Kitabı oku: «The Critical Period of American History», sayfa 6

At the same time this survey most forcibly reminds us how completely the legislation which immediately affected the daily domestic life of the citizen was the legislation of the single state in which he lived. In the various reforms just passed in review the United States government took no part, and could not from the nature of the case. Even to-day our national government has no power over such matters, and it is to be hoped it never will have. But at the present day our national government performs many important functions of common concern, which a century ago were scarcely performed at all. The organization of the single state was old in principle and well understood by everybody. It therefore worked easily, and such changes as those above described were brought about with little friction. On the other hand, the principles upon which the various relations of the states to each other were to be adjusted were not well understood. There was wide disagreement upon the subject, and the attempt to compromise between opposing views was not at first successful. Hence, in the management of affairs which concerned the United States as a nation, we shall not find the central machinery working smoothly or quietly. We are about to traverse a period of uncertainty and confusion, in which it required all the political sagacity and all the good temper of the people to save the half-built ship of state from going to pieces on the rocks of civil contention.

CHAPTER III.
THE LEAGUE OF FRIENDSHIP

The several states have never enjoyed complete sovereignty.

That some kind of union existed between the states was doubted by no one. Ever since the assembling of the first Continental Congress in 1774 the thirteen commonwealths had acted in concert, and sometimes most generously, as when Maryland and South Carolina had joined in the Declaration of Independence without any crying grievances of their own, from a feeling that the cause of one should be the cause of all. It has sometimes been said that the Union was in its origin a league of sovereign states, each of which surrendered a specific portion of its sovereignty to the federal government for the sake of the common welfare. Grave political arguments have been based upon this alleged fact, but such an account of the matter is not historically true. There never was a time when Massachusetts or Virginia was an absolutely sovereign state like Holland or France. Sovereign over their own internal affairs they are to-day as they were at the time of the Revolution, but there was never a time when they presented themselves before other nations as sovereign, or were recognized as such. Under the government of England before the Revolution the thirteen commonwealths were independent of one another, and were held together, juxtaposed rather than united, only through their allegiance to the British crown. Had that allegiance been maintained there is no telling how long they might have gone on thus disunited; and this, it seems, should be one of our chief reasons for rejoicing that the political connection with England was dissolved when it was. A permanent redress of grievances, and even virtual independence such as Canada now enjoys, we might perhaps have gained had we listened to Lord North's proposals after the surrender of Burgoyne; but the formation of the Federal Union would certainly have been long postponed, and when we realize the grandeur of the work which we are now doing in the world through the simple fact of such a union, we cannot fail to see that such an issue would have been extremely unfortunate. However this may be, it is clear that until the connection with England was severed the thirteen commonwealths were not united, nor were they sovereign. It is also clear that in the very act of severing their connection with England these commonwealths entered into some sort of union which was incompatible with their absolute sovereignty taken severally. It was not the people of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and so on through the list, that declared their independence of Great Britain, but it was the representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, and speaking as a single body in the name of the whole. Three weeks before this declaration was adopted, Congress appointed a committee to draw up the "articles of confederation and perpetual union," by which the sovereignty of the several states was expressly limited and curtailed in many important particulars. This committee had finished its work by the 12th of July, but the articles were not adopted by Congress until the autumn of 1777, and they were not finally put into operation until the spring of 1781. During this inchoate period of union the action of the United States was that of a confederation in which some portion of the several sovereignties was understood to be surrendered to the whole. It was the business of the articles to define the precise nature and extent of this surrendered sovereignty which no state by itself ever exercised. In the mean time this sovereignty, undefined in nature and extent, was exercised, as well as circumstances permitted, by the Continental Congress.

The Continental Congress; its extraordinary character.

A most remarkable body was this Continental Congress. For the vicissitudes through which it passed, there is perhaps no other revolutionary body, save the Long Parliament, which can be compared with it. For its origin we must look back to the committees of correspondence devised by Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel Adams, and Dabney Carr. First assembled in 1774 to meet an emergency which was generally believed to be only temporary, it continued to sit for nearly seven years before its powers were ever clearly defined; and during those seven years it exercised some of the highest functions of sovereignty which are possible to any governing body. It declared the independence of the United States; it contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with France; it raised and organized a Continental army; it borrowed large sums of money, and pledged what the lenders understood to be the national credit for their repayment; it issued an inconvertible paper currency, granted letters of marque, and built a navy. All this it did in the exercise of what in later times would have been called "implied war powers," and its authority rested upon the general acquiescence in the purposes for which it acted and in the measures which it adopted. Under such circumstances its functions were very inefficiently performed. But the articles of confederation, which in 1781 defined its powers, served at the same time to limit them; so that for the remaining eight years of its existence the Continental Congress grew weaker and weaker, until it was swept away to make room for a more efficient government.

