November. These immense journies he
performed in a little more than six months; before the great
western rivers were rendered navigable by steam, and when the
roads were badly constructed; and through a considerable part
of the country traversed by him there were no roads at all.
His movements were veiled in mystery, and all men wondered
what could be the motive which induced these extraordinary
journies. From January, 1806, to the month of August
following, he spent his time principally in Washington and
Philadelphia; but, in the month of August, he again set his
face towards the west, and was soon afterwards found in
Kentucky. About this time boats were provided, provisions and
munitions of war were collected, and men were gathering at
different points on the Ohio and Cumberland rivers. Government
now began to be alarmed. Mr. Tiffin, governor of Ohio, under
the advice of the president (Jefferson), seized the boats and
their cargo, and Burr was arrested in Kentucky; but no
sufficient proof appearing against him he was discharged. On
the 23d January, 1807, Mr. Jefferson sent a message to
congress, accompanied by several affidavits, in which he gave
the history of Burr's transactions, so far as they had come to
the knowledge of the administration. The message stated that,
on the 21st of October, General Wilkinson wrote to the
president that, from a letter he had received from Burr, he
had ascertained that his objects were, a severance of the
union on the line of the Allegany mountains, an attack upon
Mexico, and the establishment of an independent government in
Mexico, of which Burr was to be the head. That to cover his
movements, he had purchased, or pretended to have purchased,
of one Lynch, a tract of country claimed by Baron Bastiop,
lying near Natchitoches, on which he proposed to make a
settlement.
{3335}
That he had found, by the proceedings of the governor and
people of Ohio and Kentucky, that the western people were not
prepared to join him; but notwithstanding, there was reason to
believe that he intended, with what force he could collect, to
attack New Orleans, get the control of the funds of the bank,
seize upon the military and naval stores which might be found
there, and then proceed against Mexico. The president assured
congress that there was no reason to apprehend that any
foreign power would aid Colonel Burr. A considerable part of
the evidence going to show that Burr entertained criminal
designs, depended on the affidavit of Wilkinson. It is not my
intention to examine into the proofs of the guilt or innocence
of Burr, further than to remark, that from the character of
the vain, vaporing and unprincipled Wilkinson, as before and
since developed, no dependence can safely be placed upon his
statements, unless supported by strong circumstances, or other
evidence; and I believe it will not at this day be doubted,
that if Burr plotted treason, Wilkinson, in the first
instance, agreed to be his accomplice; that, as their
operations progressed, he began seriously to doubt of success,
and then communicated his knowledge of the affair to the
government, in order to save himself, and perhaps obtain a
reward. … That Burr himself was deceived by Wilkinson, there
can be no doubt. … But there was other evidence besides that
of Wilkinson, against Burr, which has never been explained. …
If his object was merely an attack upon Mexico, why did he not
openly avow it, when charged and indicted for treason against
his country? … Again, unless Colonel William Eaton, the man
who had then recently so gallantly distinguished himself on
the Barbary coasts, has perjured himself, Burr did form a
treasonable plot against his country. Colonel Eaton, on the
26th January, deposed, in open court, held before Judge Cranch
and others, at Washington, that during the preceding winter
(1806), Burr called upon him, and, in the first instance,
represented that he was employed by the government to raise a
military force to attack the Spanish Provinces in North
America, and invited Eaton to take a command in the
expedition; that Eaton, being a restless, enterprising man,
readily acceded to the proposal; that Burr made frequent calls
upon him, and in his subsequent interviews complained of the
inefficiency and timidity of the government, and, eventually,
fully developed his project; which was to separate the western
states from the union, and establish himself as sovereign of
the country. … Burr did not succeed in collecting and
organizing a force on the western waters; but, on the 1st day
of March, he was discovered wandering alone in the Tombigbee
country, near the line of Florida. … The trial of the
indictment against Burr, for treason, occupied many weeks, but
he was finally acquitted by the jury, without swearing any
witness in his defence. The acquittal seems to have been on
technical grounds. … After his acquittal, Colonel Burr appears
still to have persevered in the project of making an effort to
detach Mexico from the Spanish government. On the 7th of June,
1808, he sailed from New York for Europe, it would seem in the
hope of engaging the British government to fit out an
expedition against Mexico, in which he would take a part. In
this he was entirely unsuccessful. His application to the
French government was equally vain and useless. He spent four
years wandering about in Europe."
_J. D. Hammond,
History of Political Parties in the State of New York,
chapter 12 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_W. H. Safford,
The Blennerhassett Papers,
chapters 6-15._
_M. L. Davis,
Memoirs of Burr,
volume 2, chapters 17-20._
_J. Parton,
Life of Burr,
chapters 21-26 (volume 2)._
_H. Adams,
History of the United States:
Second Administration of Jefferson,
volume 1, chapters 10-14 and 19._
_D. Robertson,
Report of Trials of Burr._
See BLENNERHASSETT'S ISLAND.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1806-1812.
The Cumberland Road.
The first National work of "Internal Improvement."
"In 1806 the United States began the Cumberland Road, its
first work of the kind; but it was intended to open up the
public lands in Ohio and the country west, and was nominally
paid for out of the proceeds of those public lands. Just as
the embargo policy was taking effect, Gallatin, encouraged by
the accumulation of a surplus in the Treasury, brought in a
report, April 4, 1808, suggesting the construction of a great
system of internal improvements: it was to include coastwise
canals across the isthmuses of Cape Cod, New Jersey, upper
Delaware and eastern North Carolina; roads were to be
constructed from Maine to Georgia, and thence to New Orleans,
and from Washington westward to Detroit and St. Louis. He
estimated the cost at twenty millions, to be provided in ten
annual instalments. Jefferson himself was so carried away with
this prospect of public improvement that he recommended a
constitutional amendment to authorize such expenditures. The
whole scheme disappeared when the surplus vanished; but from
year to year small appropriations were made for the Cumberland
Road, so that up to 1812 more than $200,000 had been expended
upon it."
_A. B. Hart,
Formation of the Union
(Epochs of American History),
section 121._
"The Cumberland Road was always a pet enterprise with Mr.
Clay. … Its eastern terminus was Cumberland on the Potomac,
from which it takes its name. Thence it was projected to
Wheeling on the Ohio, crossing the Alleganies; from Wheeling
to Columbus, Ohio; and thence westward through Indiana,
Illinois, and Missouri, to Jefferson, the capital of the
latter State. … After Mr. Clay went to Congress in 1806, and
while he was there, this great national work required and
realized his constant attention and zealous advocacy. It was
owing to his exertions chiefly that it ever reached Wheeling,
and passed on so far into the State of Ohio. The last
appropriations made for this road were in 1834 and 1835, with
a view of repairing it, and giving it over to the States
through which it passed, if they would accept it, and keep it
in repair."
_C. Colton,
Life, Correspondence, and Speeches of Henry Clay,
volume 6, page 7._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1807.
Practical beginning of steam-boat navigation.
See STEAM NAVIGATION.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1807.
Abolition of the Slave-Trade.
The measure in Congress.
Significance of Southern action.
By the terms of the Constitution, Congress was deprived of
power to interfere with the importation of slaves before the
year 1808, but no longer. The time now approached when that
restraint would cease, and the President in his annual message
brought the subject to notice.
{3336}
"It was referred to a committee of which Mr. Early of Georgia
was the chairman. There was no difference of opinion as to the
prohibition of the traffic, or at least no expression of any;
but the practical details of the law, the penalties by which
it was to be enforced, and, above all, the disposition to be
made of such negroes as might be brought into the country in
violation of it, gave rise to violent and excited debates. The
committee reported a law prohibiting the slave-trade after the
31st of December, 1807, imposing certain penalties for its
breach, and providing that all negroes imported after that
date should be forfeited. The object of this provision
undoubtedly was to obtain directly what the Constitution only
gave indirectly and by implication,—the sanction of the
government of the United States to the principle of
slave-holding, by making it hold and sell men as property. The
astuteness of the slave-holding mind on all points touching
slavery was shown in this proposition, and all the tactics of
bullying and bluster with which later Congressional campaigns
have made us familiar, were employed in the debate to which it
gave rise. It having been moved that the words 'shall be
entitled to his or her freedom' should be inserted after the
word 'forfeited,' a furious fight ensued over this amendment.
The Southern members resisted it, on the ground that the
emancipation of the imported Africans would increase the
number of free negroes, who, as Mr. Early affirmed, 'were
considered in the States where they are found in considerable
numbers as instruments of murder, theft, and conflagration.'
And so craftily was this proposition of forfeiture to the
government qualified, that its drift was not at first
discerned by the Northern members. For, strong as was their
disapprobation of slavery in the abstract, they felt no
disposition to expose their Southern brethren to all the
horrors of insurrection which it was assumed would follow the
multiplication of free negroes. Indeed, Mr. Early candidly
said, that, if these negroes were left free in the Southern
States, not one of them would be alive in a year. And although
the Federalists as a party, and Mr. Quincy eminently among
them, regarded the political element of slavery as full of
dangers to the future of the nation, these opinions had worked
no personal and social alienation between Northern and
Southern men, such as has since taken place. … There was,
therefore, quite disposition enough to arrange this matter in
the way the most satisfactory to the masters, without so rigid
a regard to the rights of the negroes as, it is to be hoped,
would have been had in later times. Mr. Quincy at first
opposed striking out the forfeiture clause, on the ground that
this was the only way in which the United States could get the
control of the Africans, so as to dispose of them in the
manner most for their own interest. … These views influenced a
majority of the Northern members until the question of the
final passage of the bill approached. At last they came to a
sense of the disgrace which the forfeiture of the negroes to
the government, and the permission to it to sell them as
slaves if it so pleased, would bring upon the nation, and the
whole matter was recommitted to a committee of one from each
State. … This committee reported a bill providing that such
imported negroes should be sent to such States as had
abolished slavery, there to be bound out as apprentices for a
term of years, at the expiration of which they should be free.
This bill produced a scene of great and violent excitement on
the part of the slaveholders. Mr. Early declared that the
people of the South would resist this provision with their
lives! This resistance to a measure which proposed doing all
the slaveholders had demanded for their own safety, to wit,
removing the imported negroes from the slaveholding domain and
providing for them in the Free States, showed that their
purpose was, at least in part, to have the negroes sold as
slaves to themselves. This object they did virtually gain at
last, as the final settlement was by a bill originating in the
Senate, providing that, though neither importer nor purchaser
should have a title to such negroes, still the negroes should
be subject to any regulation for their disposal that should be
made by the States into which they might be brought. The
design of the slaveholding party to make the United States
recognize the rightfulness of property in man was thus
avoided, but it was at the cost of leaving the imported
Africans to the tender mercies of the Slave States. The fact
that the slaveholders were greatly incensed at the result, and
regarded it as an injury and an affront, does not make this
disposition of these unfortunates any the less discreditable
to Congress or the nation."
_E. Quincy,
Life of Josiah Quincy,
chapter 5._
See, also, SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1792-1807.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1808.
The effects of the Embargo.
"The dread of war, radical in the Republican theory, sprang
not so much from the supposed waste of life or resources as
from the retroactive effects which war must exert upon the
form of government; but the experience of a few months showed
that the embargo as a system was rapidly leading to the same
effects. … Personal liberties and rights of property were more
directly curtailed in the United States by embargo than in
Great Britain by centuries of almost continuous foreign war. …
While the constitutional cost of the two systems was not
altogether unlike, the economical cost was a point not easily
settled. No one could say what might be the financial expense
of embargo as compared with war. Yet Jefferson himself in the
end admitted that the embargo had no claim to respect as an
economical measure. … As the order was carried along the
seacoast, every artisan dropped his tools, every merchant
closed his doors, every ship was dismantled. American
produce—wheat, timber, cotton, tobacco, rice—dropped in value
or became unsalable; every imported article rose in price;
wages stopped; swarms of debtors became bankrupt; thousands of
sailors hung idle round the wharves trying to find employment
on coasters, and escape to the West Indies or Nova Scotia. A
reign of idleness began; and the men who were not already
ruined felt that their ruin was only a matter of time. The
British traveller, Lambert, who visited New York in 1808,
described it as resembling a place ravaged by pestilence:—'The
port indeed was full of shipping, but they were dismantled and
laid up; their decks were cleared, their hatches fastened
down, and scarcely a sailor was to be found on board. Not a
box, bale, cask, barrel, or package was to be seen upon the
wharves.' … In New England, where the struggle of existence
was keenest, the embargo struck like a thunderbolt, and
society for a moment thought itself at an end.
{3337}
Foreign commerce and shipping were the life of the people,
—the ocean, as Pickering said, was their farm. The outcry of
suffering interests became every day more violent, as the
public learned that this paralysis was not a matter of weeks,
but of months or years. … The belief that Jefferson, sold to
France, wished to destroy American commerce and to strike a
deadly blow at New and Old England at once, maddened the
sensitive temper of the people. Immense losses, sweeping away
their savings and spreading bankruptcy through every village,
gave ample cause for their complaints. Yet in truth, New
England was better able to defy the embargo than she was
willing to suppose. She lost nothing except profits which the
belligerents had in any case confiscated; her timber would not
harm for keeping, and her fish were safe in the ocean. The
embargo gave her almost a monopoly of the American market for
domestic manufactures; no part of the country was so well
situated or so well equipped for smuggling. … The growers of
wheat and live stock in the Middle States were more hardly
treated. Their wheat, reduced in value from two dollars to
seventy-five cents a bushel, became practically unsalable. …
The manufacturers of Pennsylvania could not but feel the
stimulus of the new demand; so violent a system of protection
was never applied to them before or since. Probably for that
reason the embargo was not so unpopular in Pennsylvania as
elsewhere, and Jefferson had nothing to fear from political
revolution in this calm and plodding community. The true
burden of the embargo fell on the Southern States, but most
severely upon the great State of Virginia. Slowly decaying,
but still half patriarchal, Virginia society could neither
economize nor liquidate. Tobacco was worthless; but 400,000
negro slaves must be clothed and fed, great establishments
must be kept up, the social scale of living could not be
reduced, and even could not clear a large landed estate
without creating new encumbrances in a country bankruptcy
where land and negroes were the only forms of property on
which money could be raised. Stay-laws were tried, but served
only to prolong the agony. With astonishing rapidity Virginia
succumbed to ruin, while continuing to support the system that
was draining her strength."
_H. Adams,
History of the United States:
Second Administration of Jefferson,
volume 2, chapter 12._
"'Our passion,' said Jefferson, 'is peace.' He not only
recoiled as a philanthropist from bloodshed, but as a
politician he with reason dreaded military propensities and
sabre sway. Such preparations for war as he could be induced
to make were scrupulously defensive, and his fleet of
gun-boats for the protection of the coast to be launched when
the invader should appear excited a smile. Alone among all
statesmen he tried to make war without bloodshed by means of
an embargo on trade. … It is not the highest of his titles to
fame in the eyes of his countrymen, but it may be not the
lowest in the court of humanity, that he sacrificed his
popularity in the attempt to find a bloodless substitute for
war. His memory recovered from the shock and his reign over
American opinion endured."
_Goldwin Smith,
The United States:
An outline of Political History, 1492-1871,
chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_H. A. Hill,
Trade and Commerce of Boston, 1780-1880
(Memorial History of Boston,
volume 4, part 2, chapter 8)._
_E. Quincy,
Life of Josiah Quincy,
chapters 6-7._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1808.
Sixth Presidential Election.
Jefferson succeeded by Madison.
"In anticipation of Jefferson's retirement there had been … no
little dispute and lively canvassing as to the next incumbency
of the presidential chair. … Upon Madison, it was generally
considered that Jefferson had fixed his personal preference. …
But Madison had many political enemies in the Republican ranks
among Virginians themselves. … Monroe was the growing
favorite. Republicans in Congress, who, from one cause or
another, had become disaffected to the Secretary of State,
made their new choice manifest. The Quids [see QUIDS], having
courted Monroe by letter when he was abroad, crowded about him
when he passed through Washington on his way home, just as the
Embargo became a law. … Monroe hesitated, unwilling to make a
breach; and rather than hazard the Republican cause, or the
future prospects of their favorite, his more temperate friends
took him off the list of candidates, so that at the usual
Congressional caucus, held at the capital, Madison was
nominated almost unanimously for President, and George Clinton
for Vice-President. But out of 139 Republican Senators and
Representatives only 89 were present at this caucus, some
being sick or absent from the city, and others keeping away
because dissatisfied. Clinton had been a disappointed
candidate, as well as Monroe, for the highest honors. … His
ambition was pursued beyond the caucus, notwithstanding his
renomination as Vice-President, until the friends of Madison,
who had profited by the diversion among competitors,
threatened to drop Clinton from the regular ticket unless he
relinquished his pretensions to a higher place than that
already assigned him. Meantime the schismatic Republicans had
united in protesting to the country against Congressional
dictation, at the same time pronouncing that the caucus which
had nominated Madison was irregularly held. This open letter
was signed by 17 Republican members of Congress. …
Unfortunately for their influence in the canvass, however,
they could not agree as to whether Monroe or Clinton should
head the ticket. Objectionable, moreover, as the Congressional
caucus might be, many more Presidential terms elapsed before
other nominating machinery superseded it. National delegates,
the national congress or convention of a party, was an idea
too huge as yet for American politics to grasp in these days
of plain frugality. … Harassed with foes within and without,
with dissensions among the friends of rival candidates for the
succession, with an odious and profitless measure to execute,
against which citizens employed both cunning and force, it
seemed, at one time, as if the administration party would go
down in the fall elections. But Jefferson's wonderful
popularity and the buoyancy of Republican principles carried
the day. The regular Presidential ticket prevailed, not
without a diminished majority."
_J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
chapter 6, section 2 (volume 2)._
James Madison, Democratic Republican, was elected, receiving
122 votes in the Electoral College; George Clinton, of the
same party, receiving 6, and Charles C. Pinckney, Federalist,
47. George Clinton was chosen Vice President.
{3338}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1808-1810.
Substitution of Non-intercourse for Embargo.
Delusive conduct of Napoleon.
"All through the year 1808 and the first two months of 1809,
the heavy hand of the embargo was laid on American commerce.
The close of Jefferson's administration was signalized by an
important change in the policy of the American Government.
Almost the last act which Jefferson performed as President was
to sign the new law which repealed the embargo, and
substituted non-intercourse—a law which instead of universal
prohibition of trade, merely prohibited commerce with Great
Britain and with the countries under French control. The
statute further authorized the President to suspend this
prohibition as to either Great Britain or France as soon as
one or the other should desist from violating neutral rights.
An excuse for renewing commercial relations was not long
delayed. On April 21, 1809, immediately upon the rather
unexpected conclusion of a liberal and satisfactory diplomatic
arrangement with Erskine, the British minister in Washington,
the non-intercourse act was suspended as to Great Britain; and
foreign trade, long dormant, suddenly sprang into excessive
activity. This happy truce was short-lived. Erskine had
effected his arrangement by a deliberate and almost defiant
disregard of Canning's instructions; and his acts were
promptly disavowed by his government. His recall was followed
by a renewal of non-intercourse under a presidential
proclamation of August 9, 1809. But notwithstanding the
disavowal of Erskine, the British Government had made an
apparent concession to the United States by the adoption of
new orders in council which revoked the stringent prohibitions
of the orders of 1807, and substituted a paper blockade of all
ports and places under the government of France—a distinction
which, on the whole, was perhaps without any important
difference. France, on the other hand, entered upon a course
of further aggressions. Louis Bonaparte was driven from his
kingdom of Holland because he refused to attack neutral
commerce, and all American ships found lying at Amsterdam were
seized. Finally, by the decree of Rambouillet, every American
ship found in any French port was confiscated and ordered
sold. England and the United States thus seemed for the moment
to be slowly drawing together in the presence of a common
enemy, when suddenly the whole situation of affairs was
changed by the formal announcement on August 5, 1810, of the
Emperor's intended revocation of the decrees of Berlin and
Milan, such revocation to take place on the first day of the
following November, provided the British Government revoked
their orders in council, or (and this was the important
provision) the United States caused their rights to be
respected. This promise, as Napoleon had privately pointed out
a few days before, committed him to nothing; but it was
accepted with all seriousness on the part of the United
States. In reliance upon the imperial word, commercial
intercourse with Great Britain—which had been once more
resumed in May, 1810—was for the third time suspended. This,
it was thought, was 'causing American rights to be respected';
and although the condemnation of American ships went on
without a pause in every continental port, the Government of
the United States clung with the strongest pertinacity to the
belief that Napoleon's declarations were sincere. The
practical effect of all this was to bar the door against any
possible settlement with Great Britain. Commerce was now
permanently suspended; there was a long list of grievances to
be redressed, and negotiation was exhausted."
_G. L. Rives, editor,
Selections from the Correspondence of Thomas Barclay,
chapter 6._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1810.
The Third Census.
Total population, 7,215,791 (being an increase of nearly 36½
per cent. over the population shown in 1800), classed and
distributed as follows:
North.
White. Free black. Slave.
Connecticut. 255,279 6,453 310
Illinois. 11,501 613 168
Indiana. 23,890 393 237
Maine. 227,736 969 0
Massachusetts. 465,303 6,737 0
Michigan. 4,618 120 24
New Hampshire. 213,390 970 0
New Jersey. 226,861 7,843 10,851
New York. 918,699 25,333 15,017
Ohio. 228,861 1,899 0
Pennsylvania. 786,804 22,492 795
Rhode Island. 73,314 3,609 108
Vermont. 216,963 750 0
------- ------ ------
Total 3,653,219 78,181 27,510
South.
White. Free black. Slave.
Delaware. 55,361 13,136 4,177
District of Columbia. 16,079 2,549 5,395
Georgia. 145,414 1,801 105,218
Kentucky. 324,237 1,713 80,561
Louisiana. 34,311 7,585 34,660
Maryland. 235,117 33,927 111,502
Mississippi. 23,024 240 17,088
Missouri. 17,227 607 3,011
North Carolina. 376,410 10,266 168,824
South Carolina. 214,196 4,554 196,365
Tennessee. 215,875 1,317 44,535
Virginia. 551,534 30,570 392,518
------- ------- -------
2,208,785 108,265 1,163,854
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1810-1812.
Continued provocation from England and France.
The "War of 1812" against Great Britain declared.
"Congress, on May 1, 1810, passed an act providing that
commercial non-intercourse with the belligerent powers should
cease with the end of the session, only armed ships being
excluded from American ports; and further, that, in case
either of them should recall its obnoxious orders or decrees,
the President should announce the fact by proclamation, and if
the other did not do the same within three months, the
non-intercourse act should be revived against that one,—a
measure adopted only because Congress, in its helplessness,
did not know what else to do. The conduct of France had
meanwhile been no less offensive than that of Great Britain.
On all sorts of pretexts American ships were seized in the
harbors and waters controlled by French power. A spirited
remonstrance on the part of Armstrong, the American Minister,
was answered by the issue of the Rambouillet Decree in May,
1810, ordering the sale of American vessels and cargoes
seized, and directing like confiscation of all American
vessels entering any ports under the control of France.
{3339}
This decree was designed to stop the surreptitious trade that
was still being carried on between England and the continent
in American bottoms. When it failed in accomplishing that end,
Napoleon instructed his Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Champagny, to inform the American Minister that the Berlin and
Milan Decrees were revoked, and would cease to have effect on
November 1, 1810, if the English would revoke their Orders in
Council, and recall their new principles of blockade, or if
the United States would 'cause their rights to be respected by
the English,'—in the first place restore the non-intercourse
act as to Great Britain. … The British government, being
notified of this by the American Minister, declared on
September 29 that Great Britain would recall the Orders in
Council when the revocation of the French decrees should have
actually taken effect, and the commerce of neutrals should
have been restored. … Madison, … leaning toward France, as was
traditional with the Republican party, and glad to grasp even
at the semblance of an advantage, chose to regard the
withdrawal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees as actual and done
in good faith, and announced it as a matter of fact on
November 1, 1810. French armed ships were no longer excluded
from American ports. On February 2, 1811, the non-importation
act was revived as to Great Britain. In May the British Court
of Admiralty delivered an opinion that no evidence existed of
the withdrawal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, which resulted
in the condemnation of a number of American vessels and their
cargoes. Additional irritation was caused by the capture, off
Sandy Hook, of an American vessel bound to France, by some
fresh cases of search and impressment, and by an encounter
between the American frigate President and the British sloop
Little Belt, which fired into one another, the British vessel
suffering most. But was American commerce safe in French
ports? By no means. … Outrages on American ships by French
men-of-war and privateers went on as before, … The pretended
French concession was, therefore, a mere farce. Truly, there
were American grievances enough. Over 900 American ships had
been seized by the British, and more than 550 by the French. …
By both belligerents the United States had been kicked and
cuffed like a mere interloper among the nations of the earth,
who had no rights entitled to respectful consideration. Their
insolence seemed to have been increased by the irresolution of
the American government, the distraction of counsel in
Congress, and the division of sentiment among the people. …
But … young Republican leaders came to the front to interpret
the 'national spirit and expectation.' They totally eclipsed
the old chiefs by their dash and brilliancy. Foremost among
them stood Henry Clay; then John C. Calhoun, William Lowndes,
Felix Grundy, Langdon Cheves, and others. They believed that,
if the American Republic was to maintain anything like the
dignity of an independent power, and to preserve, or rather,
regain, the respect of mankind in any degree,—ay, its
self-respect,—it must cease to submit to humiliation and
contemptuous treatment; it must fight,—fight somebody who had
wronged or insulted it. The Republicans having always a tender
side for France, and the fiction of French concessions being
accepted, the theory of the war party was that, of the two
belligerents, England had more insolently maltreated the
United States. Rumors were spread that an Indian war then
going on, and resulting in the battle of Tippecanoe on
November 7, 1811, was owing to English intrigues. Adding this
to the old Revolutionary reminiscences of British oppression,
it was not unnatural that the national wrath should generally
turn against Great Britain. … Not only the regular army was
increased, but the President was authorized to accept and
employ 50,000 volunteers. Then a bill was introduced providing
for the building of ten new frigates. … The war spirit in the
country gradually rose, and manifested itself noisily in
public meetings, passing resolutions, and memorializing
Congress. It was increased in intensity by a sensational
'exposure,' a batch of papers laid before Congress by the
President in March, 1812. They had been sold to the government
by John Henry, an Irish adventurer, and disclosed a
confidential mission to New England, undertaken by Henry in
1809 at the request of Sir James Craig, the governor of
Canada, to encourage a disunion movement in the Eastern
States. This was the story. Whatever its foundation, it was
believed, and greatly increased popular excitement." On the
4th of April the President signed a bill laying an embargo on
commerce with Great Britain for ninety days. "All over the
country the embargo was understood as meaning an immediate
preparation for war. … In May, 1812, President Madison was
nominated for reelection by the congressional caucus. It has
been said that he was dragooned into the war policy by Clay
and his followers with the threat that, unless he yielded to
their views, another candidate for the presidency would be
chosen. This Clay denied, and there was no evidence to
discredit his denial. Madison was simply swept into the
current by the impetuosity of Young America. … On June 1 the
President's war message came. On June 18 a bill in accordance
with it, which had passed both Houses, was signed by the
President, who proclaimed hostilities the next day. Thus Young
America, led by Henry Clay, carried their point. But there was
something disquieting in their victory. The majority they
commanded in Congress was not so large as a majority for a
declaration of war should be. In the House, Pennsylvania and
the states south and west of it gave 62 votes for the war, and
32 against it; the states north and east of Pennsylvania gave
17 yeas and 32 nays,—in all 79 for and 49 against war. This
showed a difference of sentiment according to geographical
divisions. Not even all the Republicans were in favor of war.
… Nor were the United States in any sense well prepared for a
war with a first-class power."
_C. Schurz,
Life of Henry Clay,
volume 1, chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_S. Perkins,
History of the Late War,
chapters 1-2._
_C. J. Ingersoll,
Historical Sketch of the Second War between
the United States and Great Britain,
volume 1, chapter 1._
_E. Quincy,
Life of Josiah Quincy,
chapters 9-12._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1811.
Refusal to re-charter the Bank of the United States.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1791-1816.
{3340}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1811.
General Harrison's campaign against Tecumseh and his league.
The Battle of Tippecanoe.
"During the interval between the Tripolitan war and the war of
1812, one noticeable campaign was made against the Indians.
The operation took place in 1811, under General William H.
Harrison, governor of Indiana Territory, and was directed
against the Shawnees and other tribes which adhered to
Tecumseh. This chief, with his brother, known as 'the
Prophet,' had been engaged since 1806 in planning a species of
crusade against the whites, and had acquired great influence
among the northwestern Indians. For the previous two years
Harrison's suspicions had been aroused by reports of
Tecumseh's intrigues, and attempts had been made from time to
time to negotiate with him, but without satisfactory results.
In the summer of 1811 it was decided to strike a decisive blow
at the Indians, and in the autumn Harrison, with a regiment of
regulars under Colonel Boyd, and a force of militia, marched
upon Tecumseh's town, situated on the Tippecanoe River. On the
7th of November the Indians, in Tecumseh's absence, attempted
to surprise Harrison's camp, but in the battle which followed
they were driven off, and presently abandoned their town,
which Harrison burned. The invading force then retired. The
importance of the expedition was largely due to the military
reputation which Harrison acquired by it."
_J. R. Soley,
The Wars of the United States
(Narrative and Critical History of the United States,
volume 7, chapter 6)._
ALSO IN:
_American State Papers: Indian Affairs,
volume 1, page 776._
_E. Eggleston and L. E. Seelye,
Tecumseh,
chapters 12-23._
_H. Adams,
History of the United States:
First Administration of Madison,
volume 2, chapters 4-5._
_J. B. Dillon,
History of Indiana,
chapters 35-38._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (April).
Admission of Louisiana into the Union.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1812.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (June-October).
Rioting at Baltimore.
The opening of the war and the unreadiness of the nation for it.
Hull's disastrous campaign and surrender, at Detroit.
"It was perhaps characteristic of the conduct of the war, that
the first blood spilled should be American blood, shed by
Americans. … In the night of June 22d, three days after the
proclamation of war, a mob in Baltimore sacked the office of
the 'Federal Republican,' edited by Alexander Hanson, because
he had opposed the war policy. The mob also attacked the
residences of several prominent Federalists, and burned one of
them. Vessels in the harbor, too, were visited and plundered.
About a month later Hanson resumed the publication of his
paper, and in the night of July 26th the mob gathered again."
This time they were resisted and one was killed; whereupon the
authorities seized Hanson and his friends and lodged them in
jail. "The rioters, thus encouraged by those whose business it
was to punish them, attacked the jail the next night, murdered
General Lingan [one of Hanson's defenders], injured General
[Henry] Lee so that he was a cripple for the rest of his life,
and beat several of the other victims and subjected them to
torture. The leaders of the mob were brought to trial, but
were acquitted! In this state of affairs, the war party in the
country being but little stronger than the peace party, the
youngest and almost the weakest of civilized nations went to
war with one of the oldest and most powerful. The regular army
of the United States numbered only 6,000 men; but Congress had
passed an act authorizing its increase to 25,000, and in
addition to this the President was empowered to call for
50,000 volunteers, and to use the militia to the extent of
100,000. Henry Dearborn, of Massachusetts, was made a
major-general and appointed to command the land forces.
Against the thousand vessels and 144,000 sailors of the
British navy, the Americans had 20 war-ships and a few
gunboats, the whole carrying about 300 guns. But these
figures, taken alone, are deceptive; since a very large part
of the British force was engaged in the European wars, and the
practical question was, what force the United States could
bring against so much as England could spare for operations on
the high seas and on this side of the Atlantic. In that
comparison, the discrepancy was not so great, and the United
States had an enormous element of strength in her fine
merchant marine. Her commerce being temporarily suspended to a
large degree, there was an abundance both of ships and
sailors, from which to build up a navy and fit out a fleet of
privateers. Indeed, privateering was the business that now
offered the largest prizes to mariners and ship-owners. … War
with Great Britain being determined upon, the plan of campaign
that first and most strongly presented itself to the
Administration was the conquest of the British provinces on
our northern border. … In planning for the invasion of Canada,
the Administration counted largely upon a supposed readiness
of the Canadians to throw off their allegiance to Great
Britain and join with the United States. Such expectations
have almost never been realized, and in this instance they
were completely disappointed. In the preceding February,
William Hull, Governor of the Territory of Michigan, who had
rendered distinguished service in the Revolution, had been
made a brigadier-general and placed in command of the forces
in Ohio, with orders to march them to Detroit, to protect the
Territory against the Indians, who were becoming troublesome.
In June he was in command of about 2,000 men, in northern
Ohio, moving slowly through the wilderness. On the day when
war was declared, June 18th, the Secretary of War wrote him
two letters. The first, in which the declaration was not
mentioned, was despatched by a special messenger, and reached
General Hull on the 24th. The other informed him of the
declaration of war, but was sent by mail to Cleveland, there
to take its chance of reaching the General by whatever
conveyance might be found. The consequence was, that he did
not receive it till the 2d of July. But every British
commander in Canada learned the news several days earlier.
Hull arrived at Detroit on the 5th of July and set about
organizing his forces. On the 9th he received from the War
Department orders to begin the invasion of Canada by taking
possession of Malden, 15 miles below Detroit, on the other
side of the river, if he thought he could do so with safety to
his own posts. He crossed on the 12th, and issued a
proclamation to the Canadians." He found the enemy too
strongly fortified at Malden to be prudently assaulted with
raw troops and without artillery. "So it was decided to defer
the attack, and in a few days came the news that, on the
declaration of war, a force of over 600—British and
Indians—had promptly moved against the American post at
Michilimackinac—on the rocky little island of Mackinaw,
commanding the strait between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan—and
the garrison of 61 officers and men capitulated on the 16th of
July.
{3341}
This disaster to the Americans roused the Indians to renewed
hostility against them, while it proportionately disheartened
Hull, and seems to have been the first step in the breaking
down of his courage. After a few skirmishes, he recrossed to
Detroit on the 7th of August. Meanwhile the British Colonel
Proctor had arrived at Malden with reënforcements, and on
Hull's withdrawal to Detroit he threw a force across the river
to intercept his supplies. This force consisted of a small
number of British regulars and a considerable number of
Indians commanded by the famous Tecumseh." Two considerable
engagements occurred between this force and detachments sent
out to meet an expected supply train. In the first, the
Americans were badly beaten; in the second, they drove the
enemy to their boats with heavy loss; but the supply train was
not secured. "During this gloomy state of things at Detroit, a
bloody affair took place on ground that is now within the city
of Chicago. Fort Dearborn stood at the mouth of Chicago River,
and was occupied by a garrison of about 50 soldiers, with
several families. Captain Nathan Heald, commanding the post,
had been ordered by General Hull to abandon it and remove his
force to Detroit. "To conciliate the neighboring Indians who
professed friendliness, he promised to give them all the
property in the fort which he could not carry; but before
making the delivery to them he foolishly destroyed all the
arms, the gunpowder and the liquors. Enraged by this
proceeding, which they considered a trick, the savages pursued
Captain Heald's small party, waylaid them among the Sand-hills
on the lake shore, and massacred the greater part, twelve
children included. The scalps which they took were sold to
Colonel Proctor, "who had offered a premium for American
scalps." The same day on which this occurred, August 15th,
"the British General Isaac Brock, who had arrived at Malden a
few days before and assumed command there, formally demanded
the surrender of Detroit. This demand included a plain threat
of massacre in case of refusal. Said Brock in his letter: 'It
is far from my intention to join in a war of extermination;
but you must be aware that the numerous bodies of Indians who
have attached themselves to my troops will be beyond my
control the moment the contest commences.' … Brock's force,
according to his own testimony, numbered 1,330 men, including
600 Indians, and he had also two ships of war. Hull had
present for duty about 1,000 men. Brock sent a large body of
Indians across the river that night, at a point five miles
below the fort, and early in the morning crossed with the
remainder of his troops, and at once marched on the place." On
the approach of the attacking force Hull offered to surrender.
"The articles of capitulation were drawn up, and the American
general surrendered, not merely the fort and its garrison, but
the whole Territory of Michigan, of which he was Governor. …
Hull's officers were incensed at his action, and he was
subsequently court-martialled, convicted of cowardice, and
condemned to death; but the President pardoned him, in
consideration of his age and his services in the Revolution. …
Subsequent investigations, if they do not exonerate General
Hull, have at least greatly modified the blame attached to
him."
