\
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
AN OUTLINE OF UNITED STATES HISTORY
FROM 1760 TO 1865
<*
BY
EDWIN ERLE SPARKS, PH.D.
ILLUSTRATED WITH MANY REPRODUCTIONS OF CONTEMPORARY PRINTS, SKETCHES, FACSIMILES, ETC.
Ncfo gorfc THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. IQOI
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Nortoooti
J. S. Gushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
PREFATORY NOTE
THIS outline of United States History is based upon these hypotheses : —
That the unification of the American people is now sufficiently accomplished to warrant the general reader in following up the chief events which have overcome inherent individualism and have by necessity compelled cooperation.
That a recital of the events in the nation's career without the persons connected therewith is to the un trained reader an empty stage. However magnificently set, it is lifeless without the players. The making of the nation is the story of the men who made it.
That at any given period of affairs one man will be found who is master of the situation, and events natu rally group themselves about him.
That the preeminence of one man at any period does not detract from the services of the minor characters, some of whom may become leaders subsequently.
That an intensive and extensive study of the nation's history can be best secured by making an outline inter esting and directive.
82858
vi PREFATORY NOTE
That amidst the confusing multitude of details in the forming of a national character, the reader can trace the slow, but steady, evolution of a comparatively harmonious people from the most heterogeneous and apparently hopeless elements. The process of recon ciling the inherited prejudices which have rent the Old World is not yet complete in the New ; but the stern hand of necessity has wrought the reluctant material so far that the result may be viewed with pride by those who read the story.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, December, 1900.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Benjamin Franklin, the Colonial Agent in England . . T
CHAPTER II Samuel Adams, the Man of the Town Meeting ... 47
CHAPTER III John Adams, the Partisan of Independence .... 79
CHAPTER IV Robert Morris, the Financier of the Revolution . . .119^
CHAPTER V Alexander Hamilton, the Advocate of Stronger Government , 151
CHAPTER VI v^George Washington, the First President . . . .181
CHAPTER VII
Thomas Jefferson, the Exponent of Democracy . . . 218
vii
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII
PAQJ5
Henry Clay, the Father of Public Improvements . . . 215
CHAPTER IX Andrew Jackson, the People's President .... 282
CHAPTER X
Daniel Webster, the Defender of the Constitution . . .318
CHAPTER XI Horace Greeley, the Anti-slavery Editor .... 347
CHAPTER XII Abraham Lincoln, a New Type of American .... 378
INDEX 411
TUft puWi/hed, POOR RICHARDS AI.M. Yeat4 1752. Containing, bei'i '-hitters., a parti
cular Account of the Changes tfit- . :rcuc in ioin,:r
A^es, with the Realons thereof \
r,.<int for regulating the CuirsiTifnc , il»t. Caitn-
»iar, printed at large.
A L S O,
The AMERICAN C O U N T R ^ A L MA N A C K, For the Year I7C2. fc»v ^j U U M ^-! >. MOO ^ /?.
^d aw^y ori the 18 h ot )<ift month f out <»J the
ANNOUNCEMENT OF POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC IN FRANKLIN'S PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
CHAPTER I
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, THE COLONIAL AGENT IN ENGLAND
REEDY ISLAND, 7 at night, 8 November, 1764. MY DEAR SALLY, — We got down here at sunset, having taken in more live stock at Newcastle, with some other things we wanted. Our good friends, Mr. Galloway, Mr. Wharton, and Mr. James, came with me in the ship from Chester to Newcastle, and went ashore there. It was kind to favor me with their company as far as they could. The affectionate leave taken of me by so many friends at Chester was very endearing. God bless them and all Philadelphia. ...
B. FRANKLIN.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, of Philadelphia, had started on his third voyage to England. His fruitless errand under the supposed patronage of Governor Keith, of Pennsylvania, in 1724, had been followed in 1757 by a mission as agent of the people of Pennsylvania in their contest with the heirs of William Penn, proprietors of that province. After five years of service, he had re turned, and was now sent back on a similar errand, having been allowed to remain but two years at home.
On the first of these visits Franklin was an unknown printer. Before he saw England the second time, Poor Richard's quaint sayings in Richard Saunders' Almanac had made its printer-author famous. His experiments
2 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
in the realm of science were known to the reading world. His complete works had been published in London. But on this third visit he was destined to enter the field of political writings, to enlighten England about her American possessions, and to assist, quite unintentionally, in divesting her of a portion of these treasures.
Much information could not be expected in England concerning these million and a half colonists, scattered in little groups along a thousand miles of seacoast. They were in a " new world," surrounded by dense forests, in constant danger from savages, and with slight means of inter-communication. Even effective coop eration was prevented by the racial, religious, and class differences, which they brought from the old country and transmitted to their children. Of these sources of dissension, sectarianism would naturally be the most difficult to overcome.
The " Established church " of England was strongest in Virginia. It was under the bishop of London, in accord with the ecclesiastical law ; it was favored by the aristocratic ruling class ; it had its glebes and parish houses ; the salaries of its clergy were arranged by law l
1 In 1696, the annual salary of a clergyman was fixed at 16,000 pounds of tobacco; for performing a marriage ceremony, 400 pounds; for a fu neral service, 200 pounds, etc. Variations in crops and quality of tobacco gave rise to many suits at law, in one of which Patrick Henry gained his first prominence as an agitator by denouncing this compulsory church sys tem. See Tyler's " Henry," p. 32. An original account of this " Parson's Cause," as well as original material on nearly all points in American his tory, may be found in Hart's " American History told by Contemporaries." For a presentation of the case from another standpoint, see Meade's " Old Churches and Families of Virginia," L, 219. For the colonial churches in general, see Lodge's " History of the American Colonies."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 3
and paid largely by tithes exacted from the citizens. These proud churchmen looked down with a kind of scorn on the " dissenters " in New England. Crossing the ocean could not heal the breach between Cavalier and Round head. On the other hand, the Puritan clergymen compared the severity of their lives with those of the Virginia clergy, carousing in taverns, attendants upon horsl|lfcs and cock-fights, and ultimately made ame nable to the law for drunkenness. Many of the Virginia rectors were exceptions, and lived most exemplary lives ; but others were sent over to the colonial livings, their salaries assured by law, and themselves thus made independent of their parishioners. In vain the Vir ginians at times petitioned for the appointment of an American bishop to correct these " wolves in sheep's clothing," who " rather by their dissoluteness destroy than feed their flocks." The Established church was the product of a state deaf to distant colonies.
The first people of Massachusetts Bay had fled to escape this state church, but they soon evolved a church state, membership in the one being contingent on mem bership in the other. " Casting out heretics " was as man datory on the new as on the old state, and persecution raged in both sections. If Massachusetts forbade the ritual of the Established church, Virginia fined Puritans who preached within her borders. Each persecuted the Quaker, or " broadbrim," as John Adams called him.1 The Baptist also suffered in both North and South. Only two years before independence was declared, five
1 Whittier describes these persecutions in the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas of " The Pastoral Letter." Thomas Jefferson, in his " Notes on Virginia," cites the statutes of that colony against the Quaker.
4 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
or six clergymen were in close jail in Virginia for pub lishing their doctrines, and James Madison was out of patience with this "diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution." l
In New York, the history of Peter Stuyvesant fining non-attendants on the Dutch Reformed (or Dutch Cal- vinist) church was repeated by Governor Fletcher, under English rule, arranging a tax for building Estab lished churches and paying their clergymen. The strug gle in that colony between this state church and the dissenters, chiefly Presbyterians, continued as a dis turbing element far into the Revolution. The first fifty years of the history of South Carolina witnessed a con stant struggle between the Established churchmen and the Scotch Presbyterians, during which the former suc ceeded in barring, for a time, the latter from seats in the provincial Assembly. The union of church and state never held in Pennsylvania, where the population was so divided among Quakers, Presbyterians, and the numerous sects of the Germans.
Since the ruling element of whatever sect came from England, the Roman Catholic could not expect toleration. Until the time of the Revolution, New York prohibited the exercise of office by priest or Jesuit on penalty of perpetual imprisonment, an attempt to es cape being punishable by death. Maryland, although Roman Catholic by foundation and by the faith of a majority of her citizens, was given a Protestant church system in 1692.2 Virginia was especially severe toward
1 Gay's " Madison," p. 13.
2 See Rowland's "Charles Carroll of Carrollton," Vol. L, pp. 4-33.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 5
Roman Catholics, and even Rhode Island at times refused them the right of the franchise.
As migration to Massachusetts and Connecticut in creased, tremendous pressure for citizenship was brought to bear on the church state and the " half-way covenant " was agreed upon. It granted church membership and citizenship privileges without the prerequisites of repent ance and conversion. Many clergymen refused to abide by it, and Jonathan Edwards was dismissed from his pastorate at Northampton, Massachusetts, after twenty- four years of service. A little later, tithes were per mitted to be paid to the Established churches in Massa chusetts. Yet toleration made such slow progress that so late as 1760 in that colony there were 306 Congregational churches and but 59 of all other denomi nations, while the membership was as five to one. The state church in Georgia gradually fell into such ill repute that John Wesley, in 1736, estimated the dissenters at one-third the entire population, and in Virginia the proportion was thought to be one-half. Hence in the southern colonies the Revolution was accompanied, if not engendered, by a struggle for religious freedom.1 Elsewhere the fear of an American bishop and an established church being foisted on the people became one of the standing complaints against England in the rising tide of the Revolution.2 The sending officially
1 Jefferson has claimed much credit for the divorce of church and state in Virginia. Morse's "Jefferson," p. 45. Madison is entitled to a share. Gay's " Madison," pp. 66-70.
2 One of the English caricatures shows the reception which would be accorded to a bishop in America. The " Annual Register " (London) for 1765, p. 108, contains Bishop Butler's plan for an American episcopacy. Franklin wrote an essay on Toleration in Old and New England. See his
PROBABLE RECEPTION OF AN AMERICAN BISHOP
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 7
of a Roman Catholic bishop to the French in Canada in 1766 seemed to give some foundation to this fear.
With these narrow contests and this persecution in a new world Franklin had little sympathy. He said : "When religious people quarrel about religion, or hungry people about their victuals, it looks as if they had not much of either among them."1
He was much more concerned about the race differ ences, and the probable length of time necessary to evolve a harmonious people from this mass of inherited prejudices. He regretted especially the non-assimilation of the Germans in Pennsylvania. " Few of their chil dren know English. They import many books from Germany ; and of the six printing offices in the prov ince, two are entirely German, two half German and half English, and but two entirely English." Adver tisements in the Philadelphia newspapers were in both English and German, as were the street signs. Legal papers were allowed to be written in either language, and Franklin sarcastically predicted that it would be necessary in time to have interpreters in the state Assem bly to tell the one half what the other half said. Other writers testified to the superstition of the lower class of these Germans ; that one might see frequently a bag of salt tied to a horse's mane to keep the witches away. A petty warfare went on between them and the Scotch. Galloway once wrote to Franklin that the Presby terians of Lancaster county objected to the election of
"Works," Sparks's Edition, Vol. II., p. 112. Also see "Works of John Adams," Vol. X., p. 185.
1 The quotations from Franklin in this chapter are taken from various places in Jared Sparks's " Franklin's Works " in ten volumes.
8 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
a candidate for sheriff because he had recently come from Germany. When he attempted to serve process, they assaulted him, cut off the ears of his horse, and compelled him to flee for his life, yet they went. un punished. At all times a certain antipathy was shown by the Pennsylvania Quakers toward the Presbyterians, whom they associated with the persecuting Congrega- tionalists in New England. The Quakers wished to treat the Indians kindly ; the Scotch and Scotch-Irish wished to discipline them. The " Paxton (Paxtang) war " be tween these factions threatened to add white to Indian bloodshed until Franklin assumed a dictatorship, and put an end to it whilst the terrified English governor lay cowering in Franklin's house.
Germans were introduced also into New York through Governor Fletcher, but comparatively few settled in that colony.1 Yet it had fully as discordant an element in the Netherlanders, or Dutch, along the Hudson, who had been brought under English control in 1664. Kalm2 pronounced them " unhospitable, and never disposed to oblige beyond the prospect of interest " ; and, since they regarded the New Englanders as influen tial in their subjugation, " their first and greatest malice is toward them; while the difference in their natural disposition and the peculiarities in the manners and
1 They were commonly called " Dutch," possibly because they were of Teutonic blood, although they came from the Rhine district of Germany and not from the Netherlands. By contact with the English language, the present mixture known as " Pennsylvania Dutch " has arisen. The Germans have made an excellent although conservative contribution to the citizenship of Pennsylvania.
2 Peter Kalm, the Swedish botanist, made observations on the people as well as the flora of North America during his visit in 1 748.
BENJAMIN FRANKUN 9
customs of both parties render them obnoxious each to the other, and afford an infinite fund to a genius for the malevolent burlesque." In New Jersey, Kalm found " Low Dutch, Germans, English, Scotch, Irish, and New Englanders, whose national manners, customs, and char acter are still preserved, especially among the lower classes of people, who have little intercourse among any but those of their own nation." But not alone race ani mosity produced isolation and decentralization. If inte rior migration separated friends and neighbors, sectional feeling immediately sprang up. When the southward movement peopled the valleys of western Virginia and North Carolina with Pennsylvanians,1 the Colonial Magazine of Philadelphia pronounced the state a sieve, which kept back the stamina of industry and virtue, but allowed a free passage to those accustomed to vice and violence.
Added to these discordant race elements was the generally undesirable class known as " indented ser vants." Many of them had been redeemed from Eng lish, Scotch, and German prisons ; others belonged to the improvident class, and had become indebted for their passage-money ; only a few would make good citizens. The act under which they were sent' was entitled " For the better peopling His Majesty's Planta tions." They frequently escaped to other colonies and the frontier, committing crimes, and causing much ex pense in returning them to those to whom they had
1 Morse's Geography says that of the 3500 militiamen in the Revolu tionary War from Orange County, North Carolina, every one had migrated from Pennsylvania. The signers of the Mecklenburg " declaration of independence " were nearly all Scotch or their descendants who had come from colonies farther north.
10
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
been bound.1 They caused annoyance to neighboring colonies and thus added to the feeling already wrought to a high pitch by the numerous boundary disputes.
\
-SIMON
/*<' 8S -Ail mafters of veffcls, and others, are forbid to -carry them, or either of tfceip, twty, as the/ ihall anfwc? it at their peril, j* .
Ran away, -on- the firft of
March <nft* fioitj the fubfcriber, «n Ti- fttcum Ifitnd, in Chefter county, an Irllh fervam lad, aheut 16 yean old, named Jofeph MuUtn, about five feel high, &ofi brown hair, black eyes, thin face, down look, and has but very little $o jfty 5 by hit behaviour he may be taken for a fool— 4ia<i on when he went away, an old blanket coat, and homefpun bro*n cloth jacket, with a red lining, gretn troufers, with patches on tht knees, white yarn ftockingv, hall worn iioes, with ftrings in them, and an old flopped hat. Whoever wil^, bring htm home, ihall receive Twenty Shillings reward, and all rcafojuahle charges paid, by
Jofeph Penrofe. RUN away from the fub-
fcriber, in Saffafras Neck, Cecil Cbun- ty, Maryland, a fervant man named Jofeph Edwards. He was bom in Eng- land, pretcndr to have been bred up "to the care of horfes, and to underhand the management and breaking of colts, is a talkative impertinent fellow, about to, years of a_ee. well fet, fw4rj_hy cp
4 a t
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n
When the charters were first issued to various com panies for planting colonies in the new world, no sur-
1 In Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette of Nov. I, 1750, the following advertisement appears under the heading of " Runaway Servant " :
" Also another servant man, named William Stewart, of a middle size,
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 1 1
veys had been made and parallels of latitude were frequently used for boundaries. The common practice was to grant all the seacoast between certain parallels, extending " up into the land from sea to sea, west and northwest," or " towards the South Sea (Pacific ocean) or westward." But many colonizing schemes failed; others took their places ; and, since every encourage ment was offered, the same land was given in subsequent grants until in some places the land was said to be covered five deep with these claims.1
The charter of Virginia, the earliest, was naturally the most loosely drawn, and that colony construed " up into the Land throughout from Sea to Sea, West and North west" to entitle her to all land lying west of the other colonies and north of her southern boundary. But such interpretation was disputed by Massachusetts, whose land extended "throughout the Mayne Landes there from the Atlantick and Westerne Sea and Ocean on the East Parte to the South Sea on the West Parte," and by Connecticut, which had been granted all lands " as the Line of the Massachusetts Colony . . . from the said Narraganset Bay on the East, to the South Sea on the
short brown hair, wore a cap, with a scar on one of his cheeks : Had on a blue stuff coat, with a red plush cape, lined with dark colour'd linnen, a brown jacket lined with the same, metal buttons, breeches much the same, shoes and stockings, about 1 6 or 17 years of age. Whoever appre hends the said servants, and secures them, so as their master may have them again, shall have Twenty Shillings for each, and reasonable charges, paid by me. ROBERT ADAMS."
In the same paper rewards were offered for twenty-one runaway ser vants, mostly Irish and English. One negro was among the number, but he had run away with a white servant.
1 These charters may be found in Poore's " Constitutions and Charters." A resume of the boundary disputes may be found in Donaldson's " Public Domain," issued as House Exec. Doc. 47, part 4, 46th Cong., 3d Sess.
12 THE MEN* WHO MADE THE NATION
West Part." New York also resisted Virginia's preten sions to the western land on the ground of a treaty with the Six Nations which gave to that province all the land lying between the sources of the Great Lakes and the Cumberland Mountains. But New York was involved in more pressing difficulties on her eastern side because of the uncertain outlines of the charter given to the Duke of York. In the ensuing controversies, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys decided the question so far as a portion of the land was concerned by erecting an independent state ; but they caused some alarm dur ing the revolution lest they might ally themselves with Canada.1 Usually when concerted action was needed, these conflicts broke out afresh.
The two Carolinas clashed over their common boun dary line. Georgia was almost entirely carved out of South Carolina territory, and so engendered a quarrel which was not settled until the Revolutionary war.
Regardless of protests, Maryland had been given land claimed by Virginia, extending on the north to the 4<Dth degree of latitude and on the east to the Atlantic. But, in turn, the grant given to William Penn deprived Maryland of a peninsula now the state of Delaware.
1 When Ethan Allen captured Ticonderoga he was still an outlaw with a price upon his head by proclamation of the royal governor of New York. The contest between the Green Mountain Boys and New York was really connected with the struggle for liberty. The epitaph of one of Allen's associates reads :
" Here William French his Body lies For Murder his blood for Vengeance cries King Georg the third his Tory crew tha with a bawl his head Shot threw For liberty and his Countrys Good he Lost his Life his Dearest blood "
— Moore's " Memoir of Colonel Ethan Allen," p. 86.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 13
Penn also claimed that "the 4Oth degree" of north lati tude meant to begin at the 39th, and therefore demanded a strip of land one degree wide the entire length of Maryland, and including the desirable site of the city of Philadelphia. The dispute ran for half a century, until a compromise was effected and two competent surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, were brought from England to run the line between the two provinces (1763-1767). Since it so happened at a later time that Pennsylvania and all states north found slavery unprofit able and forbade it, whilst Maryland and all states south found it profitable and fostered it, the Mason and Dixon line became, at a later period, the great dividing line between slavery and freedom.
Penn's charter located the western limit of Pennsyl vania five degrees (about three hundred miles) from the eastern line — the Delaware river ; but upon the decision whether the eastern or western bend of the Delaware should be taken as a starting point in measuring would depend whether the junction of the rivers forming the Ohio belonged to Pennsylvania or Virginia. The con tention caused arrests, and even bloodshed, and was raging furiously when the oncoming Revolution was demanding harmony and peace. Nor was Penn more fortunate in his northern boundary. In his grant of 1664 he had secured a quit-claim from the Duke of York, but Connecticut, lapsing her claim to the territory of present New York, resumed it beyond the Delaware, and offered land for sale in a strip of northern Penn sylvania, almost half that province. Settlers who pur chased land from Pennsylvania in " Wyoming " or " Susquehanna," as this disputed portion was called,
14 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
found other settlers on the same tract with titles issued by Connecticut. Lawsuits, ejectments, and battles marked this controversy, continuing even after the Revolution, although Pennsylvania was given the land in 1782.
In the light of these conflicts one may appreciate the belief of England that they would remain an insur mountable barrier to any colonial union. A member of the Commons said in debate : " The colonists have been obliged to recur very frequently to the jurisdiction here to settle the disputes among their own governments. New Hampshire and Connecticut have been in blood about their differences ; Virginia and Maryland rose in arms against each other." The belief was common that only the restraining hand of the mother country pre vented a general civil war. England saw another dis turbing element in the commercial competition. When New York endeavored to secure a monopoly of the trade with the Six Nations, neighboring colonies gave a grudging assistance, and Virginia tried a counter treaty. Commercial jealousy was a moving cause of the failure of the colonies to support each other properly in the Indian wars, and this very failure cut still deeper the lines of ill feeling. New York hoped in time, with her superior harbor, to surpass the larger city of Phila delphia and also to gain some of the trade which entered Narragansett and Massachusetts bays. Samuel Rhoads sounded the alarm of Philadelphia, and suggested canals as the only means of keeping the interior trade from "Baltimore Towne." 1 England simply took advantage
1 In a letter to Franklin. Sparks's " Franklin," Vol. VII., p. 519.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 1 5
of this rivalry when she closed the port of Boston in the Revolution.
A few of the causes have been given which justified Dr. Joseph Warren in saying that until the time of the Stamp Act (1765) "the colonies were ever at variance and foolishly jealous of each other." Franklin thought this jealousy so strong that although a common defence had long been felt necessary, they could not form one among themselves nor agree to ask the mother country to establish one. He found further barriers in " differ ent governors, different forms of government, different laws, different interests, and some of them different religious persuasions and different manners."1 He had frequent experience with these local differences. Small wonder that when he read the eulogy of Voltaire on the peaceful city of the Quakers where " Discord and Controversy are unknown," he should have pronounced it fortunate that while they sat for their portrait to the able painter, he viewed them at such a favorable dis tance ; since they were " torn by faction, religious and civil."
Against this multitude of decentralizing tendencies there was the offset of a common danger, common pri vations, and the feeling of a "destiny" for this new world untainted by the ills of decaying old world gov ernment. The English formed the ruling class in each colony and so became a centralizing element. They spoke a common tongue, inherited similar ideas and tendencies, and were united in a common voluntary exile from "home." Legislative measures were sent
1 Sparks's "Franklin," Vol. IV., p. 41.
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Lying at Morris Morris** wharff, and has good accom modations for pafTcngers. and For freight or paflage, apply to James Weft, or faid
commander on board.
•At his honff, on Arch-rtrect Wharff, oppoCte Mr, Hazard's,
CH O I CE Ciarct in Bottles j and a Variety of Europc.tr, * Indiu Goods.
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The S H i P Prince WILLIAM, John Mitchell, Mafter j
One Half of bsr Loading is a!' ready engaged, and foe- nvill- tail icitb all convenient SpetJ»
For freight or Pajfage, ap~ to JoH.NjoMifH, ABPL JAMEJ, or faid f ^/"M i"~5 " '
ADVERTISEMENTS FROM FRANKLIN'S PENNSYLVANIA GAZETIE
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 1 7
" home " for approval or rejection by the king. Frank lin spoke of being "ordered home" and testified that natives of Britain in the colonies " were always treated with a particular regard; to be an Old-England man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us."1 It is one of the strange inconsistencies in the evolution of the nation that the treatment received from this beloved mother country was the great agency which finally overcame the many discordant elements and prepared the way for concerted action.
To show Franklin's appreciation of these obstacles to union one need only examine the efforts he made to remove them in a peaceful way. In 1744, during the French-Indian wars, a Spanish privateer sailed up the Delaware, plundering plantations, and threatening Phil adelphia. The city was defenceless owing to the un willingness of the Quaker element in the Assembly to vote money for warlike purposes.2 Franklin took advantage of the alarm to plead for a defensive union of the city and province, wrote a pamphlet on the sub ject, and in 1747 organized near ten thousand armed " Associators," who accomplished thus by private means what had always been thwarted in the Assembly. De clining the honor of a colonelcy in the Philadelphia
1 The preeminence of the English element in early America is shown in the present forms of local and general government, laws, and " insti tutions."
2 In his " Autobiography," Franklin, who saw the good intention beneath the apparently obstinate nature of the Quakers, relates with much relish stories of their voting to buy gunpowder under the guise of " grain," and his suggesting that they buy cannon under the pretence of a " fire-engine." Sparks's " Franklin," Vol. I., p. 154.
C
1 8 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Associators, because he lacked military training, Frank lin became a common soldier and stood guard on the temporary fortifications which had been hastily erected on the river below the city.
When the women of Philadelphia presented flags to the Associators, Franklin supplied the mottoes which were painted on them. In his newspaper, the Penn sylvania Gazette, he advocated a more extended union of the middle provinces against the French, and closed the article with a rude cut of a snake in thirteen separate joints, with the suggestive motto "Join or die ! "
In 1754, he attended a meeting of commissioners from seven states held at Albany, New York, for the purpose of treating with the Indians. He suggested a perma nent union for such purposes, and, of the several plans suggested looking to that end, his was adopted. But nothing came of it. He said the American assemblies thought it had too much (kingly) prerogative, and in England it was considered too democratic. From that country came a counter proposition that the money needed for defence should be raised through a tax levied by Parliament ; but Franklin replied that being without representation in Parliament the colonists could not be taxed by that body.1
Here the matter rested until brought to a test by the appearance on the throne in 1760 of George III., the
1 Numerous instances attest that this was no new position for many of the colonies. As early as 1670, the members of the Massachusetts Court refused to address Parliament concerning a grievance lest they should thus admit some power of that body over them. The "Diary" of John Evelyn, a member of the Board of Trade and Plantations, mentions the plans considered in 1671 for securing the dependency of New England.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 19
last king of England who attempted to control the poli tics of the country. Endowed with a headstrong nature, filled with exalted opinions of the king's power and pre rogative, he willingly followed the advice of his mother that he indeed should be king ; that he should be unin fluenced by the old Whig families or the Tory party. He determined, therefore, to build up a party for him self, although in so doing he was obliged to meet parlia mentary corruption with corruption ; to oppose needed reforms ; to listen to unfortunate schemes ; and to gain partisans by pensions and titles.
