«История Соединенных Штатов, Том 2»

inclination of all, the more so from memory of England's accursed

navigation acts, would have been to leave it untrammelled. Several

motives, however, induced resort to a restrictive policy which,

beginning with 1789, and for years expected to be temporary, has been

pursued with little deviation ever since. Of course the Government

needed revenue, and the readiest means of securing this was a tax on

imports. Rates were made low, averaging until 1808 only 11-1/4 per cent.

As a consequence the revenues were large.

The movers of this first tariff, especially Hamilton, also wished by

means of it to make the central Government felt as a positive power

throughout the land. It had this effect. All custom-houses passed to the

United States, and United States officers appeared at every port, having

an authority, in its kind, paramount to that of state functionaries.

A stronger consideration still was to retaliate against England. In

spite of America's political independence the old country was determined

to retain for her merchant marine its former monopoly here. Orders in

council practically limited all the commerce of England and her

remaining colonies with this country to English ships, although, from

the relations of the two lands and the nature of their productions, our

chief foreign trade must still be with England. There was no way to meet

this selfish policy but to show that it was a game which we too could

play.

Besides, however we behaved toward the mother-land, we needed to be

prepared for war, because it was evident that George III. and his

ministers had only too good a will to reduce us again to subjection if

opportunity offered. Should we, by taxing imports, become independent in

the production of war material, a fresh struggle for life would be much

more hopeful than if we continued dependent upon foreign lands for

military supplies.

II. Funding the Debt.--In the first years after they had set up their

new constitution the people of this country staggered under a terrible

financial load. Besides the current expenses of Government, there were:

1, the federal debt due abroad, over thirteen million dollars, including

arrears; 2, the federal debt held at home, about forty-two and one-half

million; 3, the state revolutionary debts, aggregating nearly

twenty-five million. Each of these sums was largely made up of unpaid

interest.

The foreign debt Congress unanimously determined to pay in full. In

respect to the domestic federal debt two opinions prevailed. Hamilton

was for liquidating this also to the last copper. But these securities

had mostly changed hands since issue, so that dollar for dollar payment

would not advantage original holders but only speculators. As soon as

Hamilton's recommendation became public this class of paper rose from

about fifteen cents per dollar to fifty cents, and enterprising New York

firms hurried their couriers, relay horses, and swift packets to remote

parts of the Union to buy it up. Madison, supported by a strong party,

proposed, therefore, to pay only original debtors at par, allowing

secondary holders barely the highest market value previous to the

opening of the question in Congress. He was overruled, however, and this

part of the debt, too, was ordered paid according to its literal terms.

Even the motion that the United States should assume and discharge the

state debts finally prevailed, though against most violent and resolute

opposition. This came especially from Virginia, who had gone far in the

payment of her own war debt, and thought it unjust to have to help the

delinquent States. Her objection was strengthened by the fact that most

of the debt was owned in the North. The victory was secured by what is

now termed a "deal," northern votes being promised in favor of a

southern location for the national capital, in return for enough

southern votes to pass the bill assuming state debts.

These gigantic measures had origin in the mind of Hamilton. To many they

appeared and appear today like a grand government job. But they worked

well, laying the foundation of our national credit. Interest arrears and

back installments of the foreign debt were to be paid at once with the

proceeds of a fresh loan, supplemented by income from customs and

tonnage. The remaining debt was to be refunded. Federal stocks shot up

in value, moneyed interests became attached to the Government, and the

nation began to be looked to as a more reliable bulwark of sound finance

than any of the States.

Alexander Hamilton.

From a painting by John Trumbull in the Trumbull Gallery at Yale College.

III. The Excise.--Unexpectedly productive as the tariff had proved,

public income still fell short of what these vast operations required.

Direct taxation or a higher tariff being out of the question, Hamilton

proposed, and Congress voted, an excise on spirits, from nine to

twenty-five cents a gallon if from grain, from eleven to thirty if from

imported material, as molasses. Excise was a hated form of tax, and this

measure awakened great opposition in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,

and New England, and most of all in Pennsylvania, in whose western

counties distilling was the staple industry.

Here, far from the seats of power, even the state government had

asserted itself little. The general Government was defied. A meeting in

Washington County voted to regard as an enemy any person taking office

under the excise law. September 6, 1791, a revenue officer was tarred

and feathered. Other such cases followed. Secret societies were formed

to oppose the law. Whippings and even murders resulted. At last there

was a veritable reign of terror. The President proceeded slowly but with

firmness, accounting this a good opportunity vividly to reveal to the

people the might of the new Government. Militia and volunteers were

called out, who arrived in the rebellious districts in November, 1794.

Happily, their presence sufficed. The opposition faded away before them,

not a shot being fired on either side.

Illicit Distillers warned of the Approach of Revenue Officers.

IV. The Bank.--The Secretary of the Treasury pleaded for a United States

Bank as not only profitable to Government but indispensable to the

proper administration of the national finances. Congress acquiesced, yet

with so violent hostility on the part of many that before approving the

Charter Act Washington required the written opinions of his official

advisers. Jefferson powerfully opposed such an institution as

unconstitutional, his acute argument being the arsenal whence close

constructionists have gotten their weapons ever since. Randolph sided

with Jefferson, Knox with Hamilton. The President at last signed,

agreeing with Hamilton in the view that Congress, being the agent of a

sovereignty, is not, within any sphere of action constitutionally open

to it, shut up to specific or enumerated modes of attaining its ends,

but has choice among all those that nations customarily use. The Supreme

Court has proceeded on this doctrine ever since. The bank proved vastly

advantageous. Three-fourths of every private subscription to its stock

had to be in government paper, which raised this to par, while it

naturally became the interest of all stockholders to maintain and

increase the stability and credit of the Government.