_R. Johnson,
History of the War of 1812-15,
chapter 2._
ALSO IN:
_J. F. Clarke,
History of the Campaign of 1812 and
Surrender of the Post at Detroit._
_B. J. Lossing,
Hull's Surrender
(Potter's American Monthly, August, 1875)._
_F. S. Drake,
Memorials of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati,
pages 341-354._
_S. C. Clark,
Hull's Surrender at Detroit
(Magazine of American History, volume 27)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812.
The opposition of the Federalists to the war.
"Unfortunately for the Federalists, while they were wholly
right in many of their criticisms on the manner in which the
war came about, they put themselves in the wrong as to its
main feature. We can now see that in their just wrath against
Napoleon they would have let the nation remain in a position
of perpetual childhood and subordination before England. No
doubt there were various points at issue in the impending
contest, but the most important one, and the only one that
remained in dispute all through the war, was that of the right
of search and impressment. … It must be understood that this
was not a question of reclaiming deserters from the British
navy, for the seamen in question had very rarely belonged to
it. There existed in England at that time an outrage on
civilization, now abandoned, called impressment, by which any
sailor and many who were not sailors could be seized and
compelled to serve in the navy. The horrors of the
'press-gang,' as exhibited in the sea-side towns of England,
have formed the theme of many novels. It was bad enough at
home, but when applied on board the vessels of a nation with
which England was at peace, it became one of those outrages
which only proceed from the strong to the weak, and are never
reciprocated. Lord Collingwood said well, in one of his
letters, that England would not submit to such an aggression
for an hour. Merely to yield to visitation for such a purpose
was a confession of national weakness; but the actual case was
far worse than this. … We have … Cobbett's statement of the
consequences. 'Great numbers of Americans have been
impressed,' he adds, 'and are now in our navy. … That many of
these men have died on board our ships, that many have been
worn out in the service, there is no doubt.' … In 1806 the
merchants of Boston had called upon the general government to
'assert our rights and support the dignity of the United
States.' … Yet it shows the height of party feeling that when,
in 1812, Mr. Madison's government finally went to war for
these very rights, the measure met with the bitterest
opposition from the whole Federalist party, and from the
commercial States generally. A good type of the Federalist
opposition on this particular point is to be found in the
pamphlets of John Lowell. John Lowell was the son of the
eminent Massachusetts judge of that name; he was a
well-educated lawyer, who was president of the Massachusetts
Agricultural Society, and wrote under the name of 'A New
England Farmer.' In spite of the protests offered half a dozen
years before by his own neighbors, he declared the whole
outcry against impressment to be a device of Mr. Madison's
party. … He argued unflinchingly for the English right of
search, called it a 'consecrated' right, maintained that the
allegiance of British subjects was perpetual, and that no
residence in a foreign country could absolve them. …
{3342}
While such a man, with a large party behind him, took this
position, it must simply be said that the American republic
had not yet asserted itself to be a nation. Soon after the
Revolution, when some one spoke of that contest to Franklin as
the war for independence, he said, 'Say rather the war of the
Revolution; the war for independence is yet to be fought.' The
war of 1812 was just the contest he described. To this
excitement directed against the war, the pulpit very largely
contributed, the chief lever applied by the Federalist clergy
being found in the atrocities of Napoleon. … The Federalist
leaders took distinctly the ground that they should refuse to
obey a conscription law to raise troops for the conquest of
Canada; and when that very questionable measure failed by one
vote in the Senate, the nation may have escaped a serious
outbreak. … It might, indeed, have been far more dangerous
than the Hartford Convention of 1814 [see UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER)], which was, after all, only a
peaceable meeting of some two dozen men, with George Cabot at
their head—men of whom very few had even a covert purpose of
dissolving the Union, but who were driven to something very
near desperation by the prostration of their commerce and the
defencelessness of their coast."
_T. W. Higginson,
Larger History of the United States,
chapter 15._
ALSO IN:
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 6._
_H. C. Lodge,
Life and Letters of George Cabot,
chapters 11-12._
_E. Quincy,
Life of Josiah Quincy,
chapters 11-14._
See, also, BLUE-LIGHT FEDERALISTS.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (September-November).
The opening of the war on the New York frontier.
The Battle of Queenstown Heights.
"To put Dearborn [who commanded in the northern department] in
a condition to act with effect, Governor Tompkins [of the
state of New York] made the greatest efforts to get out the
New York quota of militia. The Democratic Legislature of
Vermont voted to add to the pay of their militia in service as
much as was paid by the United States. At the same time they
passed a stringent drafting law, and offered $30 bounty to
volunteers. By the co-operating exertions of these states and
of the war department, some 3,000 regulars and 2,000 militia
were presently assembled on Lake Champlain, under Dearborn's
immediate command. Another force of 2,000 militia was
stationed at different points along the south bank of the St.
Lawrence, their left resting on Sackett's Harbor. A third army
was collected along the Niagara River, from Fort Niagara to
Buffalo, then a village of a thousand or two inhabitants, in
the midst of a newly-settled district. This latter force of
nearly 6,000 men, half regulars and volunteers and half
militia, was under the immediate command of Major-general Van
Rensselaer, a Federalist. … The first skirmishes on the New
York frontier grew out of attempts, not unsuccessful, made
principally from Ogdensburg, a new but much the largest
village on the American side of the St. Lawrence, to intercept
the British supplies proceeding upward in boats. The militia
officer in command at Ogdensburg was General Jacob Brown. A
Pennsylvanian by birth, a Quaker by education, while employed
as a teacher in the city of New York, some newspaper essays of
his had attracted the attention of Alexander Hamilton, to
whom, during the quasi war of '98, he became military
secretary. Removing afterward to the new settlements of
Northwestern New York, his enterprise had founded the
flourishing village of Brownsville, not far from Sackett's
Harbor. … His success in repulsing a British force of 700 men,
which attempted to cross from Prescott to attack Ogdensburg,
laid the foundation of a military reputation which soon placed
him at the head of the American army. There had been built on
Lake Ontario, out of the gun-boat appropriations, but by a
fortunate improvement upon Jefferson's model, a sloop of war
of light draft, mounting 16 guns. This vessel, called the
Oneida, just before the breaking out of the war had been
furnished with a regular-bred commander and crew. She was
attacked shortly after at Sackett's Harbor by five British
vessels, three of them larger than herself, but manned only by
lake watermen. By landing part of her guns, and establishing a
battery on shore, she succeeded, however, in beating them off.
Hull's failure having shown how important was the control of
the lakes, a judicious selection was made of Captain Chauncey,
hitherto at the head of the New York Navy Yard, to take
command on those waters. Along with Henry Eckford as naval
constructor, and soon followed by ship-carpenters, naval
stores, guns, and presently by parties of seamen, he was sent
to Sackett's Harbor [September, 1812], then held by a garrison
of 200 regulars. That newly-settled region could supply
nothing but timber; every thing else had to be transported
from Albany at vast expense. … A 24-gun ship was at once
commenced; for immediate use, Chauncey purchased six of the
small schooners employed in the then infant commerce of the
lake, which, though very ill adapted for war, he armed with
four guns each. With these and the Oneida he put out on the
lake, and soon [November 8] drove the British ships into
Kingston. … While thus employed, Chauncey had sent Lieutenant
Elliot to Buffalo, with a party of seamen, to make
arrangements for a force on the upper lakes. Elliot, soon
after his arrival, succeeded in cutting out [October 9] from
under the guns of Fort Erie, nearly Opposite Buffalo, two
British vessels just arrived from Detroit. One, the late
Adams, which the British had armed and equipped, grounded, and
it became necessary to destroy her. The other, the Caledonia,
of two guns, was brought off, and became the nucleus of the
naval force of Lake Erie. Elliot also purchased several small
schooners lying in the Niagara River; but they, as well as the
Caledonia, lay blockaded at Black Rock [now a part of the city
of Buffalo], the passage into the lake being commanded by the
guns of Fort Erie. The troops along the Niagara frontier,
highly excited by Elliot's exploit, demanded to be led against
the enemy; and, under the idea that the British village of
Queenstown, at the foot of the falls [a few miles below] might
furnish comfortable winter quarters for a part of his troops,
Van Rensselaer resolved to attack it."
_R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
2d series, chapter 25 (volume 3)._
{3343}
The Niagara River, 35 miles long, which conducts the waters of
the upper lakes through Erie into Ontario, constituted an
important military frontier in such a war; its banks sparsely
settled, and the crossing a narrow one. Below the roaring
cataracts had assembled another little army, supplied in great
measure by regiments of the New York quota, Major-General Van
Rensselaer, of the militia of that State, a prominent
Federalist, being in command. Hull's sudden surrender left
Brock free to confront this second adversary with a moderate
force from the Canada side, not without feeling uncertain as
to where the American blow would be struck. By October Van
Rensselaer had 6,000 men, half of them regulars; and, yielding
to the impatience of his volunteers and the public press, he
gave orders to cross the river from Lewiston to Queenston.
High bluffs arose on either side. There were not boats enough
provided to carry more than half the advance party at a time.
Too much reliance was placed upon militia, while regulars won
the laurels. Wool, a young captain, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Scott did gallant work on Queenston Heights; and General
Brock, the conqueror of Detroit, fell mortally wounded; but
reinforcements crossed too slowly, and with the green militia
dreading death, many of the reserve pleading legal exemption
from service in an enemy's country, their deserted comrades on
the Canada side, unable to return, were forced to surrender.
Van Rensselaer, whose advance had been premature, resigned in
disgust, leaving a less capable but more pretentious officer,
of Virginia birth, General Alexander Smyth, to succeed him.
Smyth had a gift of windy composition, which fortunately,
imposed upon the inhabitants of Western New York just long
enough to check despondency and restore a glow to the
recruiting service. 'Come on, my heroes,' was his cry, 'and
when you attack the enemy's batteries, let your rallying word
be: "The cannon lost at Detroit, or death!". All this inkshed
promised an exploit for invading Canada from the upper end of
the Niagara, between Fort Erie and Chippewa. By the 27th of
November Smyth had concentrated at Black Rock, near Buffalo, a
fair army, 4,500 troops, comprising, in addition to the
regulars, volunteer regiments from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
New York; the last under the command of General Porter, the
representative in Congress, whose report, twelve months
before, had given the first loud note of war. The big moment
approached; but, notwithstanding the sonorous promise of
'memorable to-morrows,' and an embarkation to the music of
'Yankee Doodle,' one or two shivering attempts were made to
land on the opposite shore, and then the volunteers were
dismissed to their homes, and regulars ordered into
winter-quarters. Disorderly scenes ensued. Our insubordinate
and mortified soldiers discharged their muskets in all
directions. Porter having openly charged Smyth with cowardice,
the two crossed to Grand Island to fight a duel, and then
shook hands. … But the country could not be reconciled to such
generalship, and Smyth was presently cashiered."
_J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
volume 2, chapter 8, section 2._
ALSO IN:
_S. Van Rensselaer,
Narrative of the Affair of Queenstown._
_J. Symons,
The Battle of Queenstown Heights._
_General W. Scott,
Memoirs, by himself,
volume 1, chapter 6._
_W. H. Merritt,
Journal during the War of 1812._
_H. Adams,
History of the United States:
First Administration of Madison,
volume 2, chapter 16._
_F. B. Tupper,
Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock,
chapters 13-14._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812.
Seventh Presidential Election.
James Madison was re-elected, receiving in the electoral
college 128 votes, against 89 cast for DeWitt Clinton,
Federalist. Elbridge Gerry was elected Vice President.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.
Possession of West Florida taken from the Spaniards.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.
Indifference to the Navy at the beginning of the war.
Its Efficiency and its Early Successes.
"The young leaders of the war party in congress looked to
successes on land and territorial conquest, and had an
indifference to the field which the ocean afforded. And yet
the triumphs of our young fleet in the Revolution, the alarm
which John Paul Jones excited in English homes, and, later,
the brilliant achievements in the Mediterranean, the heroes of
which were still in the prime of their service, might have
inspired better counsel. Madison's cabinet were said to have
without exception opposed the increase and use of our navy;
indeed, somewhat after Jefferson's idea in imposing the
embargo—to save our vessels by laying them up. The advice of
Captains Charles Stewart and William Bainbridge, who happened
to be in Washington at the time of the declaration of war,
determined Madison to bring the navy into active service. One
of the chief causes of the war being the impressment of our
seamen, it seems to-day surprising that their ardor in defense
of 'Free Trade and Sailors' Rights,'—the cry under which our
greatest triumphs were won—should have been either passed by
or deprecated."
_J. A. Stevens,
Second War with Great Britain
(Magazine of American History, May-June, 1893)._
"Although [the American navy] had never been regarded by the
government with favor, it happened that the three most
essential measures had been adopted to secure its efficiency,—
the ships built for it were the best of their class in the
world, the officers had been carefully selected (200 out of a
total of 500 having been retained under the Peace
Establishment Act), and they had received—at least a large
number of them—in Preble's squadron at Tripoli a training such
as had fallen to the lot of few navies, either before or
since. To these three causes the successes of 1812 were
directly due; and although Commodore Preble died in 1807, the
credit of the later war belongs more to him than to any other
one man. It was not only that he formed many of the individual
officers who won the victories of 1812-15,—for Hull, Decatur,
Bainbridge, Macdonough, Porter, Lawrence, Biddle, Chauncey,
Warrington, Charles Morris, and Stewart were all in his
squadron,—but he created in the navy the professional spirit
or idea, which was the main quality that distinguished it from
the army in the war with Great Britain. At the outbreak of the
war there were 18 vessels in the navy, ranging from 44-gun
frigates to 12-gun brigs. There were also 176 gunboats, on
which a large sum of money had been expended, but which were
of no use whatever. … Immediately after the declaration of
war, the frigates in commission in the home ports, together
with two of the sloops, put to sea as a squadron under
Commodore John Rodgers. They fell in with the English frigate
'Belvidera,' but she got away from them; and after an
ineffectual cruise across the Atlantic, they returned home,
without meeting anything of consequence.
{3344}
Three weeks later, the 'Constitution,' under Captain Hull,
sailed from Annapolis. Soon after leaving the Chesapeake she
came upon a British squadron of one sixty-four and four
frigates, and then ensued the famous three days' chase, in the
course of which, by a marvel of good seamanship and good
discipline, the American frigate escaped. After a short
respite in Boston, Hull set out again, and on the 19th of
August he fought and captured the 'Guerrière,' Captain Dacres,
in an engagement lasting about an hour. The 'Constitution,'
being armed with 24-pounders instead of 18's, threw at a
broadside a weight of shot half as large again as that of the
'Guerrière,' and her crew was numerically superior in a still
greater degree. Nevertheless, the immensely greater
disproportion in the casualties which the 'Constitution'
inflicted and received, and the short time which she took to
do the work, cannot be explained by the difference in force
alone; for the 'Guerrière' had five times as many killed and
wounded as her opponent, and at the close of the engagement
she was a dismasted wreck, while the 'Constitution' had
suffered no injury of importance. The essential point of
difference lay in the practical training and skill of the
crews in gunnery. … In the next action, in October, the sloop
'Wasp,' Captain Jacob Jones, captured the English brig
'Frolic,' of approximately the same force. The relative loss
of English and Americans was again five to one. Both vessels
were soon after taken by a seventy-four. Later in the same
month, another frigate action took place, the 'United States,'
under Decatur, capturing the 'Macedonian.' The advantage of
the Americans in men was about the same as in the first
action, while in guns it was greater. The American casualties
were 13, the English 104. This difference was not due to the
fact that the American guns were 24's and 42's, instead of
18's and 32's, or that the Americans had three more of them in
a broadside; it was really due to the way in which the guns on
both sides were handled. Shortly after this capture, a cruise
in the Pacific was projected for a squadron to be composed of
the 'Constitution,' 'Essex,' and 'Hornet.' The 'Essex' failed
to meet the other vessels at the rendezvous off the coast of
Brazil, and went on the Pacific cruise alone [having great
success]. The 'Constitution,' now commanded by Bainbridge, met
the frigate 'Java,' near Brazil, on the 29th of December. The
antagonists were more nearly matched than in the previous
frigate actions, but the fight, lasting a little over an hour,
resulted in the total defeat and surrender of the 'Java,' with
a loss of 124 to the Americans' 34. The 'Java' was a wreck,
and could not be taken into port, and Bainbridge returned
home. Two months later, February 24, 1813, the 'Hornet,'
commanded by Lawrence, met the 'Peacock' off the Demerara, and
reduced her in fifteen minutes to a sinking condition, while
the 'Hornet's' hull was hardly scratched. The English sloop
sank so quickly that she carried down part of her own crew and
three of the 'Hornet's' who were trying to save them. The
casualties, apart from those drowned, were 5 in the 'Hornet'
and 38 in the 'Peacock.' … The moral effect in England of
these defeats was very great. … In March, 1813, Admiral Sir
John Warren assumed the command of the British squadron on the
American coast. Although rather past his prime, his defects
were more than compensated by the activity of his second in
command, Rear-Admiral Cockburn, who during this summer and the
next kept the coasts of Chesapeake Bay in a continuous state
of alarm by successful raids, in which much valuable property
was destroyed. Among the more important of the actions of 1813
were the capture and destruction (in part) of Havre de Grace,
Md., early in May, and an attack on the village of Hampton,
Va., on the 25th of June. 'Acts of rapine and violence' on the
part of the invading forces characterized the latter attack,
which excited intense indignation throughout the country. … In
the summer of 1813 occurred the first serious reverse of the
navy during the war. On the 1st of June the frigate
'Chesapeake,' Captain James Lawrence, sailed from Boston to
engage the 'Shannon,' which was lying outside, waiting for the
battle. The two ships were nearly matched in guns and men,
what slight difference there was being in favor of the
'Chesapeake'; but the crew of the latter had been recently
shipped and was partly composed of disaffected men, and
Lawrence had had no time to discipline them. The engagement
was short and decisive. Ranging up alongside of the 'Shannon,'
whose crew had been brought to the highest state of efficiency
by Captain Broke their commander, the 'Chesapeake' at the
first fire received a severe injury in the loss of several of
her officers. Falling foul of the 'Shannon' she was
effectually raked, and presently a boarding party, led by
Captain Broke, got possession of her deck. The great mortality
among the officers [including Captain Lawrence, who had
received a mortal wound just before his ship was boarded, and
whose dying appeal, 'Don't give up the ship,' became the
battle cry of the American navy during the remainder of the
war], and the want of discipline in the crew, resulted in a
victory for the boarders. The battle lasted fifteen minutes
only, and the 'Chesapeake' was carried as a prize to Halifax.
During this summer the naval war on the ocean continued with
varying fortunes, two important actions being fought. The brig
'Argus,' Captain Allen, after a successful voyage in the Irish
Sea, in which many prizes were taken and destroyed, was
captured by the English brig 'Pelican,' on the 14th of August.
Early in September the brig 'Enterprise,' commanded by
Lieutenant Burrows, captured the English brig 'Boxer,' near
Portland, Me."
_J. R. Soley,
The Wars of the United States
(Narrative and Critical History of the United States,
volume 7, chapter 6)._
ALSO IN:
_T. Roosevelt,
The Naval War of 1812,
chapters 2-5._
_J. F. Cooper,
History of the Navy of the United States,
volume 2, chapters 9-22._
_A. S. Mackenzie,
Life of Decatur,
chapters 10-12._
_D. D. Porter,
Memoirs of Commander David Porter._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.
Harrison's northwestern campaign.
Winchester's defeat.
Perry's naval victory on Lake Erie.
The Battle of the Thames and death of Tecumseh.
Recovery of Detroit and Michigan.
"Great was the indignation of the West, great the
mortification of our whole people, on learning that, instead
of capturing Upper Canada at the first blow, we had lost our
whole Michigan Territory. The task now was to retake Detroit
under a competent commander. Ohio and Kentucky went on filling
rapidly their quotas, while urging the administration to march
them under Harrison.
{3345}
The President hesitated, doubtful whether Harrison was a man
of sufficient military experience. He proposed that Monroe
should go to the scene, as a volunteer, if not to command; but
Monroe restrained his first military ardor, as was prudent,
and Winchester, of Tennessee, another of the recent
brigadiers, and a revolutionary veteran, was selected. The
selection, however, gave umbrage to the Kentuckians, whose
State government had already made Harrison a brevet
major-general of militia. The hero of Tippecanoe was finally
assigned to the chief command of the Western army, Madison
countermanding his first orders. Harrison's route for Detroit
was by way of Fort Wayne and Fort Defiance to the falls of the
Maumee. But it was late in the fall [October 1812] before the
new military arrangements could be completed; and through a
swampy wilderness, infested as it was with hostile Indians,
the progress of the column was toilsome and discouraging; and,
except for the destruction of a few Indian villages on the
way, the deeds of prowess were reserved for a winter campaign.
… The winter expedition of the Northwest army … [was] retarded
by a disaster which overtook Winchester's command near the
Maumee Rapids, at a little village on the River Raisin. By
Harrison's orders Winchester had started for these Rapids,
whence, having first concentrated troops as if for winter
quarters, the design was that he should advance 50 miles
farther, when weather permitted, cross the frozen Detroit, and
fall suddenly upon Malden. Winchester not only pushed on
incautiously to his first destination, but, with a design more
humane than prudent, undertook to protect against a British
and Indian raid the alarmed inhabitants of Frenchtown [now
Monroe, Michigan], a place 30 miles nearer Malden. Here
[January 22, 1813] he was overpowered by the enemy, which fell
upon the American force suddenly at daybreak, with yells and a
shower of bomb-shells and canister. Winchester having been
taken prisoner, Colonel Proctor, the British commander,
extorted from him the unconditional surrender of all his
troops, some 700 in number, as the only means of saving them
from the tomahawk and scalping-knife. … Our sick and wounded …
the British commander shamefully abandoned to their fate. …
Officers and men, many of them the flower of Kentucky,
perished victims to barbarities … abhorrent to civilized
warfare, of which the British Colonel Proctor and Captain
Elliott were not innocent. Besides the American loss in
prisoners at the sad affair of the Raisin, nearly 200 were
killed and missing. Hearing at the Upper Sandusky of
Winchester's intended movement, Harrison had pressed to his
relief with reinforcements, but fugitives from Frenchtown
brought the melancholy tidings of disaster; and Harrison fell
back to the Rapids, there to strengthen the post known as Fort
Meigs, and go into winter quarters. The terms of many of his
troops having now expired, the Northwestern army was for many
months too feeble to begin a forward movement. But Harrison
possessed the unabated confidence of the West, and, promoted
to be one of the new major-generals, he received, through the
zealous co-operation of Ohio and Kentucky, whose people were
inflamed to take vengeance, enough volunteer reinforcements
[May] to relieve Fort Meigs [which was twice besieged in 1813
by British and Indians] from Proctor's investment in the
spring, and at length the quota requisite for resuming the
offensive; other frontier plans of the War Department having
long deranged his own in this quarter. The splendid
co-operation of an American flotilla on Lake Erie opened the
way to Detroit and victory. For that memorable service
Commodore Chauncey had detailed an aspiring young naval
officer, Captain Oliver H. Perry, of Rhode Island. Our little
Lake squadron was tediously constructed at Presqu' Isle (now
Erie). When all at last was ready [in August, 1813], Perry,
who had long chafed in spirit while the British fleet hovered
in sight like a hawk, sailed forth to dispute the supremacy of
the broad inland waters. His heavier vessels were floated over
the bar not without difficulty. After conferring at Sandusky
upon the combined plan of operations with General Harrison,
from whom he received a small detail of soldiers to act as
marines and supply vacancies in his crews, he offered battle
to Barclay, the British commander,—the latter a veteran in
naval experience, who had served under Nelson at Trafalgar.
Barclay had lain idly for several weeks at Malden, in hopes of
procuring additional sailors, purposely avoiding an action
meanwhile. But Proctor's army having now run short of
provisions, longer delay was inexpedient. At sunrise on
September 10th Perry descried the approaching British fleet
from his look-out, a group of islands off Sandusky. Ten miles
to the north of this locality, which was known as Put-in-bay,
the two squadrons at noon engaged one another,—Perry
approaching at an acute angle, and keeping the weather-gage,
while Barclay's vessels hove to in close order. In officers
and men the fleets were about equally matched; there were 6
British vessels to the American 9, but the former carried more
guns, and were greatly superior for action from a distance.
With 30 long guns to Perry's 15, Barclay had the decided
advantage at first, and our flag-ship, the Lawrence, exposed
to the heaviest of the British cannonade, became terribly
battered, her decks wet with carnage, her guns dismounted.
Undismayed by this catastrophe, Perry dropped into a little
boat with his broad pennant and banner, and crossed to his
next largest vessel, the Niagara, the target for 15 minutes of
a furious fire while being rowed over. Climbing the Niagara's
deck, and hoisting once more the emblems of commander, our
brave captain now pierced the enemy's line with his new
flag-ship, followed by his smaller vessels, and, gaining at
last that advantage of a close engagement which for nearly
three hours had eluded him, he won the fight in eight minutes.
The colors of the Detroit, Barclay's flag-ship, struck first,
three others followed the example, and two of the British
squadron attempting to escape were overtaken and brought back
triumphantly. 'We have met the enemy and they are ours,' was
Perry's laconic dispatch to Harrison, written in pencil on the
back of an old letter, with his navy-cap for a rest; 'two
ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.' … Barclay lay
dangerously wounded, and his next in command died that
evening. … To Harrison's expectant army, augmented by 3,500
mounted Kentuckians, whom Governor Shelby led in person, the
word of advance was now given. …
{3346}
Perry's flotilla, aided by the captured vessels, presently
landed the American troops on the Canada side. Proctor had
already begun the retreat, having first dismantled the fort at
Malden and burned the barracks. Harrison pursued him beyond
Sandwich, covered by the flotilla, until near a Moravian town,
up the river Thames [some 30 miles east of Lake St. Clair],
the enemy was overtaken, with Tecumseh's braves. Here, upon
well-chosen ground, the British made a final stand [October
5], but at the first impetuous charge of our cavalry their
line broke, and only the Indians remained to engage in a
desperate hand-to-hand fight. Among the slain was the famous
Tecumseh, dispatched, as tradition asserts, by the pistol of
Colonel Johnson, a Kentucky officer prominent in the battle.
Proctor himself escaped in a carriage with a few followers,
incurring afterwards the royal reprimand. … The baleful
British and Indian alliance was broken up by these victories,
while Detroit, Michigan, and all that Hull had lost, and a
fair portion of Upper Canada besides, passed into American
control. Among American generals in this war Harrison enjoyed
the rare felicity of having fully accomplished his
undertaking."
_J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
chapter 8, section 2
and chapter 9, section 1 (volume 2)._
"The victory of Lake Erie was most important, both in its
material results and in its moral effect. It gave us complete
command of all the upper lakes, prevented any fears of
invasion from that quarter, increased our prestige with the
foe and our confidence in ourselves, and ensured the conquest
of Upper Canada; in all these respects its importance has not
been overrated. But the 'glory' acquired by it most certainly
has been estimated at more than its worth. … The simple truth
is, that, where on both sides the officers and men were
equally brave and skilful, the side which possessed the
superiority in force, in the proportion of three to two, could
not well help winning. … Though we had nine guns less, yet, at
a broadside, they threw half as much metal again as those of
our antagonist."
_T. Roosevelt,
The Naval War of 1812,
chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_C. D. Yonge,
History of the British Navy,
chapter 36 (volume 3)._
_E. Eggleston and L. E. Seelye,
Tecumseh,
chapters 26-34._
_I. R. Jackson,
Life of W. H. Harrison,
chapters 7-9._
_B. J. Lossing,
Field Book of the War of 1812,
chapters 16-17, and 23-26._
_G. Bancroft,
History of the Battle of Lake Erie._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813 (April-July).
The burning of Toronto.
The capture of Fort George.
"The American fleet on Lake Ontario had been increased, and in
1813 controlled the lake. General Sheaffe had succeeded Brock
as Governor as well as commander of the forces. Some 600
troops were in York [now Toronto], the capital. York had about
1,000 inhabitants, and was not regarded as of strategic
importance. The Americans, however, set sail from Sackett's
Harbour with 16 sail and 2,500 men to attack it. The enemy
landed [April 27] to the west of the town, and General Sheaffe
evacuated the works, and retired down the Kingston Road. The
Americans invested the town, and though skirmishing took
place, had an easy victory. The land force was under General
Pike, an officer well known as having, when a lieutenant,
explored the sources of the Mississippi. Just as the Americans
had well filled the fort, the powder-magazine exploded with
violence, killing and wounding about 250. General Pike, struck
in the breast by a flying stone, died soon after. The
Americans, contrary to the articles of surrender, shamefully
burnt the town, and retired from York on the 2nd of May, 1813.
While the squadron was absent, Sackett's Harbour was attacked
by a strong force. The garrison seemed to be on the point of
surrendering the fort, when Sir George Prevost, to the
surprise of all, ordered a retreat. Little York taken,
Commodore Chauncey then crossed the lake to Fort George at the
mouth of the Niagara River. General Vincent commanded the
fort. Twenty-four of Hull's guns frowned from its bastions.
Its defender had 1,340 men. The American army on the Niagara
frontier numbered 6,000. Chauncey had eleven war-vessels and
900 seamen. On the 27th of May the expected day came. Vincent
drew his men out about a mile from the fort and awaited the
attack. He was overpowered and retired, having lost nearly 450
soldiers. The Canadian force retired to a strong position,
'Beaver Dams,' twelve miles from Niagara on the heights,
having given up Fort Erie and Chippewa and blown up Fort
George. Vincent had now 1,600 men, and with these he retired
to Burlington Heights, near the present city of Hamilton. An
American army of 2,500 men followed General Vincent to Stoney
Creek. On the night of the 8th of June, Colonel Harvey of the
British force, with upwards of 750 men, fell stealthily on the
sleeping American army, scattered the troops, killed many,
captured the American generals Chandler and Winder, and about
100 men, along with guns and stores. The adventurers then
retired to their camp. The scattered American soldiers
reassembled in the morning and retired in a disorderly manner
down the country to Fort George. Vincent now followed the
retreating army and reoccupied Beaver Dams. One of his
outposts was held by Lieutenant Fitzgibbon and 30 men.
Smarting with defeat, the American general sought to surprise
this station as a basis for future attacks. He secretly
despatched Colonel Boerstler with nearly 700 men to capture
it. A wounded militiaman, living within the lines at
Queenston, heard by chance of the expedition. … The alarm was
given [by the militiaman's wife, who travelled 20 miles
through the forest, at night] and that night the men lay on
their arms. Early next morning the American party came, but an
ambuscade had been prepared for them, and after severe
fighting 542 men surrendered into the hands of some 260.
General Dearborn soon after retired from the command of the
American army, to be succeeded by General Boyd. British
parties captured Fort Schlosser and Black Rock on the Niagara
River at this time, though at the latter place with the loss
of Colonel Bishopp, the idol of his men. Colonel Scott, in
command of troops on board Commodore Chauncey's fleet, again
scoured Lake Ontario. Landing at Burlington Heights on the
31st of July, they did nothing more than reconnoitre the works
and depart. Afterwards the second attack on York was made and
the barracks burnt. After this a trial of strength took place
between Sir James Yeo's fleet, now sent forth from Kingston
Harbour, and Chauncey's squadron. The Americans lost two
vessels in a squall, and two were captured by the British, but
the result between the two fleets was indecisive."
_G. Bryce,
Short History of the Canadian People,
chapter 8, section 5._
_ALSO IN:
R. Johnson,
History of the War of 1812-1815,
chapter 7._
{3347}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813 (October-November).
The abortive expedition against Montreal.
"While Perry and Harrison were … reclaiming our lost ground on
Lake Erie and in the northwest, Armstrong was preparing to
carry out his favorite plan of a descent on Kingston and
Montreal. When he accepted the post of Secretary of War, he
transferred his department from Washington to Sackett's
Harbor, so that he might superintend in person the progress of
the campaign. … Although Wilkinson had superseded Dearborn, as
commander-in-chief of this district in July, he did not issue
his first orders to the army till the 23d of August. … General
Wade Hampton, who had been recalled from the fifth military
district to the northern frontier, encamped with his army,
4,000 strong, at Plattsburg, on Lake Champlain. The plan
finally adopted by the Secretary was, to have Wilkinson drop
down the St. Lawrence, and without stopping to attack the
English posts on the river, form a junction with General
Hampton, when the two armies should march at once on Montreal.
These two Generals were both Revolutionary officers, and
consequently too advanced in years to carry such an expedition
through with vigor and activity. Besides, a hostile feeling
separated them, rendering each jealous of the other's command.
… Chauncey, In the mean time, after an action with Yeo, in
which both parties claimed the victory, forced his adversary
to take refuge in Burlington Bay. He then wrote to Wilkinson
that the lake was clear of the enemy, and reported himself
ready to transport the troops down the St. Lawrence. The
greatest expectations were formed of this expedition. The
people knew nothing of the quarrel between Wilkinson and
Hampton, and thought only of the strength of their united
force. … While Wilkinson was preparing to fulfill his part of
the campaign, Hampton made a bold push into Canada on his own
responsibility. Advancing from Plattsburg, he marched directly
for St. John, but finding water scarce for his draft cattle,
owing to a severe drought, he moved to the left, and next day
arrived at Chateaugay Four Corners, a few miles from the
Canada line. Here he was overtaken by an order from Armstrong,
commanding him to remain where he was, until the arrival of
Wilkinson. But jealous of his rival, and wishing to achieve a
victory in which the honor would not be divided, he resolved
to take upon himself the responsibility of advancing alone.
Several detachments of militia had augmented his force of
4,000, and he deemed himself sufficiently strong to attack
Prevost, who he was told had only about 2,000 ill assorted
troops under him. He therefore gave orders to march, and
cutting a road for 24 miles through the wilderness, after five
days great toil, reached the British position. Ignorant of its
weakness, he dispatched Colonel Purdy at night by a circuitous
route to gain the enemy's flank and rear and assail his works,
while he attacked them in front. Bewildered by the darkness,
and led astray by his guide, Colonel Purdy wandered through
the forest, entirely ignorant of the whereabouts of the enemy
or of his own. General Hampton, however, supposing that he had
succeeded in his attempt, ordered General Izard to advance
with the main body of the army, and as soon as firing was
heard in the rear to commence the attack in front. Izard
marched up his men and a skirmish ensued, when Colonel De
Salaberry, the British commander, who had but a handful of
regulars under him, ordered the bugles, which had been placed
at some distance apart on purpose to represent a large force,
to sound the charge. The ruse succeeded admirably, and a halt
was ordered. The bugles brought up the lost detachment of
Purdy, but suddenly assailed by a concealed body of militia,
his command was thrown into disorder and broke and fled.
Disconcerted by the defeat of Purdy, Hampton ordered a
retreat, without making any attempt to carry the British
intrenchments. … Hampton, defeated by the blasts of a few
bugles, took up his position again at the Four Corners, to
wait further news from Wilkinson's division. The latter having
concentrated his troops at Grenadier Island, embarked them
again the same day that Hampton advanced, against orders,
towards Montreal. Three hundred boats, covering the river for
miles, carried the infantry and artillery, while the cavalry,
500 strong, marched along the bank. … They were two weeks in
reaching the river. Wilkinson, who had been recalled from New
Orleans, to take charge of this expedition, was prostrated by
the lake fever, which, added to the infirmities of age,
rendered him wholly unfit for the position he occupied.
General Lewis, his second in command, was also sick. The
season was already far advanced—the autumnal storms had set
in earlier than usual—everything conspired to ensure defeat;
and around this wreck of a commander, tossed an army,
dispirited, disgusted, and doomed to disgrace. General Brown
led the advance of this army of invasion, as it started for
Montreal, 180 miles distant. … When it reached the head of the
long rapids at Hamilton, 20 miles below Ogdensburg, Wilkinson
ordered General Brown to advance by land and cover the passage
of the boats through the narrow defiles, where the enemy had
established block houses. In the mean time the cavalry had
crossed over to the Canadian side and, with 1,500 men under
General Boyd, been despatched against the enemy, which was
constantly harassing his rear. General Boyd, accompanied by
Generals Swartwout and Covington as volunteers, moved forward
in three columns. Colonel Ripley advancing with the 21st
Regiment, drove the enemy's sharp shooters from the woods, and
emerged on an open space, called Chrystler's Field, and
directly in front of two English regiments. Notwithstanding
the disparity of numbers this gallant officer ordered a
charge, which was executed with such firmness that the two
regiments retired. Rallying and making a stand, they were
again charged and driven back. … At length the British retired
to their camp and the Americans maintained their position on
the shore, so that the flotilla passed the Saut in safety.