The unpopularity of the Peace of Paris in 1763, which ended the struggle for the possession of the Mississippi valley and drove the French from the continent of North America, produced a crisis in English politics which gave the new king opportunity of testing his strength if he could but find cabinet officials sufficiently subservient. One man had long been fitting himself for such an opportunity. George Grenville, brother-in- law to Pitt, had risen rapidly from one government post to another through a rare courage, business ability, and persistence, although devoid of that tact and judgment which should characterize the successful statesman. Showing no fixed connection with any party and appar ently no great capacity beyond official routine, he seemed an ideal candidate for the purposes of the king, and was invested with the dual office of First Lord of the Treas ury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He brought to his position a knowledge of colonial affairs and an in dustry which spoke well for his conscientiousness, but augured ill for the peace of the colonies. The war just closed had added ^63,000,000 to the national
20 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION*
debt,1 and this grave situation gave Grenville an oppor tunity of showing his skill.
Although Franklin claimed on behalf of the colonists that the war had begun in the north over the boundary between Canada and Nova Scotia and in the west over the French trading with the Indians — two questions in which the remaining colonies had no direct interest — nevertheless Grenville thought America as a whole should be made to contribute toward the payment of this war debt. The trade regulations already existing might bring in sufficient revenue if they could be enforced and the extensive system of smuggling be stopped.
" The government " is to the masses an undefined, shadowy thing, incapable of suffering and of reciprocity, and with rights protected by political, and not by moral, laws. A wrong against the government carries no moral punishment; it need only escape the political punishment attached. A feeling thus common to man kind held especially strong among the American colo nists. They were separated by six weeks of travel from the seat of authority ; punishment was likely to fail from the vicissitudes of communication ; many of the chief customs officers resided habitually in England ; custom house officials were appointed and paid directly by the crown; persons accused of violations of custom laws were tried by admiralty court and often without a jury. Quite easily the colonists came to consider these offi-
1 Mulhall's " Statistics," p. 262. Adam Smith (" Wealth of Nations," Bk. IV., Ch. VII.) estimated the increase at more than ^90,000,000, but this included the additional land tax and sums borrowed from the sinking fund. Grenville placed the increase at over ^70,000,000. The total na tional debt of Great Britain at this time was ,£147,000,000.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 2l
cials as hirelings, to deceive whom was a credit; as easily, their courts became sources of oppression to be evaded by any means. Thus the colonists readily grew into the habit of smuggling, invited by the thousand miles of coast, and despite the efforts of the customs guards. It was estimated that of some articles, tea, for instance, not one pound in ten consumed in the colonies paid duty. The serenity with which the people viewed these evasions of the law furnishes a fresh illus tration of the difficulty of enforcing any measure beyond the disposition of the people to obey it.
As an aid to the revenue officers in attempting to execute their unpleasant duty, an act of Charles II. was declared to be applicable, authorizing the use of "writs of assistance" in searching for smuggled goods. These differed from the ordinary search-warrants in not specifying the house to be searched, and need not be returned for an accounting to the court from which they were issued. The searcher could also demand the assistance of any one in his odious task. One of the inherited rights claimed by the colonists was that every man's house was his castle as long as he remained peacefully within; hence James Otis, the Massachusetts lawyer, claimed that the writs of assistance were gen eral, antiquated, and even illegal in the colonies.
Notwithstanding such aids to the officers, so ex tensive was the smuggling that for thirty years it had cost annually over ^7000 to collect less than ^3000 revenue from America. In vain were the officers of men-of-war along the coast given power of revenue officers. Being untrained to such service, they made costly blunders, and added little to the
22 THE MEN" WHO MADE THE NATION"
receipts. As a further aid, Grenville decided to main tain a standing army in America, and a pretext was easily found in the Indian rising just after the war had closed. Franklin saw the hollowness of this pretext. He had heard General Braddock boast, " These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw Ameri can militia, but upon the king's troops and discipline, sir, it is impossible they should make any headway." Braddock's fearful experience later had proven the inefficiency of the regulars as a protection against the Indians. The provinces could take care of themselves without the aid of the twenty regiments which Grenville proposed to put over them. On the effective Bouquet expedition, there had been but 300 regulars to over 1000 Pennsylvanians. Moreover, in the late war the colonists had contributed 25,000 men, armed and equipped, had built forts and defences, had spent some ,£80,000 each year on the war, and if Great Britain had contributed in like proportion, there would have been no increase in the national debt. Parliament had acknowledged this undue contribution, and had repaid some of the colonies about two-fifths of it.
An increase of the armed force in the colonies would mean an increased expenditure and an increased debt. To avoid this, Grenville conceived the idea of an addi tional tax. Such a tax would also settle the disputed question of the right of Parliament to tax the colonists. Franklin is said to have compared Grenville's making the colonists pay for an army to be stationed over them
1 Connected with this Braddock expedition were four men who became generals in the Revolutionary war — Washington, Lee, Gates, and Stephen. Familiarity with the boasted " regular " had bred proverbial contempt.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 2 3
to the man who wished to thrust a red-hot poker through another's foot, and, being refused, demanded pay for heating the poker.
Seeking some easy and equitable form of taxation which would fall on property, not interfere with existing private laws, and be inexpensive and sure of collection, Grenville finally revived the plan -of a stamp tax. It was a form familiar to England for almost a century and levied at various times by several American colo nies. Not a protest was heard against it in England, and a seemingly unfortunate postponement until the next session of Parliament gave a year's warning to the colonies before it was brought up for action. But the colonies were torn by internal dissensions and had no agency to act for them. Some Assemblies passed resolutions. Those of Massachusetts and New York were sent over, but withheld by the ministry lest their " most indecent disrespect " should draw from Parliament " votes of censure and severity toward the offenders."
The resolutions of Pennsylvania, ignoring the claims of Grenville and Parliament, were entrusted to Franklin in addition to the more important petition against the proprietors, and he embarked on his third voyage to England as has been described. The disturbed condi tion of Pennsylvania at this time l made him appreciate
1 He had just been defeated for the Assembly. That body had refused to pay the expenses of his trip to England, and the necessary sum had to be raised by popular subscription. Several stanzas burlesquing Franklin's invention of a stove were said to have been written at this time. The last one runs :
" Let candor then write on his urn;
' Here lies the renowned inventor, Whose flame to the skies ought to burn, But inverted descends to the centre.' "
24 THE MEN- WHO MADE THE NATION
keenly the compliment of an escort of three hundred horsemen to Chester and the good wishes of the friends who accompanied him on board. He reached England in December, 1764, and joined the agents of the other colonies in protesting to Grenville against the proposed Stamp Tax.1
The Stamp Act, if its results be considered, was the most important legislation of the century ; yet Burke, who was in the gallery of the House of Commons, testified that he had "never heard a more languid debate. No more than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the act and that with great reserve and remarkable temper. There was but one division in the whole progress of the bill ; and the minor ity did not reach to more than thirty-nine or forty. In the House of Lords, I do not recollect that there was any debate or division at all. I am sure there was no pro test. In fact, the affair passed with so very little noise that in town they scarcely knew the nature of what you were doing."2 So little question was there about the justice or advisability of the measure.
The 117 sections of the Stamp Act designated forty- three kinds of legal documents which should be written on stamped paper; and also provided for stamps on advertisements, almanacs, cards, dice, pamphlets, and
1 The maintenance in England of colonial agents, with duties much like modern consuls, was quite common among the colonies. In addition to Pennsylvania, Franklin was later appointed agent for his native colony, Massachusetts; for New Jersey, through the influence of his son; for Georgia, possibly through his friend Whitefield, the preacher. His com bined salary amounted to ^"1200, but being dependent on the Assemblies and under a governor's veto, was not regularly received.
2 Hansard's "Debates," Vol. 16, p. 40. Burke's " Works," Bohn Edi tion, Vol. I., p. 421. See also Burke's "Annual Register."
BENJAMIN
newspapers. The stamps varied in value from a half penny on a small newspaper to ^10 (about fifty dollars) on the admission of an attorney to the bar. A college diploma must bear a stamp worth £2. The execution
\RERlr
STAMPS OF 1765
of the act was given to the Stamp Commissioners of England to appoint supervisors and distributers of the stamps and stamped paper in America.1
No one in England could have foreseen the rebellion which followed and still less have divined the cause. True, the act bore the startling title that it was just and necessary to raise a revenue in the plantations of America "for the expenses of defending, protecting and securing" them, and that the Parliament gave and granted the duties described therein ; but a port duty act of the previous year, bearing the same title, had not been resisted. Franklin always insisted that the Ameri-
1 The full text of the Stamp Act may be found in Hart's "American History Leaflets," No. 21. Also in Macdonald's "Select Charters." The originals of the stamps shown above are in the Smithsonian Institution
26 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
cans could "as well have hindered the sun's setting" as to have prevented the passage of the act and likewise claimed that he had done all in his power to prevent the birth of this " mother of mischief," as he called it. But when it had become a law, he readily assented to Grenville's suggestion that it would be more con venient and agreeable to appoint American agents to distribute the stamps than to send over strangers for that purpose. He named his friend and supporter, John Hughes, of Philadelphia. The other colonial agents also named distributers for their respective
C>
colonies.1
Pennsylvania fell into a fit of rage over this action of her agent ; accused him of dereliction of duty in not preventing the passage of the act ; hinted that he had first solicited a stamp agency for himself, as one of the agents, Lee, of Virginia, had done. His house was threatened by a mob; the "chimes of Christ Church, which had rung so joyously when the news of his safe arrival in England reached Philadelphia, now tolled dis mally for his treachery ; and a broadside was circulated showing the devil whispering into his ear, " Ben, you shall be my agent throughout my dominions." So high rose the storm that Whitefield,2 who had returned to England, sent back letters testifying to the fidelity of
1 Among the distributers appointed were : Messerve, for New Hamp shire; Oliver, for Massachusetts; Johnston, for Rhode Island; Ingersoll, for Connecticut; McEvers, for New York; Coxe, for New Jersey; Hughes, for Pennsylvania; Mercer, for Virginia; Hood, for Maryland. A complete list of nineteen agents for all the American colonies was printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Aug. 22, 1765.
2 Franklin, not a church-goer, had been impressed with the preaching of George Whitefield on his several missionary visits to America, and a strong friendship had arisen between them.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 27
the unfortunate agent. Galloway thought these letters would quiet "the Presbyterians."
In the riotous times which followed the arrival of the stamps in the colonies, the action of Pennsylvania was moderate, although the cannon at the fort were spiked. Franklin had suggested to Charles Thomson, of Phila delphia, the lighting of candles (of industry) during the night which would follow the Stamp Act ; but Thomson replied from the colonies that Franklin was much more likely to hear of "works of darkness." Rebellion was evident in the blazing piles of stamps and stamped paper; in the stamps thrown overboard into the harbprs; in the forced resignations of stamp agents ; even in tti-el-stamps forcedly replaced on the ships for return to England. Courts were suspended ; lawyers signed agreements not to use the stamped paper and not to undertake suits brought by English merchants. A wag wrote a legal document on birch bark, claiming that it needed no stamp since it was neither skin, vellum, parchment, nor paper. Calm wisdom and cooperation at last suggested a Con gress which met in New York to protest and to petition for redress.
The twenty-six newspapers in the colonies were vitally interested in the stamp tax. Many suspended publica tion rather than print on stamped paper, placing mourn ing lines about their last issue, and using a death's head instead of the stamp. Others, notably the Bos ton Gazette, defiantly continued publication without the stamps. Mr. Hall, the partner of Franklin, who edited the Pennsylvania Gazette in his absence, placed mourn ing borders about the last number before the act went into effect. On the next regular day of the Gazette he
28 THE MEAT IV HO MADE THE NAT/ON
issued a small sheet and placed at the head " Remark able Occurrences " instead of the accustomed heading.
Offo/vr 31, 1765. The PENNSYLVANIA
<'«**» foreign and
On the next publication day, he used " No Stamped Paper to be Had," possibly hoping in this way to avoid punishment.
Remarkable Occurrences,
L— ***: -^ ... . . y
As usual in such disturbances the mob showed its ugly head. The governor of New York was compelled to deliver the stamps to the city government, and his chariot was burned on the Bowling Green. A lawyer and a physician of Rhode Island fled for refuge on board a ship for daring to uphold the act. The Boston mob raged for ten days, pillaging the houses of the state officers, razing a supposed stamp office, and threatening officials, while the captain of the militia refused to call out his men because his drummers were all in the mob.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 29
Persons arrested were promptly released by their friends. Franklin confessed himself " grieved to hear of such hor rid, disorders," and promised that the Assemblies would soon bring the ringleaders to punishment if they could. Yet when Parliament was hesitating whether to pro nounce the colonies in rebellion or to withdraw the Stamp Act, and Franklin was called before the House of Commons to be questioned on the attitude of the colo nists, he did not hesitate to say that personally he would prefer the many debts owing him at home to remain unrecoverable by law than to have the courts continue sessions by using the stamped paper.
This examination 1 was turned into a delightful bit of strategy. Knowing that he was to be called, the subtle doctor and his friends in the House of Commons pre arranged certain questions which he could answer and so justify the position of the colonists. The closing questions and replies were :
Q. What used to be the pride of the Americans ? A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.
Q. What is now their pride? A. To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new ones.
These friendly questions drew the fire from the hos tile inquiries, and Burke declared the whole thing re minded him of a party of schoolboys examining their master.
The examination may have had some influence in determining the repeal of the Stamp Act ; but a more powerful argument was found in the sudden depression of trade caused by the stubborn determination outlined
1 To be found readily in any edition of Franklin's writings.
30 THE MEN- WHO MADE THE NATION
in the last reply of Franklin. Local " Associators " all over the colonies vowed to use domestic manufactures instead of importing them from England ; to use no mutton so that the wool product might be increased ; to practise a rigid economy ; and to stimulate American manufacture in every possible manner. The result was first felt by the London merchant, then by the English manufacturer, and in turn by the English workingman. It undoubtedly added to the labor demonstrations which marked the year in England.1
When Parliament reconvened in January, 1766, its tables were covered with petitions. The merchants asserted that a total annihilation of their trade was imminent ; that the colonists were not only refusing to buy goods but were declining to pay for those already purchased and shipped ; 2 that this indebtedness amounted to upward of four millions sterling, and its loss would mean ruin to many. Workmen in all kinds of industries petitioned for the repeal of an act which threw them out of employment. Some pointed -to the experience with the island of Jamaica, where a stamp act was abandoned after three years of trial. For ten days the debate continued in the House of Commons, Pitt going to the extremity of "rejoicing" that the colo nies had resisted, and .Grenville pleading the justice of the measure, but blaming its failure on the ministry
1 "There are claimers enough of merit in obtaining the repeal. But if I live to see you, I will let you know what an escape we had in the be ginning of the affair and how much we are obliged to what the profane would call luck and pious Providence." Franklin to Charles Thomson, " Works," Bigelow Edition, Vol. III., p. 474.
2 Both Washington and FYanklin condemned this expedient as dis honorable. Franklin's " Works," Sparks Edition, Vol. VII., p. 373 ; " Wash ington's Life and Writings," Sparks Edition, Vol. II., pp. 351, 395.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 31
which had succeeded his own. He was most bitter toward the colonists, having moved an amendment to the King's address, declaring them to be in a state of rebellion.
So absorbing was the great struggle over American affairs that " twelve, one, or two o'clock in the morning, were become the common dining hours of the members, so late it frequently was before they broke up from public business." Seats were ticketed at eight in the morning, and the attendance of members reached over four hundred. After many arguments "without and within doors," the repeal was passed by 275 to 167 and carried up to the House of Lords by over 200 mem bers, where it passed by 43 majority. In the "Annual Register," Burke declared the repeal was an event that caused more universal joy throughout the British domin ions than perhaps any other that could be remembered. London houses were illuminated; ships on the Thames displayed flags; and church bells were rung all night. The London merchants had spent ^1500 on the peti tions and in influencing Parliament. They now sent a vessel along the Atlantic coast to notify all American traders of the repeal, and they also gave a banquet to their " friends " in Parliament.
Crowds surrounded the House of Parliament when the Commons adjourned after passing the repeal, and cheered the opposition. It was afterward reported that Grenville was obliged to ask protection from the mob. Franklin may have felt some satisfaction in these dem onstrations, but he was more interested in the descrip tion which Galloway sent him of the Philadelphia celebration of the repeal of the Stamp Act. Despite
32 THE MEN- WHO MADE THE NATION
the efforts of the moderates who patrolled the city, there were fireworks, illuminations, and the firing of cannon. The next day there was a dinner in the State House yard. On the king's birthday, a barge called the " Franklin " was drawn on four wheels through the streets to the river and launched. It bore a company up the Schuylkill to an entertainment where 380 people drank toasts to " Our worthy and faithful agent, Dr. Franklin." Pennsylvania was corrected in her estimate of the services of her representative.
Parliament covered its retreat by the " Dependency Act," 1 which declared that Parliament " had, hath, and of right ought to have full power and authority to bind the colonies and people of America subjects of the Crown of Great Britain in all cases whatsoever " ; a declaration which Franklin declared would not be ob jectionable to the colonists as long as no attempt was made to enforce it. But to the various attempts to enforce it are due the several events marking the prog ress of the Revolution.
Moreover, it was in direct opposition to the conten tion of the colonists that self-representation and self- taxation were two inherited rights of Englishmen. Four years before the Stamp Act, James Otis had spoken public sentiment in words which became pro verbial, " Taxation without representation is tyranny." Burke showed the impracticability of a direct represen tation of the colonies in Parliament because of their distance,2 and Franklin in time reached the same con-
1 Sometimes in debate called " the Declaratory Act."
2 Burke's " Works," Bohn Edition, Vol. I., p. 259. Adam Smith in the " Wealth of Nations " (Bk. IV., Ch. VII.) advocated colonial representa-
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 33
elusion. But non-representation was too good a cry to be abandoned. Parliament contended that the whole realm was represented and not by divisions thereof. Proof was found in England in the several " rotten boroughs" without population but having representa tives in Parliament, while the manufacturing cities re cently built up were without representation. Of the nine million people in England it was estimated that eight million had no actual vote in electing members of the House of Commons. From such a system of "vir tual " representation had sprung the open practice of buying seats in the Commons from the few voters in certain of the boroughs ; a practice so generally known that Franklin says a roar of laughter greeted the sarcas tic inquiry from a member if a definition of corruption were needed in the House of Commons. " An egre gious farce " was his comment when the people of Oxford were required to receive on their knees the speaker's reprimand for having turned the tables and demanded a bribe from their representative for reelec tion. He thought "the whole nation might be bought out of the hands of the present bidders (if he would offer a half million) by the very devil himself." The "king's friends" fostered this venality and took every advantage of it.1 This state of affairs could not be
tion, but predicted that in time the seat of empire would be transferred to America. In 1778, Parliament offered representation to their former colo nies, but it was too late.
1 Burke's "Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontent" (1770) deals largely with the practices of the king's friends. The " civil list" or grant to the king was ^800,000 annually; yet in 1769 his ministry asked for ^"500,000 additional. Some asserted that part of this money was used for Parliamentary corruption, but could obtain no detailed account of its expenditure. A cartoon appeared in the London Magazine depicting D
THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF KING GEORGE III.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 35
hidden from the colonists, and Franklin was justified in telling the government that although there had been a time when the colonies would have eagerly accepted representation, they were now indifferent to it, and the time was rapidly approaching when they would refuse it. In the debate on the repeal of the Stamp Act, Lord Lyttleton in opposition had declared " the same reason ing extends to all acts of Parliament. The Americans will find themselves crampt by the Act of Navigation and oppose that, too." The prediction proved true. That they had not already opposed by force the various efforts to regulate their trade was due not alone to their being unaccustomed to revolutionary methods, but also to the fact that this practice of commercial restriction was but a part of the economic doctrine of the age. Adam Smith had not yet written his " Wealth of Nations," and the whole economic system was based on monopo lies, restrictions, and direct returns. In common with other colony-planting nations, Great .Britain made her American colonies profitable by requiring exports and imports to pass through the mother country ; by forbid ding the sale of certain " enumerated " commodities,1 save in England ; by prohibiting the importation of molasses and sugar from any except the British West Indies ; by forbidding the exportation or even inter colonial transportation of American cloth and hats so that a market might be fostered for the manufactures of England ; by prohibiting the erection of steel forges
King George as a child demanding " more supplies" from his mother, Britannia.
1 The list of enumerated articles was changed from time to time, but generally included tobacco, molasses, sugar, rice, copper, and naval stores.
36 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
or mills for slitting iron into suitable lengths from which nails could be made by hand. These acts were framed at different times during a hundred years, and one law was often necessary to supplement or explain another, until absurdity was reached l and the colonial trade must have been entirely cut off if the laws had been enforced and no compensations given.
But there were compensations. The acts fostered colonial shipbuilding and gave employment to colonial sailors. If the importation of molasses was burdened by duties interfering with the rum manufacture in New England, rum was also on the protected list. If certain " enumerated " articles could be sold only in England, others equally cultivated in the colonies were not enu merated, and some were even encouraged by a bounty. If England had a monopoly on the sale of colonial tobacco, the colonies had a counter monopoly, since England could buy tobacco nowhere else. Drawbacks 2 mitigated the severity of some of these regulations, as also did tacit connivance at evasions and subterfuges. Vessels were allowed openly to carry on forbidden trade, and sometimes restricted articles were conveyed under the fiction of necessary ship stores.
For such reasons the colonists endured for years these restrictions on their commerce, until England tried to direct them into channels for raising a revenue. However tyrannical they were when enforced, England
1 Iron and steel mills were declared common nuisances on account of their noise — in thinly populated America ! To such absurdity grew the practice of " extending " acts originally applicable to England alone.
2 A drawback is a certain sum repaid by the government upon the exportation of goods on which an import duty had been paid when they were brought into the country.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 37
framed them originally for the purpose of retaining a monopoly over colonies planted on ground belonging to her by right of discovery and founded through her agencies.
The agitation resulting from the Stamp Act dispelled some of the ignorance so frequently manifested con cerning the American colonies. The blunders of much of the legislation had been due to this ignorance. It in turn was due largely to the careless and deficient reports sent over by the royal governors, many of whom were appointed for political reasons and were shifted from one post to another. Franklin enjoyed the witty remark of Soame Jenyns on being approached with some measure for the colonies, " I can have no possible objection to it, provided we have hitherto signed nothing to the contrary."1
The Stamp Act riots in America went unpunished, and steps were taken by Parliament not only to remit the fines imposed for using unstamped paper, but also to compensate those who had lost property at the hands of the mob ; yet the Dependency Act remained among the statutes, and it was unlikely that England would consent to remain defied by her subjects and abandon attempts to tax them. Extremists like James
1 The plan of Dean Tucker for protecting the colonists from the Indians will illustrate the many visionary schemes for dealing with problems at a distance of three thousand miles. He would have a strip of land one mile wide all along the western border cleared of woods so that the savages could not cross unseen. Franklin said the good dean forgot that there was a night in every twenty-four hours in America. Another theorist would supply each chief with a costume of savage finery made exclusively in England, and thus keep the Indians bound to ^ngland. Governor Bernard thought an American nobility the only agency strong enough to hold the allegiance of the colonists.
38 THE MEN- WHO MADE THE NATION
Otis had scorned distinctions or grades of taxation ; but moderates like Franklin could distinguish between an internal tax, like the Stamp Act, and an external tax. The one was collected directly and by compulsion, had a revenue for its sole object, and was clearly illegal ; but an external tax like an impost duty was collected indi rectly, the purchase of dutiable goods was optional, and its object was to regulate and make commerce secure.
Charles Townshend, who had become Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1766, also scorned these distinc tions, but he took the Americans at their word and proposed an external tax, or impost duty, on a few luxuries — glass, paper, pasteboard, paints, and tea — supposed not to be produced in sufficient quantities in the colonies. The revenue expected to be derived from the act was not above ,£70,000, and it was said that the London merchants offered to subscribe the entire amount rather than enter into another controversy with the Americans. But the remote object of gaining a revenue was now lost in the immediate question of power to hold the colonies. This was shown in an accompanying measure for a board of revenue com missioners with a machinery entirely independent of the colonists, and likely to be more efficient in stop ping smuggling than thrice the twenty regiments pro posed by Grenville. The proceeds of the duty were also to be under the direct disposal of the king.
So much regret was felt in England for the hasty repeal of the Stamp Act — a "fatal compliance,'.' as the king called it — that the Townshend measures passed with little opposition. In America, barring some strong resolutions from Boston, there was no resistance. A
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
39
general era of good feeling seemed at hand. The king ordered " most healing letters " written to the governors to be read before the Assemblies ; he was toasted and his birthdays celebrated as of old ; disorderly resist ance was a thing of the past. But the colonists had learned two dangerous lessons — how effective coopera tion could be made, and how easily they could depend on home manufactures. Agreements not to import goods from England were abandoned after the repeal of the Stamp Act, and trade should have resumed its
R1YBUCMD
former proportions. But in 1767 the exports to Amer ica were ;£ 1,500,000 below the mark of three years before. A vessel loaded with glass and nails returned from Boston for want of a market. A cargo of expen sive mourning goods was also returned. " Save your money and save your country," was the motto displayed in certain newspapers. The economic philosophy of " Poor Richard," written years before, was bearing fruit. As a first object lesson, Franklin adopted an allegorical design for his note-paper to illustrate the dismemberment of the British empire. It is reproduced above.
40 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Franklin now predicted that the colonists would be as willing to pay for one passion as another ; for their resentment as for their pride. He praised the discreet silence with which the New Yorkers received the Townshend acts and wished "the Boston people had been as quiet." Their resolution had produced "a most prodigious clamor." Yet to that clamor rather than to Franklin's policy of quiet development, America owes her ultimate freedom. Townshend's insidious plan of placing a duty on a few articles must have succeeded in bringing the colonies gradually under Parliamentary con trol had it not been for the " clamor" of certain sentinels, the loudest of whom was Samuel Adams, the agitator of Boston. Franklin might have secured commercial freedom ; Adams secured political freedom as well.
Although receiving much attention from his friends, Franklin lived quietly at the boarding house of Mrs. Stevenson, Craven street, near the Strand, with whom he resided during his combined fifteen years' stay in England. " I live here as frugally as possible not to be destitute of the comforts of life, making no dinners to anybody and contenting myself with a single dish when I dine alone." So he informed his wife when he suggested that she should forego " an expensive feasting wedding " for the approaching marriage of their daughter Sally, and " fit her out in clothes and furniture not ex ceeding in the whole five hundred pounds of value." When the " Associators " disbanded after the Stamp Act was repealed,1 Franklin celebrated the supposed return
1 Philadelphia citizens resolved in a public meeting to celebrate the king's coming birthday by dressing in new suits of English manufacture, and by giving their homespun to the poor.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 41
to English manufactures by sending to his family some Pompadour satin, brocaded lutestring, gloves, reels for winding silk, and "a gimcrack corkscrew, which you must get some brother gimcrack to show you the use of."