CHAPTER IV.

RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND

[1793]

In 1789 France adopted a constitution. Provoked at this, the friends of

absolute monarchy withdrew from France, and incited the other powers of

Europe to interpose in effort to restore to Louis XVI. his lost power.

The result was that Louis lost his head as well as his power, and that

France became a republic. War with all Europe followed, which elevated

that matchless military genius, Napoleon Bonaparte, first to the head of

France's armies, then to her throne, to be toppled thence in 1814,

partly by his own indiscretions, partly by the forces combined against

him.

From the beginning to the end of this revolutionary period abroad,

European politics determined American politics, home as well as foreign,

causing dangerous embarrassment and complications. War having in

February, 1793, been declared by England and France against each other,

what attitude the United States should assume toward each became a

pressing question. Washington's proclamation of neutrality, April 22,

1793, in effect, though not so meant, annulled our treaty of 1778 with

France, which bound us to certain armed services to that monarchy in

case of a rupture between her and England. Washington's paper alleged

that "the duty and interests of the United States" required

impartiality, and assumed "to declare the disposition of the United

States to observe" this.

"The proclamation," wrote Jefferson, "was in truth a most unfortunate

error. It wounds the popular feelings by a seeming indifference to the

cause of liberty. And it seems to violate the form and spirit of the

Constitution by making the executive magistrate the organ of the

'disposition' 'the duty' and 'the interest' of the nation in relation to

war and peace--subjects appropriated to other departments of the

Government."

"On one side," says Mr. Rives, in his "Life of Madison," "the people saw

a power which had but lately carried war and desolation, fire and sword,

through their own country, and, since the peace, had not ceased to act

toward them in the old spirit of unkindness, jealousy, arrogance, and

injustice; on the other an ally who had rendered them the most generous

assistance in war, had evinced the most cordial dispositions for a

liberal and mutually beneficial intercourse in peace, and was now set

upon by an unholy league of the monarchical powers of Europe, to

overwhelm and destroy her, for her desire to establish institutions

congenial to those of America."

The more sagacious opponents of the administration believed true policy

as well as true honesty to demand rigid and pronounced adherence to the

letter of the French treaty. They were convinced from the outset that

France would vanquish her enemies, and that close alliance with her was

the sure and the only sure way to coerce either Great Britain to justice

or Spain to a reasonable attitude touching the navigation of the

Mississippi; while by offending France, they argued, we should be forced

to wrestle single-handed with England first, then with victorious

France, meantime securing no concession whatever from Spain.

This was a shrewd forecast of the actual event. The Federalists,

destitute of idealism, proved to have been overawed by the prestige of

England and to have underestimated the might which freedom would impart

to the French people. After Napoleon's great campaign of 1796-97, Pitt

seeks peace, which the French Directory feels able to decline. In 1802

the Peace of Amiens is actually concluded, upon terms dictated by

France. Had we been still in France's friendship, the two republics

might have compelled England's abandonment of that course which evoked

the war of 1812. As it was, ignored by England, to whom, as detailed

below, we cringed in consenting to Jay's treaty, we were left to

encounter the French navy alone, escaping open and serious war with

France only by a readiness to negotiate which all but compromised our

dignity. The Mississippi we had at last to open with money.

The federalist leaning toward Great Britain probably did not, to so

great an extent as was then alleged and widely believed, spring from

monarchical feeling. It was due rather to old memories, as pleasant as

they were tenacious, that would not be dissociated from England; to the

individualistic tendencies of republicanism, alarming to many; and to

conservative habits of political thinking, the dread of innovation and

of theory. The returned Tories had indeed all become Federalists, which

fact, with many others, lent to this attitude the appearance of

deficient patriotism, of sycophancy toward our old foe and persecutor.

Great Britain had refused to surrender the western posts according to

the peace treaty of 1783, unjustly pleading in excuse the treatment of

loyalists by our States. Not only the presence but the active influence

of the garrisons at these posts encouraged Indian hostilities. England

had also seized French goods in American (neutral) vessels, though in

passage to the United States, and treated as belligerent all American

ships plying between France and her West Indian colonies, on the ground

that this commerce had been opened to them only by the pressure of war.

The English naval officers were instructed to regard bread-stuffs as

contraband if bound for France, even though owned by neutrals and in

neutral ships; such cargoes, however, to be paid for by England, or

released on bonds being given to land them elsewhere than in France. In

this practice England followed France's example, except that she

actually paid for the cargoes, while France only promised.

John Jay.

From a painting by S. F. B. Morse in the Yale College Collection.

[1795]

Worst of all, Britain claimed and acted upon the right to press into her

naval service British-born seamen found anywhere outside the territory

of a foreign State, halting our ships on the high seas for this purpose,

often leaving them half-manned, and sometimes recklessly and cruelly

impressing native-born Americans--an outrageous policy which ended in

the war of 1812. The ignorance and injustice of the English admiralty

courts aggravated most of these abuses.

Genet's proceedings, spoken of in the next chapter, which partly public

sentiment, partly lack of army and navy, made it impossible for our

Government to prevent, enraged Great Britain to the verge of war. After

the British orders in council of November 6, 1793, intended to destroy

all neutral commerce with the French colonies, and Congress's

counter-stroke of an embargo the following March, war was positively

imminent. The President resolved to send Jay to England as envoy

extraordinary, to make one more effort for an understanding.

The treaty negotiated by this gentleman, and ratified June 24, 1795

(excepting Article XII., on the French West India trade), was doubtless

the most favorable that could have been secured under the circumstances;

yet it satisfied no one and was humiliating in the extreme. The western

posts were indeed to be vacated by June 1, 1796, though without

indemnity for the past, but a British right of search and impressment

was implicitly recognized, the French West Indian trade not rendered

secure, and arbitrary liberty accorded to Great Britain in defining

contraband. Opposition to ratification was bitter and nearly universal.