This action [called the battle of Chrystler's Farm, or
Williamsburg] has never received the praise it deserves—the
disgraceful failure of the campaign having cast a shadow upon
it. The British, though inferior in numbers, had greatly the
advantage in having possession of a stone house in the midst
of the field. …
{3348}
Nearly one-fifth of the entire force engaged were killed or
wounded. … The army, however, still held its course for
Montreal. Young Scott, who had joined the expedition at
Ogdensburg, was 15 miles ahead, clearing, with a detachment of
less than 800 men, the river banks as he went. Montreal was
known to be feebly garrisoned, and Wilkinson had no doubt it
would fall an easy conquest. He therefore sent forward to
Hampton to join him at St. Regis, with provisions. Hampton, in
reply, said, that his men could bring no more provisions than
they wanted for their own use, and informed him, in short,
that he should not co-operate with him at all, but make the
best of his way back to Lake Champlain. On receiving this
astounding news, Wilkinson called a council of war, which
reprobated in strong terms the conduct of Hampton, and decided
that in consideration of his failure, and the lateness of the
season, the march should be suspended, and the army retire to
winter quarters. This was carried into effect, and Wilkinson
repaired to French Mills, on Salmon river, for the winter, and
Hampton to Plattsburg."
_J. T. Headley,
The Second War with England,
volume 1, chapter. 13._
ALSO IN:
_W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 4, chapter 8._
_S. Perkins,
History of the Late War,
chapter 12._
_J. Armstrong,
Notices of the War of 1812,
volume 2, chapter 1._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813 (December).
Retaliatory devastation of the Niagara frontier.
Fort Niagara surprised.
The burning of Buffalo.
"The withdrawal of troops from the Niagara frontier to take
part in Wilkinson's expedition left the defence of that line
almost entirely to militia, and the term for which the militia
had been called out expired on the 9th of December. The next
day General George McClure, who had been left in command at
Fort George, found himself at the head of but 60 effective
men, while the British General Drummond had brought up to the
peninsula 400 troops and 70 Indians—released by the failure of
Wilkinson's expedition—and was preparing to attack him.
McClure thereupon determined to evacuate the fort, as the only
alternative from capture or destruction, and remove his men
and stores across the river to Fort Niagara. He also
determined to burn the village of Newark, that the enemy might
find no shelter. The laudable part of this plan was but
imperfectly carried out; he failed to destroy the barracks,
and left unharmed tents for 1,500 men, several pieces of
artillery, and a large quantity of ammunition, all of which
fell into the hands of Drummond's men. But the inexcusable
part—the burning of a village in midwinter, inhabited by
noncombatants who had been guilty of no special offence—was
only too faithfully executed. The inhabitants were given
twelve hours in which to remove their goods, and then the
torch was applied, and not a house was left standing. This
needless cruelty produced its natural result; Drummond
determined upon swift and ample retaliation. In the night of
December 18th, just one week after the burning of Newark, he
threw across the Niagara a force of 550 men. They landed at
Five Mile Meadows, three miles above Fort Niagara, and marched
upon it at once, arriving there at four o'clock in the
morning. McClure, who had received an intimation of the
enemy's intention to devastate the American frontier, had gone
to Buffalo to raise a force to oppose him. The garrison of the
fort consisted of about 450 men, a large number of whom were
in the hospital. The command had been left to a Captain
Leonard, who at this time was three miles away, sleeping at a
farm-house. The most elaborate preparations had been made for
the capture of the fort, including scaling-ladders for
mounting the bastions. But the Americans seemed to have
studied to make the task as easy as possible. The sentries
were seized and silenced before they could give any alarm, and
the main gate was found standing wide open, so that the
British had only to walk straight in and begin at once the
stabbing which had been determined upon. The guard in the
south-east block-house tired one volley, by which the British
commander, Colonel Murray, was wounded, and a portion of the
invalids made what resistance they could. A British lieutenant
and five men were killed, and a surgeon and three men wounded.
Sixty-five Americans, two-thirds of whom were invalids, were
bayoneted in their beds; 15 others, who had taken refuge in
the cellars, were despatched in the same manner, and 14 were
wounded; 20 escaped, and all the others, about 340, were made
prisoners. … On the same morning, General Riall, with a
detachment of British troops and 500 Indians, crossed from
Queenstown." Lewiston, Youngstown, Tuscarora and Manchester
(now Niagara Falls) were plundered and burned, and the houses
and barns of farmers along the river, within a belt of several
miles, were destroyed. "The bridge over Tonawanda Creek had
been destroyed by the Americans, and at this point the enemy
turned back, and soon recrossed the Niagara to the Canada
side. The alarm at Buffalo brought General Hall, of the New
York militia, to that village, where he arrived the day after
Christmas. He found collected there a body of 1,700 men, whom
it would have been gross flattery to call a 'force.' They were
poorly supplied with arms and cartridges, and had no
discipline and almost no organization. Another regiment of 300
soon joined them, but without adding much to their efficiency.
On the 28th of December, Drummond reconnoitred the American
camp, and determined to attack it; for which purpose he sent
over General Riall on the evening of the 29th with 1,450 men,
largely regulars, and a body of Indians. One detachment landed
two miles below Black Rock, crossed Canajokaties [or
Scajaquada] Creek in the face of a slight resistance, and took
possession of a battery. The remainder landed at a point
between Buffalo and Black Rock [two villages then, now united
in one city], under cover of a battery on the Canadian shore.
Poor as Hall's troops were, they stood long enough to fire
upon the invaders and inflict considerable loss. … Both sides
had artillery, with which the action was opened. As it
progressed, however, the American line was broken in the
centre, and Hall was compelled to fall back. His subsequent
attempts to rally his men were of no avail, and he himself
seems to have lost heart, as Lieutenant Riddle, who had about
80 regulars, offered to place them in front for the
encouragement of the militia to new exertion, but Hall
declined. … Both Buffalo and Black Rock were sacked and
burned, and no mercy was shown. With but two or three
exceptions, those of the inhabitants who were not able to run
away were massacred. …
{3349}
It is related that in Buffalo a widow named St. John 'had the
address to appease the ferocity of the enemy so far as to
remain in her house uninjured.' Her house and the stone jail
were the only buildings not laid in ashes. In Black Rock every
building was either burned or blown up, except one log house,
in which a few women and children had taken refuge. … Five
vessels lying at the wharves were also burned. In this
expedition the British lost 108 men, killed, wounded or
missing. More than 50 of the Americans were found dead on the
field. Truly, an abundant revenge had been taken for the
burning of Newark. … On New Year's day of 1814 the settlers
along the whole length of the Niagara—those of them who
survived—were shivering beside the smouldering embers of
their homes."
_R. Johnson,
History of the War of 1812-1815,
chapter 9._
ALSO IN:
_C. Johnson,
Centennial History of Erie County, New York,
chapters 24-25._
_W. Ketchum,
History of Buffalo,
volume 2, chapter 15._
_O. Turner,
Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase,
pages 589-606._
_W. Dorsheimer,
Buffalo during the war of 1812
(Buffalo Historical Society Publication, volume 1)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814.
British blockade of the Atlantic coast.
"The blockade of the Atlantic coast was enforced by British
vessels from the beginning of the year 1813. At first they
were inclined to spare the coast of New England, which they
supposed to be friendly to Great Britain, but this policy was
soon abandoned, and the whole coast was treated alike. Groups
of war-vessels were stationed before each of the principal
sea-ports, and others were continually in motion along the
coast, from Halifax on the north to the West Indies. Early in
1813, they took possession of the mouth of Chesapeake Bay as a
naval station, and the American Government ordered all the
lights to be put out in the neighboring light-houses. The
Atlantic coast was thus kept in a state of almost constant
alarm, for the British vessels were continually landing men at
exposed points to burn, plunder, and destroy. … In 1813, the
defenceless towns of Lewes, Havre de Grace, and Hampton (near
Fortress Monroe) were bombarded, and Stonington, Conn., in
1814; and a number of smaller towns were burned or plundered.
Attacks on New York and other larger cities were prevented
only by fear of torpedoes, by means of which the Americans had
nearly blown up one or two British ships which ventured too
near New York. … Maine, as far as the Penobscot River, was
seized by the British in 1814, and was held until the end of
the war."
_A. Johnston,
History of the United States for Schools,
sections 384-386._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814 (August-April).
The Creek War.
General Jackson's first campaign.
The great Indian chief Tecumseh had been trying for years to
unite all the red men against the whites. There would have
been an Indian war if there had been no war with England, but
the latter war seemed to be Tecumseh's opportunity. Among the
southwestern Indians he found acceptance only with the Creeks,
who were already on the verge of civil war, because some
wanted to adopt civilized life, and others refused. The latter
became the war party, under Weatherford [Red Eagle], a very
able half-breed chief. The first outbreak in the Southwest,
although there had been some earlier hostilities, was the
massacre of the garrison and refugees at Fort Mims, at the
junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, August 30, 1813.
There were 553 persons in the fort, of whom only 5 or 6
escaped. … The result of the massacre at Fort Mims was that
Alabama was almost abandoned by whites. Terror and desire for
revenge took possession of Georgia and Tennessee. September
25th the Tennessee Legislature voted to raise men and money to
aid the people of Mississippi territory against the Creeks."
Andrew Jackson, one of the two major-generals of the Tennessee
militia, was then confined to his bed by a wound received in a
recent fight with Thomas H. Benton and Benton's brother. "As
soon as he possibly could, Jackson took the field. Georgia had
a force in the field under General Floyd. General Claiborne
was acting at the head of troops from Louisiana and
Mississippi. This Indian war had a local character and was
outside the federal operations, although in the end it had a
great effect upon them. … The Creek war was remarkable for
three things: (1) the quarrels between the generals, and the
want of concert of action; (2) lack of provisions; (3)
insubordination in the ranks. … On three occasions Jackson had
to use one part of his army to prevent another part from
marching home, he and they differing on the construction of
the terms of enlistment. He showed very strong qualities under
these trying circumstances. … In the conduct of the movements
against the enemy his energy was very remarkable. So long as
there was an enemy unsubdued Jackson could not rest, and could
not give heed to anything else. … At the end of March [1814]
Jackson destroyed a body of the Creeks at Tohopeka, or
Horse-Shoe Bend, in the northeast corner of the present
Tallapoosa County, Alabama. With the least possible delay he
pushed on to the last refuge of the Creeks, the Hickory
Ground, at the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, and the
Holy Ground a few miles distant. The medicine men, appealing
to the superstition of the Indians, had taught them to believe
that no white man could tread the latter ground and live. In
April the remnant of the Creeks surrendered or fled to
Florida, overcome as much by the impetuous and relentless
character of the campaign against them as by actual blows.
Fort Jackson was built on the Hickory Ground. The march down
through Alabama was a great achievement, considering the
circumstances of the country at the time. … The Creek campaign
lasted only seven months. In itself considered, it was by no
means an important Indian war, but in its connection with
other military movements it was very important. Tecumseh had
been killed at the battle of the Thames, in Canada, October 5,
1813. His scheme of a race war died with him. The Creek
campaign put an end to any danger of hostilities from the
southwestern Indians, in alliance either with other Indians or
with the English. … This campaign … was the beginning of
Jackson's fame and popularity, and from it dates his career.
He was 47 years old. On the 31st of May he was appointed a
major-general in the army of the United States, and was given
command of the department of the South. He established his
headquarters at Mobile in August, 1814."
_W. G. Sumner,
Andrew Jackson as a Public Man,
chapter 2._
{3350}
ALSO IN:
_G. C. Eggleston,
Red Eagle._
_J. W. Monette,
Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi,
book 5, chapter 14 (volume 2)._
_B. J. Lossing,
Field Book of the War of 1812,
chapters 33-34._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (July-September).
On the Niagara Frontier.
Chippewa.
Lundy's Lane.
Fort Erie.
"After the desolation of the Niagara frontier in 1813, there
appeared to be nothing for the parties to contend for in that
quarter. No object could be obtained by a victory on either
side, but the temporary occupation of a vacant territory; yet
both parties seemed to have selected this as the principal
theatre on which to display their military prowess in the year
1814. Lieutenant General Drummond, governor of Upper Canada,
concentrated the forces of that province at Fort George, and
retained the possession of Niagara. The American Generals
Smyth, Hampton, Dearborn, and Wilkinson, under whose auspices
the campaigns of 1812 and 1813, on the Canada border, were
conducted, had retired from that field; and General Brown was
appointed major general, and, with the assistance of
Brigadiers Scott and Ripley, designated to the command of the
Niagara frontier. He left Sackett's Harbour in May, with a
large portion of the American troops. … On his arrival at
Buffalo, calculating upon the co-operation of the Ontario
fleet, he determined on an attempt to expel the British from
the Niagara peninsula. With this view he crossed the river on
the 3d of July. … On the same day he invested Fort Erie, and
summoned it to surrender, allowing the commandant two hours to
answer the summons. At five in the afternoon the fort
surrendered, and the prisoners, amounting to 137, were removed
to Buffalo. On the morning of the fourth General Scott
advanced with his brigade and corps of artillery, and took a
position on the Chippewa plain, half a mile in front of the
village, his right resting on the river, and his front
protected by a ravine. The British were encamped in force at
the village. In the evening General Brown joined him with the
reserve under General Ripley, and the artillery commanded by
Major Hindman. General Porter arrived the next morning, with
the New York and Pennsylvania volunteers, and a number of
Indians of the six nations. … At four in the afternoon,
General Porter advanced, taking the woods in order to conceal
his approach, and … met the whole British force approaching in
order of battle. General Scott, with his brigade and Towser's
artillery, met them on the plain, in front of the American
encampment, and was directly engaged in close action with the
main body. General Porter's command gave way. … The reserve
were now ordered up, and General Ripley passed to the woods in
left of the line to gain the rear of the enemy; but before
this was effected, General Scott had compelled the British to
retire. Their whole line now fell back, and were eagerly
pursued. … The British left 200 dead on the ground. … The
American loss was 60 killed, and 268 wounded and missing.
After the battle of Chippewa, the British retired to Fort
George; and General Brown took post at Queenston, where he
remained some time, expecting reinforcements. … On the 20th,
General Brown advanced with his army towards Fort George,
drove in the outposts, and encamped near the fort, in the
expectation that the British would come out and give him
battle. On the 22d, he returned to his former position at
Queenston; here he received a letter from General Gaines,
informing him that the heavy guns, and the rifle regiment,
which he had ordered from Sackett's harbour, together with the
whole fleet, were blockaded in that port, and no assistance
was to be expected from them. On the 24th, he fell back to
Chippewa, and on the 25th received intelligence that the
enemy, having received large reinforcements from Kingston,
were advancing upon him. The first brigade under General
Scott, Towser's artillery, all the dragoons and mounted men,
were immediately put in motion on the Queenston road. On his
arrival at the Niagara cataract, General Scott learned that
the British were in force directly in his front, separated
only by a narrow piece of wood. Having despatched this
intelligence to General Brown, he advanced upon the enemy, and
the action commenced at six o'clock in the afternoon. … The
British artillery had taken post on a commanding eminence, at
the head of Lundy's lane, supported by a line of infantry,
out of the reach of the American batteries. This was the key
of the whole position; from hence they poured a most deadly
fire on the American ranks. It became necessary either to
leave the ground, or to carry this post and seize the height.
The latter desperate task was assigned to Colonel Miller. On
receiving the order from General Brown, he calmly surveyed the
position, and answered 'I will try, sir,' which expression was
afterwards the motto of his regiment. … Colonel Miller
advanced coolly and steadily to his object, amid a tremendous
fire, and at the point of the bayonet, carried the artillery
and the height. The guns were immediately turned upon the
enemy; General Ripley now brought up the 23d regiment, to the
support of Colonel Miller; the first regiment was rallied and
brought into line, and the British were driven from the hill.
… The British rallied under the hill, and made a desperate
attempt to regain their artillery, and drive the Americans
from their position, but without success; a second and third
attempt was made with the like result. General Scott was
engaged in repelling these attacks, and though with his
shoulder fractured, and a severe wound in the side, continued
at the head of his column, endeavouring to turn the enemy's
right flank. The volunteers under General Porter, during the
last charge of the British, precipitated themselves upon their
lines, broke them, and took a large number of prisoners.
General Brown … received a severe wound on the thigh, and in
the side, and … consigned the command to General Ripley. At
twelve o'clock, both parties retired from the field to their
respective encampments, fatigued and satiated with slaughter.
… The battle [called Lundy's Lane, or Bridgewater, or Niagara]
was fought to the west of, and within half a mile of the
Niagara cataract. … Considering the numbers engaged, few
contests have ever been more sanguinary. … General Brown
states his loss to be, killed, 171; wounded, 572; missing,
117; [total] 860. General Drummond acknowledges a loss of,
killed, 84; wounded, 559; missing and prisoners, 235; [total]
878. … General Ripley, on the 26th, fell back to Fort Erie.
General Brown retired to Buffalo, and General Scott to
Batavia, to recover from their wounds."
_S. Perkins,
History of the Late War,
chapter 17._
{3351}
"Fort Erie was a small work with two demi-bastions; one upon
the north and the other upon the south front. It was built of
stone, but was not of sufficient strength to resist ordnance
heavier than the field artillery of that day. Ripley at once
commenced to strengthen the position. Fortunately, General
Drummond delayed his advance for two days, giving the
Americans an opportunity of which they industriously availed
themselves. … Fort Erie was changed into an entrenched camp,
with its rear open toward the river. General Drummond appeared
before the fort, on the 3d of August, with a force of 5,350
men. He established his camp two miles distant, back of
Waterloo, and commenced a double line of entrenchments within
400 yards of the main work. The same morning he threw a force
of about 1,000 men across the river, and landed them below
Squaw Island, with the intention of seizing Buffalo,
destroying the stores gathered there, and interrupting the
communications of the American army. This soldierly plan was
happily frustrated by Major Morgan with a battalion of the
First Rifles, 250 strong. … During the following fortnight
several skirmishes occurred in front of Fort Erie, in one of
which the gallant Colonel Morgan was killed. General Drummond,
having been still further reinforced, determined not to wait
for the slow results of a siege, but to carry the place by
assault. At two o'clock in the morning of the 3d of August,
the British army moved to the attack in three columns. One was
ordered to carry the Douglass battery, upon the extreme right
of our position; another column was to engage the fort itself;
but the main attack was directed against the Towson battery
upon Snake Hill. Brigadier-General Gaines, who had lately
arrived, was now in command of the American forces. … The
evening before, a shell had exploded a small magazine in Fort
Erie, and General Gaines was apprehensive that the enemy would
take advantage of this disaster and attack him,—one-third of
the troops were therefore kept at their post through the
night, which was dark and rainy. His precautions were well
taken. At half-past two the tramp of a heavy column was heard
approaching Towson's redoubt. Instantly a sheet of fire
flashed from our lines, lighting up the night, and revealing
the enemy 1,500 strong. They had been ordered to attack with
the bayonet; and, to insure obedience, the flints had been
removed from their muskets. With complete courage they
approached to within reach of the light abattis, between Snake
Hill and the lake. But after a desperate struggle they fell
back. Again they advanced, and this time succeeded in planting
scaling ladders in the ditch in front of the redoubt. But
their ladders were too short, and the assailants were driven
off with severe loss. Meanwhile a detachment endeavored to
turn our position by wading out into the river, and passing
round our left. Ripley met them promptly. Numbers were killed
or wounded, and were carried off by the current, and the
remainder of the detachment were captured: Five times the
obstinate English returned to the assault, but each time
without success. … The other British columns waited until the
engagement on the left was at its height. On our right the
enemy advanced to within 50 yards of the Douglass battery, but
were then driven back. At the fort the contest was more
severe. The assailants, led by Colonel Drummond, an officer of
singular determination, advanced through a ravine north of the
fort, and attacking simultaneously all the salient points,
they swarmed over the parapet into the north bastion. … The
garrison of the fort rallied, and after a severe contest
succeeded in regaining possession of the bastion. A second and
third time Drummond returned to the assault with no better
success. But with invincible tenacity he clung to his purpose.
Moving his troops, under cover of the night and the dense
cloud of battle which hung along the ramparts, silently round
the ditch, he suddenly repeated the charge. The English ran up
their ladders so quickly that they gained the top of the
glacis before the defenders could rally to resist them. … The
garrison of the fort made repeated unsuccessful efforts to
retake the bastion; but at day-break it was still in the
enemy's possession. Powerful detachments were then brought up
from the left and center, and a combined attempt was made from
several different directions to drive the British from their
position; but, after a desperate struggle, this likewise
failed. The guns of the Douglass battery, and those under
Captain Fanning, were turned upon the bastion, and Captain
Biddle was placing a piece of artillery to enfilade it, while
several hundred of the American reserve stood ready to rush
upon it. At this moment a loud explosion shook the earth, and
the whole bastion leaped into the air, carrying with it both
its assailants and defenders. The cause of this explosion has
never been accurately ascertained. It is generally supposed to
have been accidental. … The shattered columns of the foe now
retired to their encampment. The British report stated their
loss at 905 killed, wounded and missing; of whom 222 were
killed, including 14 officers; 174 wounded; and 186 prisoners
remained in our hands. Our loss, including 11 prisoners, was
84 men. In the bombardment of the day before we had 45 killed
and wounded; swelling our total loss to 129. A few days after
this, Drummond was reinforced by two regiments, and reopened
fire along his own line. The bombardment continued through the
remainder of the month of August. On the 28th, General Gaines
was wounded by a shell, which fell into his quarters, and
General Ripley again assumed the command, but was soon
superseded by General Brown, who had recovered from the wound
received at Lundy's Lane. General Porter, by dint of
superhuman efforts, gathered a considerable body of militia at
Buffalo, to reinforce the fort. … Notwithstanding the victory
I have just described, and the reinforcements brought by
Porter, the American army at Fort Erie was in a very dangerous
situation. Their foe was daily increasing in number, and three
new batteries were thrown up, whose fire was rapidly making
the position untenable. … Under the pressure of this great
necessity, General Porter planned a sortie, which was
submitted to General Brown; who approved it, and ordered it to
be carried out. … By this enterprise, altogether the most
brilliant military event which occurred on this frontier
during the war, all of the enemy's guns in position were made
useless, and their entrenchments destroyed. We took 385
prisoners, including 11 commissioned officers, and killed or
wounded 600 men. Our own loss was 510. … Four days after this,
General Drummond raised the siege, and fell back to Fort
George."
_W. Dorsheimer,
Buffalo during the War of 1812
(Buffalo Historical Society Publications, volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_E. Cruikshank,
The Battle of Lundy's Lane
(Lundy's Lane Historical Society)._
_Gen. W. Scott,
Memoirs by himself,
chapters 9-11 (volume 1)._
_C. Johnson,
Centennial History of Erie County, New York,
chapter 26._
_B. J. Lossing,
Field Book of the War of 1812,
chapters 35-36._
_The Attack on Fort Erie
(Portfolio, February, 1816)._
{3352}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (August-September).
Capture and destruction of the national Capital.
Attempt against Baltimore.
Early in the "summer of 1814, rumors spread through the
capital of a great British armament preparing at Bermuda, some
said for an attack on New York, others on Baltimore and
Annapolis, while others asserted quite as vehemently that the
national capital was the chosen object of British vengeance.
How easy it would be, they argued, for Admiral Sir George
Cockburn, who had been a year with his fleet in Chesapeake
Bay, when reinforced by the Bermuda armament to disembark a
strong column at any point on the western shore of the
Chesapeake—but forty miles distant—and by a forced march
capture the city. But by some strange fatuity, the President
and his cabinet treated these possibilities as unworthy of
credence. 'The British come here!' a Cabinet officer is
reported to have said, in answer to the representations of
citizens. "What should they come here for?' Sure enough: a
provincial village of 6,000 inhabitants. But then there were
the state papers and public buildings, the moral effect of
capturing an enemy's capital, and the satisfaction of
chastising the city where a British minister had been obliged
to ask for his recall on the ground of ill-treatment. …
Colonel James Monroe, a gallant soldier of the Revolution, was
now Secretary of State; another Revolutionary soldier, General
Armstrong, was Secretary of War, and acting on their advice,
President Madison did substantially nothing for the defence of
his capital. Fort Washington, commanding the Potomac, which
Major L'Enfant had planned early in the war, was hurried
forward to completion; but no defences on the landward side
were erected, and no army was called out to defend it. What
was done was this: The District of Columbia, Maryland, and
that part of Virginia north of the Rappahannock, were created
a tenth military district under command of General W. H.
Winder, a brave officer, who had seen service in the
Northwest, and who had recently returned from long detention
in Canada as prisoner of war. General Winder on taking command
(June 26, 1814) found for the defence of Washington
detachments of the 36th and 38th regulars, amounting to a few
hundred men, but nothing more—no forts, no guns, no army. A
force of 13 regiments of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania
militia had been drafted, but were not to be called into
active service until the enemy should appear—an arrangement
against which General Winder protested in vain. … While these
weak and ineffectual preparations are being made, the enemy
has been marshalling his forces. Early in August Rear-Admiral
Cockburn's blockading squadron had been joined in the Potomac
by the fleet of Vice-Admiral Cochrane, who as ranking officer
at once took command." A few days later the expected Bermuda
expedition arrived bringing 4,000 troops—veterans from
Wellington's army—under General Ross. A little flotilla of
gunboats on the Chesapeake, commanded by Commodore Barney, was
driven into Patuxent River and there abandoned and burned.
Then the enemy landed in force at Benedict and marched on
Washington, while the Secretary or War still insisted that
Baltimore must be, in the nature of things, the place they
would strike, At Bladensburg they were met (August 24th) by
General Winder with some 5,000 hastily collected militia and
volunteers and less than 1,000 regular troops, sailors, and
marines—poor materials for an army with which to face 4,000
hardened veterans of the Peninsular War. The battle ended in
the utter routing of the American forces and the abandonment
of Washington to the British invaders.
_C. B. Todd,
The Story of Washington,
chapter 8._
"This battle, by which the fate of the American capital was
decided, began about one o'clock in the afternoon, and lasted
till four. The loss on the part of the English was severe,
since, out of two-thirds of the army, which were engaged,
upwards of 500 men were killed and wounded; and what rendered
it doubly severe was, that among these were numbered several
officers of rank and distinction. … On the side of the
Americans the slaughter was not so great. Being in possession
of a strong position, they were of course less exposed in
defending than the others in storming it; and had they
conducted themselves with coolness and resolution, it is not
conceivable how the battle could have been won. But the fact
is that, with the exception of a party of sailors from the gun
boats, under the command of Commodore Barney, no troops could
behave worse than they did."
_G. R. Gleig,
Campaign of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans,
chapter 9._
When Winder's troops abandoned Washington "fire was put at the
navy yard to a new frigate on the stocks, to a new
sloop-of-war lately launched, and to several magazines of
stores and provisions, for the destruction of which ample
preparations had been made. By the light of this fire, made
lurid by a sudden thunder-gust, Ross, toward evening, advanced
into Washington, at that time a straggling village of some
8,000 people, but, for the moment, almost deserted by the male
part of the white inhabitants. From Gallatin's late residence,
one of the first considerable houses which the column reached,
a shot was fired which killed Ross's horse, and which was
instantly revenged by putting fire to the house. After three
or four volleys at the Capitol, the two detached wings were
set on fire. The massive walls defied the flames, but all the
interior was destroyed, with many valuable papers, and the
library of Congress—a piece of Vandalism alleged to be in
revenge for the burning of the Parliament House at York.
[Chaplain Gleig, who was with the British forces under Ross,
states in the narrative quoted from above that the party fired
upon from Gallatin's house bore a flag of truce, and that
Ross's destructive proceedings in Washington were consequent
on that fact.] … The president's house, and the offices of the
Treasury and State Departments near by, were set on fire. …
The next morning the War Office was burned. …
{3353}
Several private houses were burned, and some private
warehouses broken open and plundered; but, in general, private
property was respected." On the night of the 20th the British
withdrew, returning as they came; but on the 29th their
frigates, ascending the Potomac, arrived at Alexandria and
plundered that city heavily. "Within less than a fortnight
after the re-embarkation of Ross's army, the British fleet,
spreading vast alarm as it ascended the Chesapeake, appeared
off the Patapsco [September 12]. … A landing was effected the
next day at North Point, on the northern shore of that
estuary, some eight miles up which was Fort M'Henry, an open
work only two miles from Baltimore, commanding the entrance
into the harbor, which found, however, its most effectual
protection in the shallowness of the water. The defense of the
city rested with some 10,000 militia. … A corps 3,000 strong
had been thrown forward toward North Point. As Ross and
Cockburn, at the head of a reconnoitering party, approached
the outposts of this advanced division, a skirmish ensued, in
which Ross was killed. … The fleet, meanwhile, opened a
tremendous cannonade on Fort M'Henry; but … at such a distance
as to render their fire ineffectual. It was under the
excitement of this cannonade that the popular song of the
'Star Spangled Banner' was composed, the author [Francis Scott
Key] being then on board the British fleet, whither he had
gone to solicit the release of certain prisoners, and where he
was detained pending the attack. An attempt to land in boats
also failed; and that same night, the bombardment being still
kept up, the British army, covered by rain and darkness,
retired silently to their ships and re-embarked."
_R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
volume 6, pages 510-520._
ALSO IN:
_J. S. Williams,
Invasion and Capture of Washington._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (September).
Prevost's invasion of New York.
Macdonough's naval victory on Lake Champlain.
Lake Champlain, "which had hitherto played but an
inconspicuous part, was now to become the scene of the
greatest naval battle of the war. A British army of 11,000 men
under Sir George Prevost undertook the invasion of New York by
advancing up the western bank of Lake Champlain. This advance
was impracticable unless there was a sufficiently strong
British naval force to drive back the American squadron at the
same time. Accordingly, the British began to construct a
frigate, the Confiance, to be added to their already existing
force, which consisted of a brig, two sloops, and 12 or 14
gun-boats. The Americans already possessed a heavy corvette, a
schooner, a small sloop, and 10 gun-boats or row-galleys; they
now began to build a large brig, the Eagle, which was launched
about the 16th of August. Nine days later, on the 25th, the
Confiance was launched. The two squadrons were equally
deficient in stores, etc.; the Confiance having locks to her
guns, some of which could not be used, while the American
schooner Ticonderoga had to fire her guns by means of pistols
flashed at the touchholes (like Barclay on Lake Erie).
Macdonough and Downie were hurried into action before they had
time to prepare themselves thoroughly; but it was a
disadvantage common to both, and arose from the nature of the
case, which called for immediate action. The British army
advanced slowly toward Plattsburg, which was held by General
Macomb with less than 2,000 effective American troops. Captain
Thomas Macdonough, the American commodore, took the lake a day
or two before his antagonist, and came to anchor in Plattsburg
harbor. The British fleet, under Captain George Downie, moved
from Isle-aux-Noix on September 8th, and on the morning of the
11th sailed into Plattsburg harbor." The American force
consisted of the ship Saratoga, Captain Macdonough, the brig
Eagle, the schooner Ticonderoga, the sloop Preble, and ten
row-galleys, or gunboats mounting one or two guns each—"in
all, 14 vessels of 2,244 tons and 882 men, with 86 guns
throwing at a broadside 1,194 lbs. of shot, 480 from long, and
714 from short guns. The force of the British squadron in guns
and ships is known accurately, as most of it was captured." It
consisted of the frigate Confiance, the brig Linnet, the
sloops Chubb and Finch, and twelve gunboats—"in all, 16
vessels, of about 2,402 tons, with 937 men, and a total of 92
guns, throwing at a broadside 1,192 lbs., 660 from long and
532 from short pieces. … Young Macdonough (then but 28 years
of age) calculated all … chances very coolly and decided to
await the attack at anchor in Plattsburg Bay, with the head of
his line so far to the north that it could hardly be turned. …
The morning of September 11th opened with a light breeze from
the northeast. Downie's fleet weighed anchor at daylight, and
came down the lake with the wind nearly aft, the booms of the
two sloops swinging out to starboard. At half-past seven, the
people in the ships could see their adversaries' upper sails
across the narrow strip of land ending in Cumberland Head,
before the British doubled the latter. … As the English
squadron stood bravely in, young Macdonough, who feared his
foes not at all, but his God a great deal, knelt for a moment,
with his officers, on the quarter-deck; and then ensued a few
minutes of perfect quiet." The fierce battle which followed
lasted about two hours and a half, with terribly destructive
effects on both sides. The British commander, Downie, was
killed early in the action. "On both sides the ships had been
cut up in the most extraordinary manner; the Saratoga had 55
shot-holes in her hull, and the Confiance 105 in hers, and the
Eagle and Linnet had suffered in proportion. The number of
killed and wounded can not be exactly stated; it was probably
about 200 on the American side, and over 300 on the British. …
The effects of the victory were immediate and of the highest
importance. Sir George Prevost and his army [which had arrived
before Plattsburg on the 6th, and which, simultaneously with
the naval advance, had made an unsuccessful attack on the
American defensive works, at the mouth of the Saranac, held by
General Alexander Macomb] at once fled in great haste and
confusion back to Canada, leaving our northern frontier clear
for the remainder of the war; while the victory had a very
great effect on the negotiations for peace. In this battle the
crews on both sides behaved with equal bravery, and left
nothing to be desired in this respect; but from their rawness
they of course showed far less skill than the crews of most of
the American and some of the British ocean cruisers. …
Macdonough in this battle won a higher fame than any other
commander of the war, British or American.
{3354}
He had a decidedly superior force to contend against, the
officers and men of the two sides being about on a par in
every respect; and it was solely owing to his foresight and
resource that we won the victory. He forced the British to
engage at a disadvantage by his excellent choice of position,
and he prepared beforehand for every possible contingency. …
Down to the time of the Civil War he is the greatest figure in
our naval history."
_T. Roosevelt,
The Naval War of 1812,
chapter 8._
ALSO IN:
_R. Johnson,
History of the War of 1812-1815,
chapter 15._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (December).
The Hartford Convention.
"The commercial distress in New England, the possession by the
enemy of a large part of the District of Maine, the fear of
their advance along the coast, and the apparent neglect of the
Federal Government to provide any adequate means of
resistance, had led the Legislature of Massachusetts, in
October, to invite the other New England States to send
delegates to Hartford, Connecticut, 'to confer upon the
subject of their public grievances.' Delegates [26 in number]
from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, and from
parts of Vermont and New Hampshire, met at Hartford in
December and remained in session for three weeks. In their
report to their State Legislatures they reviewed the state of
the country, the origin and management of the war, and the
strong measures lately proposed in Congress, and recommended
several Amendments to the Constitution, chiefly with intent to
restrict the powers of Congress over commerce, and to prevent
naturalized citizens from holding office. In default of the
adoption of these Amendments, another convention was advised,
'in order to decide on the course which a crisis so momentous
might seem to demand.' This was the famous Hartford
Convention. The peace which closely followed its adjournment
removed all necessity or even desire for another session of
it. Its objects seem to have been legitimate. But the
unfortunate secrecy of its proceedings, and its somewhat
ambiguous language, roused a popular suspicion, sufficient for
the political ruin of its members, that a dissolution of the
Union had been proposed, perhaps resolved upon, in its
meetings. Some years afterward those concerned in it were
compelled in self-defense to publish its journal, in order to
show that no treasonable design was officially proposed. It
was then, however, too late, for the popular opinion had
become fixed. Neither the Federal party which originated, nor
the Federalist politicians who composed, the assembly, were
ever freed from the stigma left by the mysterious Hartford
Convention."
_A. Johnston,
History of American Politics, 2d ed.,
chapter 8._
The language of the report of the Hartford Convention "was so
skillfully selected that it cannot be said with certainty
whether the convention deduced from the nature of the Union a
positive right in the individual states to withdraw from the
Union, or whether it claimed only a moral justification for
revolution. It was prudent enough in the declaration of its
position on the constitutional question not to venture beyond
vague, double-meaning expressions, except so far as it could
appeal to its opponents. But it went just far enough to repeat
almost verbatim the declaration of faith laid down in the
Kentucky resolutions of 1798. If the members of the
convention, and those in sympathy with them, were 'Maratists,'
they could claim that they had become so in the school of
Madison and Jefferson."