By nature Franklin belonged to the patrician class. He was intensely devoted to good living, delighted with good fellowship, fond of hobnobbing with the great, at tracted by a bright mind in either sex, and carried a stock of wit and anecdote which made him a welcome addition to any circle. In general inclination as well as in his dress, the purely practical overshadowed the aesthetic. " I must confess that if I could find in any Italian travels a receipt for making Parmese cheese, it would give me more satisfaction than a transcript of any inscription from any old stone whatever." Years before this time, he had received degrees from both Oxford and Edinburgh, and the Copley medal for his scientific researches. These distinctions, no less than his natural qualities, won for him in England friends like Burke, Lord Shelburne, the Bishop of St. Asaph, Lord Howe, Dr. Priestley, and others. Pleasant glimpses of his daily life are afforded in his letters home; attending a venison feast "where I have drunk more than a phi losopher ought " ; accompanying the queen's physician on a pleasure trip to France; dining with prominent men and receiving "a great deal of flummery" from them ; being hugged and kissed after wine by a noble man who protested that he had never met a man with whom he was so much in love. Making a tour of Ireland and Scotland, he was given a seat in the Irish Parliament by the unanimous vote of the members, and
42 THE MEN IV HO MADE THE NATION
received " an abundance of civilities from the gentry of both kingdoms." He was chosen a foreign member of the French Royal Academy, an honor conferred on only eight men in Europe.
But despite these honors and pleasant associations, evil days were coming upon him. As time widened the breach between the colonies and the mother country, whatever moderate views Franklin might hold, it was impossible for him to escape suspicion of being too much in sympathy with the rebels. Efforts were made to bind him to the crown by hints of an office — some said the governorship of Pennsylvania — which kept him for some time dancing attendance on political leaders, but came to naught. His son was made gov ernor of New Jersey on the supposition that " what he is ordered to do, the father cannot well oppose " ; but it resulted in Franklin adhering more closely to the rebels and his son being compelled to flee from his governor ship during the Revolution. For twenty years he had been one of two deputy postmaster-generals for the colonies at a joint salary of £600. Covert threats were now made of removing him, but he refused to take any hints, being as he said " deficient in the Christian grace of resignation."
The crisis came in the " Hutchinson letters." One day in a conversation, a friend in England had insisted that the laws of which the colonists complained were "projected, proposed to administration, solicited, and obtained, by some of the most respectable among the Americans themselves, as necessary measures for the welfare of that country." Franklin refused to believe any one of his countrymen guilty of such a thing. In
BENJAMIN' FRANKLIN 43
proof, the friend submitted letters written between 1767 and 1769 to a private gentleman in England, by Lieu tenant-governor Hutchinson,1 Secretary Oliver, of Mas sachusetts, and others. The writers insisted that the revenue acts could be maintained in America only by the aid of force ; suggested changes in the Massachu setts charter which would tend to make that province less independent ; and strongly urged that some way be found to "take off the original incendiaries."
Actuated, as he said, only by his duty as agent for Massachusetts, Franklin requested the letters, and, under a promise of secrecy, forwarded them to the speaker of the Assembly of that colony. But it was impossible to keep secret such evidences of the unfaithfulness, if not treachery, of high officials, and upon demand of the Assembly the letters were produced and printed. Reso lutions were immediately forwarded to Franklin for presentation demanding the removal of the offenders. Franklin's agency was still unknown, but the affair led to a duel between William Whately, to whose deceased brother the letters had been written, and Mr. Temple, through whose hands they had probably passed. To • prevent a second encounter, Franklin confessed his agency in sending the letters to America, but persisted in refusing to tell how he obtained them. He further said that the addresses had been removed before he saw them.
All the feeling engendered by Franklin's course in
1 Thomas Hutchinson, a graduate of Harvard College, rose through many colonial offices to the governorship of Massachusetts. As a coura geous and conscientious official, he was in frequent conflict with the patriots, as described later. His "Diary and Letters" have been pub lished by P. O. Hutchinson, and a " Life " by J. K. Hosmer.
44 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
defending the colonies now broke forth. Dr. Samuel Johnson pronounced him the master of mischief. His persistent silence concerning the letters, necessary to shield Mr. Temple, was construed as a confession of guilt. Whately, acting as executor for his dead brother, sued Franklin in chancery for obtaining the letters by illegal means. When the petition for the removal of
~^£^^r j
.
S~ tf
X'
[In the Museum of the British Post Office, London.]
the Massachusetts officials was heard at the Cockpit, the solicitor-general was allowed to turn aside from the main issues to abuse Franklin, who stood near by. He compared him to the bloody African in Dr. Young's tragedy, hailed him not by his well-known title as a man of letters, but as " a man of three letters " (Latin fur, a thief); and branded him as one before whom men would hide their papers and lock up their escri-
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 45
toires. Two days later the postmaster-general " found it necessary to dismiss" Franklin from his office as deputy for the colonies.
During the remaining fifteen months of his stay in England, closing up his business as agent and turning it over to his successor, Arthur Lee, Franklin felt him self estranged from government. He had no further communication with the ministry, and avoided their levees. He was momentarily flattered by the apparent desire of Pitt, now Lord Chatham, for reconciliation, but disappointed when he saw how selfish the motives were. Most reluctantly he began to abandon hope of a reconciliation between the colonies and the mother country. He had already summed up the situation in the homely terseness of Poor Richard, " In matrimonial matches, it is said, when one party is willing, the match is half made, but when neither party is willing, there is no great danger of their coming together."
Despairing of further usefulness, he bade farewell to his friends in England and set sail for Philadelphia, where he was met by news of the skirmish at Concord and Lexington. Political rebellion had grown into war. He was at once elected to the Revolutionary Continental Congress as a delegate from Pennsylvania.
On this third visit to England he had spent ten years in the interests of his people, and the changes which time had wrought in his home and friends were pitiful. He was bound by many ties to his wife who, as a girl, had stood on her father's steps laughing at the runaway printer's apprentice as he walked up the street the morn ing of his arrival in Philadelphia. He was betrothed to her when he went to England the first time, but an indif-
46 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
ference grew between them, and she married another. After he returned, and the unworthy one deserted her, Franklin married her. She had stood faithfully in the little stationer's shop for many years before a compe tence, due largely to her frugality, enabled them to retire. When a mob threatened the house at the time of the supposed treachery of Franklin, she sent for arms, and defended the hearthstone in the absence of the master, a modern Penelope faithful to her Ulysses. But when the master returned, she was not there to greet him. The winter's snow had lain on her grave in Christ churchyard. Sally, grown to womanhood and married to Mr. Bache, had taken her mother's place in the household. Many of Franklin's friends had passed away, and the Revolution was making sad divisions among others. He felt himself an old man now in his seventieth year, but he was destined to give fifteen years more to the people whose interests he had guarded so well when he had been their spokesman at the court of the king.
Oct. 5th (1775) . . . This afternoon arrived (the ship Pennsylvania Packet) Captain Osborne, from London, in which came passenger, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, to the satisfaction of his friends and the lovers of liberty. — Diary of Christopher Marshall, of Philadelphia.
CHAPTER II
SAMUEL ADAMS, THE MAN OF THE TOWN MEETING
AT a Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston duly Qualified and lawfully warned in Publick Town Meeting Assembled at Faneuil Hall on Monday the twelfth day of March Anno Dom. 1753.
It was Voted, That Mr John Tudor, Mr John Ruddock, Mr Samuel Adams, Foster Hutchinson Esqr, Mr Harrison Gray, Mr Oxenbridge Thacher, and Mr William Cooper, or the Major part of them, be and they hereby are appointed a Committee to Visit the Publick Schools in the Town the Year ensuing at such times as they shall think proper, to See what Number of Children are in each School, to Enquire into their behavior and Attendance, and the Government and Regu lation they are under, and they are desired to make Report hereon at the General Town Meeting in March next. — From the Boston Town Records, 1753.
THE town meeting is the primordial germ of Saxon organization. Reduced almost to a state of nature in the wilderness of the new world, the first comers reverted to early types and turned instinctively to this form of self-government. Their charters gave to them home rule, together with the title to certain unoccupied lands. Divided and redivided into towns as the growth of population demanded, the people of New England multiplied the number of .town meetings and so uncon sciously created a cooperative agency which placed that
47
48 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
region foremost in resisting Parliamentary coercion and control.
Assembling annually in March and at such other times as necessity might demand, a moderator (chairman) was chosen either by " a written Vote " or by " a handy Vote," the town clerk opened his minute book, and the varied business before the meeting was begun. l Even in time of peace, urgent matters were not wanting. They embraced such questions as the employment of a school usher or master and determining the amount of his salary ; paying the sexton for ringing the church bell at eleven and nine o'clock each working day and at an alarm of fire ; letting the town land ; cleaning the town wells ; arranging taxes and appointing assessors ; receiving and considering petitions ; determining " some Method to prevent negroes keeping Hogs," and devis ing " some method to prevent the firing of Chimneys." As the villages within the towns grew into cities and the petty details of administration increased, the town meeting began gradually to pave the way for modern representative government by entrusting certain tasks to elected officers. In addition to the selectmen, there were chosen overseers of the poor, a county register and treasurer, wardens, fire-wards, town treasurer, " clercks of the markets," constables, collectors of taxes, sur veyors of boards, fence viewers, sealers of leather, informers of deer, cullers of staves, hog-reeves, haywards, scavengers, surveyors of wheat, assay masters, keepers of the granary, and surveyors of highways.
1 The Town Records of Boston have been fully reprinted and are to be found in any general library. Those for many other towns have been reprinted in part.
SAMUEL ADAMS 49
Among these petty officials of Boston as well as on the rolls of more important places, one finds frequently the name of the elder Samuel Adams. He was always an anti-government man, noted for his quarrels with the royal governor, and for his leadership among the com mon people. Although a maltster by occupation, his political efforts placed him at the head of the caulkers' club, organized among the shipyard and seafaring people, from which the word "caucus" is said to be derived. His obituary notice in the Boston Gazette of March, 1748, marks him as " one who well understood and rightly pursued the civil and religious interests of the people; a true New England Man; an honest Patriot." As such he had been rejected by the royal governor of Massachusetts when the Assembly by a large vote had chosen him to the governor's council.
If anything further than this example were needed to make the younger Samuel Adams a non-government man, it came after his father's death when the sheriff seized upon the remnant of the once large brewing plant to satisfy claimants on a " land " bank of which his father had been director. The issuance by the bank of notes as paper money had been stopped by the king because they depreciated in value and disturbed the colonial finances. The action had been thought unjust by many at the time ; and now when the holders of the old claims turned to the law, Samuel Adams initiated his later Revolutionary tactics by appearing at the sale and browbeating the sheriff and intending pur chasers. Thus he saved his property, and a later act of Assembly outlawed the bank claims. However, royal government in the colonies had made a mortal enemy.
5O THE MEN IV HO MADE THE NATION
Samuel Adams first appears in the records of the Boston town meetings in 1753, as shown in the extract at the head of this chapter. In the humble offices of school examiner and of scavenger, 1 he began that career which eventually earned for him the title of " the man of the town meeting." Perhaps so early as this he realized what a powerful political engine the town meeting could be made. It was the voice of popular will. It had been heard when Grenville's policy threatened the colonies with perpetual taxation, and it had rejoiced when the Stamp Act was repealed. Now when it was found that taxation was to be renewed quietly in the Townshend Acts, Samuel Adams devoted his time to keeping the public aroused and the feeling of resistance alive through the medium of the town meeting.
The result was disastrous to him financially. While other men were in the counting room or in the fac tory, this indifferent maltster was at the shipyards or at the ropewalks talking politics. His father, despairing of the hope of a clergyman's career for Samuel, had given him ;£iooo to embark in business just after he was graduated from Harvard. The business soon failed. After his father's death, the son continued the brewing business near Bull Wharf at the lower end of Summer street ; but the property faded away until all was lost save the adjacent residence on Purchase street. A companion declared that " his time is all employed in public service." The people were grateful. They repaired his dwelling, built him a new barn, and at
1 The duties of scavenger were much like those of a health officer of the present day.
SAMUEL ADAMS 51
one time fitted him with an entire new wardrobe from wig to shoes and silver shoe buckles, and placed in his pocket fifteen or twenty Johannes.1
For many years he was dependent upon his .£100 salary as the clerk of the Massachusetts Assembly. Yet Governor Hutchinson testified that " such is the obstinacy and inflexible disposition of the man that he never would be conciliated by any office or gift whatever." The governor also said that "his chief dependency is the town meeting in Boston, where he originates the measures which are followed by the rest of the towns." Because of his activity in drawing up resolutions and instructions, in serving on protesting committees, and in presiding over and addressing town meetings, the governor dubbed him " the chief incen diary of the province," " the Master of the Puppets," and the " all in all."
The first Monday in November, 1772, Samuel Adams arose in a town meeting to move the appointment of a committee to correspond with the committees of other towns so that the danger of one might become the con cern of all. The plan dated back in England to the Stuart troubles. The suggestion for such committees had come spontaneously from various parts of the colo nies.2 It was indicative of the common demand for a
1 Wells's " Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams," Vol. II., pp. 207-212.
2 The arguments of the several claimants to the honor of originating the committees of correspondence are set forth in Wells's " Samuel Adams," Vol. I., pp. 496-497; in Wirt's "Patrick Henry," p. 105; in Tucker's "Jefferson," Vol. I., pp. 52-55; in Randall's "Jefferson," Vol. I., pp. 78- 81, and in the North American Review for March, 1818. A good claim is also made for the New York Assembly by Dawson in his " Sons of Liberty."
52 THE MEAT WHO MADE THE NATION
general agency. The scheme was destined to become a powerful part of the Revolutionary machinery, although small at first. Daniel Leonard denounced the idea as "the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous serpent ever issued from the egg of sedition. I saw," said he, " the small seed when it was planted ; it was a grain of mus tard. I have watched the plant until it has become a great tree." John Adams afterward asked,1 " Did not every colony, nay, every county, city, hundred, and town, upon the whole continent, adopt the measure, I had almost said, as if it had been a revelation from above, as the happiest means of cementing the union and acting in concert ? " There was soon a network of communi cation over what before had been isolated colonies.
When the Townshend measures were passed, Samuel Adams remembered the effect of the agreement not to import goods from England in 1765. It had largely caused the repeal of the Stamp Act. But it was diffi cult to revive and to keep alive such " associations." Importers who signed an agreement not to bring over any more goods from England virtually committed busi ness suicide. The reward of a clear conscience was likely to prove a poor return to most men for the ruin of their fortunes and the impending poverty of their children. When the merchants of Philadelphia, for instance, refused to bid on making uniforms for the royal troops, a merchant of New York broke the agree ment and made a handsome profit from the contract. The Boston traders were better kept in line through the watchfulness of Samuel Adams and his fellows. When
1 " Works of John Adams," Vol. IV., p. 34.
SAMUEL ADAMS
53
persuasion failed, harsher measures were resorted to. In timidating handbills were circulated, begging all patriots not to patronize the offending firm, or a post bearing a
pointing hand was erected in front of the obstinate mer chant's door.
In many of the newspapers of New England, there ap peared poetry in tended to encour age the people in economizing and in using home manu factures.
IMPORT £#; at the
I North Side <f the TOWN-HOUSE,
: and Oppo/ife the Tffun-Pump, in
Corn-biff, BOSTON.
It is defircd that the Soxs and DAUGHTERS of L IB ERTr, would not buy anyone thing of him, for in fo doing they will bring Difgrucv u|x>n dvn.fifait and their i for o*r and cv&\ AMEN
"Ladies, throw aside your topknots of pride, Wear none but your own country's linen ; Of economy boast, let your pride be the most, To show clothes of your own make and spinning. As one all agree that you'll not married be To such as will wear London factory ; But at once refuse, tell 'em such you will choose As encourage our own manufactory."1
Newspapers also made favorable mention of such in stances as a family in Rhode Island which knitted 387 pairs of stockings in eighteen months. A class was graduated from Harvard College in clothing made in
1 From the Boston Post. For other specimens of Revolutionary com position see Tyler's « Literary History of the American Revolution " and Moore's " Songs and Ballads of the Revolution."
54 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
America and hence known as " homespun." Some agreements included the killing of sheep sparingly, the discouraging of horse-racing and all kinds of gaming, cock-fighting, " exhibition of shews," etc. No mourn ing was to be allowed beyond black crape or a ribbon on the arm or a black ribbon or necklace for women. No more gloves nor " scarves " were to be given at funerals.
Whether these associations or the local political clubs formed the basis of certain Revolutionary organizations which now sprang up is uncertain. Some writers de rive the term " Sons of Liberty " from a speech in Parliament by Col. Isaac Barre. The term had long been used to denote a man opposed to any extension of the power of royal government. " Sons of Liberty " or " Liberty Boys " had been organized in New York City among the lawyers during a contest with a royal governor as early as 1 744. The name had been used to denote the colonists who fell in the French-Indian wars. During the Stamp Act excitement there ap peared "an excellent NEW SONG for the SONS OF LIB ERTY in New York ! " One of the thirteen stanzas runs :
" With the Beasts of the Woods, We will ramble for Food And lodge in wild Desarts and Caves And live Poor as Job,, on the Skirts of the Globe, Before we'll submit to be SLAVES."
John Dickinson was the reputed author of another " liberty song " beginning :
"Come join hand in hand, brave Americans all And rouse your bold hearts at fair Liberty's call.1"
SAMUEL ADAMS 55
Branches of the Sons of Liberty were in operation from New Hampshire to South Carolina, but little is known of them. They were the unknown agents whenever protest had to be supplemented by force. " Liberty Boys " and " Mohawks " were closely allied whether stamps or tea had to be destroyed. Their membership was composed of men of a lower social class than the final leaders of the Revolution. Barring Samuel Chase of Maryland, scarcely one of them made a place for himself. Samuel Adams seems to have been in close touch with the organization in Boston and joined in the invitation to John Adams to attend their meet ings. The latter drew up several papers for them and in his Diary has left a description of a visit to their place of meeting in Hanover square.
" It is a counting-room in Chase and Speakman's distillery ; a very small room it is. John Avery, distiller or merchant, of a liberal education, John Smith, the brazier, Thomas Crafts, the painter, Edes, the. printer, Stephen Cleverly, the brazier, Chase, the distiller, Joseph Field, master of a vessel, Henry Bass, George Trott, jeweller, were present. I was invited by Crafts and Trott to go and spend an evening with them and some others. Avery was mentioned to me as one. I went, and was very civilly and respectfully treated by all present. We had punch, wines, pipes and tobacco, biscuit and cheese, &c. I heard nothing but such conversation as passes at all clubs, among gentlemen, about the times. No plots, no machinations."1
The Sons of Liberty in different communities erected "liberty poles." At Providence, Rhode Island, they re solved : " We do therefore, in the name and behalf of all
1 " Works of John Adams," Vol. II., p. 178.
56 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
true Sons of Liberty in America, Great Britain, Ireland, Corsica, or wheresoever they are dispersed throughout the world, dedicate and solemnly devote this tree to be a Tree of Liberty." Their pole in the square at New York was cut down four times by the king's troops; but they purchased a plot of ground and then triumphantly erected a fifth. When a Maryland patriot's house was burned, the Sons of Liberty rebuilt it. They must have exercised no small power in the local elections.
Daughters of Liberty also came into existence. They usually assembled to knit or sew during the afternoons, and to serve tea to the Sons of Liberty who came in the evening. Then all " blended their voices" in liberty songs.1
In one of the contests of the New York Sons of Lib erty with the 1 4th regiment over the liberty pole, a citizen was killed and four others, besides a sailor, severely wounded. If such a contest arose in a city which was the military headquarters of America and whose people were accustomed to the petty irritation of troops in their midst, what might be expected in Boston when two and a half regiments of regulars landed at the Long Wharf and marched up to the Common. They were the I4th, 29th, and part of the 59th regiments from
1 One of the best-known " liberty songs," supposed to have been written by Thomas Paine, began :
" In a chariot of light from the regions of day
The Goddess of Liberty came; Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
And hither conducted the dame. A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
Where millions with millions agree, She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
And the plant she named Liberty Tree."
SAMUEL ADAMS 57
Halifax, and were increased later by two regiments from Ireland. When the Bostonians first heard of the com ing of these troops, they threatened to resist and placed a tar or turpentine barrel on Beacon Hill to summon the country people to their aid when the troops should arrive. But calmer counsels prevailed. America had resisted the imposition of a tax, the proceeds of which might have been used for imposing a standing army on them. Regardless of this fact, the army was to be imposed arid Grenville's policy pursued, although by another administration.
Many conservative people even in America felt that the Bostonians had brought these troops on themselves by the riot which followed the seizure of the sloop Liberty belonging to the popular young John Hancock. As was frequently done, the captain had made a false entry and so smuggled in some Madeira wine. Upon news of the seizure, the mob beat the customs officials, attacked their houses, and dragged one of their boats through the streets and then burned it. The commis sioners of customs fled for their lives to the castle in the harbor. Another customs officer was tarred and feathered at a later time. Riots accompanied the cele bration of the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act. It seemed high time to bring the Boston people to their senses.
When the troops arrived, the obstinate town would provide them with no quarters. The selectmen insisted that they should be quartered in the castle three miles down the harbor. A part of the troops were therefore placed in tents on the Common, and a part forced entrance to the State House and found lodgings there.
58 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Later, Governor Gage arrived from New York and with difficulty rented quarters, but at the expense of the crown. The commissary met the same difficulty in purchas ing provisions from the stubborn merchants. Children scoffed at the soldiers on the streets, calling them " lob sters " and "bloody-backs." The officers, traditionally accustomed to a pleasant reception in colonial society, found themselves social pariahs in Boston.
The Bostonians looked upon the soldiers as hirelings sent for their subjugation; as "fit instruments to serve the wrath of ministerial vengeance." Complaint was made that the quiet of the Lord's day was broken by the marching of the troops and that the soldiers looted private dwellings.1 On the other hand, the soldiers complained that their barracks had become a refuge for good citizens mistreated at the hands of the mobs. The officers were annoyed by being stopped and questioned by the town night-watch if they chanced to be out after midnight. They regarded with suspicion the vote of the town meeting that every "listed soldier" in the town " shall always be provided with a well-fixed firelock musket, accoutrements and ammunition," although the fear of a French invasion was given as the excuse. Both sides were ripe for a conflict.
Three of the five regiments had been sent away before 1770, but encounters between the remaining soldiers and individual citizens grew more frequent during the earlier part of that year. One day a few soldiers visited one of the ropewalks, and some rough words led to a fight
1 In an "Essay on Manners," published in 1787, Noah Webster added as a grievance that the language used by the regular troops in Boston tended to corrupt the purity of the English spoken in that city.
SAMUEL ADAMS 59
with sticks and cutlasses between them and the rope- makers. Three nights later, March 5, 1770, the streets were alive with excited men and boys expecting a renewal of the contest. For some reason, the alarm bell was rung and the crowd increased. Numbers sur rounded the guardhouse in King street opposite the State House. Farther up the street a boy pointed out a sentry in front of the Custom House as the one who had knocked him down. As the angry crowd sur rounded the startled soldier, throwing snowballs and bits of ice at him, he ran up the steps of the Custom House and called for help. Captain Preston and a squad ran over from the guardhouse with fixed bayo nets to clear the street. Clubs and bayonets began to be used freely, and, with or without orders, a volley was fired. Crispus Attucks, a mulatto slave or half-breed Indian, James Caldwell, a sailor, Samuel Gray, and Samuel Maverick lay dead in the street. Patrick Carr had received wounds of which he died later. Six others, mostly young men, were wounded. Attucks and Cald well were strangers in Boston and were given a public funeral from Faneuil Hall. The others were buried from the homes of relatives. It was estimated that twenty thousand people attended.
After the firing, the cooler heads with great difficulty persuaded the enraged people to disperse instead of at once destroying the offending soldiers. By three o'clock in the morning, Captain Preston and his squad were in the town jail, the night-watches about the streets had been doubled, and the excitement gradually subsided. The next day a town meeting in the Old South Meeting House sent two committees consecutively to Lieutenant-
60 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
governor Hutchinson, demanding the removal of the troops. When that official consented to send away the regiment to which the prisoners belonged, the crowd in the street raised the cry which Adams had taught them, " Both regiments or none," and a fortnight later, the last boatload of what Hutchinson aptly called " Sam Adams's regiments " J was rowed away to the castle in the harbor, and the colonists had scored another victory.
The law-abiding sense of the people soon returned. Seven months were allowed for the cooling of passions before the prisoners came to trial. Captain Preston issued a card of thanks from the jail appreciative of his treatment. The prisoners had good counsel,2 and all were discharged except two, who were branded in the hand. The verdict was received with general applause, above which could be heard the cry of Samuel Adams, who demanded blood for blood. The entire incident was small, similar affrays occurred in other places, but blood had flowed in Boston because of British regulars who would not have been there except for the desire of government to coerce the colonists into subserviency. This was the feeling which prompted the Bostonians to raise a monument to the victims of what they have always called the "Boston Massacre."
Stories of the encounter were copied from the Boston newspapers and circulated through the reading colonial world, thus giving that city a prominence and inviting the sympathy which was presently to rally the continent to her relief. The slaughter of men in the streets of
1 See Hosmer's "Samuel Adams," p. 169. Wells, Vol. I., p. 326.
2 John Adams and Josiah Quincy. Adams said he felt evidences of the unpopularity of his action for years afterward, and Quincy's father violently remonstrated against his son undertaking the case.
SAMUEL ADAMS 6 1
a city had an ugly appearance which members of the opposition failed not to use when the news reached Parliament. They had already said to the ministry, " If you mean to govern the country by military force you have not sent enough ; if you intend to continue civil government, you have sent too many." Now they found the ministry "shy and tender" and inclined to get rid of the troublesome topic. Lord North 1 sat silent under the criticisms heaped upon him and quickly moved an adjournment. No doubt he felt the advantage likely to accrue from this unfortunate affair to the gigantic cabal which Samuel Adams was forming all through the colonies by his Revolutionary machinery and in Bos ton by the magnetism of his personality.