The articles of confederation.

John Dickinson is supposed to have been the principal author of the articles of confederation; but as the work of the committee was done in secret and has never been reported, the point cannot be determined. In November, 1777, Congress sent the articles to the several state legislatures, with a circular letter recommending them as containing the only plan of union at all likely to be adopted. In the course of the next fifteen months the articles were ratified by all the states except Maryland, which refused to sign until the states laying claim to the northwestern lands, and especially Virginia, should surrender their claims to the confederation. We shall by and by see, when we come to explain this point in detail, that from this action of Maryland there flowed beneficent consequences that were little dreamed of. It was first in the great chain of events which led directly to the formation of the Federal Union. Having carried her point, Maryland ratified the articles on the first day of March, 1781; and thus in the last and most brilliant period of the war, while Greene was leading Cornwallis on his fatal chase across North Carolina, the confederation proposed at the time of the Declaration of Independence was finally consummated.

According to the language of the articles, the states entered into a firm league of friendship with each other; and in order to secure and perpetuate such friendship, the freemen of each state were entitled to all the privileges and immunities of freemen in all the other states. Mutual extradition of criminals was established, and in each state full faith and credit was to be given to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of every other state. This universal intercitizenship was what gave reality to the nascent and feeble Union. In all the common business relations of life, the man of New Hampshire could deal with the man of Georgia on an equal footing before the law. But this was almost the only effectively cohesive provision in the whole instrument. Throughout the remainder of the articles its language was largely devoted to reconciling the theory that the states were severally sovereign with the visible fact that they were already merged to some extent in a larger political body. The sovereignty of this larger body was vested in the Congress of delegates appointed yearly by the states. No state was to be represented by less than two or more than seven members; no one could be a delegate for more than three years out of every six; and no delegate could hold any salaried office under the United States. As in colonial times the states had, to preserve their self-government, insisted upon paying their governors and judges, instead of allowing them to be paid out of the royal treasury, so now the delegates in Congress were paid by their own states. In determining questions in Congress, each state had one vote, without regard to population; but a bare majority was not enough to carry any important measure. Not only for such extraordinary matters as wars and treaties, but even for the regular and ordinary business of raising money to carry on the government, not a single step could be taken without the consent of at least nine of the thirteen states; and this provision well-nigh sufficed of itself to block the wheels of federal legislation. The Congress assembled each year on the first Monday of November, and could not adjourn for a longer period than six months. During its recess the continuity of government was preserved by an executive committee, consisting of one delegate from each state, and known as the "committee of the states." Saving such matters of warfare or treaty as the public interest might require to be kept secret, all the proceedings of Congress were entered in a journal, to be published monthly; and the yeas and nays must be entered should any delegate request it. The executive departments of war, finance, and so forth were intrusted at first to committees, until experience soon showed the necessity of single heads. There was a president of Congress, who, as representing the dignity of the United States, was, in a certain sense, the foremost person in the country, but he had no more power than any other delegate. Of the fourteen presidents between 1774 and 1789, perhaps only Randolph, Hancock, and Laurens are popularly remembered in that capacity; Jay, St. Clair, Mifflin, and Lee are remembered for other things; Hanson, Griffin, and Boudinot are scarcely remembered at all, save by the student of American history.

Between the Congress thus constituted and the several state governments the attributes of sovereignty were shared in such a way as to produce a minimum of result with a maximum of effort. The states were prohibited from keeping up any naval or military force, except militia, or from entering into any treaty or alliance, either with a foreign power or between themselves, without the consent of Congress. No state could engage in war except by way of defence against a sudden Indian attack. Congress had the sole right of determining on peace and war, of sending and receiving ambassadors, of making treaties, of adjudicating all disputes between the states, of managing Indian affairs, and of regulating the value of coin and fixing the standard of weights and measures. Congress took control of the post-office on condition that no more revenue should be raised from postage than should suffice to discharge the expenses of the service. Congress controlled the army, but was provided with no means of raising soldiers save through requisitions upon the states, and it could only appoint officers above the rank of colonel; the organization of regiments was left entirely in the hands of the states. The traditional and wholesome dread of a standing army was great, but there was no such deep-seated jealousy of a navy, and Congress was accordingly allowed not only to appoint all naval officers, but also to establish courts of admiralty.