The friends of France were jubilant. Jay was burned in effigy,

Washington himself attacked. The utmost that Hamilton in his powerful

"Letters of Camillus" could show was that the treaty seemed preferable

to war. Plainly we had then little to hope and much to fear from war

with Great Britain, yet even vast numbers of Federalists denounced the

pact as a base surrender to the nation's ancient tyrant, and wished an

appeal to arms.

Fisher Ames's eloquence decided the House for the treaty. An invalid,

with but a span of life before him, he spoke as from the tomb. "There

is, I believe," so ran his peroration, "no member who will not think his

chance to be a witness of the consequences (should the treaty fail of

ratification) greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass to

reject, and a spirit should rise, as it will, with the public disorders,

to make confusion worse confounded, even I, slender and almost broken as

my hold on life is, may outlive the Government and Constitution of my

country!"

It was the most delicate crisis of Washington's presidency, and no

other American then alive, being in his place, could have passed through

it successfully. After the fury gradually subsided, men for a long time

acquiesced rather than believed in the step which had been taken. In the

end the treaty proved solidly advantageous, rather through

circumstances, however, than by its intrinsic excellence.

CHAPTER V.

RELATIONS WITH THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

[1793]

At its beginning all Americans hailed the Revolution in France with

joy, but its terrible excesses, when they appeared, produced here the

same effect as in England, of alienating everyone conservatively

inclined. This included the mass of the Federalist party. On the

contrary, most of the Republicans, now more numerous, now less,

actuated partly by true insight into the struggle, and partly by the

magic of the words "revolution" and "republic," favored the

revolutionists with a devotion which even the Reign of Terror in France

scarcely shook. It was in consequence of this attitude on its part that

the party came to be dubbed "democratic-republican" instead of

"republican," the compound title itself giving way after about 1810 to

simple "democratic."

John Adams

From a copy by Jane Stuart, about 1874, of a painting by her father,

Gilbert Stuart, about 1800--in possession of Henry Adams.

Hostility to England, the memory of France's aid to us in our hour of

need, the doctrine of "the rights of man," then so much in vogue, the

known sympathies of Jefferson and Madison, who were already popular,

and, alas, a mean wish to hamper the administration, all helped to swell

the ranks of those who swung their hats for France. A far deeper motive

with the more thoughtful was the belief that neutrality violated our

treaty of 1778 with France, a conclusion at present beyond question.

Politically our policy may have been wise, morally it was wrong.

The administration, at least its honored head, was doubtless innocent of

any intentional injustice; and it could certainly urge a great deal in

justification of its course. The form and the aims of the French

Government had changed since the treaty originated, involving a state of

things which that instrument had not contemplated. France herself

defied international law and compact, revolutionizing and incorporating

Holland and Geneva, and assaulting our commerce. And war with England

then threatened our ruin. Yet the pleading of these considerations in

that so trying hour, even had they been wholly pertinent, could not but

seem to Frenchmen treason to the cause of liberty. As to many

Federalists, trucklers to England, such a charge would have been true.

France was not slow to reciprocate in the matter of grievances. In fact,

so early as May, 1793, before the proclamation of neutrality could have

been heard of in that country, orders had been issued there, wholly

repugnant to the treaty (which had ordained that neutral ships could

carry what goods they pleased--free ships, free goods), to capture and

condemn English merchandise on American vessels. Provisions owned by

Americans and en route to England were also to be forfeited as

contraband. Even the most reasonable French officials seemed bent on

treating our country as a dependency of France.

We see this in the actions of Genet, the first envoy to America from the

French constitutional monarchy, accredited hither by a ministry of

high-minded Republicans while Louis XVI. still sat upon his throne.

Genet arrived in Charleston in 1793, before our neutrality had been

proclaimed. Immediately, before presenting his credentials to our

Government, he set about fitting out privateers, manning them with

Americans, and sending them to prey upon British ships, some of which

they captured in American waters. All this was in utter derogation of

the treaty, which only guaranteed shelter to bona fide French vessels.

Under a law of the French National Convention, Genet assumed to erect

the French consulates in this country into so many admiralty courts for

the trial of British prizes. We could not have allowed this without

decidedly violating international law at least in spirit. He also

devised and partly arranged expeditions of Americans, to start, one from

Georgia to invade Florida, another from Kentucky to capture New Orleans,

both as means of weakening Spain, which up to this time and for several

years later was France's foe.

[1795]

But Genet's worst gall came out in his conduct toward Washington. Him he

insulted, challenging his motives and his authority for his acts and

threatening to appeal from him to the people. He tried to bully and

browbeat the whole cabinet as if they had been so many boys. So

ludicrous did he make himself by such useless bluster, that his friends,

at first numerous and many of them influential, gave him the cold

shoulder, and the ardor for France greatly cooled. At length Washington

effected his removal, the more easily, it would seem, as he was not

radical enough for the Jacobins, who had now succeeded to the helm in

France. The officious Frenchman did not return to his own country, but

settled down in New York, marrying a daughter of Governor Clinton. He

was succeeded by Adet.

George Clinton.

From a painting by Ezra Ames.

Upon learning that the United States had ratified Jay's treaty, France

went insane with rage. A declaration of war by us could not have angered

her more. Adet was called home and the alliance with America declared at

an end. Barras dismissed Mr. Monroe, our minister, in a contemptuous

speech, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, sent as Monroe's successor, was

not only not received but ordered from the land. New and worse decrees

went forth against American commerce. Our ships were confiscated for

carrying English goods though not contraband. Arbitrary and unheard-of

tests of neutrality were trumped up, wholly contrary to the treaty,

which indeed was now denounced. American sailors found serving, though

compelled, on British armed vessels, were to be condemned as pirates.