Perhaps the most fortunate convert which he gained for the colonial cause was his second cousin, a young lawyer, named John Adams, who had removed from Braintree to Boston. He proved the truth of the saying that those men who examine well and choose deliber ately the side which they will take make the most lasting patriots.2 The conservatism of the younger man was at times a severe trial to Samuel Adams, but the two soon became known as the par fmtnnn, and John Adams confesses that they employed even the Sabbath in "working the political machine." The royal gov ernor of their colony assured the British government that the feeling in Boston would speedily subside " if it were not for two or three Adamses. I don't know how to
1 George Grenville was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1763 to 1765. Charles Townshend occupied the office during a portion of 1767. He was followed by Lord North, who became also Prime Minister in 1770. His administration lasted until 1783.
2 " \Vorks of John Adams," Vol. II., pp. 298-302.
62 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
account for the obstinacy of one [probably John] who seemed to me when he began life to promise well. The other [presumably Samuel] never appeared different from what he does at present and, I fear, never will." l Far more important to the outside world was the winning of Col. John Hancock. Two John Hancocks had been pastors at Lexington, Massachusetts, but the third of that name imbibed a commercial taste in the adopted home of his wealthy uncle in Boston. As a graduate of Harvard, a visitor at the coronation of George III., the heir of his uncle's fortune of ,£75,000 and the great importing business, young Hancock was the most conspicuous figure in pre-Revolutionary Boston. His aunt, known as Madame Hancock, presided over his magnificent home until his marriage to Dorothy Quincy. His ships sailed on many seas, bringing into Boston "oyles, cheese, Russia duck, lemons, etc. " 2 At twenty- eight he was chosen selectman by a town meeting. When the Stamp Act was repealed, his house was brilliantly illuminated, and he broached a pipe of wine for the crowd. When the Sons of Liberty indulged in a dinner at Dorchester and marched back to town in the evening, the wealthy Hancock rode ahead in a chariot. As colonel of the Boston Cadets, and the donor of windows and bells to churches, and a fire- engine to the city, his influence was extensive, although a certain haughtiness at times injured his popularity. He risked his property and reputation when he began to fall in with the plans of Samuel Adams and the patriot
1 Wells's " Life of Samuel Adams," Vol. I., p. 379.
2 Brown's " Life of John Hancock," p. 77. " Works of John Adams," Vol. II., p. 300.
SAMUEL ADAMS 63
party. Government men ridiculed him as "Johnny Dupe," insinuated that he was led about by Adams, and coined the saying, " Adams does the writing, and Han cock pays the postage." Soon the two were denounced
(f _,^w
& Y HIS EXCEL LENC Y
The Hon, Thomas Gagf, ffq;
Governor, and Commander in Chief in ami w»er h» Majefty^ Pr»4w(S of ' Ib&hn&ttt-Biy, *
A PROCLAMATION.
as primi conscripti, and were eventually singled out by Gage in his proclamation as exempt from pardon.1
Samuel Adams also influenced two other young men of Boston : Dr. Joseph Warren, who fell at Bunker
1 When General Gage issued a proclamation, the head of which is shown in the accompanying cut, proclaiming pardon to all except Adams and Han cock, Jonathan Trumbull wrote a burlesque upon it which appeared in the Connecticut Courant in 1775. The following is an extract :
"Those who in peace will henceforth live I and His Majesty forgive; All but that arch-rogue and first grand cock, Your Samuel Adams and John Hancock, Whose crimes are grown to that degree I must hang them — or they'll hang me."
{ UNIVERSITY!
64 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Hill, when only thirty-three years of age, and Josiah Quincy, the brilliant lawyer, whose services were lost to the cause by his untimely death at the age of thirty. Nearer the age of Adams were his confreres, Thomas Gushing, who could obtain valuable information for the patriots, Robert Treat Paine, a preacher-lawyer, and James Bowdoin, the scientific friend of Franklin, whose wealth almost equalled that of Hancock.
In the bungling methods which marked the adminis tration of the colonies, Lord Hillsborough 1 had written to the governor of Virginia assuring him that the Par liament of 1770 would certainly repeal the obnoxious Townshend measures. When the session began, there was not a petition from the sullen colonists and but one from the British merchants. However, Lord North, committed to action by the Hillsborough letter, moved the repeal of all the Townshend taxes save that on tea. The importation of tea in the colonies had fallen between 1768 and 1769 from ,£132,000 to .£44,000. The Americans drank tea made of dried mullein, catnip, balm, sage, and raspberry leaves. But it was necessary to retain one article of the Townshend Act for the preamble, which asserted the right of " defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing " the col onies. The opposition showed that the income from the tax on tea would amount to less than ,£7000 per annum and that it was simply a device for persisting in the policy of taxing America.
The action was most unfortunate. It was a conces sion to the colonies, but not a complete concession. It showed the weakness of administration without remov-
1 He was secretary of state for the colonies.
SAMUEL ADAMS 65
ing wholly the cause of complaint. It was denounced in Parliament as " doing and undoing, menacing and submitting, straining and relaxing." Franklin simply observed that it was bad surgery to leave splinters in a wound which must prevent its healing or in time cause it to open afresh. The colonists rebuked this " preamble," or " preambulatory " tax as they called it, by banishing England's tea more rigidly than ever. They compared the tea to a plague and said if a ship should bring in that dreadful malady nobody would doubt what was to be done ; and that the present case was much worse. Newspapers gave up their columns to appeals to the people not to use tea imported by the East India Com pany. Poetry and acrostics were added to keep the public mind aroused.
"To save T heir Country doorrTd by Fate E xclud E the Drink of baneful T— , A nd bear A Part in Deeds so great.1'
The East India Tea Company, perhaps the greatest of the many monopolies which controlled England's policy at this time, soon felt the result of this refusal to use their product. Their complaints about the decrease of the consumption of tea in America arose to a clamor. In 1773, the company had seventeen million pounds of tea moulding in its warehouses. Its stock fell to 120 per cent, and it could not pay the ,£400,000 due to the government annually for the privileges it enjoyed. In stead the government had to advance it four times that sum. The customs receipts had fallen in 1772 to ;£8o after paying the cost of collection and the expenses of coast guards. Something must be done. Lord North
66 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
yielded to the company's clamor for a license to appoint consignees in the colonies to whom tea could be shipped for sale. This foolish step immediately alarmed the American merchants lest the great monopoly should get a foothold in America. Tea was to be forced upon the colonists, whether they ordered it or not.
Lord North tried to remove the sting from the meas ure by providing a drawback or rebate of twelvepence a pound to be paid to the company as the tea left England en route for America. Yet, to keep up the form of taxa tion, it was to pay threepence as it entered America. The company foresaw the result and begged that the threepence be collected as the tea left England. But that would be giving up the tax. North was persistent for American collection, claiming that the colonists because of the drawback could buy tea cheaper than the people of England could and that they would yield to such mercenary inducements.
When the news of this new action of Parliament reached Boston, Samuel Adams voiced the sentiments of America in the phrase, " We are not contesting for pence but for principles." Everywhere quiet prepara tions went on to prevent the landing of the tea. Several numbers of an extra paper called the Alarm circu lated in Massachusetts. The men who Jiad consented to act as consignees for receiving the tea were compelled to swear not to execute their offices, as the stamp agents had been eight years before. In riotous Boston, after their houses had been wrecked, they fled for protection to the castle in the harbor. The " Committee on tarring and feathering" in quiet Philadelphia sent notice to the Delaware river pilots warning them not to bring the
SAMUEL ADAMS 67
Polly, a tea ship, up the river. To the captain of the vessel they wrote : " What think you Captain of a Halter around your Neck ... ten gallons of liquid tar decanted on your Pate . . . with the Feathers of a dozen wild Geese laid on that to enliven your Appearance ? "
November 28, 1773, Captain Hall, of the ship Dart mouth from England, reached the Long Wharf in Boston and was confronted by the Sons of Liberty, who de manded to know whether he carried tea. Upon his confession, they took the vessel with the 114 chests of tea ;n the hold around to Griffin's wharf, where it could be watched more easily. Express riders were sent to New York and Philadelphia to notify them of the spir ited resistance of Boston, and other riders were con stantly in readiness to alarm the country. Soon the Eleanor under Captain Bruce and the Beaver under Captain Coffin arrived with the same amount of tea and were similarly treated. Bodies of watchmen selected by the town meeting patrolled the wharf day and night. If force was attempted to land the tea, the bells were to be tolled by day or rung by night. It was said to be impossible " to buy a pair of p — Is in town, as they are all bought up." * In vain the owner of the vessels prayed the governor for permission to return the tea to England without having them cleared entirely. It was a contest between the government and the rising rebel lion, and the issue might as well come now as later.
On the evening of the nineteenth day, just as the candles were lighted, in a great town meeting which had been in session almost continuously since the Dartmouth
1 [Pistols]. Hart's "American History told by Contemporaries," Vol. II., p. 431.
68 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
came in, Mr. Rotch reported another failure to get a pass for his vessels. Samuel Adams then arose and said, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country." It may or may not have been a signal, but immediately the cry of the "Mohawks"1 was heard outside. Some one in the gallery cried, " Three cheers for Griffin's wharf," and the meeting dissolved. Many followed the Mohawks, who had assembled on Fort Hill, down to the wharf, and even assisted them in passing up the 342 chests of tea from the holds of the three ves sels and tossing the contents into the water. Before nine o'clock, property to the value of ;£ 18,000 had been destroyed, and Boston as a city had committed an overt act of violence. Precedent would easily be found for punishing a city because of the acts of its inhabitants.
Paul Revere2 was sent to carry the news of Boston's spirited action to the other cities. When tea arrived in New York, the city was placarded by the Mohawks, and the tea ships sent to Halifax. From Philadelphia and from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the imported tea was returned to England. The example of Boston seemed contagious. At Annapolis and at Burlington, New Jer sey, tea was burned. The twenty days being allowed to expire, the tea at Charleston, South Carolina, was seized by the customs officers and stored in a mouldy ware house. A tea ship was cast away on Cape Cod, and the tea destroyed by the Sons of Liberty. A man who managed to save a hundred pounds of it was caught at
1 The word " Mohawk " was used to denote a rough, disorderly ele ment, both in England and America. See No. 335 of Addison's " Sir Roger de Coverley."
2 Paul Revere, a Boston engraver and goldsmith, acted as an express rider upon various occasions. See his Life by Goss.
SAMUEL ADAMS 69
Lyme and roughly treated. In February following the December " party," twenty-eight chests were thrown overboard in Boston from the Fortune. In April tea was destroyed in New York. Three hundred pounds were burned in the market-place at Providence, Rhode Island, according to the notice of the town crier, and in the presence of a vast multitude. At the same time, a " spirited Son of Liberty went along the streets with his brush and lampblack and obliterated or unpainted the word 'tea' on the shop signs." It was estimated that the total value of the tea destroyed in America reached £2 5, ooo, and that returned would have brought ,£300,000 to the needy East India Company.1
Early in March, the king laid before Parliament 109 papers giving accounts of the riot in Boston harbor and elsewhere, as well as the countenance given to such dis order by the various town meetings. The spirit of rebellion seemed to pervade the continent, but Boston was the leader. Some pronounced the city a " nest of locusts," and others insisted that it should be "pulled about the ears " of its inhabitants. Even Franklin, the Massachusetts agent, regretted the action of Boston and sent over word that " Pitt delivered his sentiments in the House against the Americans, and blamed us for destroy ing the tea." The right of property is dear to the English-
1 Because she tried to force the tea on the colonies, England was de clared to be the aggressor. As a local wag put it in the Boston Gazette : " Rudely forced to drink tea, Massachusetts in anger Spills the tea on John Bull — John falls on to bang her; Massachusetts, enraged, calls her neighbors to aid, And gives master John a severe bastinade ! Now, good men of law, pray who is in fault, — The one who begins, or resists, the assault?"
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man, and only extreme provocation can justify its destruc tion. " Let it go forth to the world that Great Britain will protect her subjects and their property" was the moving thought. If property could no longer be safe in Boston harbor, property should no longer be carried there.
In eighteen days a bill had passed the Parliament without a division in either house and by a " prodigious majority," to prevent, after the first day of June follow ing, all vessels entering the harbor of Boston except those carrying fuel or victuals. Even these could be brought only in coasting vessels and must then be entered at Salem or Marblehead and come to Boston under a pass with an officer on board. The capital of the prov ince was removed to Salem. The king was given power to annul the act when the Bostonians should pay for the tea and all other property destroyed in the different riots and give promise that property would be safe in their harbor hereafter.
In determining the kind of punishment for Boston, Lord North was taking advantage of the keen commer cial rivalry among the colonial ports. He thought the prospect of gaining Boston's trade would appeal to the other seaboard cities, and thus the threatened colonial union would be broken. He assured Parliament that " the rest of the colonies will not take fire at the proper punishment inflicted on those who have disobeyed your authority." However, some agreed with Lord Chester field, " I never saw a forward child mended by whipping ; and I would not have the mother country become a step mother." But sentiment was plainly in favor of further coercion. Soon a measure was passed changing the charter of Massachusetts in several particulars, one of
SAMUEL ADAMS 71
which would prevent so many and such free town meet ings. Another allowed any person accused of a capital offence committed in the line of duty to be allowed trial in any other colony or in Great Britain. Future Captain Prestons and massacre soldiers were not to be endangered by a colonial jury. To these acts was added one of the previous year for quartering troops on the town of Boston. Many also included the Quebec Act, extending that province down as far as the Ohio river, among these " intolerable acts " as they were called in America. In England, they were felt to be natural punishments and were known as the " repressive acts."
On Tuesday, May 10, 1774, Captain Shayler brought a copy of the Port Bill into Boston. On the I3th, the town meeting, with Samuel Adams as moderator, voted " that if the other colonies come into a joint Resolution to stop all Importations from Great Britain and Expor- tations to Great Britain and every part of the West Indies, till the Act for .Blocking up this Harbor be repealed, the same will prove the Salvation of North America and her Liberties." At a subsequent meeting, the moderator informed the people that the resolutions had been forwarded to the " Several Provinces by Mr. Riviere."
Local results followed immediately. The neighboring towns showed a willingness to enter into the desired agreement of non-intercourse with Great Britain. But a ready assent from the large cities could scarcely be expected, although so much desired by Boston. Such agreements were hard to enforce in thirteen colonies, extending over a wide area and having such diversified interests and so few means of communication. Those
72 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
formed in the past by committees of correspondence had caused bitter feelings and had not long endured. But if these committees or their representatives could meet in some kind of a convention many of these differences might be reconciled and an agreement drawn up which would hold. From all sides came spontaneously the suggestion of a Congress or diplomatic convention like those called by the nations of Europe at different times for considering affairs of mutual interest. There was a precedent for such action in the Stamp Act Congress at New York nine years before.
Thus the committees of correspondence were fulfil ling a prophecy made by a member of the House of Commons some time before: "The Committees of Correspondence in different provinces are in constant communication . . . they do not trust the conveyance of the Post-Office . . . they have set up a constitutional courier which will soon grow up to the superseding of your Post-Office. As soon as intelligence of these affairs reaches them, they will judge it necessary to communicate with each other. It will be found incon venient and ineffectual by letters . . . they must confer. They will hold a conference . . . and to what these committees, thus met in congress, will grow up, I will not say."
September as a time for the Congress would give sufficient notice for preparation, and Philadelphia as a central city, easy of access, would prove a good place. A meeting in that city might also persuade the Quakers to look upon the Boston situation more favorably than they seemed at first inclined. Although keenly alive to the unjust policy of Great Britain, they were opposed to
SAMUEL ADAMS 73
any measures which might look like resistance. They had also an aversion to the town meeting and Boston methods in general. Only by finesse and skilful ma nipulation on the part of leading spirits was a meeting held there and even a moderately sustaining reply re turned to Boston.
Nor was the first feeling at New York much better. Revere had delivered his appeal to the recognized Sons of Liberty, Sears, MacDougall and others, who at once returned an assurance to Boston that " the city of New York would heartily join them against the cruel and arbitrary proceedings of the British Parliament." But the mercantile and Church of England element became alarmed at this encouragement of the destruction of property by "the Presbyterian junto or self-constituted Sons of Liberty (as they styled themselves) which had stood ever since the time of the Stamp Act," and appointed a new committee of fifty-one. This com mittee sent a letter to Boston which repudiated the cheering response of the Sons of Liberty. " We lament over our inability to relieve your anxiety by a decisive opinion. ... A Congress of Deputies from the colonies in general is of the utmost moment. . . . Such being our sentiments it must be premature to pronounce any judgment on the expedient which you have sug gested." 1
Was this cool reply a warning to impetuous Boston that she was to be deserted? The first day of June, when the Port Bill went into effect, would tell. At noon of that day, the Custom House and all courts of Boston were closed, and the records placed in carts to be trans-
1 Force's "Archives," 4th Series, I., 300.
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ported to Salem, the new capital. Two men-of-war swung idly with the tide in the harbor. The patriots solemnly tolled the bells, placed their flags at half-mast, and awaited further events. The proposed Congress was not to meet until September ; what was to become of Boston in the meantime ? The Harvard Commence ment exercises were abandoned because of " the dark aspect of our public affairs." Very soon from New York came the cheering intelligence that the day had been observed generally by tolling bells and lowered flags, although the fast had not been carried out by the clergy. From Virginia came the proclamation of a day of fast ing and prayer ordered by the burgesses, who attended church and listened to their chaplain, after the rector had refused to preach on such occasion. Philadelphia sent word that business had been generally suspended and the bells tolled, although the Quakers denied the former statement and the sexton of Christ Church the latter. Thus evidences were not wanting that the patriots were to have a home as well as a foreign contest.
The hardships of the Port Bill were soon felt in Boston. The firewood which had been carried into the city from the bay and adjacent parts of the coast could not now be brought in without being taken to Marble- head or Salem, greatly increasing the price and causing suffering to the poor. Material for house building or similar work had to be carted thirty miles from those ports, and building operations were stopped by the in creased expense. The vessels on the stocks were aban doned, since they could not be launched if completed. The ropewalks which supplied the shipyards were idle. New barracks were to be erected for the additional
SAMUEL ADAMS 75
troops being brought into the city, but the needy me chanics scorned the opportunity of such labor.
Boston had always been attentive to her poor, and one of her first concerns had been for them when their regular means of employment were thus taken away. A committee was appointed by the town meeting for providing some ways and means of furnishing instant employment for the poor. As a temporary expedient, it set men to work repairing and repaying the streets of the town, their wages being paid by public contribu tion. A brickyard was operated on the Neck which furnished employment to a hundred poor men. Wool, flax, and cotton were bought to give labor to poor women. It was planned to begin the erection of a building and the making of a vessel, both to be sold at auction when completed, but the restriction of the Port Bill made the procuring of raw material well-nigh impossible. Leather was furnished to the shoemakers and iron to the blacksmiths, and their finished work taken in payment. Some shoes and axes so made were sent to Virginia for sale.
Samuel Adams was made the head of a committee to receive and distribute donations. The reply to the call for aid made this office no sinecure. From Windham, Connecticut, twenty-seven days after the port was closed, came a notification that " a small flock of sheep, which at this season are not so good as we could wish, but are the best we had," was upon the road to feed the poor of the town of Boston. Other similar offerings fol lowed, " appeasing the fire of the ministry by the blood of rams and lambs," until the number reached over three thousand. Cattle often accompanied the sheep.
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The merchants of Marblehead and Salem gave free use of their wharves and warehouses, and the carters gratui tously carried over the thirty miles into Boston the sup plies of rice, wheat, corn, flour, fish, and oil which poured in from all along the Atlantic coast. A sloop loaded with supplies was brought from Cape Fear by Marblehead into Boston, the captain and sailors serving gratis.1
The "Constitutional Society" of London sent ^100, and many smaller sums came over seas from private individuals. Over ^1000 was acknowledged at one time from New York. The English inhabitants of Montreal forwarded ^100. Even the Quakers, al though they could not countenance measures of vio lence, preserved their reputation for charity by sending ^2540 to Boston.2
Samuel Adams manifested no impatience at the fail ure of Philadelphia and New York to come into a non- intercourse agreement without the intervention of a Congress. John Adams declared the Philadelphia reply "cool and calculating." But both men fell readily into the plan of such a meeting. The important point in Massachusetts was to find some body qualified to name delegates to represent the colony. Most fortu nately, General Gage, who had been appointed cap tain-general, governor-in-chief, and vice-admiral, had prorogued the Massachusetts General Court from its May meeting in Boston to June 7, at the new capital, Salem. Samuel Adams was both a member of the
1 This entire subject of the relief of Boston may be studied in the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 4th Series, Vol. IV., 1858.
2 Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. I., p. 160.
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Assembly and its clerk. In Salem he inaugurated fre quent caucuses of trusty members, gradually making up his majority. Many in Boston were at first willing to pay for the tea instead of continuing resistance in the proposed Congress. The mechanics held a meeting for that purpose. A public letter from Philadelphia urged it. But in the Boston town meetings, Warren urged an opposite course and kept public sentiment abreast of its representatives in Salem.
On Friday, June 17, 1774, a resolution passed the Assembly at Salem to lock the doors, and another was presented providing for the appointment of five delegates to represent Massachusetts in the proposed conference or Congress at Philadelphia. Upon plea of illness a member was allowed to leave the room. He ran at once to inform Gage of the unauthorized proceeding. Flucker, the governor's secretary, was sent immediately with an order dissolving the Assembly, yet knocked in vain upon the door. The key by this time had found its way into Samuel Adams's pocket. The baffled secretary stood upon the landing at the head of the stairway and read the order in a loud voice, but it was heard only by a number of idlers and a few members of the House who for some reason were not inside. Within the room the action was taken which chose as a committee to the pro posed Congress "the Hon. James Bowdoin, Esq., the Hon. Thomas dishing, Esq., Mr. Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine, Esq." The vote stood 117 to 12. The sum of ^500 was given for their ex penses, to be raised by a voluntary contribution from each town. This task being finished, the Assembly voluntarily adjourned, the door was unlocked, and the
78 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Massachusetts legislature under the king had passed away forever. But from its labors came the Provincial Congress of the Massachusetts Colony, which instituted revolutionary local government, and the " Continental " * Congress at Philadelphia, which was destined to inaugu rate a national Revolutionary government.
The long-continued agitations of Samuel Adams had brought results. The scene changes to Philadelphia and the agency from the New England town meeting to a national Congress. It was fitting that the town clerk of Boston should make this entry :
At an Adjournment of the Port Bill Meeting Tuesday, Octo ber 25th, 1774. Ten o'clock before Noon —
Mr. Samuel Adams, the Moderator of this Meeting being now at the Continental Congress, it was moved that a Pro. Tern. Moderator be now chosen by a Hand Vote.
1 So called because it was said to represent the continent.
CHAPTER III
JOHN ADAMS, THE PARTISAN OF INDEPENDENCE
PHILADELPHIA, August 29. The Hon. Thomas Cufhing, Efq ; Mr. Samuel Adams. John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine, Efquires, Delegates from Bof- ton, are expected in town this evening. — Pennfylvania Packet.
THE delegates sent by the various colonies to the first Continental Congress were little likely to receive an official greeting when they arrived in Philadelphia. Governor Penn had reported exultingly to Lord Dart mouth that the prior proceedings in Pennsylvania were likely to prove a check rather than an encouragement to the rebellion. Yet they were tendered a greeting, hearty though unofficial, by the Sons of Liberty.
The recognized leader of these few " liberty men " of Philadelphia was Charles Thomson, a merchant of noted integrity. He had enjoyed an active correspond ence with Franklin in England during the Stamp Act and later controversies, and many extracts from his let ters to the colonial agent found their way into the Lon don newspapers. Associated with him in the early non-importation agitation was another merchant, Thomas Mifflin, who had travelled in England, but came home an ardent patriot. Miffiin had been in Boston, in 1773, attending the funeral of his mother and had met the two*
79
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Adamses and kindred spirits. Notwithstanding the sad occasion, no doubt the exciting political questions of the day were discussed at the table of Dr. Cooper. Certainly after the tea, John Adams thought the visitor " a very sensible and agreeable man." l
Joseph Reed was a young lawyer who had studied in England and four years before Congress met had brought home as a bride, Esther, the daughter of Dennys De Berdt. 2 His strong English friendship and his cor respondence with Lord Hillsborough made him an object of suspicion, which his unwearied efforts in the patriot cause had not wholly removed.
More generally known was John Dickinson, the author of the " Farmer's Letters," acknowledged to be the most masterly presentation of the patriot position under the Townshend Acts. In them he advocated protests and petitions, but no violence. Since their pub lication he had married into a Quaker family, and, as Thomson confessed, " his sentiments were not generally known. The Quakers courted and seemed to depend on him. The other party from his past conduct hoped for his assistance but were not sure how he would go if matters came to an extremity."3 Dickinson and Thomson had married cousins and were much together.
1 The many quotations in this chapter from John Adams are taken from the twelve-volume edition of his " Works," usually volume second.
2 Esther De Berdt Reed won lasting fame by heading a movement in Philadelphia for the relief of the Revolutionary troops. See Sparks's " Washington," Vol. VII., pp. 90, 408, and Reed's " Life and Correspon dence of Joseph Reed."
3 New York Historical Society Collections, 1879, Vol. XL, p. 275. " The Papers of Charles Thomson." Among these papers is a description by Thomson of the strategy used in bringing Dickinson to the support of the cause of Boston.
JOHN ADAMS 8 1
Thomson told John Adams that Dickinson's patriotism was checked by his mother and his wife ; that his mother said to him, " Johnny, you will be hanged ; your estate will be forfeited and confiscated; you will leave your excellent wife a widow, and your charming children orphans, beggars, and infamous."
During the summer Dickinson, Mifflin, and Thomson made a tour through the " frontier " counties of Pennsyl vania about Reading and York to ascertain the feeling of the Germans. They succeeded in getting Dickinson added to the list of Pennsylvania delegates to the Con gress. Mifflin had already been chosen. No doubt Joseph Galloway, a wealthy Philadelphia lawyer and friend of Franklin, would be found the most conservative of the seven delegates. Even now his attitude to the cause foreshadowed his desertion to the king two years later, when the present of a halter in a box warned him of the possible fate in store for him. Rhoads was a wealthy Quaker, who soon left the Congress upon being chosen mayor of Philadelphia. Biddle was a lawyer from Reading, and Ross a lawyer from Lancaster. Morton and Humphreys, country farmers of the better class, completed the list of Pennsylvania representatives to the Congress.