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, page 268._
ALSO IN:
_T. Dwight,
History of the Hartford Convention._
_H. C. Lodge,
Life and Letters of George Cabot,
chapters 11-13._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (December).
The Treaty of Peace concluded at Ghent.
"In September, 1812, Count Romanzoff suggested to Mr. [John
Quincy] Adams the readiness of the Emperor [of Russia] to act
as mediator in bringing about peace between the United States
and England. The suggestion was promptly acted upon, but with
no directly fortunate results. The American government acceded
at once to the proposition, and, at the risk of an impolitic
display of readiness, dispatched Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard
to act as Commissioners jointly with Mr. Adams in the
negotiations. These gentlemen, however, arrived in St.
Petersburg only to find themselves in a very awkward
position," since the offered mediation of the Czar was
declined by England. The latter power preferred to negotiate
directly with the United States, and presently made proposals
to that effect, intimating her readiness "to send
Commissioners to Gottingen, for which place Ghent was
afterwards substituted, to meet American Commissioners and
settle terms of pacification. The United States renewed the
powers of Messrs. Adams, Bayard, and Gallatin, … and added
Jonathan Russell, then Minister to Sweden, and Henry Clay.
England deputed Lord Gambier, an Admiral, Dr. Adams, a
publicist, and Mr. Goulbourn, a member of Parliament and Under
Secretary of State. These eight gentlemen accordingly met in
Ghent on August 7, 1814. It was upwards of four months before
an agreement was reached. … The eight were certainly an odd
assemblage of peacemakers. The ill-blood and wranglings
between the opposing Commissions were bad enough, yet hardly
equalled the intestine dissensions between the American
Commissioners themselves. … The British first presented their
demands, as follows: 1. That the United States should conclude
a peace with the Indian allies of Great Britain, and that a
species of neutral belt of Indian territory should be
established between the dominions of the United States and
Great Britain, so that these dominions should be nowhere
conterminous, upon which belt or barrier neither power should
be permitted to encroach even by purchase, and the boundaries
of which should be settled in this treaty. 2. That the United
States should keep no naval force upon the Great Lakes, and
should neither maintain their existing forts nor build new
ones upon their northern frontier; it was even required that
the boundary line should run along the southern shore of the
lakes; while no corresponding restriction was imposed upon
Great Britain, because she was stated to have no projects of
conquest as against her neighbor. 3. That a piece of the
province of Maine should be ceded, in order to give the
English a road from Halifax to Quebec. 4. That the
stipulations of the treaty of 1783, conferring on English
subjects the right of navigating the Mississippi, should be
now formally renewed. The Americans were astounded; it seemed
to them hardly worth while to have come so far to listen to
such propositions."
{3355}
But, after long and apparently hopeless wrangling, events in
Europe rather than in America brought about a change of
disposition on the part of the British government;
instructions to the commissioners were modified on both sides,
and, quite to their own surprise, they arrived at agreements
which were formulated in a Treaty and signed, December 24,
1814. "Of the many subjects mooted between the negotiators
scarcely any had survived the fierce contests which had been
waged concerning them. The whole matter of the navigation of
the Mississippi, access to that river, and a road through
American territory, had been dropped by the British; while the
Americans had been well content to say nothing of the
Northeastern fisheries, which they regarded as still their
own.
See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1814-1818.
The disarmament on the lakes and along the Canadian border,
and the neutralization of a strip of Indian territory, were
yielded by the English. The Americans were content to have
nothing said about impressment; nor was anyone of the many
illegal rights exercised by England formally abandoned. The
Americans satisfied themselves with the reflection that
circumstances had rendered these points now only matters of
abstract principle, since the pacification of Europe had
removed all opportunities and temptations for England to
persist in her previous objectionable courses. For the future
it was hardly to be feared that she would again undertake to
pursue a policy against which it was evident that the United
States were willing to conduct a serious war. There was,
however, no provision for indemnification. Upon a fair
consideration, it must be admitted that, though the treaty was
silent upon all the points which the United States had made
war for the purpose of enforcing, yet the country had every
reason to be gratified with the result of the negotiation."
_J. T. Morse,
John Quincy Adams,
pages 75-96._
"Instead of wearing themselves out over impracticable, perhaps
impossible, questions, the commissioners turned their
attention to the northern boundary between the two countries,
and it was by them forever settled, and in such manner as to
give the United States the foundation for its future
greatness. … The victory of the American diplomats at Ghent
was two-fold: first, they secured the benefits desired without
enumerating them—even to a greater extent than if the benefits
had been enumerated; and second, if they had insisted upon an
enumeration of the benefits obtained, it is apparent they
would have periled the entire treaty and lost all."
_T. Wilson,
The Treaty of Ghent
(Magazine of American History, November, 1888)._
ALSO IN:
_C. Schurz,
Life of Henry Clay,
chapter 6 (volume l)._
_J. Q. Adams,
Memoirs (Diary)
chapter 9 (volumes 2-3)._
Following is the text of the treaty:
Article I.
There shall be a firm and universal peace between His
Britannic Majesty and the United States, and between their
respective countries, territories, cities, towns, and people,
of every degree, without exception of places or persons. All
hostilities, both by sea and land, shall cease as soon as this
treaty shall have been ratified by both parties, as
hereinafter mentioned. All territory, places, and possessions
whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the
war, or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty,
excepting only the islands hereinafter mentioned, shall be
restored without delay, and without causing any destruction or
carrying away any of the artillery or other public property
originally captured in the said forts or places, and which
shall remain therein upon the exchange of the ratifications of
this treaty, or any slaves or other private property. And all
archives, records, deeds, and papers, either of a public
nature or belonging to private persons, which, in the course
of the war, may have fallen into the hands of the officers of
either party, shall be, as far as may be practicable,
forthwith restored and delivered to the proper authorities and
persons to whom they respectively belong. Such of the islands
in the Bay of Passamaquoddy as are claimed by both parties,
shall remain in the possession of the party in whose
occupation they may be at the time of the exchange of the
ratifications of this treaty, until the decision respecting
the title to the said islands shall have been made in
conformity with the fourth article of this treaty. No
disposition made by this treaty as to such possession of the
islands and territories claimed by both parties shall, in any
manner whatever, be construed to affect the right of either.
Article II.
Immediately after the ratification of this treaty by both
parties, as hereinafter mentioned, orders shall be sent to the
armies, squadrons, officers, subjects and citizens of the two
Powers to cease from all hostilities. And to prevent all
causes of complaint which might arise on account of the prizes
which may be taken at sea after the said ratifications of this
treaty, it is reciprocally agreed that all vessels and effects
which may be taken after the space of twelve days from the
said ratifications, upon all parts of the coast of North
America, from the latitude of twenty-three degrees north to
the latitude of fifty degrees north, and as far eastward in
the Atlantic Ocean as the thirty-sixth degree of west
longitude from the meridian of Greenwich, shall be restored on
each side: that the time shall be thirty days in all other
parts of the Atlantic Ocean north of the equinoctial line or
equator, and the same time for the British and Irish Channels,
for the Gulf of Mexico, and all parts of the West Indies;
forty days for the North Seas, for the Baltic, and for all
parts of the Mediterranean; sixty days for the Atlantic Ocean
south of the equator, as far as the latitude of the Cape of
Good Hope; ninety days for every other part of the world south
of the equator; and one hundred and twenty days for all other
parts of the world, without exception.
Article III.
All prisoners of war taken on either side, as well by land as
by sea, shall be restored as soon as practicable after the
ratifications of this treaty, as hereinafter mentioned, on
their paying the debts which they may have contracted during
their captivity. The two contracting parties respectively
engage to discharge, in specie, the advances which may have
been made by the other for the sustenance and maintenance of
such prisoners.
{3356}
Article IV.
Whereas it was stipulated by the second article in the treaty
of peace of one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three,
between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of
America, that the boundary of the United States should
comprehend all islands within twenty leagues of any part of
the shores of the United States, and lying between lines to be
drawn due east from the points where the aforesaid boundaries,
between Nova Scotia on the one part, and East Florida on the
other, shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the
Atlantic Ocean, excepting such islands as now are, or
heretofore have been, within the limits of Nova Scotia; and
whereas the several islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy, which
is part of the Bay of Fundy, and the Island of Grand Menan, in
the said Bay of Fundy, are claimed by the United States as
being comprehended within their aforesaid boundaries, which
said islands are claimed as belonging to His Britannic
Majesty, as having been, at the time of and previous to the
aforesaid treaty of one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-three, within the limits of the Province of Nova
Scotia: In order, therefore, finally to decide upon these
claims, it is agreed that they shall be referred to two
Commissioners to be appointed in the following manner, viz:
One Commissioner shall be appointed by His Britannic Majesty,
and one by the President of the United States, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate thereof; and the said two
Commissioners so appointed shall be sworn impartially to
examine and decide upon the said claims according to such
evidence as shall be laid before them on the part of His
Britannic Majesty and of the United States respectively. The
said Commissioners shall meet at St. Andrews, in the Province
of New Brunswick, and shall have power to adjourn to such
other place or places as they shall think fit. The said
Commissioners shall, by a declaration or report under their
hands and seals, decide to which of the two contracting
parties the several islands aforesaid do respectively belong,
in conformity with the true intent of the said treaty of peace
of one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three. And if the
said Commissioners shall agree in their decision, both parties
shall consider such decision as final and conclusive. It is
further agreed that, in event of the two Commissioners
differing upon all or any of the matters so referred to them,
or in the event of both or either of the said Commissioners
refusing, or declining, or wilfully omitting to act as such,
they shall make, jointly or separately, a report or reports,
as well to the Government of His Britannic Majesty as to that
of the United States, stating in detail the points on which
they differ, and the grounds upon which their respective
opinions have been formed, or the grounds upon which they, or
either of them, have so refused, declined, or omitted to act.
And His Britannic Majesty and the Government of the United
States hereby agree to refer the report or reports of the said
Commissioners to some friendly sovereign or State, to be then
named for that purpose, and who shall be requested to decide
on the differences which may be stated in the said report or
reports, or upon the report of one Commissioner, together with
the grounds upon which the other Commissioner shall have
refused, declined or omitted to act, as the case may be. And
if the Commissioner so refusing, declining or omitting to act,
shall also wilfully omit to state the grounds upon which he
has so done, in such manner that the said statement may be
referred to such friendly sovereign or State, together with
the report of such other Commissioner, then such sovereign or
State shall decide ex parte upon the said report alone. And
His Britannic Majesty and the Government of the United States
engage to consider the decision of such friendly sovereign or
State to be final and conclusive on all the matters so
referred.
Article V.
Whereas neither that point of the highlands lying due north
from the source of the river St. Croix, and designated in the
former treaty of peace between the two Powers as the northwest
angle of Nova Scotia, nor the north-westernmost head of
Connecticut River, has yet been ascertained; and whereas that
part of the boundary line between the dominions of the two
Powers which extends from the source of the river St. Croix
directly north to the above mentioned northwest angle of Nova
Scotia, thence along the said highlands which divide those
rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from
those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean to the northwestern
most head of Connecticut River, thence down along the middle
of that river to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude;
thence by a line due west on said latitude until it strikes
the river Iroquois or Cataraquy, has not yet been surveyed: it
is agreed that for these several purposes two Commissioners
shall be appointed, sworn, and authorized to act exactly in
the manner directed with respect to those mentioned in the
next preceding article, unless otherwise specified in the
present article. The said Commissioners shall meet at St.
Andrews, in the Province of New Brunswick, and shall have
power to adjourn to such other place or places as they shall
think fit. The said Commissioners shall have power to
ascertain and determine the points above mentioned, in
conformity with the provisions of the said treaty of peace of
one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, and shall cause
the boundary aforesaid, from the source of the river St. Croix
to the river Iroquois or Cataraquy, to be surveyed and marked
according to the said provisions. The said Commissioners shall
make a map of the said boundary, and annex to it a declaration
under their hands and seals, certifying it to be the true map
of the said boundary, and particularizing the latitude and
longitude of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, of the
northwesternmost head of Connecticut River, and of such other
points of the said boundary as they may deem proper. And both
parties agree to consider such map and declaration as finally
and conclusively fixing the said boundary. And in the event of
the said two Commissioners differing, or both or either of
them refusing, declining, or wilfully omitting to act, such
reports, declarations, or statements shall be made by them, or
either of them, and such reference to a friendly sovereign or
State shall be made in all respects as in the latter part of
the fourth article is contained, and in as full a manner as if
the same was herein repeated.
{3357}
Article VI.
Whereas by the former treaty of peace that portion of the
boundary of the United States from the point where the
forty-fifth degree of north latitude strikes the river
Iroquois or Cataraquy to the Lake Superior, was declared to be
"along the middle of said river into Lake Ontario, through the
middle of said lake, until it strikes the communication by
water between that lake and Lake Erie, thence along the middle
of said communication into Lake Erie, through the middle of said
lake until it arrives at the water communication into the Lake
Huron, thence through the middle of said lake to the water
communication between that lake and Lake Superior;" and
whereas doubts have arisen what was the middle of the said
river, lakes, and water communications, and whether certain
islands lying in the same were within the dominions of His
Britannic Majesty or of the United States: In order,
therefore, finally to decide these doubts, they shall be
referred to two Commissioners, to be appointed, sworn, and
authorized to act exactly in the manner directed with respect
to those mentioned in the next preceding article, unless
otherwise specified in this present article. The said
Commissioners shall meet, in the first instance, at Albany, in
the State of New York, and shall have power to adjourn to such
other place or places as they shall think fit. The said
Commissioners shall, by a report or declaration, under their
hands and seals, designate the boundary through the said
river, lakes and water communications, and decide to which of
the two contracting parties the several islands lying within
the said rivers, lakes, and water communications, do
respectively belong, in conformity with the true intent of the
said treaty of one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three.
And both parties agree to consider such designation and
decision as final and conclusive. And in the event of the said
two Commissioners differing, or both or either of them
refusing, declining, or wilfully omitting to act, such
reports, declarations, or statements shall be made by them, or
either of them, and such reference to a friendly sovereign or
State shall be made in all respects as in the latter part of
the fourth article is contained, and in as full a manner as if
the same was herein repeated.
Article VII.
It is further agreed that the said two last-mentioned
Commissioners, after they shall have executed the duties
assigned to them in the preceding article, shall be, and they
are hereby, authorized upon their oaths impartially to fix and
determine, according to the true intent of the said treaty of
peace of one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, that
part of the boundary between the dominions of the two Powers
which extends from the water communication between Lake Huron
and Lake Superior, to the most northwestern point of the Lake
of the Woods, to decide to which of the two parties the
several islands lying in the lakes, water communications, and
rivers, forming the said boundary, do respectively belong, in
conformity with the true intent of the said treaty of peace of
one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three; and to cause such
parts of the said boundary as require it to be surveyed and
marked. The said Commissioners shall, by a report or
declaration under their hands and seals, designate the
boundary aforesaid, state their decision on the points thus
referred to them, and particularize the latitude and longitude
of the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods, and
of such other parts of the said boundary as they may deem
proper. And both parties agree to consider such designation
and decision as final and conclusive. And in the event of the
said two Commissioners differing, or both or either of them
refusing, declining, or wilfully omitting to act, such
reports, declarations, or statements shall be made by them, or
either of them, and such reference to a friendly sovereign or
State shall be made in all respects as in the latter part of
the fourth article is contained, and in as full a manner as if
the same was herein repeated.
Article VIII.
The several boards of two Commissioners mentioned in the four
preceding articles shall respectively have power to appoint a
Secretary, and to employ such surveyors or other persons as
they shall judge necessary. Duplicates of all their respective
reports, declarations, statements and decisions and of their
accounts, and of the journal of their proceedings, shall be
delivered by them to the agents of His Britannic Majesty and
to the agents of the United States, who may be respectively
appointed and authorized to manage the business on behalf of
their respective Governments. The said Commissioners shall be
respectively paid in such manner as shall be agreed between
the two contracting parties, such agreement being to be
settled at the time of the exchange of the ratifications of
this treaty. And all other expenses attending the said
Commissions shall be defrayed equally by the two parties. And
in the case of death, sickness, resignation or necessary
absence, the place of every such Commissioner, respectively,
shall be supplied in the same manner as such Commissioner was
first appointed, and the new Commissioner shall take the same
oath or affirmation, and do the same duties. It is further
agreed between the two contracting parties, that in case any
of the islands mentioned in any of the preceding articles,
which were in the possession of one of the parties prior to
the commencement of the present war between the two countries,
should, by the decision of any of the Boards of Commissioners
aforesaid, or of the sovereign or State so referred to, as in
the four next preceding articles contained, fall within the
dominions of the other party, all grants of land made previous
to the commencement of the war, by the party having had such
possession, shall be as valid as if such island or islands
had, by such decision or decisions, been adjudged to be within
the dominions of the party having had such possession.
Article IX.
The United States of America engage to put an end, immediately
after the ratification of the present treaty, to hostilities
with all the tribes or nations of Indians with whom they may
be at war at the time of such ratification; and forthwith to
restore to such tribes or nations, respectively, all the
possessions, rights and privileges which they may have enjoyed
or been entitled to in one thousand eight hundred and eleven,
previous to such hostilities: Provided always that such tribes
or nations shall agree to desist from all hostilities against
the United States of America, their citizens and subjects,
upon the ratification of the present treaty being notified to
such tribes or nations, and shall so desist accordingly. And
His Britannic Majesty engages, on his part, to put an end
immediately after the ratification of the present treaty, to
hostilities with all the tribes or nations of Indians with
whom he may be at war at the time of such ratification, and
forthwith to restore to such tribes or nations respectively
all the possessions, rights and privileges which they may have
enjoyed or been entitled to in one thousand eight hundred and
eleven, previous to such hostilities: Provided always that
such tribes or nations shall agree to desist from all
hostilities against His Britannic Majesty, and his subjects,
upon the ratification of the present treaty being notified to
such tribes or nations, and shall so desist accordingly.
{3358}
Article X.
Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the
principles of humanity and justice, and whereas both His
Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their
efforts to promote its entire abolition, it is hereby agreed
that both the contracting parties shall use their best
endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object.
Article XI.
This treaty, when the same shall have been ratified on both
sides, without alteration by either of the contracting
parties, and the ratifications mutually exchanged, shall be
binding on both parties and the ratifications shall be
exchanged at Washington, in the space of four months from this
day, or sooner if practicable. In faith whereof we, the
respective Plenipotentiaries, have signed this treaty, and
have thereunto affixed our seals. Done, in triplicate, at
Ghent, the twenty-fourth day of December, one thousand eight
hundred and fourteen.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814.
The last fighting at Sea.
The exploits of "Old Ironsides."
"During the latter part of the war, as might have been
foreseen, there was little opportunity for American frigates
to show that they could keep up the fame they had so
gloriously won. The British were determined that none of them
that ventured out to sea should escape; and by stationing a
squadron, which their great resources enabled them to do,
before each port where a frigate lay, they succeeded in
keeping it cooped up and inactive. … The 'Adams,' which had
been a 28-gun frigate, but which was now a corvette, managed
to slip out from Washington in January, 1814, under the
command of Charles Morris. … Six months were passed in
cruising, part of the time off the Irish coast, but with no
great success." Returning home, the "Adams" went ashore at the
mouth of the Penobscot, but was got off, much injured, and was
taken up the river for repairs. An English expeditionary force
pursued the crippled vessel, and her commander was forced to
set her on fire. "At this time the 'Constitution' [Old
Ironsides, as she was popularly called] was … lying at Boston,
watched by a squadron of the enemy. She had proved a lucky
ship, … and her present captain, Charles Stewart, who had been
one of Preble's lieutenants at Tripoli, was certainly a man
well fitted to make the most of any chance he had. The frigate
had been in port since April, at first repairing, and later
unable to get out owing to the presence of the enemy's
squadron." In December, however, the " Constitution" contrived
to give the blockaders the slip and made her way across the
Atlantic to the neighborhood of Madeira, where she fought and
captured, at one time, two British war vessels—the corvette
"Cyana" of 22 guns, and the sloop "Levant," of 20 guns. A few
days afterwards, as the "Constitution," with her two prizes,
was lying at anchor in Port Praya, Cape de Verde Islands,
Captain Stewart sighted, outside, no less than three ships of
the very blockading squadron which he had slipped away from at
Boston, and which had pursued him across the ocean. He made
his escape from the port, with both his prizes, in time to
avoid being hemmed in, and speedily outsailed his pursuers.
The latter, giving up hope of the "Constitution," turned their
attention to one of the prizes and succeeded in recovering
her. "The only other frigate that left port in the last year
of the war was less fortunate than the 'Constitution.' This
was the 'President,' now under Commodore Decatur. She was at
New York, and for some time had lain at anchor off Staten
Island watching for an opportunity to pass the blockading
squadron." On a stormy night in January, 1815 (after the
treaty of peace had been actually signed at Ghent, but before
news of it had reached America), he made the attempt, but was
discovered and chased by four of the blockading ships. After a
race which lasted from dawn until nearly midnight, and a
running fight of two hours, Decatur found escape to be
impossible and surrendered his ship.
_J. R. Soley,
The Boys of 1812,
chapter 17._
ALSO IN:
_T. Roosevelt,
The Naval War of 1812,
chapters 7-9._
_B. J. Lossing,
Field Book of the War of 1812,
chapter 41._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1815 (January).
Jackson's victory at New Orleans.
In October of the last year "dispatches from the American
envoys abroad announced that 12,000 to 15,000 British troops
would leave Ireland early in September for New Orleans and
Mobile. Intelligence reached Washington, December 9th, by way
of Cuba, that the British Chesapeake force, under Admiral
Cochrane, had united at Jamaica with these other troops, and
all were ready to sail for the mouths of the Mississippi.
'Hasten your militia to New Orleans,' now urged Monroe upon
the Executives of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia; 'do not
wait for this government to arm them; put all the arms you can
find into their hands; let every man bring his rifle or musket
with him; we shall see you paid.' … Great results had been
expected by Great Britain from the secret expedition fitted
out against Louisiana. … Fifty British vessels, large and
small, bore 7,000 British land troops—comprising the invading
force from the Chesapeake and a veteran reinforcement from
England—across the Gulf of Mexico from Jamaica to the ship
channel near the entrance of Lake Borgne, thus approaching New
Orleans midway between the Mississippi River and Mobile Bay.
Here the fleet anchored; and, after dispersing a meagre
flotilla of American gunboats, which opposed their progress in
vain, the invaders took full possession of Lake Borgne, and,
by means of lighter transports, landed troops upon a lonely
island at the mouth of the Pearl River, which served as the
military rendezvous. Crossing thence to the northwestern end
of Lake Borgne, a sparsely-settled region, with plantations
and sugar-works, half of this invading army, by the 23d
[December], struck the Mississippi at a point within nine
miles of New Orleans. Not a gun had been fired since the
trifling engagement with the American flotilla. The British
believed their near approach unknown, and even unsuspected, in
the city; they meant to capture it by an assault both
brilliant and sudden. … But Jackson had received his
instructions in good season, and from the 2d of December New
Orleans had been, under his vigilant direction, a camp in
lively motion." Martial law was proclaimed; "free men of color
were enrolled; convicts were released to become soldiers; the
civic force was increased to its utmost.
{3359}
Jackson inspected and strengthened the defences in the
vicinity, erect·ing new batteries. … With his newly arrived
volunteers from neighboring States, quite expert, many of
them, in the use of the rifle and eager for fight, Jackson
found himself presently at the head of 5,000 effective men,
less than 1,000 of whom were regulars." With a portion of
these, supported by one of the two armed vessels on the river,
he boldly attacked the enemy, on the evening of the 23d, but
accomplished little more than to demonstrate the energy of the
defence he was prepared to make. On the 28th the English
(having previously destroyed one of the troublesome vessels in
the river, the Carolina, with hot shot) returned the attack,
but did not break the American lines. Then General Pakenham,
the English commander, brought up heavy guns from the fleet,
and soon convinced General Jackson that cotton bales, which
the latter had piled up before his men, were too light and too
combustible for breastworks against artillery; but the lesson
proved more useful than otherwise, and the British batteries
were answered with fully equal effect by an American
cannonade. "Pakenham's last and boldest experiment was to
carry Jackson's lines by storm on both sides of the river; and
this enterprise, fatal, indeed, to those who conceived it,
gives immortal date to the 8th of January,—the day on which
the battle of New Orleans was fought. Four days before this
momentous battle, over 2,000 Kentucky militia, under General
Adair, arrived at New Orleans, ready soldiers, but miserably
equipped. Of their number 700 were marched to the front.
Pakenham's army, swelled by a body of reinforcements,
commanded by General Lambert, another of Wellington's
officers, now consisted in all of 10,000 troops, the flower of
Brit·ish veterans. On the day of the battle Jackson had only
half as many soldiers on the New Orleans side of the river,
and of these the greater part were new recruits under
inexperienced officers. On the opposite bank General Morgan,
with about 1,500 men, among them detachments of Kentuckians
and Louisiana militia, had intrenched himself in expectation
of an assault. Jackson had penetrated the enemy's design,
which was to make the main attack upon his lines, while a
lesser force crossed the Mississippi to drive Morgan up the
bank. Jackson's grand defences, extending for a mile and a
half from the Mississippi, along his ditch or canal, to an
impassable cypress swamp, consisted of earthworks, a redoubt
next the river to enfilade the ditch, and eight batteries, all
well mounted. The schooner Louisiana and Commander Patterson's
marine battery across the river protected this line. Another
intrenchment had been thrown up a mile and a half in the rear,
as a rallying-point in case of need. There was a third line
just below the city. … The morn·ing fog rolled away on the 8th
of January. Pakenham, under the fire of a battery he had
erected during the night, advanced with the main body of
British troops to storm Jackson's position." The Americans,
behind their breastworks, withheld their fire until the
storming columns were 200 yards away, and then poured volley
on volley into the approaching mass of men. "This, with the
steady fire from the American batteries all along the line, as
the foe advanced over a large bare plain, made hideous gaps in
the British ranks, throwing them into utter confusion. It was
a fearful slaughter. Dead bodies choked the ditch and strewed
the plain. Gallant Highlanders flung themselves forward to
scale the ramparts only to fall back lifeless. Soldiers who
had served under Wellington in Spain broke, scattered, and
ran. Of the four British generals commanding, Pakenham was
killed, Gibbs mortally wounded, Keane disabled by a shot in
the neck; only Lambert remained. Thornton, across the river,
had driven Morgan from his lines meantime, and silenced
Patterson's battery; but this enterprise might have cost him
dearly, had he not in season received orders from Lambert to
return instantly. In this battle the British lost not less
than 2,600, all but 500 of whom were killed or wounded; while
only 8 were killed and 13 wounded on the American side. Having
buried his dead presently under a flag of truce, Lambert, whom
this calamity had placed in command, retreated hastily under
cover of the night, abandoning the expedition. Re-embarking at
Lake Borgne, and rejoining the fleet, he next proceeded to
invest Fort Bowyer, at the entrance of Mobile Bay, only to
learn, after its little garrison had surrendered, that a
treaty of peace [signed December 24, 1814, two weeks before
the battle of New Orleans was fought] annulled the conquest. …
Rude and illiterate as he was, Jackson showed at New Orleans
the five prime attributes of military genius: decision,
energy, forethought, dispatch, skill in employing resources."
_J. Schouler,
History of the United States of America,
chapter 9, section 1 (volume 2)._
ALSO IN:
_A. Walker,
Jackson and New Orleans._
_J. Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson,
volume 2, chapters 1-23._
_G. R. Gleig,
Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans,
chapters 18-23._
_M. Thompson,
The Story of Louisiana,
chapter 9._
_G. W. Cable,
The Creoles of Louisiana,
chapters 26-27._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1815.
Final war with the Algerines and suppression of their piracies.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1815.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816.
Incorporation of the second Bank of the United States.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1791-1816; and 1817-1833.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816.
Admission of Indiana into the Union.
See INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816.
The increased Tariff.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1816-1824.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816.
Organization of the American Colonization Society.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1816-1849.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816.
Eighth Presidential Election.
James Monroe, Democratic Republican, was elected over Rufus
King, Federalist, receiving 183 out of 217 votes cast in the
electoral college. Daniel D. Tompkins was chosen Vice
President. "Opposition to the War of 1812 proved fatal to the
Federal party, which ceased to exist as a national party with
the close of Mr. Madison's administration. Not only did the
odium of opposing the war tend to annihilate that party, but
the questions upon which the two parties differed were, in a
great measure, settled or disposed of by the war; others,
relating to the general interests of the country, such as a
tariff, internal improvements, the chartering of a national
bank, erecting fortifications, etc., taking their place, and
finding advocates and opponents in both the old parties.
Candidates for President and Vice-President were then selected
by the respective parties by what was termed a Congressional
caucus.
{3360}
Mr. Monroe was placed in nomination for President by a caucus
of the Republican members of Congress, Daniel D. Tompkins, of
New York, being nominated by the same caucus for
Vice-President. Mr. Crawford, of Georgia, was Mr. Monroe's
competitor, and fell but few votes behind him in the caucus.
Rufus King was the candidate of the Federal party, or what
there was left of it, against Mr. Monroe. The latter received
183 electoral votes, the former 34. No President ever
encountered less opposition during his four or eight years'
service than Mr. Monroe. Parties and the country seemed to be
tired of contention, and desirous to enjoy repose. A most able
cabinet was selected, consisting of Mr. J. Q. Adams as
Secretary of State; William H. Crawford, Secretary of the
Treasury; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War; Smith Thompson,
Secretary of the Navy; and William Wirt, Attorney-General."
_N. Sargent,
Public Men and Events, 1817-1853,
volume 1, chapter 1._
"Remembering only the almost unopposed election and second
election of Mr. Monroe, we are apt to think of him as the
natural and easy choice of the people. As a matter of fact he
was not a great favorite with Republican politicians. He was
first nominated by a narrow majority. … Numerous meetings were
held in various parts of the country to protest against the
caucus system, the most noteworthy of which, perhaps, was held
in Baltimore, in which meeting Roger B. Taney, afterward Chief
Justice, took a most prominent part. The nomination being
made, the presidential election was practically decided. There
was no canvass, worthy of the name."
_E. Stanwood,
History of Presidential Elections,
chapter 9._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816-1817.
The opening of the question of "Internal Improvements."
"The passage of the bank bill in 1816 was to give the United
States a million and a half of dollars. Calhoun, therefore,
came forward, December 23, 1816, with a bill proposing that
this sum be employed as a fund 'for constructing roads and
canals and improving the navigation of watercourses.' 'We
are,' said he, 'a rapidly—I was about to say a
fearfully—growing country. … This is our pride and danger, our
weakness and our strength.' The constitutional question he
settled with a phrase: 'If we are restricted in the use of our
money to the enumerated powers, on what principle can the
purchase of Louisiana be justified?' The bill passed the House
by 86 to 84; it was strongly supported by New York members,
because it was expected that the general government would
begin the construction of a canal from Albany to the Lakes; it
had also large support in the South, especially in South
Carolina. In the last hours of his administration Madison
vetoed it. His message shows that he had selected this
occasion to leave to the people a political testament; he was
at last alarmed by the progress of his own party, and, like
Jefferson, he insisted that internal improvements were
desirable, but needed a constitutional amendment. The
immediate effect of the veto was that New York, seeing no
prospect of federal aid, at once herself began the
construction of the Erie Canal, which was opened eight years
later."
_A. B. Hart,
Formation of the Union
(Epochs of American History),
section 121._
"Mr. Monroe came out, in his first message to Congress,
coinciding, on this point, with Mr. Madison's veto. It is due
to both of them, however, to say that they were the advocates
of internal improvement, and recommended an amendment of the
constitution with that view. Nevertheless, Mr. Madison, by his
veto, had dashed the cup from the lips to the ground, as he
went out of office; and Mr. Monroe coming in, at least for
four years, probably for eight—it proved to be eight—broke the
cup in advance, so that it could not be used during his term
of office, without an amendment of the constitution. … Three
presidents successively, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and Mr.
Monroe, had officially expressed their opinion adverse to a
power vested in Congress by the constitution for projects of
internal improvement, as contemplated by the measures
proposed. Not satisfied with these decisions, Mr. Clay and his
friends were instrumental in having a resolution brought
forward, in the fifteenth Congress, declaring that Congress
had power, under the constitution, to make appropriations for
the construction of military roads, post-roads, and canals. …
The resolution declaring the power to be vested in Congress by
the constitution, to make appropriations for the construction
of military roads, post-roads, and canals, was adopted by a
vote of 90 to 75; and the principle involved has been
practically applied by acts of Congress, from that time to the
present."
_C. Colton,
Life, Correspondence, and Speeches of Henry Clay,
volume 1, chapter 19._
ALSO IN:
_H. G. Wheeler,
History of Congress, comprising a
History of Internal Improvements,
volume 2, page 109, and after._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816-1818.
The First Seminole War.
Jackson's arbitrary conquest of Florida.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1817.
Admission of Mississippi into the Union.
See MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1817.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818.
Treaty with Great Britain relating to Fisheries.
See FISHERIES: A. D. 1814-1818.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818.
Admission of Illinois into the Union.
See INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1819.
The Dartmouth College Case.
See SUPPLEMENT: DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.
The first bitter Conflict concerning Slavery.
The Missouri Compromise,
on the admission of Missouri to the Union.
"On March 6, 1818, a petition was presented in the House of
Representatives praying that Missouri be admitted as a state.
A bill authorizing the people of Missouri to form a state
government was taken up in the House on February 13, 1819, and
Tallmadge of New York moved, as an amendment, that the further
introduction of slavery should be prohibited, and that all
children born within the said state should be free at the age
of twenty-five years. Thus began the struggle on the slavery
question in connection with the admission of Missouri, which
lasted, intermittently, until March, 1821. No sooner had the
debate on Tallmadge's proposition begun than it became clear
that the philosophical anti-slavery sentiment of the
revolutionary period had entirely ceased to have any influence
upon current thought in the South.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1776-1808.
The abolition of the foreign slave-trade had not, as had been
hoped, prepared the way for the abolition of slavery or
weakened the slave interest in any sense. On the contrary,
slavery had been immensely strengthened by an economic
development making it more profitable than it ever had been
before. The invention of the cotton-gin by Eli Whitney, in
1793, had made the culture of cotton a very productive source
of wealth.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.
{3361}
In 1800 the exportation of cotton from the United States was
19,000,000 pounds, valued at $5,700,000. In 1820 the value of
the cotton export was nearly $20,000,000, almost all of it the
product of slave labor. The value of slaves may be said to
have at least trebled in twenty years. The breeding of slaves
became a profitable industry. Under such circumstances the
slave-holders arrived at the conclusion that slavery was by no
means so wicked and hurtful an institution as their
revolutionary fathers had thought it to be. … On the other
hand, in the Northern States there was no such change of
feeling. Slavery was still, in the nature of things, believed
to be a wrong and a sore. … The amendment to the Missouri
bill, providing for a restriction with regard to slavery, came
therefore in a perfectly natural way from that Northern
sentiment which remained still faithful to the traditions of
the revolutionary period. And it was a great surprise to most
Northern people that so natural a proposition should be so
fiercely resisted on the part of the South. It was the sudden
revelation of a change of feeling in the South which the North
had not observed in its progress. 'The discussion of this
Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls,'
wrote John Quincy Adams. The slave-holders watched with
apprehension the steady growth of the Free States in
population, wealth, and power. In 1790 the population of the
two sections had been nearly even. In 1820 there was a
difference of over 600,000 in favor of the North in a total of
less than ten millions. In 1790 the representation of the two
sections in Congress had been about evenly balanced. In 1820
the census promised to give the North a preponderance of more
than 30 votes in the House of Representatives. As the
slave-holders had no longer the ultimate extinction, but now
the perpetuation, of slavery in view, the question of
sectional power became one of first importance to them, and
with it the necessity of having more Slave States for the
purpose of maintaining the political equilibrium at least in
the Senate. A struggle for more Slave States was to them a
struggle for life. This was the true significance of the
Missouri question. The debate was the prototype of all the
slavery debates which followed in the forty years to the
breaking out of the civil war. … The dissolution of the Union,
civil war, and streams of blood were freely threatened by
Southern men, while some anti-slavery men declared themselves
ready to accept all these calamities rather than the spread of
slavery over the territories yet free from it. … On February
16, 1819, the House of Representatives adopted the amendment
restricting slavery, and thus passed the Missouri bill. But
the Senate, eleven days afterwards, struck out the
anti-slavery provision and sent the bill back to the House. A
bill was then passed organizing the Territory of Arkansas, an
amendment moved by Taylor of New York prohibiting the further
introduction of slavery there having been voted down. … Thus
slavery was virtually fastened on Arkansas. But the Missouri
bill failed in the fifteenth Congress. The popular excitement
steadily increased. The sixteenth Congress met in December,
1819. In the Senate the admission of Missouri with slavery was
coupled with the admission of Maine, on the balance-of-power
principle that one free state and one slave state should
always be admitted at the same time. An amendment was moved
absolutely prohibiting slavery in Missouri, but it was voted
down. Then Mr. Thomas, a Senator from Illinois, on January 18,
1820, proposed that no restriction as to slavery be imposed
upon Missouri in framing a state constitution, but that in all
the rest of the country ceded by France to the United States
north of 30° 30', this being the southern boundary line of
Missouri, there should be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude. This was the essence of the famous Missouri
Compromise, and, after long and acrimonious debates and
several more votes in the House for restriction and in the
Senate against it, this compromise was adopted. By it the
slave power obtained the present tangible object it contended
for; free labor won a contingent advantage in the future. …
Clay has been widely credited with being the 'father' of the
Missouri Compromise. As to the main features of the measure
this credit he did not deserve. So far he had taken a
prominent but not an originating part in the transaction."