[1797]

These brutal measures, coupled with Napoleon's increasing power, begot

in America the belief, even among Republicans, that France's struggle

was no longer for liberty but for conquest. The insolence of the French

Government waxed insufferable. President Adams, to a special session of

the Vth Congress, on May 19, 1797, announced the insult to the nation in

the person of Pinckney, and urged preparation for war. A goodly loan, a

direct tax, and a provisional army, Washington again leader, were

readily voted. Our Navy Department was created at this time. The navy

was increased, and several captures were made of French vessels guilty

of outrage. Adams, however, to make a last overture for peace,

despatched John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry to the aid of Pinckney, the

three to knock once more at France's doors for a becoming admission. In

vain. The only effect was a new chapter of French mendacity and

insolence, furthering America's wish and preparations for war.

Napoleon's recent Italian victories, terrifying Europe, had puffed up

France with pride. Talleyrand assumed to arraign us as criminals, and

what was worse, pressed us, through his agents, to buy his country's

forgiveness with gold. "You must pay money," our envoys were told, and

"a good deal of it, too."

John Marshall.

All this was duly made known at Philadelphia, and the President assured

Congress that no terms were obtainable from France "compatible with the

safety, honor, and general interest of the nation." The opposition

thought this an exaggeration, and called for the despatches, expecting

refusal or abridgment. The President sent every word.

Elbridge Gerry

Confusion seized the Republicans. Federalists were again in the

ascendant, the VIth Congress being much more strongly federalist than

the Vth. For once proud, reserved John Adams was popular, and

anti-French feeling irresistible. "Millions for defence but not a cent

for tribute," echoed through the land. Hosts of Republicans went over to

the administration side. Patriotism became a passion. Each night at the

theatre rose a universal call for the "President's March" [Footnote: The

music was that of our "Hail Columbia."] and "Yankee Doodle," the

audience rising, cheering, swinging hats and canes, and roaring

"encore." The black cockade, American, on all hands supplanted the

tricolor cockade worn by the "Gallomaniacs;" and bands of "Associated

Youth," organizing in every town and city, deluged the President with

patriotic addresses.

Seeing that we could not be bullied and that the friends of France here

were Americans first; ashamed, on their publication, of the indignities

which he had offered our envoys, and after all not wishing war with what

he saw to be potentially another naval power like England, the sly

Talleyrand neatly receded from his arrogant demands, and expressed a

desire to negotiate.

CHAPTER VI.

THE DECLINE OF THE FEDERALIST PARTY

[1797]

The heat of the nation's wrath evoked by this conflict with France

betrayed the Federalists in Congress into some pieces of tyrannical

legislation. These were especially directed against refugees from

France, lest they should attempt to reenact here the bloody drama just

played out there. Combinations were alleged, without proof, to exist

between American and French democrats, dangerous to the stability of

this Government.

A new naturalization act was passed, requiring of an immigrant, as

prerequisite to citizenship, fourteen years of residence instead of the

five heretofore sufficient. Next came three alien acts, empowering the

President, at his discretion, without trial or even a statement of his

reasons, to banish foreigners from the land; any who should return

unbidden being liable to imprisonment for three years, and cut off from

the possibility of citizenship forever. A "sedition act" followed, to

fine in the sum of $5,000 each and to imprison for five years any

persons stirring up sedition, combining to oppose governmental measures,

resisting United States law, or putting forth "any false, scandalous, or

malicious writings" against Congress, the President, or the Government.

To President Adams's credit, he was no abettor of these hateful decrees,

and did little to enforce them. The sedition law, however, did not rest

with him for execution, and was applied right and left. Evidently its

champions were swayed largely by political motives. Matthew Lyon, a

fiery Republican member of Congress from Vermont, had, in an address to

his constituents, charged the President with avarice and with "thirst

for ridiculous pomp and foolish adulation," He was convicted of

sedition, fined $1,000, and sentenced to four months in prison. This

impoverished him, as well as took him from his place in Congress for

most of a session. Adams refused pardon, but in 1840 Congress paid back

the fine to Lyon's heirs.

It is now admitted that these measures were unconstitutional, as

invading freedom of speech and of the press, and assigning to the

Federal Judiciary a common-law jurisdiction in criminal matters. But

they were also highly unwise, subjecting the Federalist Party to the

odium of fearing free speech, of declining a discussion of its policy,

and of hating foreigners. The least opposition to the party in power, or

criticism of its official chiefs, became criminal, under the head of

"opposing" the Government. A joke or a caricature might send its author

to jail as "seditious." It was surely a travesty upon liberty when a man

could be arrested for expressing the wish, as a salute was fired, that

the wadding might hit John Adams behind. Even libels upon government, if

it is to be genuinely free, must be ignored--a principle now acted upon

by all constitutional States.

But the Federalists were blind to considerations like these. As Schouler

well remarks: "A sort of photophobia afflicted statesmen, who, allowing

little for the good sense and spirit of Americans, or our geographical

disconnection with France, were crazed with the fear that this Union

might be, like Venice, made over to some European potentate, or chained

in the same galley with Switzerland or Holland, to do the Directory's

bidding. That, besides this unfounded fear, operated the desire of

ultra-Federalists to take revenge upon those presses which had assailed

the British treaty and other pet measures, and abused Federal leaders;

and the determination to entrench themselves in authority by forcibly

disbanding an opposition party which attracted a readier support at the

polls from the oppressed of other countries, no candid writer can at

this day question."