Wednesday, August 10, the South Carolina packet from Charleston reached the wharf at Philadelphia and Henry Middleton and Edward Rutledge walked ashore, to be met no doubt by some of Philadelphia's kindred spirits. Middleton came of an influential South Caro lina family, and was an extensive planter with an estate estimated at fifty thousand acres and employing eight hundred slaves. He had been speaker of the Commons
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of his colony and for almost twenty years a member of its Council. Edward Rutledge was Middleton's son-in- law, and Mrs. Rutledge accompanied the two gentlemen. Rutledge was only twenty-five years old, but had studied law in England, and when his fiery disposition should be tempered by age promised to rival in reputation his elder brother, John.
John Rutledge had also been trained in the law courts of England, as was the custom in the southern colo nies.1 As attorney for the planters, he had gained great influence, and it was undoubtedly through his efforts that the important colony of South Carolina was to be represented in Congress. He was, of course, a delegate and came from Charleston to New York in the Betsy, accompanied by his wife, his sister, and his son, mak ing the voyage in ten days. At New York he joined the Massachusetts delegates and accompanied them to Philadelphia.
Rutledge's planter friends, Thomas Lynch and Christopher Gadsden, took passage on the Sea Nymph from Charleston and in one week reached Philadelphia. Lynch was accompanied by his wife and daughter. Lodgings were secured for them at Mrs. McKenzie's. The three had been in Boston the summer before the tea was destroyed, and Mr. Lynch had been sounded by the Boston patriots. They found him, so John Adams says, " a solid, sensible, though a plain man ; a hearty friend to America and her righteous cause."
Gadsden was a trader-planter of the true colonial type. The Boston delegates would be glad to meet him, since,
1 See the second chapter of Stille's " Life and Times of John Dick inson " on the lack of facilities for legal training in the colonies.
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in the midst of the many suggestions sent to them that they make compensation for the destroyed tea and so release their harbor, bluff Gadsden had written to them,
" Never pay for an ounce of the Tea ! " 1 Gadsden,
Lynch, and John Rutledge would be welcomed by Dick inson, whom they had met in the Stamp Act Congress in New York nine years before. Also Rodney and McKean of Delaware, Dyer of Connecticut, and Will iam Livingston of New Jersey, would remember the introduction in that former gathering.
The last week in August, Major Sullivan and Colonel Folsom of New Hampshire arrived at Philadelphia. They had started from Portsmouth two weeks before, coming by Rhode Island. New York was reached by packet on Sunday morning, and no doubt they would have remained there a few days with the Sons of Liberty, but the small-pox was raging, and neither of them had become immune.2 They therefore hurried on across the ferry for Philadelphia, where the story of their appointment had preceded them. It seemed that the royal governor of their colony had dissolved the Assem bly for appointing a committee of correspondence and subsequently broke up a meeting of the committee. When a convention was called and nominated a physi cian and a lawyer to serve as delegates to the proposed Congress, the nominees declined such dangerous ser vice. Folsom and Sullivan were then chosen and ac cepted, although at no small chance of sacrifice, since
1 Force's " Archives," 4th Series, Vol. I., p. 392.
2 Inoculation was known, but distrusted by many. John Adams's chil dren were inoculated at home while he was at Philadelphia. Ex-Governor Ward, of Connecticut, refused inoculation and died of the small-pox dur ing the second session of Congress.
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Folsom was a colonel and Sullivan a major in the New Hampshire militia.
But amidst all these arrivals there was inquiry for the real lions of the occasion — the men from suffering Boston. The honor due them was paid on Monday, the 29th, when a number of the delegates and gentlemen of Philadelphia rode out to a suburb of the city to wel come Thomas Gushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine. The fifth delegate, James Bowdoin, was deterred from undertaking the journey because of his feeble health.
Notwithstanding the thick fog prevailing in Boston on the morning of their departure three weeks before, a number of gentlemen accompanied them from Mr. Cushing's house as far as Watertown, where " an elegant entertainment" was provided for them. Rumor said that Gage would prevent their departure to partici pate in this unsanctioned convention, and such ostenta tion may have been a challenge. But no attempt was made to accept it. In fact, when one of the four horses which drew their carriage balked near the Common, the captain of a company of regulars encamped there jokingly suggested to them that their coachmen must have made a mistake and put in a Tory horse.
The summer of 1774 was exceedingly warm, and the heat was intensified by a long-continued drought. A letter from Mrs. Adams overtook her husband at New York describing a rain " which lasted twelve hours and has greatly revived the dying fruits of the earth." Travelling was not pleasant under such circumstances,
1 The quotations of Mrs. Adams are taken from " The Familiar Letters of John Adams and his Wife."
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yet the receptions accorded the delegates made them forget the heat and the dust. Coming into a town " cannon were fired, all the bells were set to ringing, and people crowded to their windows as if it were to see a coronation." Dinners, punch, wine, and coffee marked the evenings. " No Governor of a Province nor General of an army was ever treated with so much ceremony and assiduity as we have been throughout the whole of Connecticut/' wrote John Adams.
In ten days they had reached New York and taken private lodgings in King street near the City Hall. Little did John Adams think as he looked at this build ing that he would one day preside over a Senate within its walls. Here they tarried a week, holding interviews with the Sons of Liberty, meeting prominent citizens and trying to break down the prevailing fear of the " levelling spirit " of New England, as well as the " Epis copalian prejudices " in New York. There was too much " breakfasting, dining, drinking coffee, &c." to please the more serious New England men, who would have preferred to examine the college, the churches, the printers' offices, and booksellers' shops.
At Princeton College, they were entertained by Presi dent Witherspoon, " as high a son of liberty as any man in America." His students were all Sons of Liberty, although in chapel " they sang as badly as the Presby terians at New York." He exhibited to the visitors an orrery or planetarium made by Dr. David Rittenhouse, of Philadelphia, which showed the movements of the heavenly bodies. He also charged a bottle with elec tricity, but the air was unfavorable to seeing the flash. The visitors did not fail to climb to the balcony of the
86 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
four-story college building to obtain the view " eighty miles in diameter."
They tarried at Princeton over Sunday and received a number of callers. On Monday, they reached Phila delphia, to be escorted into the city as described. Although travel-stained, they were carried to a tav ern — " the most genteel in America " it seemed to them. Here they found others of the delegates assem bled, and soon all sat down to an " elegant" supper, which continued until eleven o'clock.
The next evening the Connecticut delegates reached Philadelphia. They were a most incongruous trio. Silas Deane had been a Connecticut schoolmaster who had risen through two fortunate marriages, the first bringing him wealth, and the second, social position. His political and social aspirations made him a ready mark for gossip, and it was rumored that he had been chosen a delegate by his own deciding vote.
Roger Sherman was Deane's opposite — a plain, self- made man, who had advanced from the shoemaker's bench to a judgeship in the superior court of his colony. Deane wrote home that Sherman was as " badly calcu lated to appear in such Company as a chestnut burr is for an eye-stone."1 He had an "odd and countrified cadence " when he spoke, which was mortifying to the sensitive Deane. When they were obliged to occupy the same chamber at the little inns on the journey, Sher man's snoring was an annoyance to Deane, who " turn'd and turn'd and groan'd " in concert. At one tavern " there was no fruit, bad rum, and nothing of the meat
1 The quotations from Silas Deane may be found in the New York His torical Society Collections, Vol. XIX., 1886, "The Deane Papers."
JOHN ADAMS 87
kind but salt pork." At another, one of the company had to go out and " knock over " three or four chickens to be roasted for dinner. No porter was to be had, the cheese was bad, and the only palatable drink was some "excellent bottle-cyder." The weather was excessively warm and the days without a breath of air. Deane was for sending the carriages over the ferry from New York on Sunday evening to get an early start on Monday morning through the Jerseys. But the conscientious Sherman would not break the Sabbath, and the travel lers were delayed the next morning at the ferry till ten o'clock, and then compelled to take a hand at the oars, since there was a dead calm.
Colonel Eliphalet Dyer, the third Connecticut delegate, was a soldier-lawyer, a graduate of Yale, as was Deane, and was probably less a source of complaint than Sher man. Yet he had an annoying way of taking the leader ship on a journey and becoming " foolishly swamped " in his directions.
Rhode Island had sent down an oddly assorted pair, Samuel Ward and Stephen Hopkins. Ward had been many times governor of that colony, as had his father before him. The succession of his terms had been broken only when his great rival, Stephen Hopkins, .defeated him. For years a bitter contest went on between the factions led by these two men. The breach was at last healed by Hopkins resigning in the midst of a term, and the rivals became friends to embark in the patriotic cause.1
1 Because of a paralytic stroke, Hopkins, now sixty-seven years old, could sign his name only by guiding his right hand with his left. When the facsimile of the signatures to the Declaration of Independence were
88 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
The first day of September fell upon Thursday. But no delegates had yet arrived from New York, North Carolina, nor the influential Virginia, and it was tacitly agreed to wait until the following Monday before organ izing. On Friday, four of the Virginians arrived, and the Massachusetts delegates went at once to the tavern to pay their respects. They were found to be " the most spirited and consistent of any. Harrison said he would have come on foot rather than not come. Bland said he would have gone, upon this occasion, if it had been to Jericho." Benjamin Harrison was a Virginia planter, very fleshy and of gouty tendency. The thought of his walking to Philadelphia was one of the many jokes for which he was noted. Richard Bland had been educated at William and Mary College and at Edinburgh University, and had placed his pen entirely at the ser vice of the colonial cause. Harrison's brother-in-law, the Honorable Peyton Randolph, another of the delegates, had won renown as speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and it was early understood that his expe rience as a presiding officer, no less than the compliment to the great colony of Virginia, would make him chair man of the Congress when it should be organized.
Richard Henry Lee, the fourth of the newcomers, was no doubt greeted heartily by Samuel Adams. For some time they had corresponded on the American grievances, having been introduced by letter through Lee's brother, Arthur, but had never met until brought together in this first Continental Congress.
first sent to England, the trembling penmanship of Stephen Hopkins was by some attributed to his fear lest he be hanged for signing the rebel document.
JOHN ADAMS gg
The Lee family had become estranged from the gov ernment during the long-continued disputes between the crown and the colony over the disposition of the western lands and their protection against the Indians and the encroaching French. Into this contest the Vir ginia militia was naturally drawn. Their officers were neglected and snubbed, and their leader, a certain Colonel George Washington, had his passionate temper roused to resignation more than once. His idea of duty, to which he held himself strictly, alone kept him faithful to the royal government. But when the news of the Port Bill reached Williamsburg and the Assembly was dissolved by the angry governor for appointing June ist a day of fasting and prayer,1 Colonel Washington did not hesitate to join the other members of the As sembly in the Apollo room of the Raleigh tavern and to draw up resolutions supporting Boston.
The Massachusetts delegates were anxious to see this Colonel Washington. Lynch, of South Carolina, had told them that in the Virginia convention which selected the delegates from that colony, Washington felt so out raged by the treatment of Boston that he arose and made a fiery speech, although he had always been marked both for his calmness and his diffidence in pub lic speaking. He threatened to raise a thousand men at his own expense, place himself at their head, and march to the relief of Boston. Having acquired a vast fortune by inheritance and marriage2 and having been
1 "June ist, Wednesday, Went to Church, and fasted all day." Wash ington's diary in Sparks's " Washington," Vol. II., p. 487.
2 He had inherited from his half-brother, Lawrence, twenty-five hun dred acres on the Potomac, including Mount Vernon. From the bounty lands of the Indian wars, he had earned and purchased almost fifty thou-
90 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
trained by twenty years of service in the Virginia militia, there was no doubt that this tall Virginian could carry out his threat if it became necessary.
In the Virginia Assembly, Washington had come in contact with Patrick Henry, the Samuel Adams of Vir ginia Like Adams, Henry had proven a poor business man, but an efficient political agitator. With barely enough legal knowledge for admission to the bar l he had entered upon his career of church and government opposition in the " Parson's Cause." From that day t associated with the opponents to the Established church, although his uncle was a rector. He championed the young democracy arrayed against the ancient Virginia aristocracy. He became the spokesman of the common people. His opponents at first ridiculed his up-country pronunciation, his ungrammatical language, and his awk ward and violent gestures.2 A vestryman in the Estab lished church described him as " a real half Quaker, - moderate and mild, and in religious matters a saint ; but
the very d 1 in politics,— a son of thunder."'
emies advised him to confine himself to the fiddle, with which it must be confessed he made a better showing than with the law. But however crude, his oratory was so mov-
sand acres. Mrs. Custis brought him fifteen thousand acres, between two and three hundred negroes, and eight to ten thousand pounds in bond. The death of Mrs.Custis's daughter added another ten thousand pounds to Washington's fortune according to the Virginia laws
1 Thomas Jefferson, the early admirer of Henry, says that after reading law or six weeks Henry prevailed upon Peyton Randolph and John £JSph to sign his license to practise The third necessary signa ure was obtained, but the fourth examiner, Wythe, refused to sign a per
so poorly earned.
2 See Henry's " Life of Patrick Henry," Vol. I., p. 209.
s From a letter quoted in Meade's "History of Old Churches and Families of Virginia, Vol. I., p. 220.
JOHN ADAMS 91
ing and so daring that his nickname " the Demosthenes of the age " was known even in the northern colonies.
Upon invitation of Washington, Henry and Pendleton had stopped over night at Mount Vernon on their way to Philadelphia. Edmund Pendleton was a country jus tice, a popular leader, and a devout churchman. He was much pleased with the calm, strong character of Mrs. Washington. In letters written soon afterward, he described her urging the three gentlemen to stand firm in the Congress and adding, " I know George will." He also said that, as the three rode away the following morn ing, she stood on the doorstep and waved her hand and said, "Good-by, God be with you, gentlemen." Devo tion to the cause outweighed her fears for her husband's safety. The three men reached Philadelphia on Sun day, September 4, having been five days on the horse back journey from Mount Vernon.
John Jay, a young lawyer of New York, had married the daughter of William Livingston a few weeks before Congress met. Livingston had retired from the practice of law in New York and had built a residence in New Jersey which he called " Liberty Hall." Jay was a delegate from New York as Livingston was from New Jersey. Jay therefore departed quietly from New York and joined Livingston, the two riding on to Philadelphia. The four other delegates from New York City were given a noisy farewell when they departed. John Adams described Duane as "a little squint-eyed" and "very artful." Livingston, Alsop, and Low were merchants. Boerum and Wisner, two country delegates, came later. Many of these soon dropped out of sight, as did all the New Jersey delegates save Livingston. It is reasonable
92 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
to suppose that the fittest were not always selected in this first irregularly chosen assembly. It was a revolt of the people against the government. New leaders would appear only in the process of time.
On Monday morning, September 5, all the delegates thus far arrived met at the City tavern at ten o'clock to march to the place of meeting. Quite a spirited contest had sprung up between the Philadelphia factions con cerning which hall the Congress should meet in. Gal loway, the influential speaker of the Assembly, insisted upon the sessions being held in the State House. In his official capacity he extended such an invitation, but friends of Thomson, whom Galloway had kept from being chosen in the list of Pennsylvania delegates, suggested the hall built by the Carpenters' Association. This organization of workingmen was almost a half-century old. Their building was not quite complete, but was ready for occupancy. The main room was ample, and overhead were two rooms with a long entry between, where the delegates could take exercise. One of these upper rooms contained the carpenters' library, the use of which had been offered the Congress.
Starting from the tavern, the delegates marched down Second street to Chestnut and up Chestnut to a little court, at the farther end of which stood the carpenters' building. Having entered and examined it, there was " a general cry," says John Adams, "that this was a good room," although, no doubt, Galloway dissented from the affirmative vote which followed. It was the first victory for Thomson and the radicals, and it was at once followed by a second in the choice of a secre tary. Duane and Jay of New York had probably
JOHN ADAMS
93
already conferred with Galloway and other conserva tives, and they therefore opposed the motion of Lynch that Thomson be made secretary. John Adams had been attracted to Thomson on learning that he was
"the Samuel Adams of Philadelphia, the life of the cause of liberty," and the interest had not decreased on hearing that he was " about marrying a lady, a relation of Mr. Dickinson's, with five thousand pounds sterling."
94 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Thomson himself describes thus his introduction to the Congress :
" I was married to my second wife on a Thursday ; on the next Monday I came to town to pay my respects to my wife's aunt and the family. Just as I alighted in Chestnut street, the doorkeeper of Congress (then first met) accosted me with a message from them requesting my presence. Surprised at this, and not able to divine why I was wanted, I, however, bade my servant to put up the horses, and followed the messenger my self to the Carpenters' Hall, and entered Congress. Here was, indeed, an august assembly, and deep thought and solemn anxiety were observable on their countenances. I walked up the aisle, and standing opposite to the President, I bowed, and told him I awaited his pleasure. He replied, ' Congress desire the favor of you, sir, to take their minutes.' I bowed in acquiescence, and took my seat at the desk. After a short silence, Patrick Henry arose to speak. I did not then know him ; he was dressed in a suit of parson's gray, and from his appearance, I took him for a Presbyterian clergyman, used to 'haranguing the people." 1
An oath of secrecy was taken, the doors shut, and so began in embryo the popular government of the United Colonies of America. These men thus brought together by emergency were simply reflections of the diversified colonies they represented. They had a thousand old prejudices and grievances; they had only one impulse in common — to relieve the distress of some of their number, and possibly avoid a similar situation for them selves. In their report to the governor of Connecticut, the delegates from that colony said, " An assembly like this, though it consists of less than sixty members, yet,
1 The American Quarterly Review, Vol. I., p. 30.
JOHN ADAMS 95
coming from remote Colonies, each of which has some modes of transacting publick business peculiar to itself, some particular Provincial rights and interests to guard and secure, must take some time to become so acquainted with each other's situations and connections." l
Their sessions were full of discord. At one time in trying to come to an agreement of non-exportation to England, the South Carolina delegates, with the excep tion of Gadsden, withdrew from the Congress for several days. When the Bostonians were pleading for such an association, certain other delegates reminded them that their John Hancock had imported tea once at least since the agreement of 1770, and had paid the duty on it. They could make no reply save that Hancock was only half owner of the vessel in question, and the partner must have ordered the tea. Once Galloway proposed a plan of union with England which would remove a few difficulties, but Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry cried out against it. Galloway afterward declared that he feared mob violence at this juncture. John Adams said that Henry had a " horrid opinion " of the conserva- - tives like Galloway, Jay, and the Rutledges. " He is very impatient to see such fellows, and not be at liberty to describe them in their true colors." Adams him self wrote down Edward Rutledge as " a perfect Bob- o-Lincoln, a swallow, a sparrow, a peacock."
Religious differences were manifest at the first session. Among the delegates were " some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians, and some Congregationalists." The question of opening the sessions with prayer was brought up, but so strong
1 Force's " Archives," 4th Series, Vol. I., p. 854.
JOHN ADAMS 97
were religious prejudices that all could not join in the same act of worship. On the second day the shrewd Samuel Adams discovered an opportunity to make use of this situation. He was a strict Congregationalist, yet he arose to say that he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from any man who was a friend of his country. He therefore moved that the Rev. Mr. Duche (" Dush-ay they pronounce it "), an Episcopal clergyman, be requested to read prayers the following morning. Duche accepted the invitation, and read the collect for the seventh of September, the thirty-fifth Psalm, and made an extempo raneous prayer. John Adams wrote to his wife that he never saw a better result in an audience : "It has had an excellent effect upon everybody here," and he advised
KEY TO "FIRST PRAYER IN CONGRESS."
1. Rev. Mr. Duche, Pa. 18. John de Hart, N.J.
2. Peyton Randolph, Va. 19. Stephen Hopkins, R.F.
3. George Washington, Va. 20. William Livingston, N.J
4. Patrick Henry, Va. 21. Thomas McKean, Del.
5. Samuel Adams, Mass. 22. Roger Sherman, Conn.
6. John Adams, Mass. 23. William Paca, Md.
7. Richard Henry Lee, Va. 24. Col. William Floyd, N.V
8. Charles Thomson, Pa. 25. Stephen Crane, N.J.
9. Edward Rutledge, S.C. 26. Samuel Chase, Md.
10. Thomas Gushing, Mass. 27. John Morton, Pa.
11. Eliphalet Dyer, Conn. 28. Thomas Mifflin, Pa.
12. John Rutledge, S.C. 29. Samuel Ward, R.I.
13. Robert Treat Paine, Mass. 30. Benjamin Harrison, Va.
14. George Read, Del. 31. John Jay, N.Y.
15. Silas Deane, Conn. 32. Isaac Low, N.Y.
16. Richard Smith, N.J. 33. Thomas Lynch, S.C.
17. Philip Livingston, N.Y. 34. Caesar Rodney, Del.
H
98 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
all his friends in New England to read the Psalm. Silas Deane pronounced the prayer worth riding a hundred miles to hear. It was " with such apparent sensibility of the scenes and business before us that even the Quakers shed tears."1 What an interesting promise of coming union was this mingling of the Quaker and his lifelong opponent, the Church of England man, in a political convention.
The letter in which Samuel Adams described this strategy to Dr. Warren was printed in the Boston news papers and proved that the Church of England was not arrayed solidly against the cause, as was often claimed in the northern colonies.2 It also brought the Boston- ians into the good graces of the Church people. Joseph Reed called upon the Boston delegates to tell them that " they were never guilty of a more masterly stroke of pol icy than in moving that Mr. Duche might read prayers. It has had a very good effect, etc." Galloway, anxious for conciliation, afterward averred that Samuel Adams, "by his superior application, managed at once the fac tions in Congress at Philadelphia and the factions in New England." The Boston men managed to bind the colonies in a non-importation and non-exportation agreement and secured a pledge of the continent to Boston in the Suffolk resolutions.3
1 Unfortunately, Duche did not continue to deserve these encomiums. When Howe captured Philadelphia, Duche lost courage and wrote to Washington, begging him to ask clemency. He afterward fled to England, his estate was confiscated, and he was declared an enemy to his country.
2 Mrs. John Adams had written her husband, " Since the news of the Quebec Bill arrived all the Church people here have hung their heads and will not converse on Politics, though ever so much provoked by the oppo site party." " Familiar Letters," etc., p. 30.
3 These were adopted in reply to an appeal from the people of Suf-
JOHN ADAMS 99
This agreement was the most difficult matter to adjust in the entire session of Congress. The extent of country and variety of climate involved caused a difference of products and interests well-nigh irreconcilable. The commercial interests of the north could depend upon internal trade and could open commerce with other countries after intercourse with Great Britain had been stopped. The agricultural interests of the .south must suffer more keenly when the planters could no longer export their products to the English market where a demand had been created. As usual, many of the planters had already anticipated the sales of the present crops. For such reasons, the non-exportation of certain articles was not to go into immediate effect.
Before leaving home, the Boston men had been cau tioned to try to counteract the " opinion which does in some degree obtain in the other colonies that the Massa chusetts gentlemen and especially of the town of Boston do effect to dictate and take the lead in Continental measures ; that we are apt from an inward vanity and self-control to assume big and haughty airs." In return for the Suffolk resolution, the conservatives had been allowed only a few harmless addresses and a petition.2
folk county, in which Boston was located. They urged the Bostonians to be peaceful, but to rest assured that they were suffering in the common cause. The king pronounced them a virtual declaration of war against him.
1 Joseph Hawley to John Adams. " Works of John Adams," Vol. IX.,
p. 344.
2 The Congress drew up and adopted : a declaration of rights and grievances; an association of non-importation and non-exportation; an address to the people of Great Britain; an address to the inhabitants of the British colonies; an address to the people of St. John's, etc.; a letter to the colonial agents; an address to the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec; a petition to the King's Most Excellent Majesty.
100
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Samuel Adams could write to the provincial legisla ture of Massachusetts, " Things go without any motion of the Massachusetts members, as perfectly to my liking as if I were sole director." A Tory wrote,
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SIGNATURES TO THE NON-IMPORTATION AGREEMENT OF THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
"Adams with his crew and the haughty sultans of the South juggled the whole conclave of the dele gates," and Admiral Montague said : " I doubt not but that I shall hear Mr. Samuel Adams is hanged or
JOHN ADAMS IOI
shot before many months are at an end. I hope so, at least." J
After almost two months' continuous sitting, Congress ordered its proceedings printed and then adjourned, but not without providing for another session the following May, when the roads could be travelled. There was to be no cessation of vigilance whilst danger threatened.
These printed documents were the only manifest results of the Congress. But a far greater end had been unconsciously attained in the opportunity given representative men to look into each other's faces and read each other's thoughts. The influence of personal contact was apparent. Uniformity of ideas could not at once arise, but the little leaven had begun. With the return of the delegates to their homes the first impulses of Unionism began to be felt. A common cause made common feeling. The beginning of the making of the nation was at hand.
Opportunity for personal contact was furnished the delegates not alone in the sessions of Congress and com mittee meetings, but in the constant round of entertain ment furnished them in the wealthy and happy city of Philadelphia. The second week of the Congress, a " grand entertainment " was given at the State House by the city to the delegates, where " about five hundred gentlemen sat down at once, and I will only say, there was a plenty of everything eatable and drinkable and no scarcity of good humor and diversion. We had, besides the delegates, gentlemen from every province on the Continent present." Near the close of the ses sion, the delegates were given a banquet at the City
1 Sargent's " Andre," p. 67.
102 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
tavern by the colonial legislature of Pennsylvania. Among the one hundred present were several Quakers. John Adams was much amused at the predicament of " two or three broadbrims over against me at table," when some one proposed as a toast " May the sword of the parent never be stained with the blood of the chil dren." " One of them said, this is not a toast, but a prayer ; come, let us join in it. And they took their glasses accordingly."
Washington was fifty-four days in Philadelphia, yet dined at his lodgings but nine times including Sundays. His diary confirms the letters and diaries of the other members. It is a round of feasts at Dr. Shippen's, or Chew's, or Joseph Reed's, or Willing's, or Pemberton's. John Dickinson drove into Philadelphia day after day in his coach drawn by four white horses to take delegates out to his beautiful country home where they could dine and talk politics. Silas Deane apologized to Mrs. Deane for his brief letters. " I am really hurried and have many more engagements than I wish for, though they are agreeable ; am engaged to dine out every day this week, once with Mr. Dickinson, and once with a Quaker just married. You will begin to suspect we do nothing else, but I assure you it is hard work. We meet at nine and sit until three, by which time we are unable to do anything but eat and drink the rest of the day."