But, at the next session of Congress, when the Missouri
question was unexpectedly reopened, and as threateningly as
ever, Clay assumed a more important part in connection with
the final settlement of it. "The bill passed at the last
session had authorized the people of Missouri to make a state
constitution without any restriction as to slavery. The formal
admission of the state was now to follow. But the Constitution
with which Missouri presented herself to Congress not only
recognized slavery as existing there; it provided also that it
should be the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as
would be necessary to prevent free negroes or mulattoes from
coming into or settling in the state." This provoked a new
revolt on the part of the Northern opponents of slavery, and
it was only through Clay's exertions as a pacificator that
Missouri was conditionally admitted to the Union at length
[March 3, 1820], the condition being that "the said state
shall never pass any law preventing any description of persons
from coming to or settling in the said state who now are, or
hereafter may become, citizens of any of the states of this
Union." The legislature of Missouri gave its assent, as
required, to this "fundamental condition," and the
"compromise" became complete. "The public mind turned at once
to things of more hopeful interest, and the Union seemed safer
than ever. The American people have since become painfully
aware that this was a delusion."
_C. Schurz,
Life of Henry Clay,
chapter 8 (volume 1)._
"The immediate contest was not over the question of the
prohibition of slavery in the Territories. The great struggle
lasted for nearly three years, but the final proposition which
closed the controversy and which prohibited slavery in almost
all the then Federal territory was probably not debated more
than three hours. It was accepted without discussion by the
great bulk of the advocates of Missouri's free admission. Very
few slavery extensionists questioned the right and power of
Congress to prevent the spread of slavery to the Territories.
{3362}
That question, in the minds of those who opposed restriction
in Missouri, was incidental to the question of the right of
Congress to impose conditions upon a State. Incidentally the
question of slavery in the Territories came up in the case of
Arkansas, a country south of Missouri, in which slavery was
already a fact. The restrictionists themselves recognized the
fact that the plain, simple issue 'of limiting the area of
human slavery would be strengthened by bringing it before the
country unincumbered with the question of imposing conditions
on a State, though most of them never wavered in their belief
that conditions might be imposed. On the one hand it was only
Southern zealots who denied to Congress the power to prohibit
slavery in the Territories; on the other hand many in the
North who opposed slavery believed that Congress might not
impose conditions upon a State. In the cabinet of Monroe, in
which sat Wirt, Crawford, and Calhoun, it was unanimously
agreed that Congress had power to prohibit slavery in the
Territories. But John Quincy Adams, also a member of that
cabinet, who hated slavery with all the strength of his soul,
thought it was unconstitutional to bind a State by conditions.
… The struggle indicated a notable change in the southern mind
on the slavery question, and that a slave power was forming
which would attempt to control all legislation of the federal
Union affecting slavery. … The struggle and the compromise
afford the first clear demarcation between the sections. From
this time the equilibrium of political power was a matter of
first concern to a section of States and to a powerful
political interest. Mason and Dixon's line is extended toward
the west, and now marks a political division. The slave States
were now, and for the first time, clearly separated from the
free. A geographical line dividing the sections was
established."
_J. A. Woodburn,
Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise
(Report of American Historical Association, 1893),
pages 289-294._
ALSO IN:
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 2, chapter 9._
_J. Quincy,
Life of John Quincy Adams,
chapter 5._
_H. Greeley,
The American Conflict,
volume 1, chapter 7._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1819.
Admission of Alabama into the Union.
See ALABAMA: A. D. 1817-1819.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1819-1821.
Acquisition of Florida from Spain.
Definition of the boundary of the Louisiana Purchase.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1819-1821.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1820.
Admission of Maine into the Union as a State.
See MAINE: A. D. 1820;
also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1820.
Ninth Presidential Election.
"Monroe like Washington was re-chosen President by a vote
practically unanimous. One, however, of the 232 electoral
votes cast was wanting to consummate this exceptional honor;
for a New Hampshire elector, with a boldness of discretion
which, in our days and especially upon a close canvass, would
have condemned him to infamy, threw away upon John Quincy
Adams the vote which belonged like those of his colleagues to
Monroe, determined, so it is said, that no later mortal should
stand in Washington's shoes. Of America's Presidents elected
by virtual acclamation history furnishes but these two
examples; and as between the men honored by so unapproachable
a tribute of confidence, Monroe entered upon his second term
of office with less of real political opposition than
Washington."
_J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
chapter 10, section. 2 (volume 3)._
Daniel D. Tompkins was re-elected Vice President.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1820.
The Fourth Census.
Total population, 9,638,191 (an increase exceeding 33 per
cent. over the enumeration of 1810), classed and distributed
as follows:
North.
White. Free black. Slave.
Connecticut. 267,161 7,844 97
Illinois. 53,788 457 917
Indiana. 145,758 1,230 190
Maine. 297,340 929 0
Massachusetts. 516,419 6,740 0
Michigan. 8,591 174 0
New Hampshire. 243,236 786 0
New Jersey. 257,409 12,460 7,557
New York. 1,332,744 29,279 10,088
Ohio. 576,572 4,723 0
Pennsylvania. 1,017,094 30,202 211
Rhode Island. 79,413 3,554 48
Vermont. 234,846 903 0
--- --- ---
Total 5,030,371 99,281 19,108
South.
White. Free black. Slave.
Alabama. 85,451 571 41,879
Arkansas 12,579 59 1,617
Delaware. 55,282 12,958 4,509
District of
Columbia. 22,614 4,048 6,377
Georgia. 189,566 1,763 149,654
Kentucky. 434,644 2,759 126,732
Louisiana. 73,383 10,476 69,064
Maryland. 260,223 39,730 107,397
Mississippi. 42,176 458 32,814
Missouri. 55,988 347 10,222
North Carolina. 419,200 14,612 205,017
South Carolina. 237,440 6,826 258,475
Tennessee. 339,927 2,727 80,107
Virginia. 603,087 36,889 425,153
--- --- ---
Total 2,831,560 134,223 1,519,017
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1821.
Beginning of emigration to Texas.
See TEXAS: A. D. 1819-1835.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1824.
The Era of Good Feeling.
With the closing of the war of 1812-14, and the disappearance
of the party of the Federalists, there came a period of
remarkable quietude in the political world. "Then followed the
second administration of Monroe, to which was given, perhaps
by the President himself, a name which has secured for the
whole period a kind of peaceful eminence. It was probably
fixed and made permanent by two lines in Halleck's once famous
poem of 'Alnwick Castle,' evidently written during the poet's
residence in England in 1822-23. Speaking of the change from
the feudal to the commercial spirit, he says: "'Tis what our
President Monroe, Has called "the era of good feeling."' … It
would seem from this verse that Monroe himself was credited
with the authorship of the phrase; but I have been unable to
find it in his published speeches or messages, and it is
possible that it may be of newspaper origin, and that Halleck,
writing in England, may have fathered it on the President
himself."
_T. W. Higginson,
Larger History of the United States,
page 394._
{3363}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1823.
The enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine.
One lasting mark of distinction was given to the
administration of President Monroe by the importance which
came to be attached to his enunciation of the principle of
policy since known as the "Monroe Doctrine." This was simply a
formal and official statement of the national demand that
foreign nations shall not interfere with the affairs of the
two American continents. "There has been a good deal of
dispute as to the real authorship of this announcement,
Charles Francis Adams claiming it for his father, and Charles
Sumner for the English statesman Canning. Mr. Gilman, however,
in his late memoir of President Monroe, has shown with
exhaustive research that this doctrine had grown up gradually
into a national tradition before Monroe's time, and that he
merely formulated it, and made it a matter of distinct record.
The whole statement is contained in a few detached passages of
his message of December 2, 1823. In this he announces that
'the American continents, by the free and independent
condition which they have assumed and maintain, are not to be
considered as subjects for colonization by European powers.'
Further on he points out that the people of the United States
have kept aloof from European dissensions, and ask only in
return that North and South America should be equally let
alone. 'We should consider any attempt on their part to extend
their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to
our peace and safety;' and while no objection is made to any
existing colony or dependency of theirs, yet any further
intrusion or interference would be regarded as 'the
manifestation of an unfriendly spirit towards the United
States.' This in brief, is the 'Monroe doctrine' as originally
stated; and it will always remain a singular fact that this
President—the least original or commanding of those who early
held that office—should yet be the only one whose name is
identified with what amounts to a wholly new axiom of
international law."
_T. W. Higginson,
Larger History of the United States,
chapter 16._
"At a cabinet meeting May 13, 1818, President Monroe
propounded several questions on the subject of foreign
affairs, of which the fifth, as recorded by J. Q. Adams, was
this: 'Whether the ministers of the United States in Europe
shall be instructed that the United States will not join in
any project of interposition between Spain and the South
Americans, which should not be to promote the complete
independence of those provinces; and whether measures shall be
taken to ascertain if this be the policy of the British
government, and if so to establish a concert with them for the
support of this policy.' He adds that all these points were
discussed, without much difference of opinion. On July 31,
1818, Rush had an important interview with Castelreagh in
respect to a proposed mediation of Great Britain between Spain
and her colonies. The coöperation of the United States was
desired. Mr. Rush informed the British minister that 'the
United States would decline taking part, if they took part at
all, in any plan of pacification, except on the basis of the
independence of the colonies.' 'This,' he added, 'was the
determination to which his government had come on much
deliberation.' … Gallatin writes to J. Q. Adams, June 24,
1823, that before leaving Paris he had said to M.
Chateaubriand on May 13, 'The United States would undoubtedly
preserve their neutrality provided it were respected, and
avoid every interference with the politics of Europe. … On the
other hand, they would not suffer others to interfere against
the emancipation of America.' … After Canning had proposed to
Rush (September 19, 1823) that the United States should
coöperate with England in preventing European interference
with the Spanish-American colonies, Monroe consulted Jefferson
as well as the cabinet, on the course which it was advisable
to take, and with their approbation prepared his message. …
Enough has been quoted to show that Mr. Sumner is not
justified in saying that the 'Monroe doctrine proceeded from
Canning,' and that he was 'its inventor, promoter, and
champion, at least so far as it bears against European
intervention in American affairs.' Nevertheless, Canning is
entitled to high praise for the part which he took in the
recognition of the Spanish republics, a part which almost
justified his proud utterance, 'I called the New World into
existence to redress the balance of the Old.'"
_D. C. Gilman,
James Monroe,
chapter 7._
ALSO IN:
_C. Sumner,
Prophetic Voices concerning America,
page 157._
_G. F. Tucker,
The Monroe Doctrine._
_F. Wharton,
Digest of the International Law of the United States,
section 57 (volume 1)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824.
The Protective Tariff.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1816-1824.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824.
Tenth Presidential Election.
No choice by the People.
Election of John Quincy Adams by the House of Representatives.
"In 1823, as the Presidential election approached, the
influences to control and secure the interests predominating
in the different sections of the country became more active.
Crawford of Georgia, Calhoun of South Carolina, Adams of
Massachusetts, and Clay of Kentucky, were the most prominent
candidates. In December, Barbour of Virginia was superseded,
as Speaker of the House of Representatives, by Clay of
Kentucky; an event ominous to the hopes of Crawford, and to
that resistance to the tariff and to internal improvements
which was regarded as dependent on his success. The question
whether a Congressional caucus, by the instrumentality of
which Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe had obtained the
Presidency, should be again held to nominate a candidate for
that office, was the next cause of political excitement. The
Southern party, whose hopes rested on the success of Crawford,
were clamorous for a caucus. The friends of the other
candidates were either lukewarm or hostile to that expedient.
Pennsylvania, whose general policy favored a protective tariff
and public improvements, hesitated. … But the Democracy of
that state … held meetings at Philadelphia, and elsewhere,
recommending a Congressional caucus. This motion would have
been probably adopted, had not the Legislature of Alabama,
about this time, nominated Andrew Jackson for the Presidency,
and accompanied their resolutions in his favor with a
recommendation to their representatives to use their best
exertions to prevent a Congressional nomination of a
President. The popularity of Jackson, and the obvious
importance to his success of the policy recommended by
Alabama, fixed the wavering counsels of Pennsylvania, so that
only three representatives from that state attended the
Congressional caucus, which was soon after called, and which
consisted of only 60 members, out of 261, the whole number of
the House of Representatives; of which Virginia and New York,
under the lead of Mr. Van Buren, constituted nearly one half.
{3364}
Notwithstanding this meagre assemblage, Mr. Crawford was
nominated for the Presidency. … But the days of Congressional
caucuses were now numbered. The people took the nomination of
President into their own hands [and John Quincy Adams and
Henry Clay were brought into the field]. … The result of this
electioneering conflict was that, by the returns of the
electoral colleges of the several states, it appeared that
none of the candidates had the requisite constitutional
majority; the whole number of votes being 261—of which Andrew
Jackson had 99, John Quincy Adams 84, William H. Crawford 41,
and Henry Clay 37. [The popular vote cast as nearly as can be
determined, was: Jackson, 153,544; Adams, 108,740; Crawford,
46,618; Clay, 47,136.] For the office of Vice-President, John
C. Calhoun had 180 votes, and was elected. … Of the 84 votes
cast for Mr. Adams, not one was given by either of the three
great Southern slaveholding states. Seventy-seven were given
to him by New England and New York. The other seven were cast
by the Middle or recently admitted states. The selection of
President from the candidates now devolved on the House of
Representatives, under the provisions of the constitution.
But, again, Mr. Adams had the support of none of those
slaveholding states, with the exception of Kentucky, and her
delegates were equally divided between him and General
Jackson. The decisive vote was, in effect, in the hands of Mr.
Clay, then Speaker of the House, who cast it for Mr. Adams; a
responsibility he did not hesitate to assume, notwithstanding
the equal division of the Kentucky delegation, and in defiance
of a resolution passed by the Legislature of that state,
declaring their preference for General Jackson. On the final
vote Andrew Jackson had 7 votes, William H. Crawford 4, and
John Quincy Adams 13; who was, therefore, forthwith declared
President of the United States for four years ensuing the 4th
of March, 1825. … Immediately after his inauguration, Mr.
Adams appointed Henry Clay, of Kentucky, Secretary of State. …
General Jackson was deeply mortified and irritated by Mr.
Clay's preference of Mr. Adams. … He immediately put into
circulation among his friends and partisans an unqualified
statement to the effect that Mr. Adams had obtained the
Presidency by means of a corrupt bargain with Henry Clay, on
the condition that he should be elevated to the office of
Secretary of State. To this calumny Jackson gave his name and
authority, asserting that he possessed evidence of its truth;
and, although Mr. Clay and his friends publicly denied the
charge, and challenged proof of it, two years elapsed before
they could compel him to produce his evidence. This, when
adduced, proved utterly groundless, and the charge false; the
whole being but the creation of an irritated and disappointed
mind. Though detected and exposed, the calumny had the effect
for which it was calculated. Jackson's numerous partisans and
friends made it the source of an uninterrupted stream of abuse
upon Mr. Adams, through his whole administration."
_J. Quincy,
Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams,
chapters 6-7._
The new administration "stood upon the same political basis as
that of Mr. Monroe. It was but a continuance of the same party
ascendency. It looked to no change of measures, and to no
other change of men than became inevitably necessary to supply
the vacancies which the accidents of political life had
created. Mr. Clay was called to the State Department [and was
maliciously accused of having bargained for it when he threw
his influence at last in Mr. Adams' favor]. … The country …
indulged the hope of a prosperous career in the track which
had been opened by Mr. Madison, and so successfully pursued by
Mr. Monroe. Less confidently, however, it indulged the hope of
a continuance of that immunity from party contention and
exasperation which had characterized the last eight years. The
rising of an opposition was seen, at the very commencement of
this administration, like a dark cloud upon the horizon, which
gradually spread towards the zenith, not without much rumbling
of distant thunder and angry flashes of fire. It was quite
obvious to shrewd observers that the late election had
disappointed many eager spirits, whose discontent was likely
to make head against the predominant party, and, by uniting
the scattered fragments of an opposition which had heretofore
only slept, whilst the country had supposed it extinct, would
present a very formidable antagonist to the new
administration. The extraordinary popularity of General
Jackson, the defeat of his friends by the vote of the House of
Representatives, the neutrality of his political position, his
avowed toleration towards political opponents, and what was
thought to be his liberal views in regard to prominent
political measures—for as yet nothing was developed in his
opinions to set him in direct opposition to the policy or
principles which governed the administration either of Madison
or Monroe—all these considerations gave great strength to the
position which he now occupied, and, in the same degree,
emboldened the hopes of those who looked to him as the proper
person to dispute the next election against the present
incumbent. Many of those who had hoped to see the reign of
good feeling and of abstinence from party strife prolonged,
will remember with what surprise they saw this gathering of
hostile elements, and heard it proclaimed by an authoritative
political leader [Colonel Richard M. Johnson], in the first
days of the new administration, that it should be and ought to
be opposed, 'even if it were as pure as the angels at the
right hand of the throne of God.' Such a declaration was not
less ominous of what was to come than it was startling for its
boldness and its novelty in the history of the government. …
The opposition … took an organized form—became compact,
eager, intolerant and even vindictive."
_J. P. Kennedy,
Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt,
volume 2, chapter 10._
"Monroe was the last President of the Virginian line, John
Quincy Adams the last from New England. The centre of power
was passing from the east to the west. Adams was a genuine New
Englander of the Puritan stock, austerely moral, from his
boyhood laboriously self-trained, not only staid but solemn in
his teens, intensely self-conscious, ever engaged in
self-examination, the punctual keeper of a voluminous diary,
an invariably early riser, a daily reader of the Bible even in
the White House, scrupulously methodical and strictly upright
in all his ways; but testy, unconciliatory, unsympathetic,
absolutely destitute of all the arts by which popularity is
won.
{3365}
His election does the highest credit to the respect of the
electors for public virtue unadorned. The peculiar features of
his father's character were so intensified in him that he may
be deemed the typical figure rather than his father. In
opinions he was a Federalist who having broken with his party
on the question of foreign relations and the embargo had been
put out of its pale but had retained its general mould. As he
was about the last President chosen for merit not for
availability, so he was about the last whose only rule was not
party but the public service. So strictly did he observe the
principle of permanency and purity in the Civil Service, that
he refused to dismiss from office a Postmaster-General whom he
knew to be intriguing against him. The demagogic era had come
but he would not recognize its coming. He absolutely refused
to go on the stump, to conciliate the press, to do anything
for the purpose of courting popularity and making himself a
party. His obstinacy was fatal to his ambition but is not
dishonourable to his memory."
_Goldwin Smith,
The United States,
chapter 4._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824-1825.
The visit of Lafayette.
One of the most deeply interesting events of the year 1824 was
the arrival in the country of the honored Lafayette, companion
of Washington and friend of the American Republic in its
struggle for independence. He came on the invitation of the
national Government and was entertained as its guest. "He
arrived at Staten Island on Sunday, 15th of August, 1824,
accompanied by his son, George Washington Lafayette, and his
son-in-]aw, M. Le Vasseur. Here he remained until Monday, and
was then met and welcomed by a distinguished committee from
New York, who escorted him to that city. … The arrival of
Lafayette was an event which stirred the whole country;
everybody was anxious to see him, and every State and city in
the Union extended an invitation to him to visit such State or
city; and he did so, being everywhere received with the most
enthusiastic manifestations of love and respect. … He spent a
little over a year in the United States, traveling most of the
time. … Having visited every portion of the United States and
received the affectionate homage of the people, General
Lafayette returned to Washington, where he became in fact 'the
Nation's Guest' at the Presidential mansion. Soon after the
meeting of Congress, in December, 1824, a bill was reported by
a joint committee of the two Houses granting to him a township
of land and the sum of $200,000, which became a law."
_N. Sargent,
Public Men and Events, 1817-1853,
volume 1, page 89-91._
ALSO IN:
_A. Levasseur,
Lafayette in America, in 1824-1825._
_B. Tuckerman,
Life of General Lafayette,
volume 2, chapter 7._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824-1836.
Schemes of the Slave Power for acquiring Texas.
See TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1825-1828.
Opposition to the Administration.
The question of Internal Improvements.
Reconstruction of Parties.
Democrats and National Republicans.
The inaugural address of President Adams "furnished a topic"
against him, and "went to the reconstruction of parties on the
old line of strict, or latitudinous, construction of the
constitution. It was the topic of internal national
improvement by the federal government. The address extolled
the value of such works, considered the constitutional
objections as yielding to the force of argument, expressed the
hope that every speculative (constitutional) scruple would be
solved in a practical blessing; and declared the belief that,
in the execution of such works, posterity would derive a
fervent gratitude to the founders of our Union and most deeply
feel and acknowledge the beneficent action of our government.
The declaration of principles which would give so much power
to the government … alarmed the old republicans, and gave a
new ground of opposition to Mr. Adams's administration, in
addition to the strong one growing out of the election in the
House of Representatives. … This new ground of opposition was
greatly strengthened at the delivery of the first annual
message, in which the topic of internal improvement was again
largely enforced, other subjects recommended which would
require a liberal use of constructive powers, and Congress
informed that the President had accepted an invitation from
the American States of Spanish origin, to send ministers to
their proposed Congress on the Isthmus of Panama.
See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1826.
It was, therefore, clear from the beginning that the new
administration was to have a settled and strong opposition. …
There was opposition in the Senate to the confirmation of Mr.
Clay's nomination to the State department, growing out of his
support of Mr. Adams in the election of the House of
Representatives, and acceptance of office from him; but
overruled by a majority of two to one."
_T. H. Benton,
Thirty Years' View,
volume 1, chapter 21._
"From the very beginning of this Administration both factions
of the Strict Constructionists united in an opposition to the
President which became stronger through his whole term of
office, until it overcame him. His ill-advised nomination of
Clay to a post in his Cabinet gave color to the charge of a
corrupt bargain between him and Clay, by which Adams was to
receive the Clay vote in the House, and Clay was to be
rewarded by the position of Secretary of State, which was then
usually considered a stepping stone to the Presidency. Clay
angrily denied any such bargain, and the renewal of charges
and denials, each with its appropriate arguments, gave
abundant material for debate. The Clay and Adams factions soon
united and took the distinctive party name of National
Republicans. Some years afterward this name was changed to
that of Whigs. They maintained the loose constructionist
principles of the Federalists, and, in addition, desired a
Protective Tariff and a system of public improvements at
national expense. … In October, 1825, the Tennessee
Legislature nominated Jackson for the Presidency in 1828, and
Jackson accepted the nomination. Crawford's continued
ill-health compelled his adherents to look elsewhere for a
candidate, and they gradually united upon Jackson. At first
the resulting coalition was known as 'Jackson Men,' but, as
they began to take the character of a national party, they
assumed the name of Democrats, by which they have since been
known. They maintained the strict constructionist principles
of the Republican party, though the Crawford faction in the
South went further, and held the extreme ground of the
Kentucky Resolutions of 1799."
_A. Johnston,
History of American Politics, 2d edition,
chapter 11._
ALSO IN:
_C. Schurz,
Life of Henry Clay,
volume 1, chapters 10-12._
{3366}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828.
The Tariff "Bill of Abominations."
Change of front in New England.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES: A. D. 1828).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828.
Eleventh Presidential Election.
Triumph of Jackson and the new Democracy.
Andrew Jackson was again put in nomination for the Presidency,
while President Adams was supported for re-election by the
National Republicans. "The campaign was conducted, on both
sides, on very ruthless methods. Niles said it was worse than
the campaign of 1798. Campaign extras of the 'Telegraph' were
issued weekly, containing partisan material, refutations of
charges against Jackson, and slanders on Adams and Clay. The
Adams party also published a monthly of a similar character.
The country was deluged with pamphlets on both sides. These
pamphlets were very poor stuff, and contain nothing important
on any of the issues. They all appeal to low tastes and
motives, prejudices and jealousies. … In September, 1827, the
Tammany General Committee and the Albany 'Argus' came out for
Jackson, as it had been determined, in the programme, that
they should do. A law was passed for casting the vote of New
York in 1828 by districts. The days of voting throughout the
country ranged from October 31st to November 19th. The votes
were cast by the Legislature in Delaware and South Carolina;
by districts in Maine, New York, Maryland, Tennessee;
elsewhere, by general ticket. Jackson got 178 votes to 83 for
Adams. The popular vote was 648,273 for Jackson; 508,064 for
Adams. Jackson got only one vote in New England. … For
Vice-President, Richard Rush got all the Adams votes; Calhoun
[who was elected] got all the Jackson votes except 7 of
Georgia, which were given to William Smith, of South Carolina.
General Jackson was therefore triumphantly elected President
of the United States, in the name of reform, and as the
standard-bearer of the people, rising in their might to
overthrow an extravagant, corrupt, aristocratic, federalist
administration, which had encroached on the liberties of the
people, and had aimed to corrupt elections by an abuse of
federal patronage. Many people believed this picture of
Adams's administration to be true. Andrew Jackson no doubt
believed it. Many people believe it yet. Perhaps no
administration, except that of the elder Adams, is under such
odium. There is not, however, in our history any
administration which, upon a severe and impartial scrutiny,
appears more worthy of respectful and honorable memory. Its
chief fault was that it was too good for the wicked world in
which it found itself. In 1836 Adams said, in the House, that
he had never removed one person from office for political
causes, and that he thought that was one of the principal
reasons why he was not reëlected."
_W. G. Sumner,
Andrew Jackson as a Public Man,
chapter 5._
"In this election there was a circumstance to be known and
remembered. Mr. Adams and Mr. Rush were both from the
non-slaveholding, General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun from the
slaveholding States, and both large slave owners themselves,
and both received a large vote (73 each) in the free
States—and of which at least 40 were indispensable to their
election. There was no jealousy, or hostile or aggressive
spirit in the North at that time against the South!"
_T. H. Benton,
Thirty Years' View,
volume 1, chapter 38._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828-1833.
The Nullification doctrine and ordinance of South Carolina.
The Hayne and Webster debate.
President Jackson's proclamation.
The Compromise Tariff.
"In May, 1828, a meeting of the South Carolina delegation in
Congress was held in Washington, at the rooms of General
Hayne, one of the Senators of that State, to concert measures
against the tariff and the protective policy which it
embodied. From the history of the times, and the disclosures
subsequently made, it is apparent that some violent things
were said at this meeting, but it broke up without any
definite plan. In the course of the following summer, there
were many popular meetings in South Carolina, largely
attended, at which the tariff of 1824 was treated as an act of
despotism and usurpation, which ought to be openly resisted. …
They occasioned anxiety and regret among the friends of the
Union throughout the country, though nothing more. But, in the
autumn, the Legislature of South Carolina adopted an
'Exposition and Protest,' which gave form and substance to the
doctrines which thenceforward became known as 'Nullification.'
In order to understand them, however, as a theory of the
Federal Constitution, it is necessary to state the theory to
which they are opposed, and to overthrow which they were
brought forward. The Government of the United States, under
the Constitution, had hitherto been administered upon the
principle that the extent of its powers is to be finally
determined by its supreme judicial tribunal, not only when
there is any conflict of authority between its several
departments, but also when the authority of the whole
Government is denied by one or more of the States. … Aside
from the authority of [the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions
of 1798]—an authority that was doubtful, because their
interpretation was not clear—there had been no important
assertion of the principle that a State can determine for its
citizens whether they are to obey an act of Congress, by
asserting its unconstitutional character, and that the right
to do this is implied as a right inherent in a State, under
the Constitution, and results from the nature of the
Government. This, however, was what the advocates of
nullification now undertook to establish. The remedy which
they sought, against acts which they regarded as usurpations,
was not revolution, and not the breaking up the Union, as they
claimed; but it was a remedy which they held to exist within
the Union, and to have been contemplated by the people of the
States when they established the Constitution. How far they
considered such a theory compatible with the continued
existence of the Union, I am not aware that they undertook to
explain. … Although the Legislature of South Carolina had thus
propounded a theory of resistance, and held that there was
then a case in the tariff which would justify a resort to it,
no steps were yet taken toward the immediate exercise of the
asserted power." In the great debate between General Hayne of
South Carolina and Daniel Webster, which occurred in the
Senate, in January, 1830, the doctrine of nullification
received for the first time a discussion which sank deep into
the mind of the nation.
{3367}
The original subject-matter of the debate was a resolution
relating to Western land sales; but Hayne in his first speech
made an attack on New England which drew out Webster in
vindication, and then, when the South Carolinian replied, he
boldly and broadly set forth the nullifying theory which his
State had accepted from the sophistical brain of John C.
Calhoun. It received its refutation then and there, in
Webster's final speech. "The effect of this speech upon the
country, that immediately followed its delivery, it is not
easy for us at the present day to measure. … Vast numbers of
Mr. Webster's speech were … published and circulated in
pamphlet editions, after all the principal newspapers of the
country had given it entire to their readers. The popular
verdict, throughout the Northern and Western and many of the
Southern States was decisive. A great majority of the people
of the United States, of all parties, understood, appreciated,
and accepted the view maintained by Mr. Webster of the nature
of the Constitution, and the character of the government which
it establishes."
_G. T. Curtis,
Life of Daniel Webster,
chapter 16 (volume 1)._
If Webster's speech had solidified the majority opinion of the
country in resistance to nullification, it had not paralyzed
the nullifying movement. In the summer of 1831, and again in
August, 1832, Calhoun published addresses to the people of
South Carolina, elaborating his doctrine, and "urging an
immediate issue on account of the oppressive tariff
legislation under which the South was then suffering. The
Legislature of South Carolina was convened by the governor to
meet on October 22, for the purpose of calling a convention
'to consider the character and extent of the usurpations of
the general government.' The convention met on November 19,
and adopted without delay an 'ordinance' declaring that the
tariff act of 1828, and the amendments thereto passed in 1832,
were null and void; that it should be held unlawful to enforce
the payment of duties thereunder within the State of South
Carolina; that it should be the duty of the legislature to
make laws giving effect to the ordinance; … and that, if the
general government should attempt to use force to maintain the
authority of the federal law, the State of South Carolina
would secede from the Union,—the ordinance to go into full
effect on February 1, 1833. The legislature, which met again
on November 19, passed the 'appropriate' laws. But these
enactments were not very fierce; as Webster said, they 'limped
far behind the ordinance.' Some preparation, although little,
was made for a conflict of arms;" nor was there any certain
show of readiness in other Southern States to stand by South
Carolina in the position she had taken. "President Jackson's
annual message, which went to Congress on December 4, 1832,
was remarkably quiet in tone," and neither alarmed the
nullifiers nor gave confidence to the friends of the Union;
but "six days later, on December 10, came out Jackson's famous
proclamation against the nullifiers, which spoke thus: 'The
Constitution of the United States forms a government, not a
league. … Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of
giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them.
To say that any state may at pleasure secede from the Union is
to say that the United States are not a nation.' He appealed
to the people of South Carolina, in the tone of a father, to
desist from their ruinous enterprise; but he gave them also
clearly to understand that, if they resisted by force, the
whole power of the Union would be exerted to maintain its
authority. All over the North, even where Jackson had been
least popular, the proclamation was hailed with unbounded
enthusiasm. … The nullifiers in South Carolina received the
presidential manifesto apparently with defiance. The governor
of the state issued a counter-proclamation. Calhoun resigned
the vice-presidency, and was immediately sent to the Senate to
fight the battle for nullification there." The president, now
thoroughly roused, called on Congress for extraordinary powers
to meet the emergency, and a bill embodying his wishes—called
the "Force Bill"—was introduced. But, at the same time, while
they showed this bold front to the nullifiers, Congress and
the executive began to prepare a retreat from the ground they
had held on the tariff. Henry Clay took the field again, in
the exercise of his peculiar talents for compromise, and the
result was the nearly simultaneous passage (February 26 and
27, 1833) through Congress of the "Force bill" and of a
compromise tariff bill, which latter provided for a graduated
reduction of the duties year by year, until 1842, when they
should stand at 20 per cent., as a horizontal rate, with a
large free-list. "The first object of the measure was
attained: South Carolina repealed her nullification ordinance.
… But before long it became clear that beyond the repeal of
the nullification ordinance, the compromise had settled
nothing. The nullifiers strenuously denied that they had in
any sense given up their peculiar doctrine."
_C. Schurz,
Life of Henry Clay,
chapter 14 (volume 2)._
"The theory of nullification, as set forth by Calhoun, even
now, after it has received the benefit of careful study and
able expounding by historians, is not clear. He always avowed
a loyalty to the Union, but the arguments by which he sought
to demonstrate that nullification was compatible with the
existence of the Union, and indeed a guarantee of its
perpetuity, did not occasion much solicitude to the majority
of his party. But no one at the North understood the fallacy
of his reasoning or the real end and aim of his party more
clearly than did the Union men of his state. They reasoned
simply. Said the Camden, S. C. 'Gazette': 'We know of only two
ways, under our government, to get rid of obnoxious
legislation. We must convince a majority of the nation that a
given enactment is wrong and have it repealed in the form
prescribed by the constitution, or resist it
extra-constitutionally by the sword. … But this everlasting
cant of devotion to the Union, accompanied by a recommendation
to do those acts that must necessarily destroy it, is beyond
patient endurance from a people not absolutely confined in
their own mad-houses.' … A fact … that historians have failed
to lay any stress upon, and that nevertheless deserves some
notice, is the holding of a state convention of the Union
party of South Carolina immediately after the nullification
convention had completed its work. It was the last important
action of that party in the state.
{3368}
Randell Hunt, who presented the first resolutions, epitomized
the views of the convention and the question it should
consider in three sentences: 'That the Union party
acknowledges no allegiance to any government except that of
the United States. That in referring this resolution to the
general committee they be instructed to inquire whether it is
not expedient to give a military organization to the Union
party throughout the state. Whether it will not be necessary
to call in the assistance of the general government for
maintaining the laws of the United States against the
arbitrary violence which is threatened by the late
convention.' The resolutions which were adopted declared that
the ordinance of nullification violated the constitution of
the United States and had virtually destroyed the Union, since
by preventing the general government from enforcing its laws
within the boundaries of the state, it made the state a
sovereignty paramount to the United States. They denounced the
provisions of the ordinance as tyrannical and oppressive, and
the test oath as especially incompatible with civil liberty,
in that it disfranchised nearly half the citizens of the
state. They pointed scornfully to the project of a standing
army in the state. … They concluded by declaring the continued
opposition of the signers to the tariff, and their
determination to protect themselves against intolerable
oppression. The resolutions were signed by all the members of
the convention, about 180 in number. In point of fact, the
Unionists were not disposed to favor any compromise measures,
and looked rather with disfavor upon Mr. Clay's bill, as a
measure which was being forced upon the country. Congress,
they thought, ought not to modify the tariff until the
nullification ordinance had been repealed. But the greater
force was with the nullifiers, and the number of their
opponents was dwindling. Caught by the enthusiasm and fighting
spirit of their neighbors, some of the Unionists joined the
nullification military companies that were being organized,
and others, seeing the hopelessness of the struggle against a
superior force, in sorrow and disgust shook the dust of South
Carolina from their feet, preferring to begin life over again
in other parts of the South, less charged with sentiments that
they believed to be treasonable. … The Unionist party, crushed
and helpless, was only too anxious to bury all feuds. It never
was an active force in the state again, but the bold spirit
which had actuated its members was manifested later, when the
struggle for state sovereignty was more widespread; and some
of the most intrepid Union men of the South in the civil war
were those who had fled from South Carolina years before, when
the nullification party had triumphed."