[1798]

It was next the turn of the Republicans to blunder. In November, 1798,

the Kentucky Legislature passed a series of resolutions, drawn up by

John Breckenridge upon a sketch by Jefferson, in effect declaring the

alien and sedition acts not law, but altogether void and of no force. In

December the Virginia Legislature put forth a similar series by Madison,

milder in tone and more cautiously expressed, denouncing those acts as

"palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution." A year after

their first utterance, the Kentucky law-makers further "resolved that

the several States who formed (the Constitution), being sovereign and

independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction;

and that a nullification by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized

acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy."

Virginia again declared it a State's right "to interpose" in such cases.

These resolutions were intended to stir reflection and influence

opinion, and, if possible, elicit a concurrent request to Congress from

the various States to repeal the obnoxious acts. They do not hint at the

use of force. Their execration of the hated laws is none too strong, and

their argument as a whole is masterly and unanswerable. But at least

those of Kentucky suggest, if they do not contain, a doctrine respecting

the Constitution which is untenable and baneful, in kernel the same that

threatened secession in Jackson's time and brought it in Buchanan's. The

State, as such, is not a party to the Constitution. Still less is the

Legislature. Nor is either, but the Supreme Court, the judge whether in

any case the fundamental law has been infringed.

Procuring the resolutions, however, proved a crafty political move. The

enormity of the despicable acts was advertised as never before, while

the endorsement of them by federalist legislators went upon record.

Petitions for repeal came in so numerous and numerously signed that the

VIth Congress could not but raise a committee to consider such action.

It reported adversely, and the report was accepted, the majority in the

House, fifty-two to forty-eight, trying contemptuously to cough down

every speaker lifting his voice on the opposite side.

[1799]

This sullen obstinacy in favor of a miserable experiment sealed the doom

of Federalism. In vain did the party orators plead that liberty of

speech and the press is not license, but only the right to utter "the

truth," that hence this liberty was not abridged by the acts in

question, and that aliens had no constitutional rights, but enjoyed the

privileges of the land only by favor. The fact remained, more and more

appreciated by ordinary people, that a land ruled by such maxims could

never be free.

So a deep distrust of Federalism sprung up, as out of sympathy with

popular government. It was furthered by the attachment of prominent

Federalists to England. Several of them are on record as ready to

involve the United States in an expedition planned by one Miranda, to

conquer Spanish America in aid of Great Britain, Spain and ourselves

being perfectly at peace. The federalist chieftains were too proud,

ignoring too much the common voter. They often expressed doubt, too, as

to the permanence of popular institutions. Federalism had too close

affinity with Puritanism to suit many outside New England. And

then--deadly to the party even had nothing else concurred--there was a

quarrel among its leaders. Hamilton, the Essex Junto (Pickering, Cabot,

Quincy, Otis), and their supporters were set against Adams and his

friends. This rivalry of long standing was brought to a head by Adams's

noble and self-sacrificing independence in accepting France's overtures

for peace, when Hamilton, Pickering, King, and all the rest, out of

private or party interest rather than patriotism, wished war.

[1800]

Toward 1800, Democracy bade fair soon to come into power, but the

Federalists learned no wisdom. Rather were they henceforth more factious

than ever, opposing Jefferson and Madison even when they acted on purely

federalist principles. Tooth and nail they fought against the

acquisition of Louisiana, the War of 1812, and the protective tariff of

1816, which was carried by Republicans. A worse spirit still was shown

in their disunion scheme of 1804, after the purchase of Louisiana, and

in the Hartford Convention of 1814. Federalism had further lost ground

by its mean and revolutionary devices on resigning power in 1801, first

to make Burr President instead of Jefferson, and, failing in this, to

use its expiring authority in creating needless offices for its clients.

In consequence of such ill-advised steps, federalist strength waned

apace. In 1804 Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland alone chose

federalist electors, the last only two such. In 1808 these were joined

by the remaining New England States, North Carolina also casting three

federalist votes. In 1812, indeed, Clinton received eighty-nine votes to

Madison's one hundred and twenty-eight; but in 1816 again only

Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware were federalist. In 1820 not a

State had a federalist majority. State elections in Maryland, North

Carolina, Delaware, and Connecticut commonly went federalist till 1820,

and in Massachusetts till 1823, when the Republicans swept this

commonwealth too, Essex County and all.

Yet Federalism did not die without fixing its stamp indelibly upon our

institutions. Not to mention the Whig and the modern Republican Parties,

close reproductions of it, or the public credit, its child, methods of

administration passed with little change from Adams to Jefferson and his

successors, and federalist principles modified the entire temper, and

directed in no small degree the action, of the Democratic Party while in

power. The nation was exalted more, state rights subordinated, and the

Constitution construed ever more broadly. Thus there was silently and

gradually imparted to our governmental fabric a consistency and a

solidity which were of incalculable worth against storms to come.

CHAPTER VII.

THE WEST

[1787]

A simple resolution of the Continental Congress in 1780 has proved of

the highest consequence for the subsequent development of our country.

It declared that all territorial land should be national domain, to be

disposed of for the common benefit of the States, with the high

privilege of itself growing into States coequal with the old Thirteen.

The treaty of 1783 carried this domain north to the Lakes, west to the

Mississippi. The Ohio divided it into a northwestern and a southwestern

part. The land to the west of themselves Virginia and North Carolina

claimed, and it became Kentucky and Tennessee, respectively, erected

into statehood, the one June 1, 1792, the other June 1, 1796, these

being the fifteenth and sixteenth States in order. Vermont, admitted in

1791, was the fourteenth. Virginia never released Kentucky till it

became a State. The Tennessee country, ceded to the United States by

North Carolina in 1784, the cession revoked and afterward repeated, had

already, under the name of Frankland, enjoyed for some time a separate

administration. The nucleus of Kentucky civilization was on the northern

or Ohio River border, that of Tennessee in the Cumberland Valley about

Nashville; but by 1800 the borders of these two oases had joined.

