Part 16 (1/2)
The Const.i.tution supplied the great requirement without which the government itself would have been a nullity: the power to act supplanted the power simply to advise. The government consists of three departments: a legislative or Congress, which makes the laws; an executive department, consisting of the President and his officers, to execute the laws made by Congress; and a judiciary department (the Federal courts), which decides disputed questions under the laws. The Const.i.tution is our supreme law and must be obeyed by the general government, the State governments, and the people; if not, the general government punishes the offender.
Congress, or the legislative department, consists of two branches, the Senate and House of Representatives. Each State, no matter what its population, is ent.i.tled to two Senators, who serve for six years and are elected by the respective State Legislatures; the Representatives are apportioned according to the population, are voted for directly by the people, and serve for two years. In this admirable manner, each State is protected by its Senators against any encroachment upon its rights, while the populous States receive the recognition to which they are ent.i.tled through the House of Representatives.
Congress, the two branches acting together, lay taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce, coin money, establish post offices, declare war, raise and support armies and navies, and employ militia to suppress insurrections. All States are forbidden to do any of these things, except to impose their own taxes, borrow for themselves, and employ their own militia. A majority of each house is enough to pa.s.s any bill, unless the President within ten days thereafter vetoes the act (that is, objects to it), when a two-thirds vote of each branch is necessary to make it a law. Treaties made by the President do not go into effect until approved by a two-thirds vote of the Senate.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.]
The executive department is vested in the President, chosen every four years by electors, who are voted for by the people. The President is commander-in-chief of the army and navy and appoints the majority of officers, it being necessary that most of the appointments shall be confirmed by the Senate. In case of misconduct, the President is to be impeached (charged with misconduct) by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate. If convicted and removed, or if he should die or resign or be unable to perform the duties of his office, the Vice-President takes his place and becomes President. With this exception, the Vice-President presides over the Senate, with no power to vote except in case of a tie. No provision was made for a successor in the event of the death of the Vice-President, but in 1886 the Presidential Succession Law was pa.s.sed, which provides that, in case of the death or disability of the President and Vice-President, the order of succession shall be the secretaries of State, of the treasury, of war, the attorney-general, the postmaster-general, and the secretaries of the navy and of the interior.
The judiciary department, or power to decide upon the const.i.tutionality of laws, was given to one supreme court and such inferior courts as Congress should establish. The judges are appointed by the President and Senate and hold office during life or good behavior. The State courts have the power of appeal to the supreme court of the United States, whose decision is final, the questions being necessarily based upon offenses against any law of Congress, or upon the doubtful meaning of a law, or the doubt of the const.i.tutional power of Congress to pa.s.s a law.
At the time of the adoption of the Const.i.tution, three-fifths of the slaves were to be counted in calculating the population for the Representatives. Fugitive slaves were to be arrested in the States to which they had fled. New Territories were to be governed by Congress, which body admits the new States as they are formed. Each State is guaranteed a republican form of government, and the vote of three-fourths of the States can change the Const.i.tution through the means of amendments. The provisions regarding slavery, as a matter of course, lost their effect upon the abolishment of the inst.i.tution at the close of the Civil War.
THE ORDINANCE OF 1787.
Congress remained in session in New York, while the Philadelphia convention was at work upon the Const.i.tution, and during that period organized a territorial government for the immense region northwest of the Ohio, which belonged to the United States. The enterprising nature of the American people a.s.serted itself, and hundreds of emigrants began making their way into that fertile section, where the best of land could be had for the asking. But the Indians were fierce and warred continually against the settlers. Most of these had been soldiers in the Revolution, and they generally united for mutual protection. The Ohio Company was formed in 1787, and, in order to a.s.sist it, Congress pa.s.sed the Ordinance of 1787, of which mention has been made.
Slavery was forever forbidden in the Territory northwest of the Ohio, and the inhabitants were guaranteed full religious freedom, trial by jury, and equal political and civil privileges. The governors of the Territory were to be appointed by Congress until the population was sufficient to permit the organization of five separate States, which States should be the equal in every respect of the original thirteen.
From the Territory named the powerful and prosperous States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin were afterward formed.
SETTLEMENT OF THE WEST.