_G. Hunt,
South Carolina during the Nullification Struggle
(Political Science Quarterly, June, 1891)._
ALSO IN:
_W. G. Sumner,
Andrew Jackson as a Public Man,
chapters 10 and 13._
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 12._
_J. Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson,
volume 3, chapters 32-34._
_T. H. Benton,
Thirty Years' View,
volume 1, chapters 78-89._
_J. C. Calhoun,
Works,
volume 6
(Reports and Public Letters)._
_O. L. Elliott,
The Tariff Controversy in the United States,
chapter 5._
The following is the text of the "Ordinance to nullify certain
acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be
laws laying duties and imposts on the importation of foreign
commodities," adopted by the State Convention of South
Carolina on the 24th of November, 1832:
"Whereas the Congress of the United States by various acts,
purporting to be acts laying duties and imposts on foreign
imports, but in reality intended for the protection of
domestic manufactures, and the giving of bounties to classes
and individuals engaged in particular employments, at the
expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes and
individuals, and by wholly exempting from taxation certain
foreign commodities, such as are not produced or manufactured
in the United States, to afford a pretext for imposing higher
and excessive duties on articles similar to those intended to
be protected, hath exceeded its just powers under the
constitution, which confers on it no authority to afford such
protection, and hath violated the true meaning and intent of
the constitution, which provides for equality in imposing the
burdens of taxation upon the several States and portions of
the confederacy: And whereas the said Congress, exceeding its
just power to impose taxes and collect revenue for the purpose
of effecting and accomplishing the specific objects and
purposes which the constitution of the United States
authorizes it to effect and accomplish, hath raised and
collected unnecessary revenue for objects unauthorized by the
constitution. We, therefore, the people of the State of South
Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and
it is hereby declared and ordained, that the several acts and
parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting
to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the
importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual
operation and effect within the United States, and, more
especially, an act entitled 'An act in alteration of the
several acts imposing duties on imports,' approved on the
nineteenth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and
twenty-eight, and also an act entitled 'An act to alter and
amend the several acts imposing duties on imports,' approved
on the fourteenth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and
thirty-two, are unauthorized by the constitution of the United
States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and
are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its
officers or citizens; and all promises, contracts, and
obligations, made or entered into, or to be made or entered
into, with purpose to secure the duties imposed by said acts,
and all judicial proceedings which shall be hereafter had in
affirmance thereof, are and shall be held utterly null and
void. And it is further ordained, that it shall not be lawful
for any of the constituted authorities, whether of this State
or of the United States, to enforce the payment of duties
imposed by the said acts within the limits of this State; but
it shall be the duty of the legislature to adopt such measures
and pass such acts as may be necessary to give full effect to
this ordinance, and to prevent the enforcement and arrest the
operation of the said acts and parts of acts of the Congress
of the United States within the limits of this State, from and
after the 1st day of February next, and the duty of all other
constituted authorities, and of all persons residing or being
within the limits of this State, and they are hereby required
and enjoined to obey and give effect to this ordinance, and
such acts and measures of the legislature as may be passed or
adopted in obedience thereto.
{3369}
And it is further ordained, that in no case of law or equity,
decided in the courts of this State, wherein shall be drawn in
question the authority of this ordinance, or the validity of
such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed for the
purpose of giving effect thereto, or the validity of the
aforesaid acts of Congress, imposing duties, shall any appeal
be taken or allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States,
nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or allowed for
that purpose; and if any such appeal shall be attempted to be
taken, the courts of this State shall proceed to execute and
enforce their judgments according to the laws and usages of
the State, without reference to such attempted appeal, and the
person or persons attempting to take such appeal may be dealt
with as for a contempt of the court. And it is further
ordained, that all persons now holding any office of honor,
profit, or trust, civil or military, under this State (members
of the legislature excepted), shall, within such time, and in
such manner as the legislature shall prescribe, take an oath
well and truly to obey, execute, and enforce this ordinance,
and such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed in
pursuance thereof, according to the true intent and meaning of
the same; and on the neglect or omission of any such person or
persons so to do, his or their office or offices shall be
forthwith vacated, and shall be filled up as if such person or
persons were dead or had resigned; and no person hereafter
elected to any office of honor, profit, or trust, civil or
military (members of the legislature excepted), shall, until
the legislature shall otherwise provide and direct, enter on
the execution of his office, or be in any respect competent to
discharge the duties thereof until he shall, in like manner,
have taken a similar oath; and no juror shall be empanelled in
any of the courts of this State, in any cause in which shall
be in question this ordinance, or any act of the legislature
passed in pursuance thereof, unless he shall first, in
addition to the usual oath, have taken an oath that he will
well and truly obey, execute, and enforce this ordinance, and
such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed to carry
the same into operation and effect, according to the true
intent and meaning thereof. And we, the people of South
Carolina, to the end that it may be fully understood by the
government of the United States, and the people of the
co-States, that we are determined to maintain this our
ordinance and declaration, at every hazard, do further declare
that we will not submit to the application of force on the
part of the federal government, to reduce this State to
obedience; but that we will consider the passage, by Congress,
of any act authorizing the employment of a military or naval
force against the State of South Carolina, her constitutional
authorities or citizens; or any act abolishing or closing the
ports of this State, or any of them, or otherwise obstructing
the free ingress and egress of vessels to and from the said
ports, or any other act on the part of the federal government,
to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her
commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null
and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the
country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South
Carolina in the Union; and that the people of this State will
henceforth hold themselves absolved from all further
obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection
with the people of the other States; and will forthwith
proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other
acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of
right do. Done in convention at Columbia, the twenty-fourth
day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
hundred and thirty-two, and in the fifty-seventh year of the
declaration of the independence of the United States of
America."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829.
Introduction of the "Spoils System."
See CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829.
The Kitchen Cabinet of President Jackson.
Major Lewis, one of the Tennessee friends of General Jackson,
who accompanied him to Washington and was persuaded to remain,
with his residence at the White House; General Duff Green,
editor of the "United States Telegraph"; Isaac Hill, editor of
the "New Hampshire Patriot," and Amos Kendall, late the editor
of a Jackson paper in Kentucky, but a native of
Massachusetts:—"these were the gentlemen … who, at the
beginning of the new administration, were supposed to have
most of the President's ear and confidence, and were
stigmatized by the opposition as the Kitchen Cabinet."
_J. Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson,
volume 3, chapter 16._
After the breach between Jackson and Calhoun, Duff Green
adhered to the latter. The "Globe" newspaper was then founded,
to be the organ of the administration, and Francis P. Blair,
called from Kentucky to undertake the editorship, acquired at
the same time Duff Green's vacated seat in the Kitchen
Cabinet.
_J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
volume 3, page 501._
"The establishment of the 'Globe,' the rupture with Calhoun,
and the breaking up of the first cabinet had inaugurated a
bitter war between the two rival papers, though really between
the President and Mr. Calhoun, in consequence of which there
were rich revelations made to the public."
_N. Sargent,
Public Men and Events, 1817-1853,
volume 1, page 186._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829-1832.
Rise of the Abolitionists.
"Between the years 1829 and 1832 took place a remarkable
series of debates in Virginia on the subject of slavery,
brought about by dissatisfaction with the State constitution
and by the Nat Turner massacre, in which a number of slaves
had risen against their masters. In these debates the evils of
slavery were exposed as clearly as they were afterwards by the
Abolitionists, and with an outspoken freedom which, when
indulged in by Northern men, was soon to be denounced as
treasonable and incendiary. These Southern speakers were
silenced by the Slave Power. But there were men in the North
who thought the same and who would not be silenced. Chief
among these was William Lloyd Garrison. He had begun his
memorable career by circulating petitions in Vermont in 1828
in favor of emancipation in the District of Columbia. Having
joined Lundy in Baltimore in editing the 'Genius of Universal
Emancipation,' he had suffered ignominy in the cause, in a
Southern jail; drawing from persecution and hardship only new
inspiration, he began the publication of the 'Liberator', at
Boston in January, 1831.
{3370}
In the following year, under his leadership, was formed the
New England Anti-Slavery Society, which placed itself on the
new ground that immediate, unconditional emancipation, without
expatriation, was the right of every slave and could not be
withheld by his master an hour without sin. In March, 1833,
the 'Weekly Emancipator' was established in New York, with the
assistance of Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and under the
editorship of William Goodell. In the same year appeared at
Haverhill, Massachusetts, a vigorous pamphlet by John G.
Whittier, entitled 'Justice and Expediency, or Slavery
considered with a View to its Rightful and Effectual Remedy,
Abolition.' Nearly simultaneously were published Mrs. Lydia
Maria Child's 'Appeal in Behalf of that Class of Americans
called Africans,' and a pamphlet by Elizur Wright, Jr., a
professor in the Western Reserve College, on 'The Sin of
Slavery and its Remedy.' These publications and the doctrines
of the 'Liberator' produced great excitement throughout the
country."
_B. Tuckerman,
William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the
Abolition of Slavery,
chapter 3._
The "Liberator" "was a weekly journal, bearing the names of
William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp as publishers. Its
motto was, 'Our Country is the World, Our Countrymen are
Mankind,' a direct challenge to those whose motto was the
Jingo cry of those days, 'Our Country, right or wrong!' It was
a modest folio, with a page of four columns, measuring
fourteen inches by nine and a quarter. … The paper had not a
dollar of capital. It was printed at first with borrowed type.
Garrison and Knapp did all the work of every kind between
them, Garrison of course doing the editorials. That he wrote
them can hardly be said: his habit was often to set up without
manuscript. … The publishers announced in their first issue
their determination to go on as long as they had bread and
water to live on. In fact, they lived on bread and milk, with
a little fruit and a few cakes, which they bought in small
shops below. Garrison apologizes for the meagreness of the
editorials, which, he says, he has but six hours, and those at
midnight, to compose, all the rest of his time and the whole
of that of his companion being taken up by the mechanical
work. … It was against nothing less than the world, or at
least the world in which he lived, that this youth of
twenty-six, with his humble partner, took up arms. Slavery was
at the height of its power. … The salutatory of the
'Liberator' avowed that its editor meant to speak out without
restraint. 'I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising
as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think or speak or
write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on
fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue
his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to
gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has
fallen—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the
present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not
excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.'
This promise was amply kept. … In private and in his family he
was all gentleness and affection. Let it be said, too, that he
set a noble example to controversial editors in his fair
treatment of his opponents. Not only did he always give
insertion to their replies, but he copied their criticisms
from other journals into his own. Fighting for freedom of
discussion, he was ever loyal to his own principle. What is
certain is that the 'Liberator,' in spite of the smallness of
its circulation, which was hardly enough to keep it alive,
soon told. The South was moved to its centre. The editorials
probably would not have caused much alarm, as the slaves could
not read. What was likely to cause more alarm was the
frontispiece, which spoke plainly enough to the slave's eye.
It represented an auction at which 'slaves, horses and other
cattle' were being offered for sale, and a whipping-post at
which a slave was being flogged. In the background was the
Capitol at Washington, with a flag inscribed 'Liberty'
floating over the dome. … On seeing the 'Liberator' the realm
of slavery bestirred itself. A Vigilance Association took the
matter in hand. First came fiery and bloodthirsty editorials;
then anonymous threats; then attempts by legal enactment to
prevent the circulation of the 'Liberator' at the South. The
Grand Jury of North Carolina found a true bill against
Garrison for the circulation of a paper of seditious tendency,
the penalty for which was whipping and imprisonment for the
first offence, and death without benefit of clergy for the
second. The General Assembly of Georgia offered a reward of
five thousand dollars to anyone who, under the laws of that
State, should arrest the editor of the 'Liberator', bring him
to trial, and prosecute him to conviction. The South
reproached Boston with allowing a battery to be planted on her
soil against the ramparts of Southern institutions. Boston
felt the reproach, and showed that she would gladly have
suppressed the incendiary print and perhaps have delivered up
its editor; but the law was against her, and the mass of the
people, though wavering in their allegiance to morality on the
question of slavery, were still loyal to freedom of opinion. …
It was just at this time that the South and its clientage at
the North were thrown into a paroxysm of excitement by the
Bloody Monday, as Nat Turner's rising at Southampton was
called. The rising was easily suppressed, and Virginia saw, as
Jamaica has since seen, how cruel is the panic of a dominant
race. Not the slightest connection of the outbreak with
Northern abolitionism was traced. That Garrison or anyone
connected with him ever incited the slaves to revolt, or said
a word intentionally which could lead to servile war, seems to
be utterly untrue. His preaching to the slaves, on the
contrary, was always patience, submission, abstinence from
violence, while in his own moral code he carried
non-resistance to an extreme. Moreover, his championship held
out hope, and what goads to insurrection is despair."
_Goldwin Smith,
William Lloyd Garrison,
pages 60-65._
"Mr. Emerson once said, 'Eloquence is dog-cheap in
anti-slavery meetings.' … On the platform you would always see
Garrison; with him was … Sam May. Stephen S. Foster was always
there. … Parker Pilsbury, James Buffum, Arnold Buffum, Elizur
Wright, Henry C. Wright, Abigail Kelley, Lucy Stone, Theo. D.
Weld, the sisters Grimké, from South Carolina; John T.
Sargent, Mrs. Chapman, Mrs. Lydia M. Child, Fred Douglas, Wm.
W. Brown and Francis Jackson. The last was a stern Puritan,
conscientious, upright, clear-minded, universally respected.
Edmund Quincy also was there, and he never spoke without
saying something that had a touch of wit as well as of logic.
Oliver Johnson … was one of the very first members of the
Society. Theodore Parker, Samuel J. May, John Pierpont,
Charles L. Stearns, Charles L. Redwood, George Thompson
(another wonderfully eloquent man), and, above all, Wendell
Phillips."
_J. F. Clarke,
Anti-Slavery Days,
chapter 3._
See, also, SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1828-1832.
{3371}
A. D. 1830.
The Fifth Census.
Total population, 12,866,020 (being about 33½ per cent. more
than in 1820), classed and distributed as follows:
North.
White. Free black. Slave.
Connecticut. 289,603 8,047 25
Illinois. 155,061 1,637 747
Indiana. 339,399 3,629 3
Maine 398,263 1,190 2
Massachusetts. 603,359 7,048 1
Michigan. 31,346 261 32
New Hampshire. 268,721 604 3
New Jersey. 300,266 18,303 2,254
New york. 1,873,663 44,870 75
Ohio. 928,329 9,568 6
Pennsylvania. 1,309,900 37,930 403
Rhode Island. 93,621 3,561 17
Vermont. 279,771 881 0
Total 6,871,302 137,529 3,568
South.
White. Free black. Slave.
Alabama. 190,406 1,572 117,549
Arkansas. 25,671 141 4,576
Delaware. 57,601 15,855 3,292
District of Columbia. 27,563 6,152 6,119
Florida. 18,385 844 15,501
Georgia. 296,806 2,486 217,531
Kentucky. 517,787 4,917 165,213
Louisiana. 89,441 16,710 109,588
Maryland. 291,108 52,938 102,994
Mississippi 70,443 519 65,659
Missouri. 114,795 569 25,091
North Carolina. 472,843 19,543 245,601
South Carolina. 257,863 7,921 315,401
Tennessee. 535,746 4,555 141,603
Virginia. 694,300 47,348 469,757
Total 3,660,758 182,070 2,005,475
In the decade between 1820 and 1830 the immigrant arrivals in
the United States, as officially recorded, numbered 143,439,
of which 75,803 were from the British Islands. Prior to 1821,
there is no official record of immigration.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1830-1831.
The first railroads.
See STEAM LOCOMOTION ON LAND.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1832.
The Black Hawk War.
See ILLINOIS: A. D. 1832.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1832.
The prospective surplus and necessary tariff reduction.
Clay's delusive measure.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1832.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1832.
Twelfth Presidential Election.
Re-election of General Jackson.
General Jackson, renominated by his party almost without
question, was re-elected over three competitors, the popular
vote being as follows: Andrew Jackson, Democrat, 687,502;
Henry Clay, National Republican, 530,189; William Wirt,
Anti-Masonic, 33,108; John Floyd (voted for only in South
Carolina, where electors were chosen by the legislature). The
vote in the electoral college stood: Jackson 219, Clay 49,
Floyd 11, Wirt 7. Martin Van Buren was elected Vice President.
"This election is notable for several reasons. It marks the
beginning of the system of national nominating conventions; it
gave Jackson a second term of office, in which he was to
display his peculiar qualities more conspicuously than ever;
it compacted and gave distinct character to the new Democratic
party; and it practically settled directly the fate of the
Bank of the United States, and indirectly the question of
nullification. Jackson was easily re-elected, for he had
established a great popularity, and the opposition was
divided. A new party came into the field, and marked its
advent by originating the national nominating convention. This
was the Anti-Masonic party".
See NEW YORK: A. D.1826-1832.
Both the Democratic and the National Republican parties
adopted the invention of the Anti-Masons, and made their
nominations for the first time by the agency of great national
conventions.
_W. Wilson,
Division and Reunion, 1829-1889,
page 62._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1833-1836.
President Jackson's overthrow of the United States Bank.
The removal of the Deposits.
"The torrents of paper-money issued during the revolutionary
war, which sunk in value to nothing, converted the old
prejudice against paper promises-to-pay into an aversion that
had the force of an instinct. To this instinctive aversion, as
much as to the constitutional objections urged by Mr.
Jefferson and his disciples, was owing the difficulty
experienced by Alexander Hamilton in getting his first United
States bank chartered. Hence, also, the refusal of Congress to
recharter that bank in 1811. Hence the unwillingness of Mr.
Madison to sanction the charter of the second bank of the
United States in 1816. But the bank was chartered in 1816, and
went into existence with the approval of all the great
republican leaders, opposed only by the extreme Jeffersonians
and by the few federalists who were in public life. … But,
long before General Jackson came into power, the bank appeared
to have lived down all opposition. In the presidential
campaign of 1824 it was not so much as mentioned, nor was it
mentioned in that of 1828. … At the beginning of the
administration of General Jackson, the Bank of the United
States was a truly imposing institution. Its capital was
thirty-five millions. The public money deposited in its vaults
averaged six or seven millions; its private deposits, six
millions more; its circulation, twelve millions; its
discounts, more than forty millions a year; its annual
profits, more than three millions. Besides the parent bank at
Philadelphia, with its marble palace and hundred clerks, there
were 25 branches in the towns and cities of the Union. … Its
bank-notes were as good as gold in every part of the country.
… The bank and its branches received and disbursed the entire
revenue of the nation. … There is a tradition in Washington to
this day, that General Jackson came up from Tennessee to
Washington, in 1829, resolved on the destruction of the Bank
of the United States, and that he was only dissuaded from
aiming a paragraph at it in his inaugural address by the
prudence of Mr. Van Buren. … General Jackson had no thought of
the bank until he had been President two months. He came to
Washington expecting to serve but a single term, during which
the question of re-chartering the bank was not expected to
come up.
{3372}
The bank was chartered in 1816 for twenty years, which would
not expire until 1836." But, in 1829, the influence of Isaac
Hill, one of the so-called "Kitchen Cabinet" at Washington,
involved the irascible President in an endeavor to bring about
the removal of Jeremiah Mason, a political opponent, who had
been appointed to the presidency of the branch of the United
States Bank at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "The correspondence
began in June and ended in October. I believe myself warranted
in the positive assertion, that this correspondence relating
to the desired removal of Jeremiah Mason was the direct and
real cause of the destruction of the bank."
_J. Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson,
volume 3, chapter 20._
"As soon as the issue between him and the Bank of the United
States was declared, Jackson resolved that the bank must be
utterly destroyed. The method was suggested by Kendall and
Blair, of the Kitchen Cabinet. It was to cripple the available
means of the bank by withdrawing from it and its branches the
deposits of public funds. In the message of December, 1832,
Jackson had expressed his doubt as to the safety of the
government deposits in the bank, and recommended an
investigation. The House, after inquiry, resolved on March 2,
by 109 to 46 votes, that the deposits were safe. The bank was
at that period undoubtedly solvent, and there seemed to be no
reason to fear for the safety of the public money in its
custody. But Jackson had made up his mind that the bank was
financially rotten; that it had been employing its means to
defeat his reëlection; that it was using the public funds in
buying up members of Congress for the purposes of securing a
renewal of its charter, and of breaking down the
administration; and that thus it had become a dangerous agency
of corruption and a public enemy. Therefore the public funds
must be withdrawn, without regard to consequences. But the law
provided that the public funds should be deposited in the Bank
of the United States or its branches, unless the Secretary of
the Treasury should otherwise 'order and direct,' and in that
case the Secretary should report his reasons for such
direction to Congress. A willing Secretary of the Treasury was
therefore needed. In May, 1833, Jackson reconstructed his
Cabinet for the second time. … For the Treasury Department
Jackson selected William J. Duane of Philadelphia, who was
known as an opponent of the bank. Jackson, no doubt, expected
him to be ready for any measure necessary to destroy it. In
this he was mistaken. Duane earnestly disapproved of the
removal of the deposits as unnecessary, and highly dangerous
to the business interests of the country. … A majority of the
members of the Cabinet thought the removal of the deposits
unwise. … In the business community there seemed to be but one
voice about it. The mere rumor that the removal of the
deposits was in contemplation greatly disturbed the money
market. But all this failed to stagger Jackson's resolution. …
The Cabinet, with the exception of the Secretary of the
Treasury, bowed to Jackson's will. But Duane would not shelter
himself behind the President's assumed responsibility to do an
act which, under the law, was to be his act. He also refused
to resign. If he had to obey or go, he insisted upon being
removed. Jackson then formally dismissed him, and transferred
Roger B. Taney from the attorney generalship to the treasury.
Benjamin F. Butler of New York, a friend of Van Buren, was
made Attorney General. Taney forthwith ordered the removal of
the deposits from the Bank of the United States; that is to
say, the public funds then in the bank were to be drawn out as
the government required them, and no new deposits to be made
in that institution. The new deposits were to be distributed
among a certain number of selected state banks, which became
known as the 'pet banks.' … The money market became stringent.
Many failures occurred. The general feeling in business
circles approached a panic." But the very disturbance was
charged upon the Bank, itself; the people rallied to the
support of their favorite, "Old Hickory," and when the
national charter of the Bank expired, in March, 1836, there
was no hope of its renewal. It obtained a charter from the
State of Pennsylvania, and continued business as a State
institution until it went to pieces in the general commercial
shipwreck of 1837-41.
_C. Schurz,
Life of Henry Clay,
chapter 15 (volume 2)._
ALSO IN:
_W. G. Sumner,
Andrew Jackson as a Public Man,
chapters 11-14._
_T. H. Benton,
Thirty Years' View,
volume 1, chapters 49, 56, 64-67, 77, and 92-111._
_M. St. C. Clarke and D. A. Hall,
History of the Bank of the United States._
See, also, MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1817-1833.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1834.
Organization of the Whig Party.
The largest section of the opposition to the Jacksonian
Democracy "was organized in 1834 as the Whig party. According
to the 'Whig Almanac' for 1838, the party as then constituted
comprised: '(1) Most of those who, under the name of National
Republicans, had previously been known as supporters of Adams
and Clay, and advocates of the American system [of
tariff-protection]; (2) Most of those who, acting in defence
of what they deemed the assailed or threatened rights of the
States, had been stigmatized as Nullifiers, or the less
virulent State Rights' men, who were thrown into a position of
armed neutrality towards the administration by the doctrines
of the proclamation of 1832 against South Carolina; (3) A
majority of those before known as Anti-Masons; (4) Many who
had up to that time been known as Jackson men, but who united
in condemning the high-handed conduct of the Executive, the
immolation of Duane, and the subserviency of Taney; (5)
Numbers who had not before taken any part in politics, but who
were now awakened from their apathy by the palpable
usurpations of the Executive and the imminent peril of our
whole fabric of constitutional liberty and national
prosperity.' It was not to be expected that a party composed
of such various elements would be able to unite on one
candidate with heartiness; and, as the event proved, it was
necessary that some time should elapse before anything like
homogeneity could be given to the organization. Nullification
was not popular among the Whigs of the North, nor did the
State Rights' people of South Carolina and other States care
about the war on the bank and the removal of the deposits."
_E. Stanwood,
History of Presidential Elections,
chapter 14._
{3373}
"It was now felt instinctively that, in the existing struggle
between the parties actually arrayed against each other, and
in the principles and doctrines of those who were in power,
there was a peculiar fitness in the revival of a term which,
on both sides of the Atlantic, had been historically
associated with the side of liberty against the side of power.
The revival of the name of Whigs was sudden, and it was a
spontaneous popular movement. In progress of time, it enabled
the public men who were leading the opposition to the party of
the Administration to consolidate an organization of distinct
political principles, and to strengthen it by accessions from
those who had found reason to be dissatisfied with the
opinions prevailing among the friends of the President."
_G. T. Curtis,
Life of Daniel Webster,
volume 1, page 499._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1835.
First Petitions for the Abolition of Slavery
in the District of Columbia.
Exclusion of Antislavery literature from the Mails.
"It was during the Twenty-third Congress, 1835, that the
abolition of slavery, especially in the District of Columbia,
may be said to have begun to move the public mind at the
North. The first petitions presented to Congress for the
abolition of slavery, at least the first to attract attention,
were presented by Mr. Dickson, from the Canandaigua district,
New York, who addressed the House in support of the prayer of
the petitioners. Perhaps his speech, more than the petition he
presented, served to stir up a feeling on the part of Southern
men, and to cause other and numerous similar petitions to be
gotten up at the North and sent to Congress. … The labors of
the enemies of slavery, or 'Abolitionists,' had commenced, and
by indefatigable men who believed they were serving God and
the cause of humanity, and consequently it was with them a
labor of conscience and duty, with which nothing should be
allowed to interfere. Instead of petitions to Congress, they
now sent large boxes of tracts, pamphlets, and various
publications which the Southern people denominated
'incendiary,' to the post-office at Charleston, South
Carolina, and other cities, to be distributed, as directed, to
various persons. This increased the complaints and
inflammatory articles in the Southern papers. The publications
thus sent were stopped in the post-office, and the postmasters
addressed the head of the department, Amos Kendall, on the
subject, who replied that though the law authorized the
transmission of newspapers and pamphlets through the mail, yet
the law was intended to promote the general good of the
public, and not to injure any section; and intimated that,
such being the effect of these publications at the South,
postmasters would be justified in withholding them."
_N. Sargent,
Public Men and Events, 1817-1853,
volume 1, page 294-295._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1835-1837.
The inflation of credits, and Speculation.
The great collapse.
"When the United States Bank lost the government deposits,
late in 1833, they amounted to a little less than $10,000,000.
On January 1, 1835, more than a year after the state banks
took the deposits, they had increased to a little more than
$10,000,000. But the public debt being then paid and the outgo
of money thus checked, the deposits had by January 1, 1836,
reached $25,000,000, and by June 1, 1836, $41,500,000. This
enormous advance represented the sudden increase in the sales
of public lands, which were paid for in bank paper, which in
turn formed the bulk of the government deposits. … The
increase in the sales of public lands was the result of all
the organic causes and of all the long train of events which
had seated the fever of speculation so profoundly in the
American character of the day. … The increase of government
deposits was only fuel added to the flames. The craze for
banks and credits was unbounded before the removal of the
deposits had taken place, and before their great increase
could have had serious effect. … The insanity of speculation
was in ample though unobserved control of the country while
Nicholas Biddle [President of the United States Bank] still
controlled the deposits, and was certain to reach a climax
whether they stayed with him or went elsewhere. … The
distribution of the surplus among the states by the law of
1836 was the last and in some respects the worst of the
measures which aided and exaggerated the tendency to
speculation. By this bill, all the money above $5,000.000 in
the treasury on January 1, 1837, was to be 'deposited' with
the states in four quarterly installments commencing on that
day. … From the passage of the deposit bill in June, 1836,
until the crash in 1837, this superb donation of thirty-seven
millions was before the enraptured and deluded vision of the
country. Over nine millions and a quarter to be poured into
'improvements' or loaned to the needy,—what a luscious
prospect! The lesson is striking and wholesome, and ought not
to be forgotten, that, when the land was in the very midst of
these largesses, the universal bankruptcy set in. During 1835
and 1836 there were omens of the coming storm. Some perceived
the rabid character of the speculative fever. William L.
Marcy, governor of New York, in his message of January, 1836,
answering the dipsomaniac cry for more banks, declared that an
unregulated spirit of speculation had taken capital out of the
state; but that the amount so transferred bore no comparison
to the enormous speculations in stocks and in real property
within the state. … The warning was treated contemptuously;
but before the year was out the federal administration also
became anxious, and the increase in land sales no longer
signified to Jackson an increasing prosperity. … So Jackson
proceeded with his sound defense of the famous specie
circular, long and even still denounced as the 'causa cansans'
of the crisis of 1837. By this circular, issued on July 11,
1836, the secretary of the treasury had required payment for
public lands to be made in specie, with an exception until
December 15, 1836, in favor of actual settlers and actual
residents of the state in which the lands were sold. …
Jackson's specie circular toppled over the house of cards,
which at best could have stood but little longer. … An
insignificant, part of the sales had been lately made to
settlers. They were chiefly made to speculators. … Of the real
money necessary to make good the paper bubble promises of the
speculators not one tenth part really existed. Banks could
neither make their debtors pay in gold and silver, nor pay
their own notes in gold and silver. So they suspended. The
great and long concealed devastation of physical wealth and of
the accumulation of legitimate labor by premature improvements
and costly personal living, became now quickly apparent.
Fancied wealth sank out of sight."
_E. M. Shepard,
Martin Van Buren,
chapter 8._
ALSO IN:
_W. G. Sumner,
History of American Currency,
pages 102-161._
_F. A. Walker,
Money,
chapter 21._
_C. Juglar,
Brief History of Panics,
page 58._
{3374}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1835-1843.
The Second Seminole War.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1835-1843.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836.
The Atherton Gag.
"At this time [1835-36], the Northern abolitionists sent
petitions to Congress for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. They contended that as this territory
was under the control of the United States' Government, the
United States was responsible for slavery there; and that the
Free States were bound to do what they could to have slavery
brought to an end in that District. But the Slave States were
not willing to have anything said on the subject, so they
passed what was called a 'gag' law in the House of
Representatives, and ruled that all petitions which had any
relation to slavery should be laid on the table without being
debated, printed or referred. John Quincy Adams opposed this
rule resolutely, maintaining that it was wrong and
unconstitutional. … He continued to present petitions, as
before, for the abolition of slavery in the District. When the
day came for petitions he was one of the first to be called
upon; and he would sometimes occupy nearly the whole hour in
presenting them, though each one was immediately laid on the
table. One day he presented 511."
_J. F. Clarke,
Anti-Slavery Days,
page 45._
The gag-law has sometimes taken the name of the Atherton gag
from its New Hampshire author.
_W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 4, page 338._
ALSO IN:
_J. H. Gidding,
History of the Rebellion,
pages 104-124._
_J. T. Morse, Jr.,
John Quincy Adams,
pp. 246-280._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836.
Admission of Arkansas into the Union.
See ARKANSAS: A. D. 1819-1836.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836.
Jackson's administration reviewed.
"What of the administration as a whole? Parton's view is as
follows: 'I must avow explicitly the belief that,
notwithstanding the good done by General Jackson during his
presidency, his elevation to power was a mistake on the part
of the people of the United States. The good which he effected
has not continued, while the evil which he began remains.'
Sumner, in commenting on 'Jackson's modes of action in his
second term,' says: 'We must say of Jackson that he stumbled
along through a magnificent career, now and then taking up a
chance without really appreciating it; leaving behind him
disturbed and discordant elements of good and ill just fit to
produce turmoil and dis·aster in the future.' Later he adds:
'Representative institutions are degraded on the Jacksonian
theory just as they are on the divine-right theory, or on the
theory of the democratic empire. There is not a worse
perversion of the American system of government conceivable
than to regard the President as the tribune of the people.'
The view of von Holst may be inferred from the following
passages: 'In spite of the frightful influence, in the real
sense of the expression, which he exercised during the eight
years of his presidency, he neither pointed out nor opened new
ways to his people by the superiority of his mind, but only
dragged them more rapidly onward on the road they had long
been travelling, by the demoniacal power of his will.' The
meaning of the bank struggle is thus defined: 'Its
significance lay in the elements which made Jackson able
actually and successfully to assert his claims, in conflict
both with the constitution and with the idea of republicanism,
to a position between Congress and the people as patriarchal
ruler of the republic.' Elsewhere he tells us that the 'curse
of Jackson's administration' is that it weakened respect for
law; that 'the first clear symptom' of 'the decline of a
healthy political spirit' was the election and re-election of
Jackson to the presidency; that his administration paved a
'broad path for the demoralizing transformation of the
American democracy'; and that 'his "reign" receives the stamp
which characterizes it precisely from the fact that the
politicians knew how to make his character, with its texture
of brass, the battering-ram with which to break down the last
ramparts which opposed their will.' According to Parton,
Sumner, and von Holst, as I understand them, the net result of
Jackson's influence upon the American people was to hasten
their progress toward political ruin. I think this conclusion
erroneous. The gravest accusation against Jackson is, that his
influence undermined respect for law. It is plausibly argued
that, since he himself was impatient of authority, his example
must have stimulated lawlessness in his followers. It may be
urged, in reply, that the history of the country does not
support the charge. The worst exhibitions of general
lawlessness which have disgraced the United States were the
anti-abolitionist mobs of Jackson's own day—for which he was
not responsible. Since then, the American people, in spite of
the demoralizations of the war and reconstruction periods,
have steadily grown in obedience to law. … It is a curious
circumstance that the relation of Jackson to sectionalism has
received very little attention; and yet the growth of
sectionalism, i. e., the tendency to divide the Union into two
portions, politically separate and independent, is the fact
which, from the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to the ordinances
of secession in 1860, gives our political history its
distinctive character. The one important question concerning
Jackson, as indeed concerning every public man during the
forty years which precede the Civil War, is: What did he do
towards saving the Union from sectionalism? … Jackson came
before the country as a disciple of Jefferson, and therefore
as a believer in state rights. There was, it is true, much in
his temper and situation which favored centralization;
nevertheless, he was an honest, though moderate and somewhat
inconsistent Jeffersonian, and he won and retained the
confidence of the state-rights element in the democratic
party. Moreover, he identified himself with the newly
enfranchised and poorer citizens just rising to political
self-consciousness. In these ways, his following came to
include a large majority of his fellow-citizens, and, what was
of the utmost importance, by far the larger proportion of
those whose political character and opinions were as yet
plastic. … Jackson became, to a degree never realized by any
other man in our history, the trusted leader and teacher of
the masses. … This intimate relation to the people, and this
unparalleled power over the people, Jackson used to impress
upon them his own love of the Union and his own hatred of
sectionalism. … His character was altogether national. It is
easy to think of Calhoun as a southerner and a South
Carolinian; but it would not be easy to think of Jackson as
belonging to Tennessee or to the border states.
{3375}
The distribution of his support in the election of 1832 is
instructive. New Hampshire, New York and Pennsylvania, as well
as Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, were Jackson's states. He was
not looked upon as the representative of any particular
section. His policy as President showed no trace of
sectionalism. Its aim was the welfare of the masses
irrespective of section. To him state lines had little
meaning; sectional lines, absolutely none. There is another
way in which he rendered great though unconscious service to
the cause of national unity: he made the government, hitherto
an unmeaning abstraction, intelligible and attractive to the
people. … The chief value, then, of Jackson's political
career, was its educational effect. His strong conviction of
the national character of the Union, his brave words and acts
in behalf of the rights of the Union, sank deep into the
hearts of followers and opponents."