United States land has since broadened westward to the Pacific, over the

infinite areas which in 1800 belonged to Spain. From an early period

there have been, as now, unorganized territory and also partially

organized and fully organized territories, the last being inchoate

States, ready to be admitted to full membership in the Union when

sufficiently populous, on condition of framing each for itself a

republican constitution.

General Arthur St. Clair.

[1788]

The great ordinance of 1787, re-enacted by the First Congress, forever

sealing the same to civil and religious liberty, opened the Northwest

for immediate colonization, twenty thousand people settling there in the

next two years. The territory was organized and General St. Clair made

governor. In 1788 Marietta was founded, named from Marie Antoinette,

also Columbia near the mouth of the Little Miami. In the same year

Losantiville, subsequently called Fort Washington, and now Cincinnati,

was laid out, the first houses having gone up in 1780. Louisville,

settled so early as 1773, contained in 1784 over one hundred houses.

Emigrants in hundreds and thousands yearly poured over the mountains and

down the Ohio. By the census of 1790 there were 4,280 whites northwest

of this river, 1,000 at Vincennes, 1,000 on the lands of the Ohio

Company, 1,300 on Symmes's purchase between the Great and the Little

Miami, Cincinnati being part of this purchase. In 1800 these numbers had

much increased. The settlements which had Pittsburgh for a nucleus had

also greatly extended, reaching the Ohio. Northern and Central

Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna Valley was yet a wilderness. St.

Louis, in Spanish hands, but to become French next year, had been

founded, and opposite it were the beginnings of what is now Alton, Ill.

[1790]

The centre of United States population in 1790 was twenty-three miles

east of Baltimore. It has since moved westward, not far from the

thirty-ninth parallel, never more than sixteen miles north of it, or

three to the south. In 1800 it was eighteen miles west of Baltimore; in

1810 it was forty-three miles northwest by west of Washington; in 1820,

sixteen miles north of Woodstock, Va.; in 1830, nineteen miles

west-southwest of Moorfield, W. Va.; in 1840, sixteen miles south of

Clarksburg, same State; in 1850, twenty-three miles southeast of

Parkersburg, same State; in 1860, twenty miles south of Chillicothe, 0.;

in 1870, forty-eight miles east by north of Cincinnati; in 1880, eight

miles west by south of that city; in 1890, twenty miles east of

Columbus, Ind., west by south of Greensburg. It has never since been so

far north as in 1790, and it has described a total westward movement of

four hundred and fifty-seven miles.

The land system of the United States was at first a bad one, intended

to secure immediate revenue from the sale of immense pieces at auction,

on long credit, at very few points, the land to find its way into the

hands of actual settlers only through mercenary speculators. The honest

pioneer was therefore at the mercy of these land-sharks, greedy and

unpatriotic in the extreme.

The western movement aroused the Indians, of whom there were, in 1790,

from 20,000 to 40,000 north of the Ohio. The idea of amalgamating or

even civilizing these people had long been practically given up.

Settlers agreed in denouncing them as treacherous, intractable,

bloodthirsty, and faithless. So incessant and terrific were their

onslaughts, the Ohio Valley had come to be known as "the dark and bloody

ground." The British, still occupying the western posts, used their

influence to keep up and intensify Indian hostility to the United States

settlers and Government.

In September, 1790, Governor St. Clair sent Harmar against the Indians

on the Miami and Maumee. He had about fifteen hundred men, two-thirds of

them militia. The expedition was ill-managed from the first, and, after

advancing as far as the present Fort Wayne, came back with great loss to

itself, having exasperated rather than injured the red men. Harmar,

chagrined, soon resigned.

The Indians south of the Ohio were perhaps twice as numerous as those

north, and partly civilized. The Chickasaws and Choctaws, nearest the

Mississippi, gave little trouble. Not so the Cherokees and Creeks, whose

seats were nearer the whites. The Creeks claimed parts of Tennessee,

Georgia, and the Carolinas, justified herein by acts of the Continental

Congress. However, the whites invaded this territory, provoking a fierce

war, wherein the Cherokees allied themselves with the Creeks of Alabama

and Georgia. This brave tribe had border troubles of its own with

Georgia. These various hordes of savages, having the Florida Spaniards

to back them with counsel, arms, and ammunition, were a formidable foe,

which might have annihilated Georgia but for aid from the general

Government. McGillivray, the half-breed chief of the Creeks, was enticed

to New York, where the kindness of Washington and the evident desire of

Congress to deal with his people fairly, resulted in a treaty, August

13, 1790, which secured peace to the Southwest for a long time.

[1791]

Touching the northwestern redskins, Harmar's defeat had convinced

Washington that mild measures were not yet the thing. A larger force was

fitted out against them under St. Clair in person, whom, as an old

Revolutionary comrade, Washington still trusted. General Butler was

second in command. The two thousand regulars and one thousand militia

rendezvoused at Cincinnati in the autumn of 1791. Part object of the

expedition was to build a military road, with forts at intervals, all

the way to the upper Wabash. Progress was therefore slow.

A fort was constructed on the present site of Hamilton, 0.; then one to

the northwest, near Greenville, 0., close to the present Indiana line.

From here the army pressed northwesterly still farther.