The articles failed to create a federal government endowed with real sovereignty.

Several essential attributes of sovereignty were thus withheld from the states; and by assuming all debts contracted by Congress prior to the adoption of the articles, and solemnly pledging the public faith for their payment, it was implicitly declared that the sovereignty here accorded to Congress was substantially the same as that which it had asserted and exercised ever since the severing of the connection with England. The articles simply defined the relations of the states to the Confederation as they had already shaped themselves. Indeed, the articles, though not finally ratified till 1781, had been known to Congress and to the people ever since 1776 as their expected constitution, and political action had been shaped in general accordance with the theory on which they had been drawn up. They show that political action was at no time based on the view of the states as absolutely sovereign, but they also show that the share of sovereignty accorded to Congress was very inadequate even to the purposes of an effective confederation. The position in which they left Congress was hardly more than that of the deliberative head of a league. For the most fundamental of all the attributes of sovereignty – the power of taxation – was not given to Congress. It could neither raise taxes through an excise nor through custom-house duties; it could only make requisitions upon the thirteen members of the confederacy in proportion to the assessed value of their real estate, and it was not provided with any means of enforcing these requisitions. On this point the articles contained nothing beyond the vague promise of the states to obey. The power of levying taxes was thus retained entirely by the states. They not only imposed direct taxes, as they do to-day, but they laid duties on exports and imports, each according to its own narrow view of its local interests. The only restriction upon this was that such state-imposed duties must not interfere with the stipulations of any foreign treaties such as Congress might make in pursuance of treaties already proposed to the courts of France and Spain. Besides all this, the states shared with Congress the powers of coining money, of emitting bills of credit, and of making their promissory notes a legal tender for debts.

Such was the constitution under which the United States had begun to drift toward anarchy even before the close of the Revolutionary War, but which could only be amended by the unanimous consent of all the thirteen states. The historian cannot but regard this difficulty of amendment as a fortunate circumstance; for in the troubles which presently arose it led the distressed people to seek some other method of relief, and thus prepared the way for the Convention of 1787, which destroyed the whole vicious scheme, and gave us a form of government under which we have just completed a century unparalleled for peace and prosperity. Besides this extreme difficulty of amendment, the fatal defects of the Confederation were three in number. The first defect was the two thirds vote necessary for any important legislation in Congress; under this rule any five of the states – as, for example, the four southernmost states with Maryland, or the four New England states with New Jersey – could defeat the most sorely needed measures. The second defect was the impossibility of presenting a united front to foreign countries in respect to commerce. The third and greatest defect was the lack of any means, on the part of Congress, of enforcing obedience. Not only was there no federal executive or judiciary worthy of the name, but the central government operated only upon states, and not upon individuals. Congress could call for troops and for money in strict conformity with the articles; but should any state prove delinquent in furnishing its quota, there were no constitutional means of compelling it to obey the call. This defect was seen and deplored at the outset by such men as Washington and Madison, but the only remedy which at first occurred to them was one more likely to kill than to cure. Only six weeks after the ratification of the articles, Madison proposed an amendment "to give to the United States full authority to employ their force, as well by sea as by land, to compel any delinquent state to fulfil its federal engagements." Washington approved of this measure, hoping, as he said, that "a knowledge that this power was lodged in Congress might be the means to prevent its ever being exercised, and the more readily induce obedience. Indeed," added Washington, "if Congress were unquestionably possessed of the power, nothing should induce the display of it but obstinate disobedience and the urgency of the general welfare." Madison argued that in the very nature of the Confederation such a right of coercion was necessarily implied, though not expressed in the articles, and much might have been said in behalf of this opinion. The Confederation explicitly declared itself to be perpetual, yet how could it perpetuate itself for a dozen years without the right to coerce its refractory members? Practically, however, the remedy was one which could never have been applied without breaking the Confederation into fragments. To use the army or navy in coercing a state meant nothing less than civil war. The local yeomanry would have turned out against the Continental army with as high a spirit as that with which they swarmed about the British enemy at Lexington or King's Mountain. A government which could not collect the taxes for its yearly budget without firing upon citizens or blockading two or three harbours would have been the absurdest political anomaly imaginable. No such idea could have entered the mind of a statesman save from the hope that if one state should prove refractory, all the others would immediately frown upon it and uphold Congress in overawing it. In such case the knowledge that Congress had the power would doubtless have been enough to make its exercise unnecessary. But in fact this hope was disappointed, for the delinquency of each state simply set an example of disobedience for all the others to follow; and the amendment, had it been carried, would merely have armed Congress with a threat which everybody would have laughed at. So manifestly hopeless was the case to Pelatiah Webster that as early as May, 1781, he published an able pamphlet, urging the necessity for a federal convention for overhauling the whole scheme of government from beginning to end.

