Volume Ii Part 14 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Coin.]
The Franklin Penny.
”United States” ”We Are One”
”Fugio” ”1787” ”Mind Your Business”
[1783]
The war had cost about $150,000,000. In 1783 the debt was $42,000,000--$8,000,000 owed in France and Holland, and the rest at home. The States contributed in so n.i.g.g.ardly a way that even the interest could not be paid. Five millions were owing to the army. Deep and ominous discontent spread among officers and men. An obscure colonel, supposed to be the agent of more prominent men, wrote to Was.h.i.+ngton, advocating a monarchy as the only salvation for the country, and inviting him to become king. In the spring of 1783 an anonymous address, of menacing tone, was circulated in the army, calling upon it for measures to force its rights from an ungrateful country.
[1785]
That the army disbanded quietly at last, with only three months' pay, in certificates depreciated nine-tenths, was due almost wholly to the boundless influence of Was.h.i.+ngton. How powerless the Government would have been to resist an uprising of the army, was shown by a humiliating incident. In June, 1783, a handful of Pennsylvania troops, clamoring for their pay, besieged the doors of Congress, and that august body had to take refuge in precipitate flight.
The country suffered greatly for lack of uniform commercial laws. So long as each State laid its own imposts, and goods free of duty in one State might be practically excluded from another, Congress could negotiate no valuable treaties of commerce abroad.
The chief immediate distress was from this wretchedness of our commercial relations, whether foreign or between the States at home. If our fathers would be independent, king and parliament were determined to make them pay dearly for the privilege. Accordingly Great Britain laid tariffs upon all our exports thither. What was much harder to bear, an order of the king in council, July 2, 1783, utterly forbade American s.h.i.+ps to engage in that British West-Indian trade which had always been a chief source of our wealth. The sole remedy for these abuses in dealing with England at that time was retaliation, but Congress had no authority to take retaliatory steps, while the separate States could not or would not act sufficiently in harmony to do so. If one imposed customs duties, another would open wide its ports, filling the markets of the first with British goods by overland trade, so that the customs law of the first availed nothing. If Pennsylvania and New York laid tariffs on foreign commodities, New Jersey and Connecticut people, in buying imported articles from Philadelphia or New York, were paying taxes to those greater States. North Carolina was in the same manner a forced tributary to South Carolina and Virginia, as were portions of Connecticut and Ma.s.sachusetts to Rhode Island.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Coin.]
Dollar of 1794.
The First United States Coin.
”Liberty” ”1794” ”United States of America”
We also needed a complete system of courts, departments for foreign and Indian affairs, and an efficient executive. The single vote for each State was unfair, allowing one-third of the people to defeat the will of the rest. The article requiring the consent of nine States made it almost impossible to get important measures through Congress. Delegates should not have been paid by their respective States. In consequence of this provision, coupled with other things, Congress decreased in numbers and importance. In November, 1783, less than twenty delegates were present, representing but seven States, and Congress had to appeal to the recreant States to send back their representatives before the treaty of peace could be ratified.
[1787]
But the one grand defect of the Confederation, underlying all others, was lack of power. The Government was an engine without steam. The States, just escaped from the tyranny of a king, would brook no new authority strong enough to endanger their liberties. The result was a thin ghost of a government set in charge over a lot of l.u.s.ty flesh-and-blood States.
The Confederation, however, did one piece of solid work worthy of everlasting praise. The Northwest Territory, embracing what is now Ohio, Indiana. Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, had been ceded to the Union by the States which originally claimed it. July 13, 1787, Congress adopted for the government of the territory the famous Ordinance of 1787. It provided for a governor, council, and judges, to be appointed by Congress, and a house of representatives elected by the people. Its s.h.i.+ning excellence was a series of compacts between the States and the territory, which guaranteed religious liberty, made grants of land and other liberal provisions for schools and colleges, and forever prohibited slavery in the territory or the States which should be made out of it. Thus were laid broad and deep the foundation for the full and free development of humanity in a region larger than the whole German Empire.
The pa.s.sing of the Ordinance was probably due in large measure to the influence of the Ohio Company, a colonist society organized in Boston the year before. It was composed of the flower of the Revolutionary army, and had wealth, energy, and intelligence. When its agent appeared before Congress to arrange for the purchase of five million acres of land in the Ohio Valley, a bill for the government of the territory, containing neither the antislavery clause nor the immortal principles of the compacts, was on the eve of pa.s.sage. The Company, composed mostly of Ma.s.sachusetts men, strongly desired their future home to be upon free soil. Their influence prevailed with Congress, eager for revenue from the sale of lands, and even the Southern members voted unanimously for the remodelled ordinance. The establishment of a strong and enlightened government in the territory led to its rapid settlement. Marietta, 0., was founded in April, 1788, and other colonies followed in rapid succession.
CHAPTER X.
RISE OF THE NEW CONSt.i.tUTION
[1787]
The anarchy succeeding the Revolution was as sad as the Revolution itself had been glorious. The Articles of Confederation furnished practically no government with which foreign nations could deal; England still clung to the western posts, contrary to the treaty of peace, with no power anywhere on this side to do more than protest; the debt of the confederacy steadily piled up its unpaid interest; the land was flooded with irredeemable paper money, state and national; the confederacy's laws and const.i.tution were ignored or trampled upon everywhere; and the arrogance and self-seeking of the several States surpa.s.sed everything but their own contemptible weakness.
In 1786 Shays' rebellion broke out in Ma.s.sachusetts. Solid money was very scarce, and paper all but worthless, yet many debts contracted on a paper basis were pressed for payment in hard money. The farmers swore that the incidence of taxes upon them was excessive, and upon the merchants too light. But the all-powerful grievance was the sudden change from the distressing monetary injustice during the Revolution, with the consequent increase of debts, to a rigid enforcement of debtors' claims afterward. At this period men were imprisoned for debt, and all prisons were frightful holes, which one would as lief die as enter. Meetings were held to air the popular griefs, and grew violent.
In August the court-house at Northampton was seized by a body of armed men and the court prevented from sitting. Similar uprisings occurred at Worcester, Springfield, and Concord. The leader in these movements was Daniel Shays, a former captain in the continental army. Governor Bowdoin finally called for volunteers to put down the rebellion, and placed General Lincoln in command. After several minor engagements, in which the insurgents were worsted, the decisive action took place at Petersham, where, in February, 1787, the rebels were surprised by Lincoln. A large number were captured, many more fled to their homes, and the rest withdrew into the neighboring States. Vermont and Rhode Island alone offered them a peaceful retreat, the other States giving up the fugitives to Ma.s.sachusetts.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Crowd watching two men fighting.]
A Scene at Springfield, during Shays' Rebellion, when the mob attempted to prevent the holding of the Courts of Justice.