St. Clair was heroic, but incompetent through age and the gout. Some of

his militia deserted. Chills and fever shook the remainder of his too

slender host. His orders were not well obeyed. On November 9th,

encamping by a small branch of the Wabash, St. Clair's force was most

vehemently attacked by Indians, under the redoubtable Joseph Brant or

Thayendanegea--famed for his bloody exploits against us during the

Revolution--and well-nigh annihilated. Five high officers, including

Butler, were killed, and as many more sank from wounds. Cannons, guns,

accoutrements, in fact the whole equipment of the army, were lost. After

a four hours' fight St. Clair, sick but brave as a tiger, horse after

horse shot beneath him, part of the time carried in a litter, his gray

locks streaming in the breeze, put himself at the head of the five

hundred who remained unscathed, and hewed his way through walls of

savages to the rear. Six o'clock that night found the survivors back at

Greenville, twenty-nine miles from the scene of carnage. Had the Indians

pursued instead of stopping to mutilate the slain, every soul must have

perished.

Joseph Brant or Thayendanegea.

[1793]

The announcement of this disaster called forth in the East a universal

howl of rage at the unfortunate commander. Even Washington went beside

himself: "To suffer that army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered,

tomahawked, by a surprise--the very thing I guarded him against! O God!

O God, he is worse than a murderer! How can he answer it to his country?

The blood of the slain is upon him, the curse of widows and orphans, the

curse of Heaven." St. Clair came East to explain. Hobbling into

Washington's presence, he grasped his hand in both his own and sobbed

aloud. He was continued as governor, but had to resign his

major-generalship, which passed to Anthony Wayne.

Wayne was every inch a warrior. Cautiously advancing over the road St.

Clair's fugitives had reddened with their blood, he reached Fort

Jefferson, at Greenville, in June, 1793. Next year he advanced to the

junction of the Au Glaize with the Maumee. The Indians fleeing, he

pursued to the foot of the Maumee Rapids, where he encountered them

encamped by a fort which the English, defying the treaty, still held,

fifty miles inside our lines. Wayne, agreeably to Washington's policy,

tried to treat. Failing, he attacked, routed the enemy, and mercilessly

ravaged the country, burning crops and villages. Building Fort Wayne as

an advanced post, he came back and made his headquarters at Fort

Jefferson. The Indians' spirit and opposition were at last broken. Their

delegates flocked to Wayne, suing for peace. Captives were surrendered.

The whole Ohio Territory now lay open to peaceful occupation, and

emigrants crowded northward from the Ohio in great companies.

[1794]

The pioneer bought land wherever he found a vacant spot that pleased

him, building his hut, breaking up any open land for crops, and as

rapidly as possible clearing for more. His white neighbors, if any were

near, lent their assistance in this work. His rough dwelling of logs,

with one room, floored with puncheon, caulked with mud, and covered with

bark or thatch, however uncomfortable from our point of view, made him a

habitable home. When this primitive mansion was no longer sufficient, he

was usually able to rear another out of hewn logs, with glass windows

and a chimney. Then he felt himself an aristocrat, and who will deny

that he was so? A large family grew up around him, neighbors moved in,

the forest disappeared, the savages and wild beasts that at first

harassed him slunk away, while the fruitful soil, with such exchanges

and mail privileges as were speedily possible, yielded him all the

necessaries and many of the comforts of life.

[1800]

So rapid was the increase of population henceforth, that Congress, in

1800, divided the territory, the line running north from the junction of

the Kentucky with the Ohio. All west of this was to be known as the

Indiana Territory, William Henry Harrison its governor, and a

territorial legislature to follow so soon as a majority of the

inhabitants should desire.

On February 19, 1803, Ohio became a State. Mainly through Governor

Harrison's exertions a better system of marketing public land was begun,

in healthy contrast with the old. It allowed four land-offices in Ohio

and Indiana. Lands once offered at auction and not sold could be

pre-empted directly by private individuals on easy terms. Actual

settlement and cultivation were thus furthered, speculation curbed, and

the government revenues vastly increased.

Dugout of a Southwestern Pioneer

[1802]

We have spoken mostly of the Northwest. The present States of Alabama

and Mississippi north of 31 degrees, except a narrow strip at the

extreme north owned by South Carolina, were claimed by Georgia, but the

part of this territory south of 32 degrees 30 minutes the United States

also claimed, as having before the Revolution been separated from

Georgia by the king and joined to West Florida, so that it, like the

Northwest, passed to the United States at the treaty of 1783. This

section was organized in 1798 as the Mississippi Territory. In 1802

Georgia relinquished all claim to the northern part as well, which

Congress added to the Mississippi Territory. At this date there were

settlements along the Mississippi bluffs below the Yazoo bottom.

Robert Fulton

CHAPTER VIII.

SOCIAL CULTURE AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

[1800]

In 1800 the population of our land was 5,305,482, of whom 896,849 were

slaves. New York City had 60,489; Philadelphia, 40,000; Boston, 24,937;

Baltimore, 23,971; Charleston, 18,712; Providence, 7,614; Washington,

3,210. The population of Vermont, Northern and Western New York, and the

Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania had grown considerably more dense

since 1790. The social life, ideas, and habits of the rural districts

had not altered much from those prevalent in colonial days, but in the

more favored centres great improvements, or, at any rate, changes, might

have been marked.

Even far in the country framed buildings were now the most common, the

raising of one being a great event. The village school gave a half

holiday. Every able-bodied man and boy from the whole country-side

received an invitation--all being needed to "heave up," at the boss

carpenter's pompous word of command, the ponderous timbers seemingly

meant to last forever. A feast followed, with contests of strength and

agility worthy of description on Homer's page.

Skating was not yet a frequent pastime, nor dancing, save in cities and

large towns. Balls every pious New Englander abhorred as sinful. The

theatre was similarly tabooed--in Massachusetts, so late as 1784, by

law. New York and Philadelphia frowned upon it then, though jolly

Baltimore already gave it patrons enough. When, in 1793, yellow fever

desolated Philadelphia, one theory ascribed the affection to the

admission of the theatre. In other cities passion for the theatre was

growing, and even Massachusetts tolerated it by an act passed in 1793.