Military weakness of the government.

The military weakness due to this imperfect governmental organization may be illustrated by comparing the number of regular troops which Congress was able to keep in the field during the Revolutionary War with the number maintained by the United States government during the War of Secession. A rough estimate, obtained from averages, will suffice to show the broad contrast. In 1863, the middle year of the War of Secession, the total population of the loyal states was about 23,491,600, of whom about one fifth, or 4,698,320, were adult males of military age. Supposing one adult male out of every five to have been under arms at one time, the number would have been 939,664. Now the total number of troops enlisted in the northern army during the four years of the war, reduced to a uniform standard, was 2,320,272, or an average of 580,068 under arms in any single year. In point of fact, this average was reached before the middle of the war, and the numbers went on increasing, until at the end there were more than a million men under arms, – at least one out of every five adult males in the northern states. On the other hand, in 1779, the middle year of the Revolutionary War, the white population of the United States was about 2,175,000, of whom 435,000 were adult males of military age. Supposing one out of every five of these to have been under arms at once, the number would have been 87,000. Now in the spring of 1777, when the Continental Congress was at the highest point of authority which it ever reached, when France was willing to lend it money freely, when its paper currency was not yet discredited and it could make liberal offers of bounties, a demand was made upon the states for 80,000 men, or nearly one fifth of the adult male population, to serve for three years or during the war. Only 34,820 were obtained. The total number of men in the field in that most critical year, including the swarms of militia who came to the rescue at Ridgefield and Bennington and Oriskany, and the Pennsylvania militia who turned out while their state was invaded, was 68,720. In 1781, when the credit of Congress was greatly impaired, although military activity again rose to a maximum and it was necessary for the people to strain every nerve, the total number of men in the field, militia and all, was only 29,340, of whom only 13,292 were Continentals; and it was left for the genius of Washington and Greene, working with desperate energy and most pitiful resources, to save the country. A more impressive contrast to the readiness with which the demands of the government were met in the War of Secession can hardly be imagined. Had the country put forth its strength in 1781 as it did in 1864, an army of 90,000 men might have overwhelmed Clinton at the north and Cornwallis at the south, without asking any favours of the French fleet. Had it put forth its full strength in 1777, four years of active warfare might have been spared. Mr. Lecky explains this difference by his favourite hypothesis that the American Revolution was the work of a few ultra-radical leaders, with whom the people were not generally in sympathy; and he thinks we could not expect to see great heroism or self-sacrifice manifested by a people who went to war over what he calls a "money dispute."³ But there is no reason for supposing that the loyalists represented the general sentiment of the country in the Revolutionary War any more than the peace party represented the general sentiment of the northern states in the War of Secession. There is no reason for supposing that the people were less at heart in 1781 in fighting for the priceless treasure of self-government than they were in 1864 when they fought for the maintenance of the pacific principles underlying our Federal Union. The differences in the organization of the government, and in its power of operating directly upon the people, are quite enough to explain the difference between the languid conduct of the earlier war and the energetic conduct of the later.

Extreme difficulty of obtaining a revenue.

Impossible as Congress found it to fill the quotas of the army, the task of raising a revenue by requisitions upon the states was even more discouraging. Every state had its own war-debt, and several were applicants for foreign loans not easy to obtain, so that none could without the greatest difficulty raise a surplus to hand over to Congress. The Continental rag-money had ceased to circulate by the end of 1780, and our foreign credit was nearly ruined. The French government began to complain of the heavy demands which the Americans made upon its exchequer, and Vergennes, in sending over a new loan in the fall of 1782, warned Franklin that no more must be expected. To save American credit from destruction, it was at least necessary that the interest on the public debt should be paid. For this purpose Congress in 1781 asked permission to levy a five per cent. duty on imports. The modest request was the signal for a year of angry discussion. Again and again it was asked, If taxes could thus be levied by any power outside the state, why had we ever opposed the Stamp Act or the tea duties? The question was indeed a serious one, and as an instance of reasoning from analogy seemed plausible enough. After more than a year Massachusetts consented, by a bare majority of two in the House and one in the Senate, reserving to herself the right of appointing the collectors. The bill was then vetoed by Governor Hancock, though one day too late, and so it was saved. But Rhode Island flatly refused her consent, and so did Virginia, though Madison earnestly pleaded the cause of the public credit. For the current expenses of the government in that same year $9,000,000 were needed. It was calculated that $4,000,000 might be raised by a loan, and the other $5,000,000 were demanded of the states. At the end of the year $422,000 had been collected, not a cent of which came from Georgia, the Carolinas, or Delaware. Rhode Island, which paid $38,000, did the best of all according to its resources. Of the Continental taxes assessed in 1783, only one-fifth part had been paid by the middle of 1785. And the worst of it was that no one could point to a remedy for this state of things, or assign any probable end to it.