John Adams, of Puritanical inheritance and New England environment, was shocked by the display of eatables. His appetite overcame his scruples, although after each feast he scourged himself for yielding. "A most sinful feast again ! everything which could delight the eye or allure the taste." "A mighty feast again;
JOHN ADAMS 103
nothing less than the very best of Claret, Madeira, and Burgundy." <l A magnificent house, and a most splen did feast and a very large company." " I drank Ma deira at a great rate and found no inconvenience." " But this plain Friend and his plain though pretty wife, with her Thees and Thous, had provided us the most costly entertainment ; ducks, hams, chickens, beef, pig, tarts, creams, custards, jellies, fools, trifles, floating islands, beer, porter, punch, wine, and a long &c." At another feast he had "curds and creams, jellies, sweet meats of various sorts, twenty sorts of tarts, fools, trifles, floating islands, whipped sillabubs, &c. &c. Parmesan cheese, punch, wine, porter, beer, &c." To Mrs. Adams he declared that he should be killed with kind ness in Philadelphia. " Yet," he adds, " I hold out surprisingly."
Evidence is not wanting that the broadening of colo nial minds under such circumstances had already be gun. Deane wrote home that if he ever changed his religion he should turn Quaker. John Adams, perhaps for the first time in his life, entered a Roman chapel and found it " most awful and affecting." He was im pressed by the services, the robes, the music, and espe cially the picture of the Christ over the altar. He con fessed himself unable to conceive how the Reformation had succeeded against such powerful agencies. Before he came to Philadelphia he had made many uncompli mentary allusions in his writings about the cool, calcu lating people of that city. But when he departed, he wrote : "Took our departure, in a very great rain, from the happy, the peaceful, the elegant, the hospitable, and polite city of Philadelphia. It is not very likely that I
104 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
shall ever see this part of the world again, but I shall ever retain a most grateful, pleasing sense of the many civilities I have received in it, and shall think myself happy to have an opportunity of returning them." 1
Government in England was unlikely to be influenced by resolutions and addresses from an irregular if not revolutionary gathering in the colonies. Some thought the members should have been brought to trial. In any event, Parliament took no healing action during the winter, and the people of America passed rapidly to advanced ground. Just before the delegates bade fare well to each other, John Adams had shown to Patrick Henry a letter from Joseph Hawley of Massachusetts, in which the opinion was expressed that " after all we must fight." Henry, with an oath, declared himself to be of that man's mind, and he went home to ring the changes on the words. " We must fight " spread from colony to colony. Even Georgia, an unprotected fron tier, dependent upon the bounty of the king and so pre vented from taking part in the first Congress, began to be aroused. Old arms were brightened up, ammuni tion was stored in secret places, and, especially in popu lous Massachusetts, men were drilled to rush to Boston at a " minute's warning."
The people of Boston saw no change save additional
1 It was unlikely that all the inhabitants of Philadelphia would recipro cate this feeling of Congress. Just after it closed, this stanza appeared :
" Can public Virtue by me stand See Faction stalking through the Land? Faction that Fiend, begot in H — In Boston nurs'd — here brought to dwell By Congress, who, in airy Freak Conven'd to plan a Republick ? "
JOHN ADAMS 105
soldiers and additional fortifications as time went on. General Gage had three thousand soldiers to feed and sometimes feared lest he be starved out. At other times he was apprehensive of an attack from the fifteen thousand " minute-men " reported ready for action. Unwillingly he undertook the dangerous and humiliating task, suggested by the ministry, of disarming the rebels. But the patriots seemed to get warning of every sally of the troops, and the small amount of stores destroyed made the attempts ridiculous.
Early in the spring it was rumored that a disarming expedition was contemplated out Concord way, the hot bed of the rebels. On Sunday, April 16, Paul Revere rode quietly out to Lexington and warned Samuel Adams and John Hancock, the proscribed rebels, of their danger. The following Tuesday the rumor be came a certainty. Some say that Mrs. Gage, who had been a native of New Jersey, betrayed the secret. Oth ers think that the careless remark of a British hostler to a blacksmith, who chanced to be a Son of Liberty, showed that British troops were to start for Concord that night. Dr. Warren, uncertain which road they would take, sent off Dawes at two in the afternoon by the Neck1 to warn the people and especially to notify Adams and Hancock. He also ordered Revere to be in readiness on the Charlestown side at midnight.
" One if by land," and Revere need not have gone. But two lanterns shone from the Christ Church steeple.
1 The narrow isthmus by which Boston was in those days connected with the mainland. Dawes reached Lexington about midnight, just after Revere came in. The lament of Dawes, because no poet has written of his ride, may be found in the Century Magazine for February, 1896, under the title, " What's in a Name? "
106 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
"Two if by sea," and Revere dashed off whilst the troops rowed "by sea" across to Charlestown. At day break they met a handful of Americans on the green at Lexington, and before high noon had encountered the "embattled farmers" at the bridge just beyond the vil lage of Concord. Then they began that awful return to Boston. " Seventy-three killed, one hundred and seventy-four wounded, and twenty-six missing, and probably prisoners," was the record made by the out raged farmers as they ran along and knelt behind the stone fences bordering the New England highway.
" Near 10 of the Clock " that spring morning, even before the first gun had been fired at Concord, the effi ciency of the patriot machinery was demonstrated. Trail Bissel had started from Watertown with a notice from the committee of correspondence " charged to alarm the country quite to Connecticut " about the skir mish at Lexington. " A True Coppy taken from the Original " was endorsed on the paper at Worcester as the bearer sped onward. At eleven the following morning the news reached Brookline, and at four o'clock in the afternoon it was at Norwich, Connecticut. The New London committee endorsed it at seven o'clock that night, and those of Lyme an hour after midnight. Through Saybrook, Killingsworth, East Guilford, Guil- ford, Brandford, New Haven, to Fairfield, it was passed to be overtaken by a second message bearing news of the later battle at Concord. " It wild [will] be Expedi ent for every man to go who is fit & willing," added the committee. Sunday afternoon at four o'clock the travel-stained paper was in the New York committee chamber, having come from Watertown in a trifle over
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SPREADING THE ALARM AFTER LEXINGTON
108 THE MEAT WHO MADE THE NATION
four days. The following day it reached Philadelphia1 and thence was passed southward to Charleston, South Carolina. Eight days after this " battle of the minute- men," Richard Denby, of Salem, sailed for England with the news, and on June I it was in the London news papers.
The response of America was immediate. Israel Put nam left his farm work and led his men toward Boston. Dr. Warren left his patients in the care of another phy sician and went out of Boston never to return. Brave Benedict Arnold assembled the sixty members of his Governor's Guard on the New Haven green, and, after browbeating the governor into giving them ammunition, started for Cambridge. Colonel John Stark and his fellow-farmers were on the way from New Hampshire. Colonel Thompson and his green-coated sharpshooters soon started from Philadelphia. On May I, the " associa tions " of that city formed themselves into regular military companies, and two days later a Quaker company under Captain Humphries began to drill in the factory yard. When the delegates to the second Congress reached Philadelphia, after a triumphal journey, they found three thousand young men under arms, the drum and fife sounding in every street, and Silas Deane declared his "brainpan " was " echoing to the beat."
The Congress which met in the State House in Phila delphia in this second session was quite different from the one which had adjourned the previous autumn, although the membership was largely the same. New
1 One of these alarms, or a copy of it, is preserved in the museum of the Pennsylvania Historical Society at Philadelphia. The first page is reproduced herewith. One of Bancroft's best passages (" History of the United States," Vol. IV., p. 167) was written on the spread of this news.
JOHN ADAMS IOQ
conditions demanded different actions. Many of the members heard of Concord and Lexington while on their way to Philadelphia. Their worst fears were real ized. Men had been shot down by a government ma rauding party in those New England villages. The tragedy might be repeated on any green or beside any bridge on the continent. It was a national danger. For the first time a national agency was demanded. Therefore, the Congress, which had adjourned after petitioning and addressing, now became the agency of the helpless colonies. It assumed authority, and the people quietly acquiesced. Day by day the actions grew more defiant and even aggressive.
When Peyton Randolph, the president of Congress, was called home to preside over the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Continental Congress seemed to take delight in making John Hancock, the proclaimed rebel, their president. They resolved that " these colonies be immediately put into a state of defence" ; and that " the militia of New York be armed and trained." They ordered the papers of a British officer to be opened and read. When Massachusetts informed them that her civil government was broken up and requested direc tions, they advised her people to choose an independent Assembly which they were to obey until a governor should be appointed by the king who "will consent to govern the colonies according to its charter." They began to take measures to raise money for the war. They prepared rules for governing the army.
Day by day they were driven into advanced steps.
1 This was the real beginning of the transformation of the colonies into states.
1 10 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
The rude crowd of minute-men and imperfectly organ ized companies which had run to the relief of Boston was gathered about Cambridge, devoid of training, order, and discipline. The most intense rivalry and jealousy were manifest between colonies there repre sented. Men of one colony refused to obey orders from an officer foreign to themselves. All was confu sion. When a detachment was sent to fortify Bunker Hill, it took the liberty of fortifying Breed's Hill, half a mile nearer the enemy. This change eventually proved fortunate, but the disobedience showed the necessity for a commander-in-chief.
Since Massachusetts was most concerned, it was proper that John Adams should offer a motion for the appointment of a head of the army. The fitness of Colonel George Washington, of the Virginia militia, for such a position had long been discussed. The appoint ment would be a worthy tribute to Virginia, which was so nobly supporting Massachusetts. Washington had come to the second Congress wearing his colonel's uni form, and had been escorted into Philadelphia by five hundred officers and gentlemen on horseback, and by riflemen and infantry, with bands of music. When Adams in his speech referred to "a gentleman from Virginia" as a suitable appointment if the motion should pass, Washington who was sitting near the door "from his usual modesty, darted into the library-room." Yet so strong was the sectional feeling that the election had to be postponed until a majority could be secured by private conference. The statement of John Adams that Presi dent Hancock, the former colonel of the Boston Cadets, desired the position and showed in his countenance
JOHN ADAMS 1 1 1
"mortification and resentment," is not supported by other testimony.1
There was no hesitation on the part of Congress after the appointment of Washington and the battle of Bunker Hill. They established a navy, issued paper money, organized rudimentary courts, sent Silas Deane to secure aid from France, authorized the colonies to set up state governments, besides many other high acts of sovereignty — all of which the colonies or states had to accept in the hour of necessity.
Public sentiment began to turn rapidly toward inde pendence. The petition to the king, sent over after the battle of Bunker Hill, breathing such sentiment for rec onciliation that the petitioners called it their " olive branch," brought from the king a proclamation that the colonies were in a state of rebellion. John Adams declared he expected no other results ; but it broke the conservatives.2 Some went in with the radicals ; others cast their lot with the Tories, as those who favored yielding to Parliament and the king were called.
John Jay afterward declared that he never heard independence wished for until after the rejection of the second petition. Washington, who is sometimes said never to have made a pun, wrote from the head of the army, " A few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk 3 added to the sound
1 This subject is treated in Sparks's " Washington," Vol. III., p. 479. Also in Curtis's " History of the Constitution," new edition, Vol. I., p. 27.
2 Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, was allowed to draw up the petition, and it was passed out of consideration for him and other conservative members. Harrison declared that it contained but one word of which he approved — " Congress."
3 Falmouth, now Portland, Maine, and Norfolk, Virginia, were burned by the British. This action, together with the employment of the Hessian
112
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
doctrine and unanswerable arguments contained in the pamphlet ' Common Sense,' will not leave numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of a separation." The pen of Thomas Paine, enlisted in the cause by Franklin
Franklin Sherman
R. R. Livingston
THE COMMITTEE UN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!
in England, was putting out " Common Sense " in weekly chapters, undoubtedly acting upon the minds of the mass of people by its simple pleadings for independence. The Scotch in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina,
mercenaries, did much to alienate the people of the colonies from the mother country.
1 From an old engraving in the Public Library, Pontiac, Illinois,
JOHN ADAMS 1 1 3
had argued that they were absolved from allegiance by the action of the king and Parliament. Mrs. John Adams, reading Rollin's " Ancient History" to her little son John Quincy, and acting as "farm woman" in the absence of her husband in Congress, wrote to him : " Let us separate. Let us renounce them and instead of sup plication as formerly, let us beseech the Almighty to blast their counsels and bring to naught all their devices." And John Adams worked incessantly to that end. When Dickinson, Jay, and Duane tried to show the folly of voting themselves independent before securing aid from some foreign power, Adams at once replied that no foreign power would make alliance with the revolt ing colonies of Great Britain, but would do so with an independent people.
The efforts of John Adams for independence were so obnoxious to many that he declared himself " avoided, like a man infected with leprosy. I walked the streets of Philadelphia in solitude, borne down by the weight of care and unpopularity." Dr. Rush testified to having seen him walk the streets alone, an object of nearly uni versal scorn and detestation. Adams was keen enough to see that the advice to the various colonies : to set up governments of their own was in effect independence. But the multitude waited for the overt act.
Virginia joined hands with Massachusetts as usual. June 7, Richard Henry Lee moved " certain resolu tions concerning independency," and the first of these, " that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states," was postponed to July I. But, as the minutes say, "in the meanwhile, that no time
1 Passed May 15, 1776.
I
114 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
be lost, in case the Congress agree thereto, that a com mittee be appointed to prepare a declaration." It was quite common in Congress to issue a declaration to justify an action or to set forth rights.
This committee, like others, was chosen by ballot, and it was found that Thomas Jefferson had the highest number of votes. He was, it was said, the second youngest member, but had already gained a reputation as a writer in the Congress, where, at that time, most talent seemed to lie in speaking. He had been active in all the early movements of Virginia but had not come into Congress until after the battle of Bunker Hill. During his first year in Congress he had not uttered three sentences together, according to John Adams. It is questionable whether he appreciated fully the fame which the future would place upon the words he wrote in the second story of his boarding house.1 It was but one of many "declarations," a simple statement of the grievances of the colonies. It was no more original than was Magna Charta. The indictment against the king was but a " history of repeated injuries and usurpations " as the colonists had from time to time written it in their resolutions and political writings. Many parts of the Declaration can be found word for word elsewhere. Hence the rumor which probably will never die out that Thomas Paine or John Adams or Benjamin Franklin was the author of the Declaration.2
1 Jefferson was at this time lodging with one Graf, a bricklayer, recently married, who lived in a three-story brick dwelling on Market street. Jefferson occupied the second story, taking his meals at Smith's. The Philadelphians have marked the site with a tablet, as they have done in the case of other historic points in their city.
2 Some of this controversy should be quieted by the copy of the
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JEFFERSON'S DRAFT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Il6 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
The passing of the Declaration was unimportant ; a greater contest had centred about the motion for inde pendence. It was one of the most bitter political fights in the history of America. States were divided. Dele gates were recalled and new ones chosen in their stead. Csesar Rodney made a wild ride from Delaware to Phil adelphia to cast a deciding vote for his state divided on this great question. On July 2, the motion was passed, and on the 4th the Declaration was adopted. Yet neither created the enthusiasm and excitement which tradition has attributed to those two days.
The Pennsylvania Packet of July 2 printed in two lines with many capital letters the news that the colonies had that day declared themselves free and independent. On Saturday the 6th, the same paper printed the Dec laration in full — the first appearance of the document in a newspaper. Possibly from the same type was printed the " broadside" or single sheet distributed throughout the continent and read at the head of the army. Upon notice given by the Philadelphia Com mittee of Inspection, "a vast concourse" of people as sembled in the State House yard (Square) on Monday following at high noon to listen to the reading of the Declaration by John Nixon. As he stood upon the temporary platform which had been erected for observ ing the transit of Venus, the crowd heard him with " three
Declaration in Jefferson's own handwriting, discovered among his papers. It was the first draft, and shows not only the corrections made by the other members of the committee, John Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and R. R. Livingston, but also the many alterations made by the Congress in com mittee of the whole. It is preserved in the Department of State, Wash ington. The first page is reproduced herewith. John Adams gives credi/ to Jefferson. See Adams's " Works," Vol. II., p. 511.
JOHN ADAMS 1 1 /
repeated huzzas." The king's arms were then taken down from the court room in the State House and placed on a pile of burning casks. At five o'clock the Declaration was read to each of the five battalions on the Commons. That night there were bonfires, ringing of bells, and other great demonstrations of joy upon the unanimity and agreement of the Declaration.1 Similar demonstra tions occurred in Boston, and the Declaration was read from many pulpits. In the southern colonies, people assembled in various places to attend the reading.
But graver duties faced Congress and the people than huzzaing and rejoicing. The form of a Union had been created ; it had still to win its right to exist ence. An invading enemy had to be driven off. The infantile resources of a new country were yet to demon strate that they could endure the exhausting demands of a war. Above all, the young republic had to demon strate that it could form a new plan of government which should effectively replace the old, serving equally well in time of war and in time of peace. But John Adams, transported by the end he had so long worked for, wrote to Mrs. Adams :
"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one
1 Condensed from the " Diary of Christopher Marshall," a retired drug gist of Philadelphia. Many editions of this invaluable journal have been printed.
Il8 THE MEN irnO MADE THE NATION
end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for- evermore.
" You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means. And that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not." ]
i "The Works of John Adams," Vol. IX., p. 420. " Familiar Letters," etc., p. 193. This letter is frequently misquoted, as it was first printed, refer ring to the fourth day of July. General custom, however, has come to celebrate that day instead "of the clay of passing the resolution of Inde pendence.
CHAPTER IV
ROBERT MORRIS, THE FINANCIER OF THE REVOLUTION
" The contest we were engaged in appeared to me in the first in stance just and necessary ; therefore I took an active part in it. As it became dangerous, I thought it the more glorious and was stimu lated to the greatest exertions in my power when the affairs of America were at their darkest."
— ROBERT MORRIS to his Enemies, 1789.
WHEN the Congress adopted the army about Boston
and undertook to carry on the war, it had no treasury,
no mint, no mines, and no cash save that which had
not been drained into England's purse by the laws of
trade. It was impossible to determine the amount of
money in the colonies. John Adams says they found
only a few thousands in the several'treasuries since
the debt of the last French war had just been paid.
Hamilton thought they had about thirty millions, of
which only eight millions were specie. Noah Webster
supposed that the specie amounted to ten millions. The
paper money, issued by the various colonies, could be
counted of little value. Their coast would soon be
blockaded ; their foreign trade would be cut off; and
their home industries would be interrupted by tfie
invading enemy. They turned to the easiest expedient
— the printing of paper bills of credit or promises to
pay in the future the sums called for.
119
120
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
The week following the battle of Bunker Hill, Con gress began its financial history by authorizing the printing of bills representing two million Spanish milled dollars, in denominations ranging from a one-dollar to a twenty-dollar bill. It was apportioned for redemption among the twelve colonies represented according to a rough estimate of the number of inhabitants in each. To Virginia was assigned the most and to Delaware
w 1 •£ G> 8 '*; t ~
FRONT AND BACK OF CONTINENTAL MONEY
the least. Each colony must begin to redeem its share and to pay the coin called for at the end of four years. Then in three more annual payments the paper money was all to be called in. When redeemed, each bill was to be cut through the middle with a circular punch an inch in diameter, and when returned to Congress to be publicly burned.
The money was so easily procured and the demands upon the treasury for war contingencies so urgent that
ROBERT MORRIS 12 1
within five months three millions more were issued. At no period in American history is there a better illustration of the most pernicious feature of paper money. It is so easy to make that satiety is never reached. Of course, Congress found more demands, and the necessary votes were passed and the printing presses kept in motion until they had put forth promises to pay two hundred millions of dollars.
The method of redeeming its share of the money was left to each colony, and it was presumed that this would be done by local taxation. But the word "tax" was just as odious as it ever had been. Indeed the colonists were fighting a war to keep the Parliament from taxing them. l Many of the less informed among the people really believed that a tax-gatherer would never be seen again in America. Benjamin Franklin and others begged Congress to stop the presses and get permis sion from their constituents to tax them. In one of the debates, Pelatiah Webster2 says that a member of Congress rose and said, " Do you think, Gentlemen, that I would consent to load my constituents with taxes
1 A broadside, issued in Philadelphia, said, " Cursed be the Congress man or men who dare tax the free men of North America." A stanza went the rounds after the end of the war :
"The land was doubly tax'd, we thought, To carry on the war; Now war is to a period brought, Still more the taxes are. Strange conduct this, all must allow — Hush ! let your murmurs cease; You pay the double taxes now To carry on the peace.'1''
2 Webster was a Philadelphia merchant and essay writer on political and economic subjects. His collected essays were published under the title " Political Essays on the Nature and Operation of Money, etc."
122 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
when we can send to our printer and get a wagon-load of money, one quire of which will pay for the whole ? "
The demands from the army were urgent. Reenlist- ments could be secured only by bounties. A deputy paymaster in New Jersey complained that he led " a Doggs life " in camp without money. l Sometimes in an urgency the paper money was sent out in boxes which rubbed top and bottom sheets, entailing loss and confusion. Bills of. large denomination were at times packed in the middle of reams of a smaller value by mistake. The clerks employed to supplement the com mittee in signing the bills, although paid by the hun dred, could not keep up with the printing presses nor with the demands.
The redemption was to begin in 1 779, but before that date the money began to fall of its own weight. Jef ferson thought that even gold or silver would have fallen if issued in such quantities.2 Public confidence was lost because no state had taken effective steps to redeem its share, and the portions of some states were never even signed. In the beginning of 1780, it required twenty dollars in paper to equal a dollar in specie. Congress again gave assurance that it would all be eventually redeemed. Six months later it fell to forty to one. Congress now repudiated its own promises by calling in the old bills and giving new ones at the rate of one new dollar for forty old ones. But it would still be a paper dollar, and little came in. Instead, it went down to seventy-five to one and by the opening
1 Manuscript letter in the " Peters Papers," Pennsylvania Historical Society Museum.
2 In his " Works" (H. A. Washington, Eel), Vol. IX., p. 248.
ROBERT MORRIS
123
of 1781 to six hundred and in the rural districts to sixteen hundred to one. 1
As soon as hard money came into extra demand, people began to hoard it. As was truly said the cam paigns of 1778 were fought on less than a wheelbarrow load of hard money. From time to time, Congress was accustomed to send demands to the states for their re spective quotas or shares of the public expense. But when a state was invaded by the enemy it could not secure the money, and when it was in no danger, it felt no urgency in heeding the call. In vain Congress begged that they contribute corn, flour, rum, hay, beef, pork, or grain to the needy army. At length in des peration a law was passed which urged states to author ize the seizure of supplies, certificates being issued for future payment.
Loan offices were opened and the patriotism of the people appealed to, but few had any money to lend the government, and those who had regarded such an investment as a very bad one. Lottery books were opened and promises of great fortunes were held out by investing in United States lottery tickets.2
1 The contempt into which the Continental money fell is shown in the saying, " Not worth a Continental." In a circular issued by the treasurer of the United States in 1898, it is said that ' what is known as ' Continental Currency ' was never redeemable by the United States." In Hamilton's funding scheme, it was received as subscriptions to a loan at the rate of one hundred paper dollars for one dollar in specie. No doubt the exten sive counterfeiting, which rendered uncertain the authenticity of any exist ing Continental money, militated against its redemption, as well the act of July 9, 1798, which barred these old claims.
2 Three lotteries were ordered by the national government. The first drawing took place at College Hall, Philadelphia, August II, 1777. In order to realize the entire sum of the sale of tickets, the winners of the larger prizes were given due bills on Congress, payable in five years.
124 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Prominent on the committees in these different finan cial expedients of Congress was the name of " Rob* Morris." He had been brought from England to America when but six years of age and while yet a lad was placed in the importing house of Willing & Co., in mercantile Philadelphia. Here he showed such
LOTTERY BOOK OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 1
ability that at twenty-one he became partner with his employer's son. The firm of Willing & Morris trans acted business for upwards of forty years and was known far and wide in the trading world. Equal for tune smiled on Morris when he married Mary White, whose brother had entered the ministry of the Estab lished church and later became the Episcopal bishop of Pennsylvania.
1 In the Museum of the Library of Congress, Washington.
ROBERT MORRIS 12$
Being bound to the mother country by birth, it would be only natural that Morris should choose the side of the king. His large business interests also allied him with law and order rather than rebellion. Yet his firm adopted the non-importation agreement of Philadelphia at the time of the Stamp Act troubles, and Morris was on the committee which compelled the stamp agent, Hughes, to resign. When a patriot's house in Mary land was burned, and the Sons of Liberty undertook to rebuild it, Robert Morris was one of the largest contributors. However, the violent destruction of the tea in Boston could not favorably impress a merchant, and during the meeting of the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Morris seems to have taken no part in the entertainment of the visitors.
The i gth of April turned the scale. It is said that Robert Morris was presiding at a banquet of the St. George society, composed of English-born resi dents of Philadelphia, when the news of the action of the king's troops reached him, and that he at once allied himself with the resisting patriots. The accession of such a wealthy and influential man to the cause was hailed with delight, and he was soon on the Committee of Safety. He was charged with procuring powder and arms, with importing medicines, and was always the banker for the committee, frequently advancing the necessary money. Pennsylvania loaded a ship be longing to Willing & Morris with home products and sent it to the West Indies to procure arms and am munition on exchange. Charles Lee wrote to him from the camp at Cambridge : " I am very happy (as we all must be) that the Philadelphia affairs are in
126 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
hands like yours. I wish to God the N. York were in the same." l
Morris was chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress in November, 1775, but when John Adams began to agitate independence, he allied himself with Dickinson, Henry .Laurens, William Livingston, and the conservatives. On the preliminary vote for inde pendence, Morris voted nay, and when the final vote was taken, July 2, he was absent, either from choice or on business. The sentiment of Pennsylvania for independence was not strong, and it is not surprising that Morris was soon after reflected to the Congress. He justified his acceptance in a letter to Reed : " I think that the individual who declines the service of his country because its councils are not conformable to his ideas makes but a bad subject ; a good one will follow if he cannot lead."2
Willing, the partner of Morris, had also been a mem ber of Congress from Philadelphia, and soon gossip arose about the employment of the firm's ships in Continental service. It was said that on one powder contract the firm would net ,£12,000. Eliphalet Dyer, of Connecticut, declared that there were not ten men in his state worth as much as would be made clear by this firm. Nevertheless, John Adams said of Morris : " He has a masterly understanding, an open temper and an honest heart. . . . He has vast designs in the mercantile way, and no doubt pursues mercantile ends, which are always gain ; but he is an excellent member of
1 " Lee Papers," New York Historical Society Collection, Vol. IV., 1871. , 2 From a manuscript letter in the collection of the Pennsylvania Histori cal Society.
ROBERT MORRIS 1 27
our body." A greater criticism awaited Morris because of his support of the first American agent to France.