_A. D. Morse,
Political Influence of Andrew Jackson
(Political Science Quarterly, June, 1886)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836.
Thirteenth Presidential Election.
Martin Van Buren chosen.
"As Vice-president, Van Buren was at the side of Jackson
during his second term as President. It was the period of the
first experiment in producing panics; of reckless expansions
of the currency; of extravagant speculation; of an
accumulating surplus revenue; of the last struggles of the
Bank of the United States for the continuance of its powers.
There was not a difficult question on which Jackson did not
open his mind to the Vice-president with complete and
affectionate confidence. He has often been heard to narrate
incidents illustrating the prompt decision and bold judgment
of his younger friend; and in those days of vehement conflicts
between the power of the people and interests embodied against
that power, the daring energy of the one was well united with
the more tranquil intrepidity of the other. How fully this was
recognized by the people appears from the action of the
Democratic party of the Union. In May, 1835, it assembled in
convention at Baltimore, and by a unanimous vote placed Van
Buren in nomination as their candidate for the Presidency. …
The Democracy of the Union supported Van Buren with entire
unanimity. Out of two hundred and eighty-six electoral votes
he received one hundred and seventy; and, for the first time,
the Democracy of the North saw itself represented in the
Presidential chair. Electoral votes were given for Van Buren
without regard to geographical divisions: New York and
Alabama, Missouri and Maine, Virginia and Connecticut, were
found standing together. His election seemed friendly to the
harmony and the perpetuity of the Union."
_G. Bancroft,
Martin Van Buren.
chapter 5._
Mr. Van Buren received a clear majority of the popular vote
cast at the election, namely, 762,678, against 735,651 cast in
opposition, but divided between four Whig candidates, namely,
William H. Harrison, who received 73 electoral votes, Hugh L.
White, who received 26, Daniel Webster who received 14, and
Willie P. Mangum, who received 11. Richard M. Johnson was
chosen Vice President.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1837.
Admission of Michigan into the Union.
See MICHIGAN: A. D. 1837.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1837.
The introduction of the Sub-treasury system.
"When the banks went down, they had the government deposits:
this was in May, 1837. Van Buren's administration was only two
months old. The President was a warm admirer of Jackson, and
had formally announced that he would continue his
predecessor's policy with respect to the management of the
deposits. But the 'experiment' had suddenly culminated. The
government deposits were not in its control, and could not be
regained; their transfer from one part of the country to
another had ceased. … Once more, therefore, the government was
confronted with a grave question touching its deposits and the
circulating medium. It now essayed a brand-new experiment.
This was nothing less than keeping the deposits itself, and
transferring and paying them as occasion required; while the
people were left to regulate the currency themselves. This was
a very wide departure from any former policy. The mode
proposed of keeping the public deposits may be briefly
described. The treasury building at Washington was to
constitute the treasury of the United States, and the public
money was to be kept within its vaults. The mint at
Philadelphia, the branch at New Orleans, the new custom-houses
in New York and Boston, were also to contain branch treasury
vaults. Places were also to be prepared at Charleston, St.
Louis, and elsewhere. The treasurer of the United States at
Washington, and the treasurers of the mints at Philadelphia
and New Orleans, were to be 'receivers-general,' to keep the
public money. … At the extra session of Congress in 1837, the
Executive recommended the sub-treasury experiment. Congress
refused to try it, although a majority in both Houses belonged
to the same political party as the President. Nevertheless,
the system was continued, without legislative sanction, until
1840, when Congress finally passed a bill legalizing the
measure. At the presidential election in 1840 a party
revolution occurred, and the sub-treasury system, which had
formed a prominent issue in the campaign, was unqualifiedly
condemned by the people. Congress repealed the law, and passed
a bill creating another national bank," which President Tyler
vetoed.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1841.
"Thus the keeping of the public money remained in the hands of
the government officials, without legislative regulation,
until the passage of the sub-treasury bill, in 1846. The
system established at that time has been maintained ever
since."
_A. S. Bolles,
Financial History of the United States, 1789-1860,
book 3, chapter 2._
ALSO IN:
_T. H. Benton,
Thirty Years' View,
volume 2, chapters 29, 41, 64-65._
_D. Kinley,
The Independent Treasury of the United States._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1837-1838.
Antislavery Petitions in the Senate.
Calhoun's Resolutions, forcing the issue.
"The movements for and against slavery in the session of
1837-1838 deserve to be noted, as of disturbing effect at the
time; and as having acquired new importance from subsequent
events. Early in the session a memorial was presented in the
Senate from the General Assembly of Vermont, remonstrating
against the annexation of Texas to the United States, and
praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia—followed by many petitions from citizens and
societies in the Northern States to the same effect; and,
further, for the abolition of slavery in the Territories—for
the abolition of the slave trade between the States—and for
the exclusion of future slave States from the Union. …
{3376}
The question which occupied the Senate was as to the most
judicious mode of treating these memorials, with a view to
prevent their evil effects: and that was entirely a question
of policy, on which senators disagreed who concurred in the
main object. Some deemed it most advisable to receive and
consider the petitions—to refer them to a committee—and
subject them to the adverse report which they would be sure to
receive; as had been done with the Quakers' petitions at the
beginning of the government. Others deemed it preferable to
refuse to receive them. The objection raised to this latter
course was, that it would mix up a new question with the
slavery agitation which would enlist the sympathies of many
who did not co-operate with the Abolitionists—the question of
the right of petition. … Mr. Clay, and many others were of
this opinion; Mr. Calhoun and his friends thought otherwise;
and the result was, so far as it concerned the petitions of
individuals and societies, what it had previously been—a
half-way measure between reception and rejection—a motion to
lay the question of reception on the table. This motion,
precluding all discussion, got rid of the petitions quietly,
and kept debate out of the Senate. In the case of the memorial
from the State of Vermont, the proceeding was slightly
different in form, but the same in substance. As the act of a
State, the memorial was received; but after reception was laid
on the table. Thus all the memorials and petitions were
disposed of by the Senate in a way to accomplish the two-fold
object, first, of avoiding discussion; and, next, condemning
the object of the petitioners. It was accomplishing all that
the South asked; and if the subject had rested at that point,
there would have been nothing in the history of this session,
on the slavery agitation, to distinguish it from other
sessions about that period: but the subject was revived; and
in a way to force discussion, and to constitute a point for
the retrospect of history. Every memorial and petition had
been disposed of according to the wishes of the senators from
the slaveholding States; but Mr. Calhoun deemed it due to
those States to go further, and to obtain from the Senate
declarations which should cover all the questions of federal
power over the institution of slavery: although he had just
said that paper reports would do no good. For that purpose, he
submitted a series of resolves—six in number—which derive
their importance from their comparison, or rather contrast,
with others on the same subject presented by him in the Senate
ten years later; and which have given birth to doctrines and
proceedings which have greatly disturbed the harmony of the
Union, and palpably endangered its stability. The six
resolutions of this period (1837-1838) undertook to define the
whole extent of the power delegated by the States to the
federal government on the subject of slavery; to specify the
acts which would exceed that power; and to show the
consequences of doing anything not authorized to be done—
always ending in a dissolution of the Union. The first four of
these related to the States; about which, there being no
dispute, there was no debate. The sixth, without naming Texas,
was prospective, and looked forward to a case which might
include her annexation; and was laid upon the table to make
way for an express resolution from Mr. Preston on the same
subject. The fifth related to the territories, and to the
District of Columbia, and was the only one which excited
attention, or has left a surviving interest. It was in these
words: 'Resolved that the intermeddling of any State, or
States, or their citizens, to abolish slavery in this
District, or any of the territories, on the ground or under
the pretext that it is immoral or sinful, or the passage of
any act or measure of Congress with that view, would be a
direct and dangerous attack on the institutions of all the
slaveholding States.' The dogma of 'no power in Congress to
legislate upon the existence of slavery in territories' had
not been invented at that time; and, of course, was not
asserted in this resolve, intended by its author to define the
extent of the federal legislative power on the subject. The
resolve went upon the existence of the power, and deprecated
its abuse." Mr. Clay offered an amendment, in the nature of a
substitute, consisting of two resolutions, the first of which
was in these words: "'That the interference by the citizens of
any of the States, with the view to the abolition of slavery
in this District, is endangering the rights and security of
the people of the District; and that any act or measure of
Congress, designed to abolish slavery in this District, would
be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the
States of Virginia and Maryland—a just cause of alarm to the
people of the slaveholding States—and have a direct and
inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union.' The
vote on the final adoption of the resolution was: (Yeas 37,
Nays 8]. … The second resolution of Mr. Clay applied to
slavery in a territory where it existed, and deprecated any
attempt to abolish it in such territory, as alarming to the
slave States, and as violation of faith towards its
inhabitants, unless they asked it; and in derogation of its
right to decide the question of slavery for itself when
erected into a State. This resolution was intended to cover
the case of Florida, and ran thus: 'Resolved that any attempt
of Congress to abolish slavery in any territory of the United
States in which it exists would create serious alarm and just
apprehension in the States sustaining that domestic
institution, and would be a violation of good faith towards
the inhabitants of any such territory who have been permitted
to settle with, and hold, slaves therein; because the people
of any such territory have not asked for the abolition of
slavery therein; and because, when any such territory shall be
admitted into the Union as a State, the people thereof shall
be entitled to decide that question exclusively for
themselves.' And the vote upon it was—[Yeas 35, Nays 9]. …
The general feeling of the Senate was that of entire
repugnance to the whole movement—that of the petitions and
memorials on the one hand, and Mr. Calhoun's resolutions on
the other. The former were quietly got rid of, and in a way to
rebuke, as well as to condemn their presentation; that is to
say, by motions (sustained by the body) to lay them on the
table. The resolutions could not so easily be disposed of,
especially as their mover earnestly demanded discussion, spoke
at large, and often himself; and 'desired to make the
question, on their rejection or adoption, a test question.'"
_T. H. Benton,
Thirty Years' View,
volume 2, chapter 33._
{3377}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840.
The Sixth Census.
Total population, 17,069,453 (exceeding that of 1830 by nearly
33 per cent.), classed and distributed as follows:
North.
White. Free black. Slave.
Connecticut. 301,856 8,105 17
Illinois. 472,254 3,598 331
Indiana. 678,698 7,165 3
Iowa. 42,924 172 16
Maine. 500,438 1,355 0
Massachusetts. 729,030 8,669 0
Michigan. 211,560 707 0
New Hampshire. 284,036 537 1
New Jersey. 351,588 21,044 674
New York. 2,378,890 50,027 4
Ohio. 1,502,122 17,342 3
Pennsylvania. 1,676,115 47,854 64
Rhode Island. 105,587 3,238 5
Vermont. 291,218 730 0
Wisconsin. 30,749 185 11
Total 9,557,065 170,728 1,129
South.
White. Free black. Slave.
Alabama. 335,185 2,039 253,532
Arkansas. 77,174 465 19,935
Delaware. 58,561 16,919 2,605
District of Columbia. 30,657 8,361 4,694
Florida. 27,943 817 25,717
Georgia. 407,695 2,753 280,944
Kentucky. 590,253 7,817 182,258
Louisiana. 158,457 25,502 168,452
Maryland. 318,204 62,078 89,737
Mississippi. 179,074 1,366 195,211
Missouri. 323,888 1,574 58,240
North Carolina. 484,870 22,732 245,817
South Carolina. 259,084 8,276 327,038
Tennessee. 640,627 5,524 183,059
Virginia. 740,858 49,852 449,087
Total 4,632,530 215,575 2,486,326
The number of immigrants arriving in the United States between
1830 and 1840, according to official reports, was 599,125, of
whom 283,191 were from the British Islands, and 212,497 from
other parts of Europe.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840.
Fourteenth Presidential Election.
The Log-cabin and Hard-cider campaign.
William Henry Harrison, Whig, was elected President, over
Martin Van Buren, Democrat, and James G. Birney, candidate of
the "Liberty Party." The popular vote cast was: Harrison
1,275,016, Van Buren 1,129,102, Birney 7,069. The electoral
vote stood: Harrison 234, Van Buren 60, Birney none. John
Tyler was elected Vice President. In the early part of the
campaign, a Baltimore newspaper, making a foolish attempt to
cast ridicule on General Harrison, said that a pension of a
few hundred dollars and a barrel of hard cider would content
him in his log cabin for life. This fatuous remark gave the
Whigs a popular cry which they used with immense effect, and
"the log-cabin and hard-cider campaign," as it is known in
American history, was memorable for its song-singing
enthusiasm.—"If one could imagine a whole nation declaring a
holiday or season of rollicking for a period of six or eight
months, and giving themselves up during the whole time to the
wildest freaks of fun and frolic, caring nothing for business,
singing, dancing, and carousing night and day, he might have
some faint notion of the extraordinary scenes of 1840. It
would be difficult, if not impossible, otherwise to form even
a faint idea of the universal excitement, enthusiasm,
activity, turmoil, and restlessness which pervaded the country
during the spring, summer, and fall of that memorable year.
Log cabins large enough to hold crowds of people were built in
many places. Small ones, decorated with 'coon-skins, were
mounted on wheels and used in processions. The use of the
'coon-skins soon led to the adoption of the 'coon (raccoon)
itself as an emblem and adjunct of the log cabin, and its
'counterfeit presentment' was hoisted in all the Whig papers.
Meetings were everywhere, and every day, held in
neighborhoods, school-houses, villages, towns, counties,
cities, States, varying in number from ten to one hundred
thousand; and wherever there was a gathering there were also
speaking and singing. Ladies attended these meetings, or
conventions, in great numbers, and joined in the singing.
Farmers, with big teams and wagons, would leave their fields
and travel ten, twenty, or thirty miles, accompanied by their
families and neighbors, to attend a convention or a barbecue
and listen to distinguished orators. Crowds on the road,
multitudes in big wagons drawn by four, six, or eight horses,
made the welkin ring with their log-cabin songs. Nobody slept,
nobody worked, nobody rested; at least so it seemed, for all
were on the 'qui vive' and in motion. The entire population
seemed to be absorbed in the great duty of electing General
Harrison and thus changing the government. …
What has caused this great commotion, motion, motion,
Our country through?
It is the ball a rolling on
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too,
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too.'
The original or special friends of General Harrison very
naturally claimed that it was his popularity which produced
such an unprecedented 'commotion' 'our country through.' But
in this they were mistaken. The popularity of no one man could
have produced such a universal outpouring of the people from
day to day for weeks and months unceasingly, abandoning
everything else, and giving time and money unstintedly to
carry the election. General Harrison was but the
figure-head,—the representative of the Whig party for the time
being. Few had ever heard of him. The people knew from history
and the campaign papers that he had been a general in the then
late war with England; that he had won a victory at the battle
of Tippecanoe over the British and Indians, and also at the
battle of the Thames, in Canada, where Tecumseh, the noted
Indian warrior, was killed. This was enough to make a hero of
him by those who had a purpose to serve in doing so. As to his
fitness for the Presidency, the people knew nothing and cared
nothing. A change in the government was what they desired and
were determined to have."
_N. Sargent,
Public Men and Events,
volume 2, pages 107-110._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840-1841.
The McLeod case.
See CANADA: A. D. 1840-1841.
{3378}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1841.
The Death of President Harrison.
Breach between President Tyler and the Whig Party
which elected him.
President Harrison died suddenly on the 4th of April, 1841,
and Vice President John Tyler became President. Tyler was a
Calhoun Democrat in politics, although nominated and elected
by the Whigs, and the financial measures favored by the latter
were especially obnoxious to him. "Congress met May 31st,
1841. … A bill to abolish the Sub-Treasury of the previous
Administration was passed by both Houses and signed by the
President. A bill to incorporate 'The Fiscal Bank of the
United States' was passed by both Houses. It was weeded of
many of the objectionable features of the old United States
Bank, but was hardly less odious to the Democrats. It was
vetoed by the President. … An effort to pass the bill over the
veto did not receive a two-thirds majority. The Whig leaders,
anxious to prevent a party disaster, asked from the President
an outline of a bill which he would sign. After consultation
with the Cabinet, it was given, and passed by both Houses.
September 9th the President vetoed this bill also, and an
attempt to pass it over the veto did not receive a two-thirds
majority. The action of the President, in vetoing a bill drawn
according to his own suggestions, and thus apparently
provoking a contest with the party which had elected him,
roused the unconcealed indignation of the Whigs. The Cabinet,
with one exception [Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, who
remained in President Tyler's cabinet until May, 1843], at
once resigned. The Whig members of Congress issued Addresses
to the People, in which they detailed the reforms designed by
the Whigs and impeded by the President, and declared that 'all
political connection between them and John Tyler was at an end
from that day forth.' … The President filled the vacancies in
the Cabinet by appointing Whigs and Conservatives. His
position was one of much difficulty. His strict
constructionist opinions, which had prevented him from
supporting Van Buren, would not allow him to approve a
National Bank, and yet he had accepted the Vice-Presidency
from a party pledged to establish one. The over hasty
declaration of war by the Whigs put a stop to his
vacillations, and compelled him to rely upon support from the
Democrats. But only a few members of Congress, commonly known
as 'the corporal's guard,' recognized Tyler as a leader."
_A. Johnston,
History of American Politics, 2d ed.,
chapter 15, sections 2-4._
ALSO IN:
_L. G. Tyler,
Letters and Times of the Tylers,
volume 2, chapters 1-4._
_C. Colton,
Life and Times of Henry Clay,
chapters 14-15._
_T. H. Benton,
Thirty Years' View,
volume 2, chapters 80-85._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1842.
Victory of John Quincy Adams in defending the Right of Petition.
"January 21, 1842, Mr. Adams presented a petition from 45
citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying for the
dissolution of the Union, and moved it be referred to a select
committee, with instructions to report why the petition should
not be granted. There was at once great excitement and members
called out, 'Expel him,' 'Censure him.' After a good deal of
fruitless endeavor to accomplish something, the House
adjourned, and forty or fifty slaveholders met to decide what
kind of resolutions should be presented to meet the case.
Thomas F. Marshall of Kentucky was selected by this caucus
from Congress to propose the resolutions, which were to the
effect that for presenting such a petition to a body each of
whom had taken an oath to maintain the Constitution, Mr. Adams
was virtually inviting them to perjure themselves, and that
therefore he deserved the severest censure. Marshall supported
this with a very violent speech. Mr. Wise followed in another.
Then Mr. Adams arose and asked the clerk to read the first
paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, being the one
which recognizes the right of every people to alter or abolish
their form of Government when it ceases to accomplish its
ends. He said that those who believed that the present
Government was oppressive had the right (according to the
Declaration of Independence, on which the whole of our
national unity reposes), to petition Congress to do what they
believed was desirable; and all that Congress could properly
do would be to explain to them why such an act could not be
performed. He replied with great severity to Mr. Wise and said
that Mr. Wise had come into that Hall a few years before with
his hands dripping with the blood of one of his fellow beings.
In this he alluded to the part which Mr. Wise had taken in the
duel between Mr. Graves of Kentucky, and Cilley of Maine, in
which the latter had been killed. As for Mr. Marshall, who had
accused him of treason, he spoke of him with great scorn. 'I
thank God!' said he 'that the Constitution of my country has
defined treason, and has not left it to the puny intellect of
this young man from Kentucky to say what it is. If I were the
father of this gentleman from Kentucky, I should take him from
this House and put him to school where he might study his
profession for some years until he became a little better
qualified to appear in this place.' Mr. Adams had on his desk
a great many books and references prepared for his use by some
anti-slavery gentlemen then in Washington; after he had gone
on for some time with his speech he was asked how much more
time he would probably occupy. He replied 'I believe Mr. Burke
took three months for his speech on Warren Hastings'
indictment. I think I may probably get through in ninety days,
perhaps in less time.' Thereupon they thought it just as well
to have the whole thing come to an end and it was moved that
the matter should be laid on the table. Mr. Adams consented,
and it was done."
_J. F. Clarke,
Anti-Slavery Days,
pages 57-59._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1842.
The tariff act.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1842.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1842.
The Ashburton Treaty with England.
Settlement of Northeastern boundary questions.
"It was arranged in December by the Peel ministry that Lord
Ashburton should be sent to Washington as a special minister
from Great Britain, with full powers to settle the boundary,
and all other pending disputes with the United States. …
Ashburton, formerly Alexander Baring, of the eminent banking
firm of Baring Brothers, and a son of its original founder,
was now an old man, who had retired on a princely fortune, and
being indifferent to fame, aspired only to bring these two
countries to more friendly terms. Like his father before him,
he had tact and plain good sense, and understood well the
American character, having married here during his youth. Lord
Ashburton arrived early the next April, and on the 13th of
June entered upon the duties of his mission.
{3379}
Maine and Massachusetts, the States most interested in the
disputed boundary, sent commissioners of their own to yield an
assent in this branch of the business. The whole business as
conducted at our capital had an easy and informal character.
Webster and Lord Ashburton represented alone their respective
governments; no protocols were used, nor formal records; and
the correspondence and official interviews went on after a
friendly fashion in the heat of summer, and while Congress was
holding its long regular session. … This Washington or
Ashburton treaty, as it is called to this day, bore date of
the day [August 9] when it was formally signed. It passed by
the Oregon or north-western boundary, a point on which harmony
was impossible, and this was the most pregnant omission of
all; it passed by the 'Caroline' affair; it ignored, too, the
'Creole' case, for Great Britain would not consent to
recognize the American claim of property in human beings. Nor,
on the other side, were the debts of delinquent States assumed
by the United States, as many British creditors had desired.
Mutual extradition in crimes under the law of nations, and the
delivery of fugitives from justice, were stipulated. But the
two chief features of this treaty were: a settlement of the
boundary between Great Britain and the United States on the
north-east, extending westward beyond the great lakes, and a
cruising convention for the mutual suppression of the
slave-trade. As to the northeast territory in dispute, which
embraced some 12,000 square miles, seven-twelfths, or about as
much as the King of the Netherlands had awarded, were set off
to the United States; Great Britain taking the residue and
securing the highlands she desired which frown upon the
Canadian Gibraltar, and a clear though circuitous route
between Quebec and Halifax. Our government was permitted to
carry timber down the St. John's River, and though becoming
bound to pay Maine and Massachusetts $300,000 for the strip of
territory relinquished to Great Britain, gained in return
Rouse's Point, on Lake Champlain, of which an exact survey
would have deprived us. By the cruising convention clause,
which the President himself bore a conspicuous part in
arranging, the delicate point of 'right of search' was
avoided; for instead of trusting Great Britain as the police
of other nations for suppressing the African slave-trade, each
nation bound itself to do its full duty by keeping up a
sufficient squadron on the African coast. It so happened that
Great Britain, by softening the old phrase 'right of search'
into 'right of visitation,' had been inducing other nations to
guarantee this police inspection of suspected slave vessels.
In December, 1841, ambassadors of the five great European
powers arranged in London a quintuple league of this
character. But France, hesitating to confirm such an
arrangement, rejected that league when the Ashburton treaty
was promulgated, and hastened to negotiate in its place a
cruising convention similar to ours on the slave-trade
suppression; nor was the right of search, against which
America had fought in the war of 1812, ever again invoked,
even as a mutual principle, until by 1862 the United States
had grown as sincere as Great Britain herself in wishing to
crush out the last remnant of the African traffic. This
cruising convention, however, left the abstract question of
search untouched, and in that light Sir Robert Peel defended
himself in Parliament. The Ashburton treaty was honorable, on
the whole, for each side; what it arranged was arranged
fairly, and what it omitted was deferred without prejudice. …
So satisfactory, in fine, was the treaty, despite all
criticism, that the Senate ratified it by more than a
three-fourths vote, and at a time, too, when the Whig Congress
was strongly incensed against the administration, and Webster
had made bitter enemies."
_J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
volume 4, chapter 17, pages 400-403._
ALSO IN:
_D. Webster,
Diplomatic and Official Papers._
_G. T. Curtis,
Life of Webster,
chapters 28-29 (volume 2)._
_Treaties and Conventions between the United States and
other countries (edition of 1889),
pages 432-438._
_I. Washburn, Jr.,
The Northeastern Boundary
(Maine Historical Society Collections, volume 8)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1844.
Fifteenth Presidential Election.
Choice of James K. Polk.
The Texas treaty of annexation had been held in committee in
the Senate "till the national conventions of the two parties
should declare themselves. Both conventions met in Baltimore,
in May, to name candidates and avow policies. The Whigs were
unanimous as to who should be their candidate: it could be no
one but Henry Clay. Among the Democrats there was a very
strong feeling in favor of the renomination of Van Buren. But
both Clay and Van Buren had been asked their opinion about the
annexation of Texas, both had declared themselves opposed to
any immediate step in that direction, and Van Buren's
declaration cost him the Democratic nomination. He could have
commanded a very considerable majority in the Democratic
convention, but he did not command the two-third's majority
required by its rules, and James K. Polk of Tennessee became
the nominee of his party." Polk had been Speaker of the House
of Representatives, and was honorably though slightly known to
the country. The only new issue presented in the party
"platforms" was offered by the Democrats in their resolution
demanding "'the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation of
Texas, at the earliest practicable period'; and this proved
the makeweight in the campaign. … The 'Liberty Party,' the
political organization of the Abolitionists, commanded now, as
it turned out, more than 60,000 votes. … Had the 'Liberty' men
in New York voted for Clay, he would have been elected."
_W. Wilson,
Division and Reunion, 1829-1889,
section 73 (chapter 6)._
Polk received of the popular votes, 1,337,243, against
1,299,062 cast for Henry Clay, Whig, and 62,300 cast for James
G. Birney, candidate of the Liberty Party. Electoral vote:
Polk, 170; Clay, 105; Birney, none. George M. Dallas was
elected Vice President.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1844-1845,
The annexation of Texas and the agitation preceding it.
See TEXAS: A. D. 1836-1845.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1844-1846.
The Oregon boundary question and its settlement.
See OREGON: A. D. 1844-1846.
{3380}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845.
Preserving the equilibrium between Free and Slave States.
Admission of Iowa and Florida.
"The slave-masters … had long pretended that the equilibrium
between the free and slave States must be preserved at all
hazards, and twice had they resorted to the violent device of
arbitrarily linking two measures that had nothing in common
for that purpose,—in 1820 combining the bills for the
admission of Missouri and Maine, and in 1836 those for the
admission of Michigan and Arkansas. In pursuance of the same
purpose and line of policy, they were now unwilling to receive
without a consideration the free State of Iowa, which had
framed a constitution in the autumn of 1844, and was asking
for admission. Some makeweight must be found before this
application could be complied with. This they managed to
discover in an old constitution, framed by the Territory of
Florida five years before. Though Florida was greatly
deficient in numbers, and her constitution was very
objectionable in some of its features, they seized this
occasion to press its claims, and to make its admission a
condition precedent to their consent that Iowa should be
received. The House Committee on Territories reported in favor
of the admission of the two in a single measure. In the
closing hours of the XXVIIIth Congress the bill came up for
consideration. … The constitution of Florida not only
expressly denied to the legislature the power to emancipate
slaves, but gave it the authority to prevent free colored
persons from immigrating into the State, or from being
discharged from vessels in her ports." All attempts to require
an amendment of the Florida constitution in these particulars
before recognizing that ill-populated territory as a State,
were defeated, and the bill admitting Florida and Iowa became
a law on the 3d of March, 1845.
_H. Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America,
volume 2, chapter 1._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845-1846.
The Slavery question in the Democratic Party.
Hunkers and Barnburners.
The Wilmot Proviso.
"With Polk's accession and the Mexican war, the schism in the
Democratic ranks over the extension of American slave
territory became plainer. Even during the canvass of 1844 a
circular had been issued by William Cullen Bryant, David
Dudley Field, John W. Edmonds, and other Van Buren men,
supporting Polk, but urging the choice of congressmen opposed
to annexation. Early in the new administration the division of
New York Democrats into 'Barnburners' and 'Old Hunkers'
appeared. The former were the strong pro-Van Buren, anti-Texas
men, or 'radical Democrats,' who were likened to the farmer
who burned his barn to clear it of rats. The latter were the
'northern men with southern principles,' the supporters of
annexation, and the respectable, dull men of easy consciences,
who were said to hanker after the offices. The Barnburners
were led by men of really eminent ability and exalted
character: Silas Wright, then governor, Benjamin F. Butler,
John A. Dix, chosen in 1845 to the United States senate,
Azariah C. Flagg, the famous comptroller, and John Van Buren,
the ex-president's son. … Daniel S. Dickinson and William L.
Marcy were the chief figures in the Hunker ranks. Polk seemed
inclined, at the beginning, to favor, or at least to placate,
the Barnburners. … Jackson's death in June, 1845, deprived the
Van Buren men of the tremendous moral weight which his name
carried, and which might have daunted Polk. It perhaps also
helped to loosen the weight of party ties on the Van Buren
men. After this the schism rapidly grew. In the fall election
of 1845 the Barnburners pretty thoroughly controlled the
Democratic party of the state [of New York] in hostility to
the Mexican war, which the annexation of Texas had now
brought. Samuel J. Tilden of Columbia county, and a profound
admirer of Van Buren, became one of their younger leaders. Now
arose the strife over the 'Wilmot proviso,' in which was
embodied the opposition to the extension of slavery into new
territories. Upon this proviso the modern Republican party was
formed eight years later; upon it, fourteen years later,
Abraham Lincoln was chosen president; and upon it began the
war for the Union, out of whose throes came the vastly grander
and unsought beneficence of complete emancipation. David
Wilmot was a Democratic member of Congress from Pennsylvania;
in New York he would have been a Barnburner. In 1846 a bill
was pending to appropriate $3,000,000 for use by the president
in a purchase of territory from Mexico as part of a peace.
Wilmot proposed an amendment that slavery should be excluded
from any territory so acquired. All the Democratic members, as
well as the Whigs from New York, and most strongly the Van
Buren or Wright men, supported the proviso. The Democratic
legislature [of New York] approved it by the votes of the
Whigs with the Barnburners and the Soft Hunkers, the latter
being Hunkers less friendly to slavery. It passed the house at
Washington, but was rejected by the senate."
_E. M. Shepard,
Martin Van Buren,
chapter 11._
In the slang nomenclature which New York politics have always
produced with great fertility Hard-Shell and Soft-Shell were
terms often used instead of Hunker and Barnburner.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1846.
The Walker Tariff.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1846-1861.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1846-1847.
War with Mexico.
Conquest of California and New Mexico.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1846; 1846-1847; and 1847;
also, CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847;
and NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1846.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1847.
Calhoun's aggressive policy of agitation, forcing the
Slavery issue upon the North.
His program of disunion.
"On Friday, the 19th of February [1847], Mr. Calhoun
introduced into the Semite his new slavery resolutions,
prefaced by an elaborate speech, and requiring an immediate
vote upon them. They were in these words: 'Resolved, That the
territories of the United States belong to the several States
composing this Union, and are held by them as their joint and
common property. Resolved, That Congress, as the joint agent
and representative of the States of this Union, has no right
to make any law, or do any act whatever, that shall directly,
or by its effects, make any discrimination between the States
of this Union, by which any of them shall be deprived of its
full and equal right in any territory of the United States
acquired or to be acquired. Resolved, That the enactment of
any law which should directly, or by its effects, deprive the
citizens of any of the States of this Union from emigrating,
with their property, into any of the territories of the United
States, will make such discrimination, and would, therefore,
be a violation of the constitution, and the rights of the
States from which such citizens emigrated, and in derogation
of that perfect equality which belongs to them as members of
this Union, and would tend directly to subvert the Union
itself.
{3381}
Resolved, That it is a fundamental principle in our political
creed, that a people, in forming a constitution, have the
unconditional right to form and adopt the government which
they may think best calculated to secure their liberty,
prosperity, and happiness; and that, in conformity thereto, no
other condition is imposed by the federal constitution on a
State, in order to be admitted into this Union, except that
its constitution shall be republican; and that the imposition
of any other by Congress would not only be in violation of the
constitution, but in direct conflict with the principle on
which our political system rests.' These resolutions, although
the sense is involved in circumlocutory phrases, are
intelligible to the point, that Congress has no power to
prohibit slavery in a territory, and that the exercise of such
a power would be a breach of the constitution, and leading to
the subversion of the Union. … Mr. Calhoun demanded the prompt
consideration of his resolutions, giving notice that he would
call them up the next day and press them to a speedy and final
vote. He did call them up, but never called for the vote, nor
was any ever had. … In the course of this year, and some
months after the submission of his resolutions in the Senate
denying the right of Congress to abolish slavery in a
territory, Mr. Calhoun wrote a letter to a member of the
Alabama Legislature, which furnishes the key to unlock his
whole system of policy in relation to the slavery agitation,
and its designs, from his first taking up the business in
Congress in the year 1835, down to the date of the letter; and
thereafter. The letter was in reply to one asking his opinion
'as to the steps which should be taken' to guard the rights of
the South. … It opens with this paragraph: 'I am much
gratified with the tone and views of your letter, and concur
entirely in the opinion you express, that instead of shunning,
we ought to court the issue with the North on the slavery
question. I would even go one step further, and add that it is
our duty—due to ourselves, to the Union, and our political
institutions, to force the issue on the North. We are now
stronger relatively than we shall be hereafter, politically
and morally. Unless we bring on the issue, delay to us will be
dangerous indeed. It is the true policy of those enemies who
seek our destruction. Its effects are, and have been, and will
be to weaken us politically and morally, and to strengthen
them. Such has been my opinion from the first. Had the South,
or even my own State backed me, I would have forced the issue
on the North in 1835, when the spirit of abolitionism first
developed itself to any considerable extent. It is a true
maxim, to meet danger on the frontier, in politics as well as
war. Thus thinking, I am of the impression, that if the South
act as it ought, the Wilmot Proviso, instead of proving to be
the means of successfully assailing us and our peculiar
institution, may be made the occasion of successfully
asserting our equality and rights, by enabling us to force the
issue on the North. Something of the kind was indispensable to
rouse and unite the South. On the contrary, if we should not
meet it as we ought, I fear, greatly fear, our doom will be
fixed. It would prove that we either have not the sense or
spirit to defend ourselves and our institutions.' The phrase
'forcing the issue' is here used too often, and for a purpose
too obvious, to need remark. The reference to his movement in
1835 confirms all that was said of that movement at the time
by senators from both sections of the Union. … At that time
Mr. Calhoun characterized his movement as defensive—as done in
a spirit of self-defence: it was then characterized by
senators as aggressive and offensive: and it is now declared
in this letter to have been so. He was then openly told that
he was playing into the hands of the abolitionists, and giving
them a champion to contend with, and the elevated theatre of
the American Senate for the dissemination of their doctrines,
and the production of agitation and sectional division. All
that is now admitted, with a lamentation that the South, and
not even his own State, would stand by him then in forcing the
issue. So that chance was lost. Another was now presented. The
Wilmot Proviso, so much deprecated in public, is privately
saluted as a fortunate event, giving another chance for
forcing the issue. The letter proceeds: 'But in making up the
issue, we must look far beyond the proviso. It is but one of
many acts of aggression, and, in my opinion, by no means the
most dangerous or degrading, though more striking and
palpable.' … So that, while this proviso was, publicly, the
Pandora's box which filled the Union with evil, and while it
was to Mr. Calhoun and his friends the theme of endless
deprecation, it was secretly cherished as a means of keeping
up discord, and forcing the issue between the North and the
South. Mr. Calhoun then proceeds to the serious question of
disunion, and of the manner in which the issue could be
forced. 'This brings up the question, how can it be so met,
without resorting to the dissolution of the Union? … There is,
in my opinion, but one way in which it can be met; and that is
… by retaliation.' … Then follows an argument to justify
retaliation. … Retaliation by closing the ports of the State
against the commerce of the offending State: and this called a
constitutional remedy, and a remedy short of disunion. … The
letter proceeds with further instructions upon the manner of
executing the retaliation: 'My impression is, that it should
be restricted to sea-going vessels, which would leave open the
trade of the valley of the Mississippi to New Orleans by
river, and to the other Southern cities by railroad; and tend
thereby to detach the North-western from the North-eastern
States.' … This confidential letter from Mr. Calhoun to a
member of the Alabama legislature of 1847, has come to light,
to furnish the key which unlocks his whole system of slavery
agitation which he commenced in the year 1835. That system was
to force issues upon the North under the pretext of
self-defence, and to sectionalize the South, preparatory to
disunion, through the instrumentality of sectional
conventions, composed wholly of delegates from the
slaveholding States."