The Indian t.i.tles to 17,000,000 acres of land in the Territory had been extinguished by treaties with the leading tribes, despite which the red men contested the advancing settlers with untiring ferocity. Flatboats were attacked on their way down the Ohio, and the families ma.s.sacred; blockhouses were a.s.sailed, and the smoke of the settlers' burning cabins lit the skies at night. The pioneer path to the fertile region was crimsoned by the blood of those who hewed their way through the western wilderness.
Until formed into States, the region was known as _The Northwestern Territory_. In 1788, Rufus Putnam, of Ma.s.sachusetts, at the head of forty pioneers, founded the settlement of Marietta, and within the same year 20,000 people erected their homes in the region that had been visited by Daniel Boone and others nearly twenty years before.
No sooner had the ninth State ratified the Const.i.tution than the Congress of the Confederation named March 4, 1789, as the day on which, in the city of New York, the new government should go into effect.
The time had come for the selection of the first President of the United States, and it need not be said that the name of only one man--WAs.h.i.+NGTON--was in people's thoughts. So overmastering was the personality of that great man that he was the only one mentioned, and what is most significant of all, not a politician or leader in the country had the effrontery to hint that he had placed himself ”in the hands of his friends” in the race for the presidency. Had he done so, he would have been buffeted into eternal obscurity.
Whatever may be said of the ingrat.i.tude of republics, it can never be charged that the United States was ungrateful to Was.h.i.+ngton. The people appreciated his worth from the first, and there was no honor they would not have gladly paid him.
THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
The date of the 4th of March was fixed without special reason for launching the new government, and it has been the rule ever since, though it often falls upon the most stormy and unpleasant day of the whole year. Some of the States were so slow in sending their representatives to New York, that more than a month pa.s.sed before a quorum of both houses appeared. When the electoral vote for the President was counted, it was found that every one of the sixty-nine had been cast for Was.h.i.+ngton. The law was that the person receiving the next highest number became Vice-President. This vote was: John Adams, of Ma.s.sachusetts, 34; John Jay, of New York, 9; R.H. Harrison, of Maryland, 6; John Rutledge, of South Carolina, 6; John Hanc.o.c.k, of Ma.s.sachusetts, 4; George Clinton, of New York, 3; Samuel Huntington, of Connecticut, 2; John Milton, of Georgia, 2; James Armstrong, of Georgia, Benjamin Lincoln, of Ma.s.sachusetts, and Edward Telfair, of Georgia, 1 vote each.
Vacancies (votes not cast).
John Adams, of Ma.s.sachusetts, therefore, became the first Vice-President.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD INDIAN FARM-HOUSE.]
CHAPTER VIII.
ADMINISTRATIONS OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON, JOHN ADAMS, AND JEFFERSON--1789-1809.
Was.h.i.+ngton--His Inauguration as First President of the United States--Alexander Hamilton--His Success at the Head of the Treasury Department--The Obduracy of Rhode Island--Establishment of the United States Bank--Pa.s.sage of a Tariff Bill--Establishment of a Mint--The Plan of a Federal Judiciary--Admission of Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee--Benjamin Franklin--Troubles with the Western Indians--Their Defeat by General Wayne--Removal of the National Capital Provided for--The Whiskey Insurrection--The Course of ”Citizen Genet”--Jay's Treaty--Re-election of Was.h.i.+ngton--Resignation of Jefferson and Hamilton--Was.h.i.+ngton's Farewell Address--Establishment of the United States Military Academy at West Point--The Presidential Election of 1796--John Adams--Prosperity of the Country--Population of the Country in 1790--Invention of the Cotton Gin--Troubles with France--War on the Ocean--Was.h.i.+ngton Appointed Commander-in-Chief--Peace Secured--The Alien and Sedition Laws--The Census of 1800--The Presidential Election of 1800--The Twelfth Amendment to the Const.i.tution--Thomas Jefferson--Admission of Ohio--The Indiana Territory--The Purchase of Louisiana--Its Immense Area--Abolishment of the Slave Trade--War with Tripoli--The Lewis and Clark Expedition--Alexander Hamilton Killed in a Duel by Aaron Burr--The First Steamboat on the Hudson--The First Steamer to Cross the Atlantic--England's Oppressive Course Toward the United States--Outrage by the British s.h.i.+p _Leander_--The Affair of the _Leopard_ and _Chesapeake_--Pa.s.sage of the Embargo Act--The Presidential Election of 1808.