Part 23 (2/2)

[Footnote 2: For an account of this war, read Maclay's _History of the United States Navy_, Vol. I., pp. 155-213.]

%239. The Stamp Tax; the Direct Tax and Fries's Rebellion, 1798.%--The heavy cost of the preparations for war made new taxes necessary. Two of these, a stamp tax very similar to the famous one of 1765, and a direct tax, greatly excited the people. The direct tax was the first of its kind in our history, and was laid on lands, houses, and negro slaves. In certain counties of eastern Pennsylvania, where the population was chiefly German, the purpose of the tax was not understood, and the people refused to make returns of the value of their farms and houses. When the a.s.sessors came to measure the houses and count the windows as a means of determining the value of the property, the people drove them off. For this some of the leaders were arrested.

But the people under John Fries rose and rescued the prisoners. At this stage President Adams called out the militia, and marched it against the rebels. They yielded. But Fries was tried for treason, was sentenced to be hanged, and was then pardoned. Thus a second time was it proved that the people of the United States were determined to support the Const.i.tution and the laws and put down rebellion.

%240. Was.h.i.+ngton the National Capital.%--In accordance with the bargain made in 1790, Was.h.i.+ngton selected a site for the Federal city on both banks of the Potomac. This great square tract of land was ten miles long on each side, and was given to the government partly by Maryland and partly by Virginia.[1] It was called the District of Columbia, and in it were marked out the streets of Was.h.i.+ngton city.

[Footnote 1: In 1846 so much of the District as had belonged to Virginia was given back to her.]

Though all possible haste was made, the President's house was still unfinished, the Capitol but partly built, and the streets nothing but roads cut through the woods, when, in the summer of 1800, the secretaries, the clerks, the books and papers of the government left Philadelphia for Was.h.i.+ngton. With the opening of the new century, and the occupation of the new Capitol, came a new President, and a new party in control of the government.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The National Capitol as it was in 1825]

%241. The Election of Thomas Jefferson.%--The year 1800 was a presidential year, and though no formal nomination was made, a caucus of Republican leaders selected as candidates Thomas Jefferson for President, and Aaron Burr for Vice President. A caucus or meeting of Federalist leaders selected John Adams and C. C. Pinckney as their candidates. When the returns were all in, it appeared that Jefferson had received seventy-three votes, Burr seventy-three votes, Adams sixty-five votes, Pinckney sixty-four votes. The Const.i.tution provided that the man who received the highest number of electoral votes, if the choice of the majority of the electors, should be President. But as Jefferson and Burr had each seventy-three, neither had the highest, and neither was President. The duty of electing a President then devolved on the House of Representatives, which after a long and bitter struggle elected Jefferson President; Burr then became Vice President. To prevent such a contest ever arising again, the twelfth amendment was added to the Const.i.tution. This provides for a separate ballot for Vice President.

March 4, 1801, Jefferson, escorted by the militia of Georgetown and Alexandria, walked from his lodgings to the Senate chamber and took the oath of office.{1} He and his party had been placed in power in order to make certain reforms, and this, when Congress met in the winter of 1801, they began to do.

[Footnote 1: For a fine description of Jefferson's personality, read Henry Adams's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 185-191. As to the story of Jefferson riding alone to the Capitol and tying his horse to the fence, see Adams's _History_, Vol. I, pp. 196-199; McMaster's _History_, Vol. II., pp. 533-534.]

%242. The Annual Message.%--While Was.h.i.+ngton and Adams were presidents, it was their custom when Congress met each year to go in state to the House of Representatives, and in the presence of the House and Senate read a speech. The two branches of Congress would then separate and appoint committees to answer the President's speech, and when the answers were ready, each would march through the streets to the President's house, where the Vice President or the Speaker would read the answer to the President. When Congress met in 1801, Jefferson dropped this custom and sent a written message to both houses--a practice which every President since that time has followed.

%243. Republican Reforms.%--True to their promises, the Republicans now proceeded to repeal the hated laws of the Federalists. They sold all the s.h.i.+ps of the navy except thirteen, they ordered prosecutions under the Sedition law to be stopped, they repealed all the internal taxes laid by the Federalists, they cut down the army to 2500 men, and reduced the expenses of government to $3,700,000 per year--a sum which would not now pay the cost of running the government for three days. As the annual revenue collected at the customhouses, the post office, and from the sale of land was $10,800,000, the treasury had some $7,000,000 of surplus each year. This was used to pay the national debt, which fell from $88,000,000 in 1801 to $45,000,000 in 1812, and this in spite of the purchase of Louisiana.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Thomas Jefferson]

%244. The Purchase of Louisiana.%--When France was driven out of America, it will be remembered, she gave to Spain all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, together with a large tract on the east bank, at the river's mouth. Spain then owned Louisiana till 1800, when by a secret treaty she gave the province back to France.[1]

[Footnote 1: Adams's _History of the United States, _Vol. I., pp.