President Washington, while in New York, oftener than many thought

proper, attended the old, sorrily furnished play-house in John Street,

the only one which the city could then boast. John Adams also went now

and again. Both were squinted at through opera-glasses, which were just

coming into use and thought by the crowd to be infinitely ridiculous.

Good hours were kept, as the play began at five.

Fulton's First Experiment with Paddle-wheels.

All sorts of shows, games, and sports which the country could afford or

devise were immensely popular, the most so, and the roughest, in the

South. Horse-racing, cock-fighting, shooting matches, at all which

betting was high, were there fashionable, as well as most brutal

man-fights, in which ears were bitten off and eyes gouged out. President

Thomas Jefferson was exceedingly fond of menageries and circuses, his

diary abounding in such entries as: "pd for seeing a lion 21 months old

11-1/2 d.;" "pd seeing a small seal .125 ;" "pd seeing elephant .5;" "pd

seeing elk .75 ;" "pd seeing Caleb Phillips a dwarf .25;" "pd seeing a

painting .25."

Lotteries were universal, and put to uses which now seem excessively

queer. Whenever a bridge or a public edifice, as a schoolhouse, was to

be built, a street paved or a road repaired, the money was furnished

through a lottery. In the same way manufacturing companies were started,

churches aided, college treasuries replenished. It was with money

collected through a lottery that Massachusetts first encouraged cotton

spinning; that the City Hall of New York was enlarged, the Court House

at Elizabeth rebuilt, the Harvard University library increased, and many

pretentious buildings put up at the Federal City. [Footnote: McMaster's

United States, 588.] This was but a single form of the sporting mania.

The public stocks, as well as the paper of the numerous canals,

turnpikes, and manufacturing corporations now springing up, were gambled

in a way which would almost shock Wall Street today.

Departure of the Clermont on her First Voyage.

Anthracite coal had been discovered and was just beginning to be mined,

but on account of the plentifulness of wood was not for a long time

largely used. The first idea of steam navigation was embodied in an

English patent taken out by Jonathan Hulls in 1736. The initial

experiment of the kind in this country was by William Henry, on the

Conestoga River, Pennsylvania, in 1763. John Fitch navigated the

Delaware steam-wise in 1783-84. In 1790 one of Fitch's steam

paddle-boats made regular trips between Philadelphia and Trenton for

four months. In 1785-86 Oliver Evans experimented in this direction, as

did Rumsey, in Virginia, in 1787. One Morey ran a stern-wheeler of his

own make from Hartford to New York in 1794. Chancellor Livingston built

a steamer on the Hudson in 1797. It was only in 1807 that Fulton

finished his "Clermont" and made a passage up the Hudson to Albany from

New York. It took thirty-three hours, and was the earliest thoroughly

successful steam navigation on record. He subsequently built the

"Orleans" at Pittsburgh. It was completed and made the voyage to New

Orleans in 1811. No steamboat ruffled the waters of Lake Ontario till

1816. The pioneer steam craft on Lake Erie was launched at Black Rock,

May 28, 1818. It is recorded as wonderful that in less than two hours it

had gotten fifteen miles from shore.

John Fitch's Steamboat at Philadelphia.

Massachusetts Bill of Three Shillings in 1741.

At the North the muster or general training was, for secular

entertainment, the day of days, when the local regiment came out to

reveal and to perfect its skill in the manual and in the evolutions of

the line. Side-shows and a general good time constituted for the crowds

its chief interest. Cider, cakes, pop-corn, and candy drained boys'

pockets of pennies, those who could afford the fun going in to see the

one-legged revolutionary soldier with his dancing bear, the tattooed

man, the ventriloquist, or the then "greatest show on earth." College

commencements, too, at that time usually had all these festive

accompaniments, and many a boy debated whether to spend his scant change

here or at the muster. In New England, Christmas was not observed; it

was hardly known, in fact, Thanksgiving taking its place, proclaimed

with the utmost formality by the Governor some weeks in advance.

Intemperance was still terribly common; worst in the newer sections of

the country. There is extant a message of William Henry Harrison, while

Governor of Indiana Territory, to his legislature, against this evil,

urging better surveillance of public-houses. "The progress of

intemperance among us," it runs, "outstrips all calculation, and the

consequences of its becoming general I shudder to unfold. Poverty and

domestic embarrassment and distress are the present effects, and

prostration of morals and change of government must inevitably follow.

The virtue of the citizens is the only support of a Republican

Government. Destroy this and the country will become a prey to the first

daring and ambitious chief which it shall produce."

New Hampshire Bill of Forty Shillings in 1742.

To counteract this and other vices, which were justly viewed as largely

the results of ignorance, philanthropic people were at this period

establishing Sunday-schools, following the example of Robert Raikes, who

began the movement at Gloucester, England, in 1781. They had been

already introduced in New England, but were now making their way in

Philadelphia and elsewhere. The first Methodist bishop, Asbury,

zealously furthered them. They had, to begin with, no distinctive

religious character, and churches even looked upon them with disfavor;

but their numbers increased and their value became more apparent until

the institution was adopted by all denominations.

Before 1800 the new United States coinage, with nearly the same pieces

as now, had begun to circulate, but had had little success at that date

in driving out the old foreign coins of colonial times. Especially were

there still seen Spanish dollars, halves, quarters, fifths or

pistareens, and eighths--the last being the Spanish "real," "ryall," or

"royall," worth twelve and a half cents--and sixteenths or half-reals,

worth six and one-quarter cents each. Many of these pieces were sadly

worn, passing at their face value only when the legend could be made

out. Sometimes they were heated to aid in this. Many were so worn that a