Dread of the army.

Supposed scheme for making Washington king.

Under such circumstances the public credit sank at home as well as abroad. Foreign creditors – even France, who had been nothing if not generous with her loans – might be made to wait; but there were creditors at home who, should they prove ugly, could not be so easily put off. The disbandment of the army in the summer of 1783, before the British troops had evacuated New York, was hastened by the impossibility of paying the soldiers and the dread of what they might do under such provocation. Though peace had been officially announced, Hamilton and Livingston urged that, for the sake of appearances if for no other reason, the army should be kept together so long as the British remained in New York, if not until they should have surrendered the western frontier posts. But Congress could not pay the army, and was afraid of it, – and not without some reason. Discouraged at the length of time which had passed since they had received any money, the soldiers had begun to fear lest, now that their services were no longer needed, their honest claims would be set aside. Among the officers, too, there was grave discontent. In the spring of 1778, after the dreadful winter at Valley Forge, several officers had thrown up their commissions, and others threatened to do likewise. To avert the danger, Washington had urged Congress to promise half-pay for life to such officers as should serve to the end of the war. It was only with great difficulty that he succeeded in obtaining a promise of half-pay for seven years, and even this raised an outcry throughout the country, which seemed to dread its natural defenders only less than its enemies. In the fall of 1780, however, in the general depression which followed upon the disasters at Charleston and Camden, the collapse of the paper money, and the discovery of Arnold's treason, there was serious danger that the army would fall to pieces. At this critical moment Washington had earnestly appealed to Congress, and against the strenuous opposition of Samuel Adams had at length extorted the promise of half-pay for life. In the spring of 1782, seeing the utter inability of Congress to discharge its pecuniary obligations, many officers began to doubt whether the promise would ever be kept. It had been made before the articles of confederation, which required the assent of nine states to any such measure, had been finally ratified. It was well known that nine states had never been found to favour the measure, and it was now feared that it might be repealed or repudiated, so loud was the popular clamour against it. All this comes of republican government, said some of the officers; too many cooks spoil the broth; a dozen heads are as bad as no head; you do not know whose promises to trust; a monarchy, with a good king whom all men can trust, would extricate us from these difficulties. In this mood, Colonel Louis Nicola, of the Pennsylvania line, a foreigner by birth, addressed a long and well-argued letter to Washington, setting forth the troubles of the time, and urging him to come forward as a saviour of society, and accept the crown at the hands of his faithful soldiers. Nicola was an aged man, of excellent character, and in making this suggestion he seemed to be acting as spokesman of a certain clique or party among the officers, – how numerous is not known. Washington instantly replied that Nicola could not have found a person to whom such a scheme could be more odious, and he was at a loss to conceive what he had ever done to have it supposed that he could for one moment listen to a suggestion so fraught with mischief to his country. Lest the affair, becoming known, should enhance the popular distrust of the army, Washington said nothing about it. But as the year went by, and the outcry against half-pay continued, and Congress showed symptoms of a willingness to compromise the matter, the discontent of the army increased. Officers and soldiers brooded alike over their wrongs. "The army," said General Macdougall, "is verging to that state which, we are told, will make a wise man mad." The peril of the situation was increased by the well-meant but injudicious whisperings of other public creditors, who believed that if the army would only take a firm stand and insist upon a grant of permanent funds to Congress for liquidating all public debts, the states could probably be prevailed upon to make such a grant. Robert Morris, the able secretary of finance, held this opinion, and did not believe that the states could be brought to terms in any other way. His namesake and assistant, Gouverneur Morris, held similar views, and gave expression to them in February, 1783, in a letter to General Greene, who was still commanding in South Carolina. When Greene received the letter, he urged upon the legislature of that state, in most guarded and moderate language, the paramount need of granting a revenue to Congress, and hinted that the army would not be satisfied with anything less. The assembly straightway flew into a rage. "No dictation by a Cromwell!" shouted the members. South Carolina had consented to the five per cent. impost, but now she revoked it, to show her independence, and Greene's eyes were opened at once to the danger of the slightest appearance of military intervention in civil affairs.