When it was rumored throughout the country that Congress would apply to France and Spain for help against England, some thought the members " would be torn to pieces like De Witt." Those countries were hereditary enemies of the English colonies. But the impossibility of sustaining the war against England and her mercenaries soon became manifest to the most optimistic. France was smarting under her recent losses in America, and overtures first came from her. M. de Bonvouloir, an agent of Vergennes, French minister of state, although posing as an unofficial visitor, was in Philadelphia in 1775, eagerly courted by the Secret Com mittee. They " met at an appointed spot after dark, each of them going to it by a different road," as he reported to his master. Bonvouloir's presence in Phila delphia excited some curiosity, but no one knew him as more than " a lame, elderly gentleman of a dignified and military bearing." He was careful to promise nothing to the Americans, but so dark did the future appear that they decided to send an agent to France.
Silas Deane, of Connecticut, whether because of his business ability, his showy style of living, or his mercan tile experience, was chosen. John Adams says that the appointment was solicited by Deane himself, who had failed of reelection to the third session of Congress, but remained in Philadelphia. According to his own testi mony, Deane could "read and understand the French language tolerably well, though I am unable to write it." In July, 1776, he reached the magnificent French court, and soon showed himself a rough but honest
128 THE MEN IV HO MADE THE NATION
apprentice at the trade of diplomacy. The keen Beau- marchais, a speculator and favorite of the French king, kept Deane in suspense with suggestions of aid ; the vessels in which products were shipped to support him, were seized by British privateers ; he was informed repeatedly by the Secret Committee of the pressing need of supplies, and besieged by a horde of soldiers of fortune and adventurers who wanted to enlist in the cause of les insurgents. He once made the unfortunate suggestion that Washington be supplanted by the Due de Broglie. He sent over Conway, who headed the " cabal " against Washington, and an engineer, whose insolent demands caused a general contempt for French officers which time alone removed. But he also com missioned Baron de Kalb and the Marquis de Lafayette with their " train" of eleven officers. He asked a major-generalship for the marquis because of " his high birth, his alliances, the great dignities which his family hold at this court, his considerable estates in this realm, his personal merit, his reputation, his disinterestedness, and above all, his zeal for the liberty of our provinces." " Had I ten ships," he writes to the Secret Committee, " I could fill them all with passengers for America." 1
Deane's fitness for influencing the French court may be imagined from a reiterated request for certain Ameri can aids to diplomacy. " She," the queen, " loves riding on horseback. Could you send me a narrowhegansett horse or two ; the present might be money exceedingly well laid out. Rittenhouse's orrery, or Arnold's col lection of insects, a phaeton of American make and a
1 The transactions of Deane may be studied in Wharton's " Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution."
ROBERT MORRIS 129
pair of bay horses, a few barrels of apples, of walnuts, of butternuts, etc., would be great curiosities here, where everything American is gazed at, and where the American contest engages the attention of all ages, ranks, and sexes."
In the Hotel de Hollande, the unoccupied residence of the Dutch minister in Paris, suddenly appeared the office of a firm bearing the romantic name of Roderique Hortalez et Cie., the head of which was said to be a Spanish banker engaged in the American trade. Deane knew that " Hortalez " was Beaumarchais, the king's confidant, who was given three million francs as a don gratuit for the Americans. In return they were to ship him tobacco and rice. This secrecy was necessary in order to avoid complications with England. One of these million francs disappeared and became a source of contention in the claim of the Beaumarchais heirs against the United States. Morris was drawn into the controversy by his support of Deane and by the folly of his half-brother and ward, Thomas, for whom he had obtained a foreign agency at Nantes. The remaining two million francs found their way to the American arrn^ in the shape of arms and ammunition, but " Hor talez " never received a cargo in return.
Congress now decided to make a more determined effort to get aid from France, and sent over Franklin from America and Arthur Lee, Virginia agent at Lon don, to join Deane. Franklin was eminently fitted for the position. He had been in France several times, could speak French, and was suited by nature to that gay court. His seventy years had not affected his good spirits, although he suffered from disease. His recep-
130 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
tion in Paris was most gratifying. Having discarded a wig for hygienic reasons,1 he replaced it by a fur cap which in time showed traces of wear. This was sup posed in Paris to be the Quaker headgear and was imitated with great fidelity by the young nobles. They also abandoned their swords for Franklin canes, and copied the plain and not overneat attire of the "colo nial Quaker." Franklin dolls appeared, by which the philosopher was " i-doll-ized," as he wrote to his daughter Sally. He also said that he durst not do anything that would oblige him to run away, since his phiz would discover him wherever he should venture to show it.2 Deane showed no jealousy, but wrote home : " Never did I enjoy greater satisfaction than in being the spec tator of the public honors often paid him. . . . When he attended the operas and plays, similar honors were paid him, and I confess I felt a joy and pride which was pure and honest, though not disinterested, for I considered it an honor to be an American and his acquaintance."
Franklin's residence at Passy, a suburb of Paris, loaned to him by a friend, was the centre of a delightful coterie. Near at hand was the home of Madame Hel- vetius, to whom Franklin wrote his burlesque proposal of marriage, but whose manners shocked Mrs. John
1 In his " Works," Vol. III., p. 75, John Adams tells a story of Franklin and himself occupying the same room in an inn in midwinter. The philosopher insisted upon opening the window, and began a calculation of the length of time it would require to exhaust the air in the room, during which Adams fell asleep.
2 A collection of over one hundred and fifty portraits and medallions of Franklin has been placed in the Metropolitan Art Museum, New York City, many of them dating from his residence in France at this time.
"1
APPEAL
PEOPLE o! GREAT-BRITAIN,}
i'RFSENT \v,\x WIT:;
ROBERT MORRIS 131
Adams.1 Indeed, the whole life of Franklin was a source of amazement to John Adams when he was sent
over as an additional
agent. He found ! Franklin with seven servants and a chore- woman and spend ing $13,000 a year while a solicitor of aid for the needy Americans.
The king received Franklin in his bed chamber, and the queen granted him I / a presentation at her gaming table. But the gates of the pal ace remained closed to him as a rep resentative of the United States. Only the peace proposals of Lord North in the Parliament and the capture of Burgoyne and his men in America per suaded the king that the Americans had a good showing of success. Beaumarchais drove so furiously to advise the king to make a treaty that he was thrown from his carriage and his arm dislocated. Dickinson's predic-
1 "Letters of Mrs. John Adams," p. 252. Franklin's proposal may be found in Sparks's "Franklin," Vol. II., p. 204.
132 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
tion that foreign aid would be gained by victories in the field instead of a Declaration of Independence was verified. Nothing came of North's proposition in Eng land save additional pamphlets on the necessity of con tinuing the war against the rebellious colonies.
The need of money lay at the bottom of nearly all the difficulties of carrying on the war and consumed many of the precious hours of Congress. That body must not be criticised too severely for its delinquencies, nor must men be censured too much for refusing to serve as delegates and preferring the more honorable and less dangerous duty of serving the state govern ments. Only by reading the minutes l can one appre ciate the thousand trifling details demanding the attention of Congress. State prejudices and influences delayed the appointment of army officers. Enlistments were made for such brief times that the army was usually not dependable. Hard money was paid as bounty to encourage enlistment, but the recruits with coin in their pockets created mutinies in the camps where the other soldiers had been paid in "rag money." Delegations of begging Indians with their tedious powwows must be tolerated lest they join the enemy. All kinds of obstructions and vaisseaux de frise for the Delaware were examined and considered when it was rumored that Howe would drive the " rebels " from their capital.
In December, 1776, came the first rumor of Howe's approach, and a panic seized upon Congress, during which it fled precipitately from Philadelphia to Balti more. The patriots in the city shared the alarm of
1 The " Journals of Congress," as the Continental Congress records were called, are to be found in many libraries.
ROBERT MORRIS 133
Congress. " Drums beat ; a martial appearance ; the shops shut. . . . Our people then began to pack up some things, wearing and bedding, to send to the place. . . . Numbers of families loading wagons with their furniture, &c. taking them out of town. . . . Went with a number of deeds to son Christopher's ; put them into his iron chest," wrote Christopher Mar shall in his diary,
This headlong flight of Congress, especially as Howe failed to come, gave opportunity for the critics. One of them wrote to Morris : " For God's sake why did you remove from Philadelphia? You have given an invita tion to the enemy ; you have discovered a timidity that encourages an enemy and discourages our friends." Morris had not fled with the other members. Sending his family to a step-sister of Mrs. Morris near Baltimore, he quietly assumed the management of public affairs in Philadelphia. As soon as Congress was safely assem bled at Baltimore, it authorized him and two others to act in Philadelphia in its absence. Morris sent almost daily reports, which were highly approved. President Hancock wrote to him : " Without the least appearance of Flattery I can assure you your whole conduct since our Flight is highly approved, & happy I am that you Remain'd ; many agreeable consequences have resulted from it, and your continu'd exertions will be productive of great good, I must therefore beg you will continue as long as you can tho' I sincerely wish you a happy sight of good Mrs. Morris, but I fear your departure from Philada might occasion relaxation that would be prejudical. I know however you will put things in a proper way, indeed all depends on you, and you have
134 HE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
my hearty thanks for your unremitting Labours, the Publick are much indebted to you, and I hope to see the day when those publick acknowledgments shall be made you." l
To Franklin and the other commissioners in France, Morris describes the situation in Philadelphia : " This city was for ten days the greatest scene of distress that you can conceive ; everybody but Quakers were remov ing their families and effects, and now it looks dismal and melancholy. The Quakers and their families pretty generally remain ; the other inhabitants are principally sick soldiers. . . . You may be sure I have my full share of trouble on this occasion, but having got my family and books removed to a place of safety my mind is more at ease, and my time is given up to the public, although I have many thousand pounds' worth of effects here without any prospect of saving them." :
His days were employed in removing the salt out of the city to prevent it falling into the hands of the enemy, sending the public ships away from the mouth of Delaware bay, and receiving and forwarding public supplies. He borrowed $10,000 as he said for the marine committee, although it was hinted the money had been used to get the Congress out of town. He was ordered to send hard money to General Lee, now a prisoner. Lafayette begged him to send him even a part of the sum he originally asked.
In the early morning of the day which ushered in the year 1777, Morris received a letter from General Wash-
*" Thomson Papers," New York Historical Society Collections, 1878, Vol. XL, p. 413.
2 Wharton's "Diplomatic Correspondence," Vol. II., p. 234.
ROBERT MORRIS
135
ington, in the field. The battle of Trenton had just been won, but the fruits might be lost if the Connecti cut troops, whose time expired at the end of the year, went home. Washington was promising them a bounty of ten dollars each if they would reenlist and was depending on Morris for the money. The latter re plied : " I had long since parted with very considerable sums of hard money to Congress ; and therefore must collect from others, and, as matters now stand, it is no easy thing. I mean to borrow silver and promise payment in gold, and will then collect the gold in the best manner I can."1 Having sent the General ^150 two days before for the secret service, this $50,000 was with difficulty procured. It probably contributed to the battle of Princeton.2
In March, Congress ventured to return to Philadel phia from Baltimore, but precaution was taken to have the records in boxes ready for flight if Howe should come. One night in September, Colonel Alexander Hamilton, a student in King's College who had become an aide on Washington's staff, gave the alarm at the doors of the lodgings occupied by the members, inform ing them that they " had not a moment to lose." They arose, dressed, and scattered in different directions. John Adams drove over into New Jersey, and then circled about the city and joined the other members a week later at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Tories in the city said the scene beggared description when
1 Sparks's "Letters to Washington," Vol. I., p. 315.
2 It is said that Morris chanced to meet John Morton, a wealthy Quaker, and asked to borrow a large sum " for a private purpose." By this finesse he secured it, giving his note and his word of honor.
136 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
" the Congress, all the publick boards, Officers & all the Whigs in general left the City at midnight, in the utmost consternation." ! Church bells were taken down, the bridge over the Schuylkill torn up, and the signs bearing the head of Washington carefully carried away from the taverns. Ten days later, Howe entered the rebel capital.
Morris this time took his family to the "mansion" built by the eccentric Baron Stiegel at Manheim, near Lancaster. His other country residence, The Hills, the scene of his lavish entertainments of Congress, was too near Philadelphia to be safe.2
Congress returned to Philadelphia in the summer of 1778, after the evacuation of the city by the British. Morris brought back his family and continued his exer tions in raising money and combining public with pri vate business. Lead was in great demand for bullets. The committee of Philadelphia had searched the houses for lead, had taken down all the water pipes, and were disgusted at finding some of the window weights made of iron.3 It is said that Robert Morris gave to the com mittee the lead ballast from a vessel of which he was part owner, giving his note for security to the other owners. In 1779, he advanced five hundred guineas hard money to the United States. In 1781, he sent to Washington the sum which made possible the siege of Yorktown and the end of the war.
1 Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IX., p. 290.
2 From Baltimore, Harrison, of Virginia, had written to Morris: "I most sincerely thank you for your kind wishes to see me again at The Hills. I generally appropriate some moments on Sunday to that Place, let me be where I will; But in this infernal sink, I scarcely think of anything else." "Thomson Papers," Vol. XI., p. 409.
3 See the "Diary of Susan Drinker," p. 41.
ROBERT MORRIS 137
It must be noted that the national government thus far was purely revolutionary. Congress had assumed control, and the states had to acquiesce. Hence this period from 1776 to 1781 is often called the period of " Revolutionary " government. The interregnum, as has been shown, was due to necessity and not to inten tion. The "certain motions for independency" offered by Richard Henry Lee had embraced two points aside from independence, viz. " most effectual measures for forming foreign alliances" and "a plan for a confedera tion " among the respective colonies. The action was illustrative of the Saxon instinct for perpetuating gov ernment. There was to be no interregnum, no chance for anarchy to rear its ugly head. " The government is dead; long live the government."
Ten days after independence was voted, the com mittee brought in a draft of twenty " Articles " for the governing of the proposed "Confederation." They are supposed to be the work of John Dickinson, but there were numerous " plans " of union to serve as models. Franklin, recalling his plan proposed at Albany twenty- one years before, had proposed a form of union in Congress a year prior to the Declaration, and many thought it should have been adopted before indepen dence was declared.
But if the committee could agree upon a form of gov ernment and report it in such brief time, it was unlikely that the differences of interests and opinions in Con gress could be so easily reconciled. From time to time for sixteen months in the midst of the most pressing questions, these Articles were taken up and debated before they were adopted and sent to the several states
138 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
for unanimous ratification. The points in dispute were far from trivial. Washington was constantly calling for money. Should the quota to be raised by each state be determined by its population ? Should the slaves be counted ? Congress, according to the pro posed Articles, was to be the sole agency of the Union. It was to have executive, legislative, and embryonic judicial powers. Representation therein was a momen tous issue. Should small Delaware have equal repre sentation with populous Virginia ? The disputes about the boundary lines of the states had scarcely abated during the war. They would break out afresh when it ceased. How could a court be constituted which would have jurisdiction over these independent states in set tling such controversies ?
When the Articles, reduced to thirteen, were finally submitted to the states, a new territorial question arose which delayed their ratification by all the states until March, 1781, thus completing almost five years of the " Revolutionary government." It was understood that in the event of a successful termination of the war, the territory of the United States was to extend to the west ern boundary of the former English territories — the Mississippi river. Should the land thus acquired, ly ing between the Alleghanies and the river, belong to those states which held the shadowy charter claims, or should it be held for the common benefit of all the states ? It was being won by the common blood and treasure ; it should be held for the common good. This was the contention of the small states, cut out by defi nite boundaries from these western claims. Maryland held out until the last of the claim-holding states had
ROBERT MORRIS 139
yielded her western land to the central government, thus making the beginnings of the rich inheritance known as the ''public domain." At high noon on March I, 1781, the discharge of cannon in the State House yard at Philadelphia announced that the "Articles of Con federation and Perpetual Union " between the thirteen states had gone into effect, and that a legal government existed once more. Although some victories had thus far attended the American arms in the field, the lack of civic harmony and righteousness was too evident in both state and nation to cause much rejoicing. The public conscience seemed to have grown hardened during the many years of war.
Robert Morris will be found on record in every public assembly to which he belonged as opposed to the meas ures, only too frequently passed, for repudiating debt or still further endangering public credit. He tried in vain to prevent Pennsylvania joining in the craze of issu ing paper money, which seemed to attack the states, thereby injuring not only themselves but the Congress as well. Under his suggestion the depreciation of Pennsylvania currency was at one time checked. Con gress1 had long known of his services and ability, and in 1781 replaced the unfortunate Board of the Treasury by Robert Morris, under the title of Financier of the United States. He accepted the office with reluctance, his friends, although testifying to his ability in finance, assuring him that he could not succeed. The govern ment was now two and a half million dollars in debt, besides its paper money which had ceased to circulate. His first step in reform was to dismiss a number of useless
1 After 1781 known as the "Confederation" Congress.
140 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
clerks, thus gaining additional unpopularity. For three years he struggled with the many financial problems, organizing the Bank of North America, to which he subscribed $10,000 of his own money,1 collecting funds on his private indorsement to conduct the closing cam paigns of the war, and at last resigned in utter despair. His management was at times daring, as when he drew upon the American representatives in Europe for money. Franklin once wrote in reply from France asking if he thought him Gideon, that he must draw water for all Israel. Jay, in replying, assured him that he had exhausted every bank in Spain save that of hope. To add to the difficulties, this borrowed money was counterfeited as the paper money had been, and it was also trimmed and punched until most of it was light weight. The enemy was accused of putting out these counterfeits to destroy the hopes of the rebels,2 but the Americans themselves countenanced the clipping, until a quartermaster in the army, although confessing it " a shameful business and an unreasonable hardship on a public officer," was compelled to solicit the loan of " a pair of good shears, a couple of punches, and a leaden anvil " to reduce the foreign money borrowed for the United States to the current standard.3
1 The workings of this prototype of the later national banks may be studied in Sumner's "Finances and Financier of the Revolution," and in Bolles's " Financial History of the United States."
2 See Bolles's "Financial History of the United States," Ch. XL; Moore's " Diary of the American Revolution," Vol. I., p. 440; Almon's "Remembrancer for 1780." Counterfeiters were punished by sitting in the pillory one hour, by twenty stripes, and payment of the costs of prose cution. Passing counterfeit money was punishable by standing one hour in the pillory, by twenty stripes, and having one ear cut off.
3 Quoted in Pickering's " Pickering," Vol. I., p. 388.
ROBERT MORRIS 141
It is impossible to say how much of the money raised by Morris was borrowed or advanced by him personally and how much through his agency as a member of the various committees or as Financier. In the troublous times marked by the flights of Congress, the loss of accounts, and the confusion attending the foreign loans, his accounts were hopelessly confused, and neither he nor any accountant since has been able to put them aright. At the close of the war, his name was on paper amount ing to $1,400,000, which he had secured for the service of the United States. This he was able to pay by the unusual profits attending the importations of his firm. Although 140 of their vessels were captured by the enemy, prices of imported goods had risen to such proportions that one vessel reaching America safely from Holland, France, or Spain, would recompense for the loss of several. Pins and writing paper rose to fabulous prices. Mrs. John Adams was willing to pay $15 a thousand for pins, and John Marshall said that his sisters used thorns as substitutes. Writing-paper was worth $10 a quire. The trimmed margins of newspapers and pamphlets attest the scarcity of this commodity. Thomas Paine, secretary of a Congressional committee, was unable to obtain sufficient paper to write fully to Franklin, the agent in France. Other commodities were equally unobtainable. A substitute for imported mo lasses was found by grinding cornstalks and boiling the liquor. Salt could scarcely be bought at any price, and " all the old women and young children [in Phila delphia] are gone down to the Jersey shore to make salt. Salt water is boiling all around the coast." Loaf sugar rose to fifteen shillings the pound. A New
142 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
York paper announced " No Dry Goods Ship this spring."1
Such prices naturally bred a spirit of speculation. Morris not only bought up foreign goods, but sent an agent through the southern states to buy for cash all tobacco and such other products as might be in general demand. These movements made him as unpopular as any rich man may expect to be in such disorderly times. A committee, sent by a public meeting in the State House yard, accused him of buying the cargo of a French vessel and selling it at exorbitant prices. At another time, acting as agent for the commissary of the French troops, he paid more than the allowed price for flour. He was " waited upon by four or five women with sacks under their arms," who demanded a portion of the flour, and by a public committee who insisted that he should not deliver it to the French troops.
A study of events of those days convinces one that all the dangers of war are not to be encountered on the battlefield. The temptation to make personal gain out of necessity is hard to resist, although it tends to break down the civic honor. Although the actions of Morris did not deserve the severe criticism bestowed on him, there is no doubt that public morality waned. The president of Congress wrote to the governor of Georgia: "Were I to unfold to you, Sir, scenes of venality, peculation, and fraud which I have discovered, the disclosure would astonish you." President Reed, of the state of Pennsyl vania, published a denial of the rumor that he was trad-
1 According to the report in a Philadelphia newspaper, of an auction sale in 1781, a pair of razors brought $29; a pound of thread, $87.75; a pair of shoes, $120; a dozen buttons, $10; and an iron-bound barrel, $120.
ROBERT MORRIS
ing with New York City, held by the British. Morris, falling under suspicion of sending goods belonging to his firm in Continental vessels, was investigated by a com mittee of Congress, and cleared of the charge. Hewes, of North Carolina, failed of reelection to Congress, because he was connected with Morris in shipping goods for the Secret Committee. The French minister wrote that the members of Congress generally used their positions for speculation.
Public property had not the consideration which was given to private property. When the British evacuated Philadelphia, they left a bridge which the city counsel appraised at £700. Some comment was caused by its private sale to an assemblyman of the state for ^150. Undoubtedly the civic conscience was seduced by the disposal of the confiscated estates of those known as Loyalists or Tories, who had remained on the side of the king. The patriots had to encounter not only a foreign foe, but, as John Adams estimated them, fully one-fourth their own countrymen. These Loyalists were generally men of property and influence who refused to endanger their reputations, fortunes, and lives by taking sides with "rebels." The inherited hatred of social classes was partly responsible for the severe treatment they received at the hands of the lower class of people. Leaders like Washington, Morris, and Franklin, deplored this tarring and feathering, pillorying, slicing off ears, and destruction of property, but, as in many modern " strikes," they were unable to hold the mob in hand.
There were always to be found such men as the brag gart General Charles Lee, a renegade British officer, who tried to incite the people by public addresses to
144 THE MEN WHO MADE THE N AT ION
destroy the barracks of the soldiers and to mob Riving- ton, a New York printer. He would put down the
TREATMENT OF THE TORIES
"small, perverse, drivelling knot of Quakers" in Phila delphia, " kick the Assembly from the seat of represen-
1 From the first edition of Trumbull's " McFingal."
ROBERT MORRIS 145
tation which they so horribly disgrace, and set them to making German Town stockings for the army," and seize every "Governour, government man, placeman, tory and enemy to liberty on the continent, confiscate their estates, confine them in some of the inferior towns, and allow them only a reasonable pension out of their fortunes." 1
Under such treatment, the Loyalists fled by thousands to England, where they were pensioned, or to Canada, where they were given crown land. Others had taken refuge in New York, and when it was found that it was to be evacuated at the close of the war, advertisements appeared in the papers setting forth the advantages of the Loyalist settlements in Nova Scotia and adjacent parts of Canada. Frequently upon the doors of the fine old colonial mansions would be found the derisive inscription " Gone to Halifax," and the deserted prop erty fell a prey to neglect or was seized by some chance occupant. Provision was made by the states to sell this confiscated property, but little was realized from it.2
The tribulations of Congress continued. A third time they had to fly from Philadelphia ; not because of a foreign foe, but through some up-country Pennsylvania farmer boys, who had served the term of their enlist ment in the army and demanded their pay. There was
1 The " Lee Papers," New York Historical Society Collections, Vol. IV., 1871.
2 Agents were appointed to sell the abandoned estates, and all persons having claims were notified to bring them in. Since the other party was absent, there was abuse of this privilege. The states rarely realized the full value of the abandoned property. Galloway said that he had left an estate in Pennsylvania worth ^40,000. The houses in which Long fellow and Lowell dwelt at Cambridge are familiar specimens of deserted Tory houses.
L
Hus li the City ini-
her
BENJAMIN TIMBERLAKE.
146 TT/^ /J/£W H>Y/0 Af,4£>£- 77/ZT NATION
no money available, and the terrified members fled to Princeton, New Jersey.1 The Congress was even then trying to persuade the army to accept certificates for their pay, now long in arrears. Washington was attempt^ ing to stop a proposed agreement among his officers
not to disband the
armV Until their
pav was assured. jfcjr* C A § II given for John Stark had
Military Certificates. s°ne home in
• Fnquirc of the Printer hereof. doubt how he was
to " support a nu
merous offspring which Heaven had been pleased to bestow." Congress next went to Annapolis, sitting " near a yawning graveyard " for six months ; then they adjourned to Trenton, and eventually to New York. Such " vagabondizing from one petty village to another," as a member put it, was neither pleasant nor profitable. Salaries were supposed to be paid by the respective states, but members suffered from the dereliction of their Assemblies as well as by the depreciation of money. Ames managed to get an order on the Massachusetts treasury for .£100, but discounted it for £90 cash. An other member complained that he received less than $100 for $201 in Philadelphia. A Maryland delegate suggested that his state send some flour up to Philadelphia which he could dispose of. Madison hinted to Virginia that he might be a prisoner for debt if some money were
1 The failure of the city and the state to protect Congress cost Phila delphia the permanent seat of government. Charles Thomson wrote, " O that it could be obliterated from the annals of America and utterly effaced from my memory." — Peters' papers (MS.) in Pennsylvania Historical Soci ety Library.
ROBERT MORRIS 147
not forthcoming. He had been " for some time a pen sioner on the favor of Haym Salomon, a Jew Broker." 1 Under such disadvantages, it is small wonder that business in Congress should have been hindered so frequently, after the danger of the war had passed, by the absence of members. When the long-awaited treaty of peace with England, which was signed at Paris by Adams, Franklin, and Jay, reached Congress about the middle of December, it found but seven states repre sented, two less than the number required by the Articles for such a purpose. According to its terms, it must be ratified and back in Paris within six months, and almost four had already elapsed. Urgent sum monses were sent in all directions, and in one month two more states were represented, although the full quorum lasted but three days. Washington, anxious to return to his neglected plantation, waited four days at Annapolis and at last resigned his commission to twenty delegates representing six states.
Congress from time to time begged the states to give to it some dependable source of revenue. Between 1781 and 1786 the states had been asked for more than ten million dollars for the expenses of government, but had paid less than two and one-half millions. Toward the latter part of that period money was coming into Con gress from the states at the rate of four hundred thou sand dollars per annum, while the interest on the national debt alone was half a million annually.