352-376.]

For a while this treaty was really kept secret; but in April, 1802, news that Louisiana had been given to France and that Napoleon was going to send out troops to hold it, reached this country and produced two consequences. In the first place, it led the Spanish intendant (as the man who had charge of all commercial matters was called) to withdraw the ”right of deposit” at New Orleans, and so prevent citizens of the United States sending their produce out of the Mississippi River. In the second place, this act of the intendant excited the rage of all the settlers in the valley from Pittsburg to Natchez, and made them demand the instant seizure of New Orleans by American troops. To prevent this, Jefferson obtained the consent of Congress to make an effort to buy New Orleans and West Florida, and sent Monroe to aid our minister in France in making the purchase.

When the offer was made, Napoleon was about going to war with England, and, wanting money very much, he in turn offered to sell the whole province to the United States--an offer that was gladly accepted. The price paid was $15,000,000, and in December, 1803, Louisiana was formally delivered to us.

%245. Louisiana.%--Concerning this splendid domain hardly anything was known. No boundaries were given to it either on the north, or on the west, or on the south. What the country was like n.o.body could tell.[1]

Where the source of the Mississippi was no white man knew. In the time of La Salle a priest named Hennepin had gone up to the spot where Minneapolis now stands, and had seen the Falls of St. Anthony (p. 63).

But the country above the falls was still unknown.

[Footnote 1: In a description of it which Jefferson sent to Congress in 1804, he actually stated that ”there exists about one thousand miles up the Missouri, and not far from that river, a salt mountain. This mountain is said to be one hundred and eighty miles long and forty-five in width, composed of solid rock salt, without any trees or even shrubs on it.”]

%246. Explorations of Lewis and Clark.%--That this great region ought to be explored had been a favorite idea of Jefferson for twenty years past, and he had tried to persuade learned men and learned societies to organize an expedition to cross the continent. Failing in this, he turned to Congress, which in 1803 (before the purchase of Louisiana) voted a sum of money for sending an exploring party from the mouth of the Missouri to the Pacific. The party was in charge of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Early in May, 1804, they left St. Louis, then a frontier town of log cabins, and worked their way up the Missouri River to a spot not far from the present city of Bismarck, North Dakota, where they pa.s.sed the winter with the Indians. Resuming their journey in the spring of 1805, they followed the Missouri to its source in the mountains, after crossing which they came to the Clear Water River; and down this they went to the Columbia, which carried them to a spot where, late in November, 1805, they ”saw the waves like small mountains rolling out in the sea.” They were on the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific Ocean. After spending the winter at the mouth of the Columbia, the party made its way back to St. Louis in 1806.

%247. The Oregon Country.%--Lewis and Clark were not the first of our countrymen to see the Columbia River. In 1792 a Boston s.h.i.+p captain named Gray was trading with the Pacific coast Indians. He was collecting furs to take to China and exchange for tea to be carried to Boston, and while so engaged he discovered the mouth of a great river, which he entered, and named the Columbia in honor of his s.h.i.+p. By right of this discovery by Gray the United States was ent.i.tled to all the country drained by the Columbia River. By the exploration of this country by Lewis and Clark our t.i.tle was made stronger still, and it was finally perfected a few years later when the trappers and settlers went over the Rocky Mountains and occupied the Oregon country.[1]

[Footnote 1: Barrows's _Oregon_; McMaster's _History_, Vol. II., pp.

633-635.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mouth of the Columbia River]

%248. Pike explores the Southwest.%--While Lewis and Clark were making their way up the Missouri, Zebulon Pike was sent to find the source of the Mississippi, which he thought he did in the winter of 1805-06. In this he was mistaken, but supposing his work done, he was dispatched on another expedition in 1806. Traveling up the Missouri River to the Osage, and up the Osage nearly to its source, he struck across Kansas to the Arkansas River, which he followed to its head waters, wandering in the neighborhood of that fine mountain which in honor of him bears the name of Pikes Peak. Then he crossed the mountains and began a search for the Red River. The march was a terrible one. It was winter; the cold was intense. The snow lay waist deep on the plains.

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