_T. H. Benton,
Thirty Years' View,
volume 2, chapters 167-168._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.
Peace with Mexico.
The Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo.
The acquisition of Territory.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1848.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.
Admission of Wisconsin into the Union.
See WISCONSIN: A. D. 1805-1848.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.
Increased reservation of public lands for School support.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1785-1880.
{3382}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.
The Free Soil Convention at Buffalo and its nominations.
The "Barnburner" Democrats of New York, or Free Soilers as
they began to be called, met in convention at Utica, February
16, 1848, and chose delegates to the approaching national
Democratic Convention at Baltimore. In April the Barnburner
members of the Legislature issued an elaborate address,
setting forth the Free Soil principles of the Democratic
fathers. The authors of the address were afterwards known to
be Samuel J. Tilden and Martin and John Van Buren. The
national Democratic Convention assembled in May, 1848. "It
offered to admit the Barnburner and Hunker delegations
together to cast the vote of the State. The Barnburners
rejected the compromise as a simple nullification of the vote
of the State, and then withdrew. Lewis Cass was nominated for
president, the Wilmot proviso being thus emphatically
condemned. For Cass had declared in favor of letting the new
territories themselves decide upon slavery. The Barnburners,
returning to a great meeting in the City Hall Park at New
York, cried 'The lash has resounded through the halls of the
Capitol!' and condemned the cowardice of northern senators who
had voted with the South. … The delegates issued an address
written by Tilden, fearlessly calling Democrats to independent
action. In June a Barnburner convention met at Utica," which
named Van Buren for the Presidency and called a national
convention of all Free Soilers to meet at Buffalo, August 9,
1848. "Charles Francis Adams, the son of John Quincy Adams,
presided at the Buffalo convention; and in it Joshua R.
Giddings, the famous abolitionist, and Salmon P. Chase, were
conspicuous. To the unspeakable horror of every Hunker there
participated in the deliberations a negro, the Rev. Mr. Ward.
Butler [Benjamin F., of New York], reported the resolutions in
words whose inspiration is still fresh and ringing. … At the
close were the stirring and memorable words: 'We inscribe on
our banner, Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men;
and under it we will fight on and fight ever, until a
triumphant victory shall reward our exertions.' Joshua Leavitt
of Massachusetts, one of the 'blackest' of abolitionists,
reported to the convention the name of Martin Van Buren for
president." The nomination was acclaimed with enthusiasm, and
Charles Francis Adams was nominated for vice-president. "In
September, John A. Dix, then a Democratic senator, accepted
the Free-soil nomination for governor of New York. The
Democratic party was aghast. The schismatics had suddenly
gained great dignity and importance. … The Whigs had in June
nominated Taylor, one of the two heroes of the Mexican war. …
The anti-slavery Whigs hesitated for a time: but Seward of New
York and Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune finally led
most of them to Taylor, rather than, as Seward said, engage in
'guerrilla warfare' under Van Buren. … This launching of the
modern Republican party was, strangely enough, to include in
New York few besides Democrats."
_E. M. Shepard,
Martin Van Buren,
chapter 11._
"The Buffalo Convention was one of the more important
upheavals in the process of political disintegration which
went steadily on between the years 1844, when the 'Birneyites'
deprived Henry Clay of the electoral vote of New York, and
1856, when the Whig party disappeared, and the pro-slavery
Democracy found itself confronted by the anti-slavery
Republican organization of the North. In 1848, though the Whig
party was already doomed, its time had not yet come. The Free
Soil movement of 1848 was, therefore, premature; and moreover,
as the result afterwards showed, there was something almost
ludicrous in a combination of 'Conscience Whigs' of
Massachusetts, in revolt over the nomination of the
slave-owning General Taylor, with the 'Barnburning' Democrats
of New York, intent only upon avenging on Cass the defeat of
Van Buren. None the less the Free Soil movement of 1848
clearly foreshadowed the Republican uprising of 1856, and of
the men who took part in the Buffalo convention an unusually
large proportion afterwards became prominent as political
leaders."
_C. F. Adams,
Richard Henry Dana,
volume 1, chapter 7._
ALSO IN:
_H. Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America,
volume 2, chapter 13._
_J. W. Schuckers,
Life of Salmon P. Chase,
chapter 11._
_R. B. Warden,
Life of Salmon P. Chase,
chapter 21._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848-1849.
Sixteenth Presidential Election.
Inauguration and death of General Taylor.
In the Presidential election of 1848, the Democratic party put
forward as its candidate Lewis Cass; the Whigs named General
Zachary Taylor; and the Free Soil Party placed Martin Van
Buren in nomination. That the Whig Party should again have set
aside its distinguished leader, Henry Clay, caused great grief
among his devoted followers and friends. "But there were those
in it who had grown gray in waiting for office under the
banner of Mr. Clay, and whose memories were refreshed with
what was effected by the éclat of military glory under General
Jackson. It was hard, and might seem ungrateful, to abandon a
great and long-tried leader. But the military feather waved
before their eyes, and they were tempted. … It needed a
leader, or a few leaders to give the signal of defection; and
they were not wanting. One after another of the great names of
the party fell off from Mr. Clay and inclined to General
Taylor; and when the national Whig Convention met at
Philadelphia, in June, 1848, to nominate a candidate for the
Presidency, the first ballot showed that seven out of twelve
of the Kentucky delegation, against the expectations and
wishes of their constituency, had deserted Mr. Clay, and gone
over to General Taylor. The influence of this fact was
great—perhaps decisive. For if Mr. Clay's own State was
against him, what could be expected of the other States? On
the fourth ballot General Taylor had 52 majority, and was
declared the nominee. … In November following, General Taylor
was elected President of the United States, and Millard
Fillmore Vice-President. As in the case of General Harrison,
who died in thirty days after his inauguration, so in the case
of General Taylor … he, too, died in sixteen months after he
had entered on the duties of his office."
_C. Colton,
Life, Correspondence and Speeches of Henry Clay,
volume 3, chapter 4._
The popular vote cast at the election was, for Taylor,
1,360,099; Cass, 1,220,544; for Van Buren, 291,263. The
electoral vote was, for Taylor, 163; for Cass, 127; for Van
Buren, none. Millard Fillmore, elected Vice President,
succeeded to the Presidency on the death of General Taylor,
July 9, 1850.
_O. O. Howard,
General Taylor,
chapters 21-24._
{3383}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850.
The Seventh Census.
Total population, 23,191,876, nearly 36 per cent. greater than
in 1840. The remnant of slavery in the northern States which
appears in this census, still lingering in New Jersey, was not
quite extinguished in the succeeding decade. The
classification and distribution of population was as follows:
North.
White. Free black. Slave.
California. 91,635 962 0
Connecticut. 363,099 7,693 0
Illinois. 846,034 5,436 0
Indiana. 977,154 11,262 0
Iowa. 191,881 333 0
Maine. 581,813 1,356 0
Massachusetts. 985,450 9,064 0
Michigan. 395,071 2,583 0
Minnesota. 6,038 39 0
New Hampshire. 317,456 520 0
New Jersey. 465,509 23,810 236
New York. 3,048,325 49,069 0
Ohio. 1,955,050 25,279 0
Oregon. 13,087 207 0
Pennsylvania. 2,258,160 53,626 0
Rhode Island. 143,875 3,670 0
Utah. 11,354 0 26
Vermont. 313,402 718 0
Wisconsin. 304,756 635 0
13,269,149 196,262 262
South.
White. Free black. Slave.
Alabama. 426,514 2,265 342,844
Arkansas. 162,189 608 47,100
Delaware. 71,169 18,073 2,290
District of Columbia. 37,941 10,059 3,687
Florida. 47,203 932 39,310
Georgia. 521,572 2,931 381,682
Kentucky. 761,413 10,011 210,981
Louisiana. 255,491 17,462 244,809
Maryland. 417,943 74,723 90,368
Mississippi. 295,718 930 309,878
Missouri. 592,004 2,618 87,422
New Mexico. 61,547 0 0
North Carolina. 553,028 27,463 288,548
South Carolina. 274,563 8,960 384,984
Tennessee. 756,836 6,422 239,459
Texas. 154,034 397 58,161
Virginia. 894,800 54,333 472,528
Total 6,283,965 238,187 3,204,051
The immigration in the decade preceding this census had risen
to 1,713,251 in number of persons, 1,047,763 coming from the
British Islands (mostly from Ireland), and 549,739 from other
parts of Europe.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850.
Henry Clay's last "Compromise."
Free California, and the Fugitive Slave Law.
Webster's Seventh of March Speech
and Seward's Declaration of the "Higher Law."
"In 1848 gold was discovered in California. The tide of
adventurers poured in. They had no slaves to take with them
and no desire to acquire any. In less than a year the newly
gathered people outnumbered the population of some of the
smaller states. They organized a state government with an
antislavery constitution, and demanded admission into the
Union. True, the greater part of the proposed state lies north
of 36° 30' [the dividing line of the Missouri Compromise], but
its climate, tempered by the Pacific Ocean, is of rare
mildness. If any part of the newly acquired territory should
be opened to slavery, it seemed that California was the part
best suited for it. If California repelled slavery, there was
small hope that the remainder of the new territory would
embrace it. Congress debated for ten months over the admission
of California. The threatened inequality in numbers of the
free and slave states was the central subject of contention,
and the Union seemed again in danger of disruption."
_J. S. Landon,
Constitutional History and Government of the United States,
lecture 8._
"One day toward the close of January [January 29, 1850], Henry
Clay rose from his chair in the Senate Chamber, and waving a
roll of papers, with dramatic eloquence and deep feeling,
announced to a hushed auditory that he held in his hand a
series of resolutions proposing an amicable arrangement of all
questions growing out of the subject of slavery. Read and
explained by its author this plan of compromise was to admit
California, and to establish territorial governments in New
Mexico, and the other portions of the regions acquired from
Mexico, without any provisions for or against slavery—to pay
the debt of Texas and fix her western boundary—to declare
that it was 'inexpedient' to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia, but 'expedient' to put some restrictions on the
slave trade there, to pass a new and more stringent fugitive
slave law, and to formally deny that Congress had any power to
obstruct the slave trade between the States. Upon this plan of
compromise and the modifications afterward made in it, began
that long debate, since become historic, which engrossed the
attention of Congress and the country for eight weary months.
At the outset, many of those who had threatened 'Disunion,'
opposed 'Clay's Compromise,' because it did not go far enough,
while the 'Wilmot Proviso' men were equally resolute in
opposing it, because it went too far. Seward with many other
Northern Whigs, adhered to the 'President's Plan' [which
simply favored the admission of California and New Mexico
under constitutions which he had invited their people to
frame], as being a much more just and speedy way of solving
the problem. Avowing himself unterrified by the threats of
'Disunion,' he insisted that neither 'Compromise' nor the
'Fugitive Slave Law' was necessary, and that it was both the
right and the duty of Congress to admit the Territories as
free States, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,
and the slave trade between the States. Southern feeling was
predominant in the Senate Chamber, as it had been for many
years. Neither of the two great parties was opposed to
slavery, and the recognized leaders of both were men of
Southern birth. … Mr. Clay's resolutions, unsatisfactory as
they were, to anti-slavery men, at first met with objections
from Southern members. One 'deeply regretted the admission
that slavery did not exist in the territories.' Several would
'never assent to the doctrine that slaveholders could not go
there, taking their property with them.' Some questioned the
validity of the Mexican decree, abolishing slavery in New
Spain, and doubted the constitutionality of any attempt on the
part of Congress to exclude it. Prognostications and threats
of 'disunion' were freely made.
{3384}
On the other hand, there began to be signs of a growing
disposition, on the part of many Northern men, to give up the
'Proviso' for the sake of peace; and to follow the lead of Mr.
Clay. Conservative Southern Whigs were quite ready to meet
these half way. Seward's position was regarded as 'ultra' by
both classes; and it not unfrequently happened that, on
questions in the Senate relating to slavery, only three
Senators, Seward, Chase, and Hale, would be found voting
together, on one side, while all the other Senators present
were arrayed against them, on the other. Newspapers, received
from all parts of the country, showed that elsewhere, as well
as at the capital, the proposed compromise was an engrossing
topic. Great meetings were held at the North in support of it.
State Legislatures took ground, for and against it. Fresh fuel
was added to the heated discussion by a new 'Fugitive Slave
Law,' introduced by Senator Mason of Virginia, and by the talk
of Southern Conventions, and 'Secret Southern Caucuses.' …
March was an eventful month. Time enough had elapsed for each
Senator to receive, from the press and people of his State,
their response, in regard to Clay's proposed compromise.
Resolutions pro and con had come from different Legislatures.
… Each of the leaders in senatorial debate felt that the hour
had come for him to declare whether he was for or against it.
… Mr. Calhoun, though in failing health, obtained the floor
for a speech. Everybody awaited it with great interest,
regarding him as the acknowledged exponent of Southern
opinion. … An expectant throng filled the Senate Chamber. His
gaunt figure and attenuated features attested that he had
risen from a sick bed; but his fiery eyes and unshaken voice
showed he had no intention of abandoning the contest. In a few
words he explained that his health would not permit him to
deliver the speech he had prepared, but that 'his friend the
Senator behind him (Mason) would read it for him.' Beginning
by saying that he had 'believed from the first that the
agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by
some timely and effective measure, end in "disunion,"' the
speech opposed Clay's plan of adjustment; attacked the
President's plan; adverted to the growing feeling that the
South could not remain in Union 'with safety and honor';
pointed out the gradual snapping, one after another, of the
links which held the Union together, and expressed the most
gloomy forebodings for the future. Three days later a similar,
or greater, throng gathered to listen to Webster's great '7th
of March speech,' which has ever since been recorded as
marking an era in his life. He rose from his seat near the
middle of the chamber, wearing his customary blue coat with
metal buttons, and with one hand thrust into the buff vest,
stood during his opening remarks, as impassive as a statue;
but growing slightly more animated as he proceeded. Calm,
clear, and powerful, his sonorous utterances, while they
disappointed thousands of his friends at the North, lent new
vigor to the 'Compromisers,' with whom, it was seen, he would
henceforth act."
_F. W. Seward,
Seward at Washington, 1846-1861,
chapter 16._
The first and longer part of Mr. Webster's speech was an
historical review of the slavery question, and an argument
maintaining the proposition, as he afterwards stated it in a
few words, that there is "not a square rod of territory
belonging to the United States the character of which, for
slavery, or no slavery is not already fixed by some
irrepealable law." The concluding part of his speech contained
the passages which caused most grief among and gave most
offense to his friends and admirers at the North. They are
substantially comprised in the quotations following,—together
with his eloquent declamation against the thought of
secession: Mr. President, in the excited times in which we
live, there is found to exist a state of crimination and
recrimination between the North and South. There are lists of
grievances produced by each; and those grievances, real or
supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the country
from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense
of fraternal affection, patriotic love, and mutual regard. I
shall bestow a little attention, Sir, upon these various
grievances existing on the one side and on the other. I begin
with complaints of the South. I will not answer, further than
I have, the general statements of the honor·able Senator from
South Carolina, that the North has prospered at the expense of
the South in consequence of the manner of administering this
government, in the collecting of its revenues, and so forth.
These are disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter
into them. But I will allude to other complaints of the South,
and especially to one which has in my opinion just foundation;
and that is, that there has been found at the North, among
individuals and among legislators, a disinclination to perform
fully their constitutional duties in regard to the return of
persons bound to service who have escaped into the free
States. In that respect, the South, in my judgment, is right,
and the North is wrong. Every member of every Northern
legislature is bound by oath, like every other officer in the
country, to support the Constitution of the United States; and
the article of the Constitution which says to these States
that they shall deliver up fugitives from service is as
binding in honor and conscience as any other article. No man
fulfils his duty in any legislature who sets himself to find
excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional
obligation. I have always thought that the Constitution
addressed itself to the legislatures of the States or to the
States themselves. It says that those persons escaping to
other States 'shall be delivered up,' and I confess I have
always been of the opinion that it was an injunction upon the
States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into
another State, and coming therefore within the jurisdiction of
that State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import
of the clause is, that the State itself, in obedience to the
Constitution, shall cause him to be delivered up. That is my
judgment. I have always entertained that opinion, and I
entertain it now. But when the subject, some years ago, was
before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority of
the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service
to be delivered up was a power to be exercised under the
authority of this government. I do not know, on the whole,
that it may not have been a fortunate decision. My habit is to
respect the result of judicial deliberations and the solemnity
of judicial decisions.
{3385}
As it now stands, the business of seeing that these fugitives
are delivered up resides in the power of Congress and the
national judicature, and my friend at the head of the
Judiciary Committee has a bill on the subject now before the
Senate, which with some amendments to it, I propose to
support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I
desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men at the
North, of all conscientious men, of all men who are not
carried away by some fanatical idea or some false impression,
to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all the sober
and sound minds at the North as a question of morals and a
question of conscience. What right have they, in their
legislative capacity or any other capacity, to endeavor to get
round this Constitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of
the rights secured by the Constitution to the persons whose
slaves escape from them? None at all; none at all. Neither in
the forum of conscience, nor before the face of the
Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in such an
attempt. … I repeat, therefore, Sir, that here is a
well-founded ground of complaint against the North, which
ought to be removed, which it is now in the power of the
different departments of this government to remove; which
calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the
judicature of this government, in the several States, to do
all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves and
for their restoration to those who claim them. … Complaint has
been made against certain resolutions that emanate from
legislatures at the North, and are sent here to us, not only
on the subject of slavery in this District, but sometimes
recommending Congress to consider the means of abolishing
slavery in the States. I should be sorry to be called upon to
present any resolutions here which could not be referable to
any committee or any power in Congress; and therefore I should
be unwilling to receive from the legislature of Massachusetts
any instructions to present resolutions expressive of any
opinion whatever on the subject of slavery, as it exists at
the present moment in the States, for two reasons: first,
be·cause I do not consider that the legislature of
Massachusetts has anything to do with it; and next, because I
do not consider that I, as her representative here, have
anything to do with it. It has become, in my opinion, quite
too common; and if the legislatures of the States do not like
that opinion, they have a great deal more power to put it down
than I have to uphold it; It has become in my opinion quite
too common a practice for the State legislatures to present
resolutions here on all subjects and to instruct us on all
subjects. There is no public man that requires instruction
more than I do, or who requires information more than I do, or
desires it more heartily; but I do not like to have it in too
imperative a shape. … Then Sir, there are the Abolition
societies, of which I am unwilling to speak, but in regard to
which I have very clear notions and opinions. I do not think
them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty
years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same
time, I believe thousands of their members to be honest and
good men, perfectly well-meaning men. They have excited
feelings; they think they must do something for the cause of
liberty; and, in their sphere of action, they do not see what
else they can do than to contribute to an Abolition press, or
an Abolition society, or to pay an Abolition lecturer. I do
not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these
societies, but I am not blind to the consequences of their
proceedings. I cannot but see what mischiefs their
interference with the South has produced. And is it not plain
to every man? Let any gentleman who entertains doubts on this
point recur to the debates in the Virginia House of Delegates
in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition made
by Mr. Jefferson Randolph for the gradual abolition of slavery
was discussed in that body. Everyone spoke of slavery as he
thought; very ignominious and disparaging names and epithets
were applied to it. The debates in the House of Delegates on
that occasion, I believe, were all published. They were read
by every colored man who could read, and to those who could
not read, those debates were read by others. At that time
Virginia was not unwilling or afraid to discuss this question,
and to let that part of her population know as much of the
discussion as they could learn. That was in 1832. As has been
said by the honorable member from South Carolina, these
Abolition societies commenced their course of action in 1835.
It is said, I do not know how true it may be, that they sent
incendiary publications into the slave States; at any rate,
they attempted to arouse, and did arouse, a very strong
feeling; in other words they created great agitation in the
North against Southern slavery. Well, what was the result? The
bonds of the slaves were bound more firmly than before, their
rivets were more strongly fastened. Public opinion, which in
Virginia had begun to be exhibited against slavery, and was
opening out for the discussion of the question, drew back and
shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether any body
in Virginia can now talk openly as Mr. Randolph, Governor
McDowell, and others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to
the press? We all know the fact, and we all know the cause;
and everything that these agitating people have done has been,
not to enlarge, but to restrain, not to set free, but to bind
faster, the slave population of the South. Again, Sir, the
violence of the Northern press is complained of. The press
violent! Why, Sir, the press is violent everywhere. There are
outrageous reproaches in the North against the South, and
there are reproaches as vehement in the South against the
North. Sir, the extremists of both parts of this country are
violent; they mistake loud and violent talk, for eloquence and
for reason. They think that he who talks loudest reasons best.
And this we must expect, when the press is free, as it is
here, and I trust always will be. … Well, in all this I see no
solid grievance, no grievance presented by the South, within
the redress of the government, but the single one to which I
have referred; and that is, the want of a proper regard to the
injunction of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitive
slaves. There are also complaints of the North against the
South. I need not go over them particularly. The first and
gravest is, that the North adopted the Constitution,
recognizing the existence of slavery in the States, and
recognizing the right, to a certain extent, of the
representation of slaves in Congress, under a state of
sentiment and expectation which does not now exist; and that,
by events, by circumstances, by the eagerness of the South to
acquire territory and extend her slave population, the North
finds itself, in regard to the relative influence of the South
and the North, of the free States and the slave States, where
it never did expect to find itself when they agreed to the
compact of the Constitution.
{3386}
They complain, therefore, that, instead of slavery being
regarded as an evil, as it was then, an evil which all hoped
would be extinguished gradually, it is now regarded by the
South as an institution to be cherished, and preserved, and
extended; an institution which the South has already extended
to the utmost of her power by the acquisition of new
territory. Well, then, passing from that, every body in the
North reads; and every body reads whatsoever the newspapers
contain; and the newspapers, some of them, especially those
presses to which I have alluded, are careful to spread about
among the people every reproachful sentiment uttered by any
Southern man bearing at all against the North; every thing
that is calculated to exasperate and to alienate; and there
are many such things, as every body will admit, from the
South, or some portion of it, which are disseminated among the
reading people; and they do exasperate, and alienate, and
produce a most mischievous effect upon the public mind at the
North. Sir, I would not notice things of this sort appearing
in obscure quarters; but one thing has occurred in this debate
which struck me very forcibly. An honorable member from
Louisiana addressed us the other day on this subject. I
suppose there is not a more amiable and worthy gentleman in
this chamber, nor a gentleman who would be more slow to give
offence to any body, and he did not mean in his remarks to
give offence. But what did he say? Why, Sir, he took pains to
run a contrast between the slaves of the South and the
laboring people of the North, giving the preference, in all
points of condition, and comfort, and happiness, to the slaves
of the South. The honorable member, doubtless, did not suppose
that he gave any offence, or did any injustice. He was merely
expressing his opinion. But does he know how remarks of that
sort will be received by the laboring people of the North?
Why, who are the laboring people of the North? They are the
whole North. They are the people who till their own farms with
their own hands; freeholders, educated men, independent men.
Let me say, Sir, that five sixths of the whole property of the
North is in the hands of the laborers of the North; they
cultivate their farms, they educate their children, they
provide the means of independence. … There is a more tangible
and irritating cause of grievance at the North. Free blacks
are constantly employed in the vessels of the North, generally
as cooks or stewards. When the vessel arrives at a Southern
port, these free colored men are taken on shore, by the police
or municipal authority, imprisoned, and kept in prison till
the vessel is again ready to sail. This is not only
irritating, but exceedingly unjustifiable and oppressive. Mr.
Hoar's mission, some time ago, to South Carolina, was a
well-intended effort to remove this cause of complaint. The
North thinks such imprisonments illegal and unconstitutional;
and as the cases occur constantly and frequently, they regard
it as a great grievance. Now, Sir, so far as any of these
grievances have their foundation in matters of law, they can
be redressed, and ought to be redressed; and so far as they
have their foundation in matters of opinion, in sentiment, in
mutual crimination and recrimination, all that we can do is to
endeavor to allay the agitation, and cultivate a better
feeling and more fraternal sentiments between the South and
the North. Mr. President, I should much prefer to have heard
from every member on this floor declarations of opinion that
this Union could never be dissolved, than the declaration of
opinion by any body, that, in any case, under the pressure of
any circumstances, such a dissolution was possible. I hear
with distress and anguish the word 'secession,' especially
when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and
known to the country, and known all over the world, for their
political services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your
eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The
dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The
breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without
ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish, I beg every body's
pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees
these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre,
and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without
convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies
rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the
realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe.
There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable
secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution
under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be
thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the
mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear
almost unobserved, and run off? No, Sir! No, Sir! I will not
state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but,
Sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that
disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce
war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its two-fold
character. Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The
concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic
to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side
and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the
line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain
American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to
become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no
country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here,
or who fill the other house of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where
is the flag of the republic to remain? Where is the eagle
still to tower? or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the
ground? Why, Sir, our ancestors, our fathers, and our
grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us
with prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our
children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if
we of this generation should dishonor these ensign of the
power of the government and the harmony of that Union which is
every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. … Sir,
nobody can look over the face of this country at the present
moment, nobody can see where its population is the most dense
and growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to
admit, that ere long the strength of America will be in the
Valley of the Mississippi.
{3387}
Well, now, Sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthusiast
has to say on the possibility of cutting that river in two,
and leaving free States at its source and on it branches, and
slave States down near its mouth, each forming a separate
government? … To break up this great government! to dismember
this glorious country! To astonish Europe with an act of folly
such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any
government or any people! No, Sir! no, Sir! There will be no
secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of
secession."
_Daniel Webster,
Works,
volume 5, page 324._
"The speech, if exactly defined, is, in reality, a powerful
effort, not for compromise or for the Fugitive Slave Law, or
any other one thing, but to arrest the whole anti-slavery
movement, and in that way put an end to the dangers which
threatened the Union and restore lasting harmony between the
jarring sections. It was a mad project. Mr. Webster might as
well have attempted to stay the incoming tide at Marshfield
with a rampart of sand as to seek to check the anti-slavery
movement by a speech. Nevertheless, he produced a great
effect. … The blow fell with terrible force, and here … we
come to the real mischief which was wrought. The 7th of March
speech demoralized New England and the whole North. The
abolitionists showed by bitter anger the pain, disappointment,
and dismay which this speech brought. The Free-Soil party
quivered and sank for the moment beneath the shock. The whole
anti-slavery movement recoiled. The conservative reaction
which Mr. Webster endeavored to produce came and triumphed.
Chiefly by his exertions the compromise policy was accepted
and sustained by the country. The conservative elements
everywhere rallied to his support, and by his ability and
eloquence it seemed as if he had prevailed and brought the
people over to his opinions. It was a wonderful tribute to his
power and influence, but the triumph was hollow and
short-lived. He had attempted to compass an impossibility.
Nothing could kill the principles of human liberty, not even a
speech by Daniel Webster, backed by all his intellect and
knowledge, his eloquence and his renown. The anti-slavery
movement was checked for the time, and pro-slavery democracy,
the only other positive political force, reigned supreme. But
amid the falling ruins of the Whig party, and the evanescent
success of the Native Americans, the party of human rights
revived; and when it rose again, taught by the trials and
misfortunes of 1850, it rose with a strength which Mr. Webster
had never dreamed of."
_H. C. Lodge,
Daniel Webster,
chapter 9._
"A public meeting in Faneuil Hall condemned the action of
Webster. Theodore Parker, who was one of the principal
speakers, said: 'I know no deed in American history done by a
son of New England to which I can compare this but the act of
Benedict Arnold. … The only reasonable way in which we can
estimate this speech is as a bid for the presidency.' In the
main, the Northern Whig press condemned the salient points of
the speech. … Whittier, in a song of plaintive vehemence
called 'Ichabod,' mourned for the 'fallen' statesman whose
faith was lost, and whose honor was dead. … This was the
instant outburst of opinion; but friends for Webster and his
cause came with more deliberate reflections. … When the first
excitement had subsided, the friends of Webster bestirred
themselves, and soon testimonials poured in, approving the
position which he had taken. The most significant of them was
the one from eight hundred solid men of Boston, who thanked
him for 'recalling us to our duties under the Constitution,'
and for his 'broad national and patriotic views.' The tone of
many of the Whig papers changed, some to positive support,
others to more qualified censure. The whole political
literature of the time is full of the discussion of this
speech and its relation to the compromise. It is frequently
said that a speech in Congress does not alter opinions; that
the minds of men are determined by set political bias or
sectional considerations. This was certainly not the case in
1850. Webster's influence was of the greatest weight in the
passage of the compromise measures, and he is as closely
associated with them as is their author. Clay's adroit
parliamentary management was necessary to carry them through
the various and tedious steps of legislation. But it was
Webster who raised up for them a powerful and much-needed
support from Northern public sentiment. At the South the
speech was cordially received; the larger portion of the press
commended it with undisguised admiration. … On the 11th of
March, Seward spoke. … When Seward came to the territorial
question, his words created a sensation, 'We hold,' he said,
'no arbitrary authority over anything, whether acquired
lawfully or seized by usurpation. The Constitution regulates
our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain (i. e.
the territories not formed into States) to union, to justice,
to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher
law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over
the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The
territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common
heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the
Universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust
as to secure in the highest attainable degree their
happiness.' This remark about 'a higher law,' while far
inferior in rhetorical force to Webster's 'I would not take
pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of Nature, nor to
re-enact the will of God,' was destined to have transcendent
moral influence. A speech which can be condensed into an
aphorism is sure to shape convictions. These, then, are the
two maxims of this debate; the application of them shows the
essential points of the controversy."
_J. F. Rhodes,
History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850.
volume 1, chapter 2._
In the political controversies which accompanied and followed
the introduction of the Compromise measures, the Whigs who
supported the Compromise were called "Silver-Grays," or
"Snuff-Takers," and those who opposed it were called
"Woolly-Heads," or "Seward-Whigs."
{3388}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850.
Mr. Clay's last compromise.
The Omnibus Bill.
The Fugitive Slave Law as passed.
On the 17th of April, "a select committee of the Senate,
headed by Mr. Clay, reported a bill consisting of 39 sections,
embodying most of the resolutions which had been discussed.
From its all-comprehensive nature it was called the Omnibus
Bill. The points comprehended in the omnibus bill were as
follows:
1st. When new states formed out of Texas present themselves,
it shall be the duty of Congress to admit them;
2d. The immediate admission of California, with the boundaries
which she has proposed;
3d. The establishment of territorial governments for Utah and
New Mexico, without the Wilmot proviso;
4th. The combination of points 2 and 3 in one bill;
5th. The excission from Texas of all New Mexico, rendering
therefor a pecuniary equivalent;
6th. The enactment of a law for the effectual rendition of
fugitive slaves escaping into the free states;
7th. No interference with slavery in the District of Columbia,
but the slave trade therein should be abolished, under heavy
penalties.
This bill was discussed until the last of July, and then
passed by the Senate, but it had been so pruned by successive
amendments that it contained only a provision for the
organization of a territorial government for Utah. In this
condition it was sent to the House. There, as a whole, the
bill was rejected, but its main heads were passed in August as
separate bills, and were designated the compromise measures of
1850, and, in their accepted shape, required:
(1) Utah and New Mexico to be organized into territories,
without reference to slavery;
(2) California to be admitted as a free state;
(3) $10,000,000 to be paid to Texas for her claim to New
Mexico;
(4) fugitive slaves to be returned to their masters; and
(5) the slave trade to be abolished in the District of
Columbia.
The compromises were received by the leaders of the two great
parties as a final settlement of the vexed questions which had
so long troubled Congress and agitated the country, but the
storm was only temporarily allayed. In accordance with these
measures California became a state of the Union September 9,
1850. The most important feature of this bill, in its bearing
upon future struggles and conflicts, was the fugitive slave
law. … In the midst of the discussion of these topics occurred
the death of the President, July 9, 1850, one year and four
months after his inauguration. … Mr. Fillmore was inaugurated
on the 10th of July, 1850. He departed from the policy of his
predecessor, organized a new cabinet, used his influence in
favor of the compromise measures," and gave his signature to
the Fugitive Slave Law.
_W. R. Houghton,
History of American Politics,
chapter 15._
"It was apparent to everyone who knew anything of the
sentiments of the North that this law could not be executed to
any extent. Seward had truly said that if the South wished
their runaway negroes returned they must alleviate, not
increase, the rigors of the law of 1793; and to give the
alleged fugitive a jury trial, as Webster proposed, was the
only possible way to effect the desired purpose. If we look
below the surface we shall find a strong impelling motive of
the Southern clamor for this harsh enactment other than the
natural desire to recover lost property. Early in the session
it took air that a part of the game of the disunionists was to
press a stringent fugitive slave law, for which no Northern
man could vote; and when it was defeated, the North would be
charged with refusing to carry out a stipulation of the
Constitution. Douglas stated in the Senate that while there
was some ground for complaint on the subject of surrender of
fugitives from service, it had been greatly exaggerated. The
excitement and virulence were not along the line bordering on
the free and slave States, but between Vermont and South
Carolina, New Hampshire and Alabama, Connecticut and
Louisiana. Clay gave vent to his astonishment that Arkansas,
Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina, States which very
rarely lost a slave, demanded a stricter law than Kentucky,
which lost many. After the act was passed Senator Butler, of
South Carolina, said: 'I would just as soon have the law of
1793 as the present law, for any purpose, so far as regards
the reclamation of fugitive slaves;' and another Southern
ultra never thought it would be productive of much good to his
section. Six months after the passage of the law, Seward
expresses the matured opinion 'that political ends—merely
political ends—and not real evils, resulting from the escape
of slaves, constituted the prevailing motives to the
enactment.'"
_J. F. Rhodes,
History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850,
chapter 2 (volume 1)._
"The fugitive-slave law was to make the citizens of the Free
States do for the slave-holders what not a few of the
slave-holders were too proud to do for themselves. Such a law
could not but fail. But then it would increase the
exasperation of the slave-holders by its failure, while
exasperating the people of the Free States by the attempts at
enforcement. Thus the compromise of 1850, instead of securing
peace and harmony, contained in the most important of its
provisions the seeds of new and greater conflicts. One effect
it produced which Calhoun had clearly predicted when he warned
the slave-holding states against compromises as an invention
of the enemy: it adjourned the decisive conflict until the
superiority of the North over the South in population and
material resources was overwhelming."
_C. Schurz,
Life of Henry Clay,
chapter 26 (volume 2)._
ALSO IN:
_H. von Holst,
Constitutional and Political History of the United States,
volume 3, chapters 15-16._
_H. Clay,
Life, Correspondence, and Speeches; edited by Colton,
volume 6._
_W. H. Seward,
Works,
volume 1, pages 51-131.
and volume 4._
_J. S. Pike,
First Blows of the Civil War,
pages 1-98._
_H.Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power,
volume 2, chapters 18-28._
_J. F. Rhodes,
History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850,
chapter. 2 (volume 1)._
See, also, HIGHER LAW DOCTRINE.
The following is the complete text of the Fugitive Slave Law:
"An act to amend, and supplementary to, the Act entitled 'An
Act respecting Fugitives from Justice, and Persons escaping
from the Service of their Masters,' approved February twelfth,
one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the
persons who have been, or may hereafter be, appointed
commissioners, in virtue of any act of Congress, by the
Circuit Courts of the United States, and who, in consequence
of such appointment, are authorized to exercise the powers
that any justice of the peace, or other magistrate of any of
the United States, may exercise in respect to offenders for
any crime or offence against the United States, by arresting,
imprisoning, or bailing the same under and by virtue of the
thirty-third section of the act of the twenty-fourth of
September seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, entitled 'An Act
to establish the judicial courts of the United States,' shall
be, and are hereby, authorized and required to exercise and
discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.
{3389}
SECTION 2. And be it further enacted, That the Superior Court
of each organized Territory of the United States shall have
the same power to appoint commissioners to take
acknowledgments of bail and affidavits, and to take
depositions of witnesses in civil causes, which is now
possessed by the Circuit Court of the United States; and all
commissioners who shall hereafter be appointed for such
purposes by the Superior Court of any organized Territory of
the United States, shall possess all the powers, and exercise
all the duties, conferred by law upon the commissioners
appointed by the Circuit Courts of the United States for
similar purposes, and shall moreover exercise and discharge
all the powers and duties conferred by this act.