Congress asked to be allowed to levy a duty on all goods coming into the country. The request was at
1 There is a sketch of the services of Haym Salomon in Wolf's " Ameri can Jew," p. 14.
148 HE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
one time limited to a definite period ; at another time to a certain per cent. Sometimes all the states save one would agree on some concession, but before that one state could be brought into line others would with draw the permission. No proposition to mend the Articles ever passed all the states, and Congress was compelled to continue making requisitions on them for money.
With no adequate treasury and no coercive power, the Union was threatened with encroachment from abroad and disintegration from within. Spain claimed the right to collect duty on every load of grain which the western pioneers carried down the Mississippi to a market at Spanish New Orleans. There was a doubt whether the trans-Alleghanian settlements might not find it desirable to secede from the feeble Union and to ally themselves with Spain. Although the Revolutionary war had been ended and a treaty signed, British troops for several years retained possession of forts on the American side of the boundary line, withholding the allegiance of the Indians and interfering with American trade. There was always the fear that the Revolutionary government set up in the Green Mountains, generally called Vermont, might be led away by the influence of the British on their northern side.
Many began to despair of the experiment of represen tative government in America during this " critical period."1 The infant republic seemed doomed to die in its cradle. Everything pointed to a fulfilment of Lord North's prediction that the rebelling colonies by internal
1 John Fiske has fastened this deserved title upon this period in his excellent book bearing that name.
ROBERT MORRIS 149
disputes would soon be compelled to come back to the protecting hand of the mother country. Washington's was the arm of faith that upheld all with whom he came in contact. From his home at Mount Vernon, whither he had retired after saving the military life of the repub lic, he sent letters to his friends in the various states begging them to assist in saving the political life of the
C^^'O
young nation. With his close friend, Robert Morris, Washington no doubt held many conferences upon the state of the country when he was the guest of the wealthy Morris in Philadelphia, while attending the meeting of the Cincinnati : or at such time as he chanced
1 The Society of the Cincinnati was organized by the surviving officers of the Revolutionary war.
150 THE MEN ll-'I/O MADE THE NATION
to see him. A few years later, he sent to Mrs. Morris one of the proofs of an engraving by Sergent, with his compliments.
Notwithstanding the political troubles, the commercial instinct of Morris saw opportunities for investment in the numerous land and 'canal schemes which were formed, many of them through his agency, during the post- Revolutionary days. No doubt these speculations and the sad end to which they brought him made people overlook the service which he had rendered at the very beginning of the Union.1 His foreign birth, his osten tatious manner of living, his wealth, and his unenviable official duties conspired to this end. But some will ever apply to Robert Morris the lament of the Preacher who had seen " a little city with few men in it delivered by a poor wise man, yet no man remembered that same poor man."
1 In the speculating mania following Hamilton's assumption measures, Morris became the head of numerous enterprises. He bought nearly half of the lots in the future capital of Washington. In 1798 the crash came. Morris was unable to meet his obligations and, according to the law of the time, fell into Prune-street prison, Philadelphia, where he lay almost three years until released by the passing of a law in Pennsylvania prohibiting imprisonment for debt. He lived but four years after his release. His new mansion, nicknamed '* Morris's Folly," was torn down before it was completed.
CHAPTER V
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, THE ADVOCATE OF STRONGER GOVERNMENT
. . . And thou
Our city's boast, to whom so much we owe, In whom, the last and youngest of the three, No common phase of excellence we see, In every grateful heart thou hast a place, Nor time nor circumstance can e'er erase !
Discord shall cease and perfect Union reign And all confess that sweetly powerful chain The Federal System, which at once unites, The Thirteen States and all the People's rights.
— To Hamilton , 1 7 8 8 . *
THAT the strength of the new republic was to lie largely along commercial lines was indicated by the fact that the commercial relations between the states were the first to bring friction, the most obstinate to adjust, and the ones which finally brought a correction of the whole. Accord ing to the Articles of Confederation, each state had control of its own commerce. Soon Massachusetts was complaining that Connecticut levied a higher duty on Massachusetts goods than she did on foreign goods corn ing within her borders. Connecticut replied that she had no large ports attractive to foreign vessels and must get
1 From an Ode celebrating in New York the adoption of the Constitu tion of the United States.
152 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
a revenue from goods imported through her neighbors. New Jersey was pictured as bleeding at both stumps, since the duty on the foreign goods consumed by her was collected in the ports of New York and Pennsylva nia on each side of her. Great Britain refused to allow American vessels to trade with her West Indies. She had recognized the political independence of her former colonies, but still held them in commercial bondage. Madison declared that " our trade was never more com pletely monopolized by Great Britain when it was under the direction of the British Parliament than it is at this moment." Hamilton said that when Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania tried to retaliate upon British vessels, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware declared their ports free in order to attract the forbidden trade.1
The commercial difficulties about New York finally grew into a comic warfare. An item from that city in a Virginia newspaper said : " The Assembly of New Jersey have laid a tax of ,£30 per month upon the Light- House on Sandy-Hook in that state. This land being 40 acres, was formerly purchased from the proprietor, Mr. Hartshorn, by the corporation of New York for the purpose of maintaining a Light-House, public inn, and a kitchen garden thereon. This tax, it is said, has been imposed to counteract the severity of the law in New York, which enacts that every wood-boat and shallop from New Jersey, of more than 12 tons, shall be reg ularly entered and cleared out at the custom-house in the
1 The quotations from Hamilton in this chapter are to be found in Lodge's " Complete Works of Alexander Hamilton," in nine volumes. Those from Madison are from his " Letters and Other Writings," in four volumes.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
153
same manner as if they had arrived from any foreign port." l Shippers of New Jersey and Connecticut bound themselves by agreement under penalty of ^50 not to ship anything into New York or furnish any New York craft with any kind of lading for one year unless the odious overcharge of dockage was removed as well as the restric tions which New York had placed upon the cartage of firewood.
From many such instances Madison thought that " most of our political evils may be traced up to our commercial ones." His own state of Virginia showed wisdom by co operating with her neighbor, Maryland, in attempting to secure a peaceful navigation of the Potomac and other navigable waters be- tween them, although SANDY HooK LlGHTHOUSE
such an agreement was
considered by others as contrary to the provisions of the Articles of Confederation. In the winter of 1784-85
1 The Virginia Independent Chronicle, August 8, 1787. The accom panying illustration of the lighthouse is from the New York Magazine, August, 1790.
UNIVERSITY
154 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
the two states appointed a joint commission of eight men to meet the following spring at Alexandria, the head of navigation on the Potomac.1
Ten miles down the river lived Washington, than whom no one was more interested in the questions likely to be discussed. He had been instrumental in securing the appointment of delegates, although himself not among their number. His diary shows :
" Major Jenifer came here to dinner — and my carriage went to Gunston Hall to take Col° Mason to a meeting of Com™ at Alexandria for settling the Jurisdiction of Chesapeak Bay & the River Potomak & Pocomoke between the States of Virginia & Maryland. March 21. — Major Jenifer left this for Alex andria after Dinner. March 22. — Went to Alexandria — dined & returned in the Evening. March 24. — Sent my carriage to Alexandria for Col° Mason according to appointment — who came in, about dusk. March 25. — About One o'clock Major Jenifer, Mr Stone, Mr Chase, & Mr Alexr Henderson arrived here. March 27. — Mr Henderson went to Colchester after dinner to return in the morning. March 28. — Mr Henderson returned to the Meeting of the Commissioners ab* 10 Oclock — and Mr Chase went away after dinner. March 29. — Major Jenifer, Mr Stone and Mr Henderson went away before break fast & Col° Mason (in my Carriage) after it ; by the return of which he sent me some young Shoots of the Persian Jessa mine & Guilder Rose."
Four days were spent in getting the commission together at Alexandria. The latter sessions, owing to
1 From Virginia : George Mason, Edmund Randolph, James Madison, and Alexander Henderson; from Maryland : Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Thomas Johnson, Thomas Stone, and Samuel Chase. Madison, Randolph, and Johnson failed to attend the meeting.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 155
poor accommodations, were held at Mount Vernon upon invitation of Washington.1 Out of the report of this commission to their respective states grew the call of Virginia for a convention of commissioners from all the states to meet at Annapolis the following summer to consider the commercial defects of the Confederation. This call attracted the attention of Hamilton, con stantly on the alert for some agency which might correct the faults of the existing government. He succeeded in getting five delegates, himself among the number, appointed by the New York Legislature to attend this meeting; but when the time arrived only Attorney- general Benson and himself set out. Of the remaining three, one was ill, one was too busy, and the third made no excuse. Arrived at Annapolis, Hamilton shared the general disappointment. Only five states were repre sented.2 To Monroe, who wrote despairingly from Con gress, Madison replied from Annapolis : " Our prospect here makes no amends for what is done with you. Dela ware, New Jersey, and Virginia alone are on the ground; two Commissioners attend from New York, and one from Pennsylvania. Unless the sudden attendance of a much more respectable number takes place, it is pro posed to break up the meeting, with a recommendation of another time and place, and an intimation of the expe-
1 Such hospitality was not unusual in the home of this wealthy Virginia planter. Under date of June 30, 1785, Washington wrote in his diary: " Dined with only Mrs- Washington, which I believe is the first instance of it since my retirement from public life," two years before.
2 From New York: Alexander Hamilton and Egbert Benson; from New Jersey : Abraham Clark, William C. Houston, and James Schureman; from Pennsylvania: Tench Coxe; from Delaware: George Read, John Dickinson, and Richard Bassett; from Virginia: Governor Edmund Ran dolph, James Madison, and St. George Tucker.
156 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
diency of extending the plan to other defects of the Confederation."
Everything seemed to work against the meeting. The bickerings among the states had destroyed what little feeling of nationality and willingness for coopera tion had been engendered by the war. It was the low tide of unity. The air was rife with rumors of the dissolution of the four-year-old Confederation. New England, feared the secession of the " back country " people, settled in the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, be cause of the unchecked Spanish impositions on their lower Mississippi trade. Washington wrote to Harrison that the touch of a feather would turn them any way. Yet the government was too weak to force Spain to desist, even if New England had been willing to do it for the sake of this remote west. The southern states even fell to questioning the allegiance of New England. Monroe wrote from New York, " Conventions are held here of Boston men and others of this state upon the subject of a dissolution of the states east of the Hudson river from the union and the erection of them into a separate state."
Another reason for failure to cooperate at this time was the question of revenue on imported goods. Some feared a convention would lead to the giving of this power to the central government and its loss to the states. Others feared a convention unrecognized by the Congress would lead to revolution. All through the question ran the rising fever for a new issue of paper money, which might be prevented by a convention.1
1 Replying to Washington's inquiry why the New England states failed to send delegates to Annapolis, General Knox attributed the neglect of
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 157
Hamilton was a leading spirit at Annapolis in insisting upon organization. John Dickinson, of Delaware, an active spirit during Revolutionary days, was placed in the chair. The reading of the credentials of delegates followed, and those of New Jersey were found to give power of devising " a uniform system in their commer cial relations and other important matters." Appreciat ing the value of this liberal instruction, Hamilton drew up a plan for another meeting the following spring (1787) to consider the defects of the Confederation in a wider sense. The suggested place of meeting, Phila delphia, the old capital, was calculated to arouse national patriotism. The appeal was toned down a little from the Hamiltonian pitch and then adopted. After a four days' session, the convention adjourned with a call for another convention as the only visible fruit of their labors, and more despondent than hopeful of the result. But fate was intending to make this Annapolis conven tion famous as the turning point in the long-continued ill fortune.
In order to avoid the scruples some had held against the Annapolis convention, the call for this Philadelphia meeting was sent to Congress, where it lay for five months. In the meantime the legislatures of several states began to take action, and Congress was compelled to take the matter up or be again ignored. But the fear of allowing the initiative to come from the Annapolis
New Hampshire to "torpidity"; of Rhode Island to "faction and heats about their paper money"; of Connecticut to "jealousy." "Massachu setts had chosen delegates to attend who did not decline until very late, and the finding of other persons to supply their places was attended with delay, so that the convention had broken up by the time the new-chosen delegates had reached Philadelphia."
158 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
meeting caused the substitution of a new call from the Massachusetts delegates as a starting point. The time and place were made to coincide with the Annapolis appeal. It was true that, in 1785, Massachusetts had suggested a convention of the people as a proper agency to remedy the faults in the frame of government, but so had Hamilton as early as 1780. A convention com posed of delegates chosen by the people for this specific purpose was as near self-government as could ever be realized.
In securing the appointment of delegates for this convention by the Legislature of his own state, Hamilton had to duplicate his task of the preceding year. It was not easy. New York was filled with the idea of partic ularism. She realized the future prospects of her har bor, the transportation value of the Hudson river, her importance as the coming commercial state, and the promise of her chief city. To yield the control of her foreign commerce to the Union seemed at the time vir tual suicide. It would be the severance of the main stem of her resources. Therefore Madison, who was now in New York attending Congress, could write : " The deputation of New York consists of Colonel Hamilton, Judge Yates, and a Mr. Lansing. The two last are said to be pretty much linked to the anti-federal party here, and are likely, of course, to be a clog on their colleague."
All through the states the work of appointing dele gates went on, actuated by the spirit of Virginia, of which Madison wrote to Washington : " It has been thought advisable to give this subject a very solemn dress and all the weight that could be derived from a
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 159
single State. This idea will be pursued in the selec tion of characters to represent Virginia in the federal Convention. You will infer our earnestness on this point from the liberty which will be used of placing your name at the head of them." Only in Rhode Island did appointments fail to be made.
Rhode Island was simply an extreme case of the financial situation everywhere. It was the oft-recurring struggle between creditor and debtor ; between the city merchant and the agriculturist ; between brains and strength of numbers. In trying to hit upon some plan to avoid taxes and to pay debts, the masses had created a bank whose paper money had to be accepted in payment of all obligations. The merchants refused it, and trade became paralyzed. Then every one was forced under penalty to take a "test oath" that he would support the bank and accept the money at par, although it had fallen to six to one of coin. Debtors brought in their money in bags to discharge their mortgages.
The altitude of Rhode Island placed her in ill repute among her sister states.1 Her people were called
1 The following stanza on Rhode Island appeared in the Virginia Independent Chronicle of June 20, 1787:
" Mild is my clime, salubrious is my air, My prospect charming, and my females fair; My fertile fields do yield a plenteous store, Enough for my own use, and rather more; And yet, alas ! I'm in a woful case; For I am cover'd o'er with foul disgrace : I blush to lift my head before the UNION, For with my sisters I refuse communion. Alas, for me ! how dismal is my fate ! My freeborn sons are so degenerate I fear their party broils will overturn my state."
160 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
" Rogues Islanders," because they insisted on paying debts in depreciated money. From the frequent proc lamations necessary to bolster up this money, her people were also known as " Know Ye men " and her money as " Know Ye " money. l Her " leathern apron worthy " referred to a blacksmith who had been made lieutenant-governor. The lawless sentiment was in the ascendency. It sympathized with and even aided the Shays rebellion in Massachusetts.
This insurrection of Shays in orderly, Puritanical old Massachusetts opened the eyes of the people and showed them the dangerous situation into which neglect of civic duty and an over-regard for the individual had allowed the republic to drift. It was not composed of a lawless element, but of country people, groaning under taxes and burdened with debt, who saw claims filed against them under the law and processes issuing from the courts under which their farms and cattle were sold and themselves reduced to penury. The paper money of the state was in the hands of speculators. The national government had no mint. No money could be had to pay debts.
Town meetings showed the first signs of the storrri in Massachusetts. Resolutions demanded that courts be forever abolished ; that the " growing Power of Attor neys or Barristers at Law " be checked ; that the state
1 A burlesque proclamation in the Chronicle of Freedom reads:
"To all Knaves, or all who wish to be Knaves throughout the World,
Greeting ;
KNOW YE!!
That by virtue of authority in me reposed I hereby inform you . . . there
is at length an asylum provided for you. ... If you owe ^8000, fly to
Rhode Island; there ^1000 will discharge the whole."
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 161
Legislature be removed from Boston ; that money on hand and at interest be taxed ; and that land taken for debt should be valued at the price at which it stood when the debt was contracted. From words the insur gents took to arms to close the courts.
An ex-army chaplain, Day, and especially a Revolu tionary captain, Daniel Shays, became accidental leaders in the series of uprisings which so alarmed the country. The Congress was powerless under the existing govern ment to coerce the citizens of a state. Was Massachu setts strong enough to protect herself ? Washington wrote to David Humphreys : " What, gracious God ! is man, that there should be such inconsistency and per- fidiousness in his conduct ? It was but the other day, that we were shedding our blood to obtain the constitu tions under which we now live ; constitutions of our own choice and making, and now we are unsheathing the sword to overturn them." l
Rhode Island and Massachusetts were not alone in illustrating the loss of law and order. According to Madison,2 the prison, court house, and clerk's office in several counties of Virginia were burned. Elsewhere the course of justice was stopped, and associations were formed not to pay taxes.
When Hamilton arrived at Philadelphia in May, 1787, he found that the reaction had set in. " Shaysism " had alarmed the country. Delegates were arriving every day, and they were truly " the flower of the continent."
1 The rebellion lasted from August, 1785, to the following February, included fifteen thousand men, and resulted in three deaths. See Knox's letters to Washington, Sparks's " Washington," Vol. IX., pp. 207, 234.
2 " Madison's Works," Vol. I., p. 339.
M
1 62 THE MEAT WHO MADE THE NATION
They included the governors of Virginia and New Jersey, the president of Pennsylvania, an ex-governor of North Carolina, and an ex-president from South Caro lina and from Pennsylvania, the chancellors of Virginia and South Carolina, the attorney-generals of New Jer sey, Connecticut, and Delaware, and chief justices from Virginia, Connecticut, and New York. Each state was allowed to send as many as it chose, and Pennsylvania led with seven. The popular number was five. The "Indian Queen" was crowded, and every room in Mrs. Mary House's lodging house on Fifth and Market streets was taken. It was no doubt a relief to her when General Washington decided to accept an invitation to lodge with Robert Morris.
Washington had consented to attend the Convention as a Virginia delegate only on the earnest solicitation of many friends. The governor of his state had written him : " I am persuaded, that your name has had already great influence to induce the States to come into the measure, that your attendance will be grateful, that your presence would confer on the assembly a national complexion, and that it would more than any other cir cumstance induce compliance with the propositions of the convention."
Washington's departure from home had been delayed by a rheumatic complaint which necessitated carrying his arm in a sling and, later, by a rumor that his mother and his sister were dangerously ill. But after giving directions to his nephew for the management of the farm in his absence, he set out a " little after sunrise " on Wednesday, May 9, and on the following Sunday reached Philadelphia.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 163
"May 13. — About 8 Oclock Mr Corbin and myself set out, and dined at Chester (Mrs Withys) where I was met by the Gen18 Mifflin (now Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly) Knox and Varnum — The Colonels Humphreys and Minges — and Majors Jackson and Nicholas — With whom I proceeded to Philada — at Grays Ferry the City light horse commanded by Col° Miles met me and escorted me in by the Artillery Officers who stood arranged & saluted as I passed — alighted through a crowd at Mrs Houses — but being again warmly and kindly pressed by Mr & Mrs Rob* Morris to lodge with them I did so and had my baggage removed thither — Waited on the President Doctr Franklin as soon as I got to Town — On my arrival, the Bells were chimed." 1
Such attention had been given to no other delegate, and it soon suggested Washington as the chairman of the Convention when a quorum should make organiza tion possible. Ten days passed before that desired event happened. On Tuesday, Governor Randolph of Virginia arrived ; on Thursday, two South Carolina delegates appeared ; and on Friday, Washington had the pleasure of again meeting his young favorite and former aide, Hamilton.
On the 25th, seven states were represented by two or more delegates, and the sessions began in the old Inde pendence Hall, on the lower floor of the State House. The morning was inclement and a severe trial to the gouty Franklin, who had been mentioned as chairman of the body, but who wished to nominate Washington for that position had he been able to attend the first meeting. It is said that the nomination of Washington
1 From Washington's diary, Sparks's " Life and Writings of Washing ton," Vol. IX., p. 539.
164 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
made by Robert Morris was at the request of Franklin. The vote was unanimous. Major William Jackson, a former aide to Washington, and now practising law in Philadelphia, was made secretary.
There must have been some premonition of the coming contentions and discord, since the committee on rules, of which Hamilton was a member, on the third day added this one, "That nothing spoken in the house be printed or otherwise published or com municated without leave." Washington conscientiously wrote in his journal, " Attending the convention, and nothing being suffered to transpire, no minutes of the proceedings have been, or will be, inserted in this diary." This secrecy was undoubtedly wise, since it prevented a disclosure of the real weakness and dangerous condition of the country. But it was misunderstood, and subjected to violent criticism in the newspapers. One writer in sisted that the opinions of thirty-nine men secluded from the rest of the world could have no weight. The suppression of their minutes was declared to be " the highest insult that could be afforded to the majority of the people." Lampoons appeared on Benny the Roofer and Bobby the Usurer.1 One critic declared Dr. Frank lin a fool from age and Washington a fool from nature.
Being unable to penetrate the closed doors, the people harbored wild rumors concerning the action of the Con vention. A division into three republics, which Madi son said was seriously considered before the Convention met, was now understood to be resolved upon. Some said the failure of the republic had been admitted, and that the Bishop of Osnaburg, the second son of George
1 Referring to Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 165
III., had been elected king of the United States. A precedent for such an election had been found in the case of Poland. Others guessed that Rhode Island was to be annexed to Connecticut or kept forever out of the Union. Another writer, evidently having an inside hint, said that the difficulties of representation owing to the unequal sizes of the states were to be remedied by joining Delaware to Maryland and Rhode Island to Connecticut.
The friends of good government counteracted these prophecies of evil with pleas for confidence in the Con vention and the need of a true Union. One writer used the fable of the farmer and the bundle of sticks to illus trate this need ; another took the homely but easily com prehended illustration of a horse overturning a beehive and being stung to death by their united strength. Some described the condition of New York commerce where not a vessel was building. Others pointed to the wharves of Philadelphia where sixteen British vessels and but one American vessel were being loaded.
On the 4th of July, these promoters of Union offered toasts to the final success of the Convention. The Philadelphia Society of the Cincinnati heard an ora tion in the Reformed Calvinist church, to which the delegates also listened, and a salute of twenty-four rounds was fired by the Light Horse Infantry stationed near the State House. The various public houses gave especial dinners. Additional attentions were shown the visitors from time to time. They were invited to visit the Academy on Fourth street, the Bettering House, and to attend meetings of the Society of Agriculture in the Carpenters' Hall. They were also made familiar with the workings of the Society for Home Manufac-
1 66 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
ture. Private dinners were given at the country-seats of wealthy gentlemen near the city and small entertain ments in the pleasure grounds at Gray's Ferry. One day General Washington reviewed the Pennsylvania militia. One evening he attended in the College Hall a public lecture by Mrs. O'Connell on " The Power of Eloquence." "The lady, being reduced in circum stances, had had recourse to this expedient to obtain a little money. Her performance was tolerable," said Washington. The newspapers declared that "notwith standing the tempestuous weather," the lecture was "attended by a brilliant crowd of his [Washington's] friends of both sexes," who highly praised him as a patron of the arts^a'nd sciences.
Entertainment of ,a more permanent kind was afforded on the Delaware river one day in August by a man named John Fitch, who had constructed a boat forty-five feet long. In this he had placed an engine which pro pelled six upright oars on each side of the vessel. His earlier attempt at steam navigation had been received with "shouts of ridicule," and his years of besieging various state legislatures for aid, and beseeching men of wealth to embark in his enterprise, had made him the butt of innumerable jokes. He said that nearly all the delegates save Washington came to the river front to see his latest boat.1 Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecti cut, was upon it, and Dr. Johnson, of Connecticut, gave him a testimonial. Governor Randolph, of Virginia, also
1 This was Fitch's second boat. Brissot de Warville, a French traveller, says of it : "I went to see an experiment near the Delaware on a boat, the object of which is to ascend rivers against the current. The inventor was Mr. Fitch, who had formed a company to support the expence. . . . The invention was disputed between Mr. Fitch and Mr. Rumsey, of Virginia.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
I67
viewed it. Yet so slow was capital to invest in new enterprises, and so reluctantly did people patronize new agencies, that it was twenty years before Fulton's boat was running regularly between New York and Albany. The card-writers who kept the Philadelphia news papers teeming with their attacks and defences of the
Convention had drawn into the controversy a Connecti cut schoolmaster, Noah Webster, who had come down to Philadelphia to lecture on his new system of spelling. He had published a " Grammatical Institute," in three parts, designed to instruct in pronouncing, speaking,
However it be, the machine which I saw appears well executed and well adapted to the design. The steam engine gives motion to three [sic] large oars of considerable force, which were to give sixty strokes p.-r minute."
1 68 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
and writing the English language correctly.1 Webster was not a man to hide his light, and he was soon in the midst of a newspaper controversy. Some declared him to be an emissary of Shays. Infuriated at this charge, he described his writings in the Massachusetts press against Shaysism and said he had done as much as any man to put it down. His enemies then ridiculed " His Honor, Squire Web. . . r, alias the Trotabout Pedagogue, who has slain thousands with his gray goose quill." Turning their attention to his book, they made sport of his new word " yeif " (if) and such innovations as encroach, incalculate, swerve, purport, and betwixt (for between). Eventually the contest was taken up by the traditional enemies, the Episcopal Academy and the University of Pennsylvania, and Webster was lost sight of.
Even in the scanty details of the Convention,2 the ar dor of Hamilton is seen. He at first spoke rarely in the
1 The first part of the " Institute " became " Webster's Spelling Book," which has had the largest sale of any schoolbook ever printed. It was also the prototype of Webster's Dictionary. The second part was the pattern for a school grammar, and the third part for a reader. The part second shown in the accompanying illustration is in the Congressional Library at Washington. The torn paper at the edges discloses the boards in which it is bound.
2 The " Journal of Proceedings " was entrusted to Washington, and was not made public until after his death, when it was printed by Jonathan Elliot, a Washington editor, together with the " Debates " on adopting the Constitution. After Madison's death, among his papers was found a "journal" of the daily debates in the Convention. "I had chosen a seat in front of the presiding member, with the other members on my right and left hands. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed, I noted, in terms legible and abbreviations and marks intelligible to my self, what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention, I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session." These, with the letters written by the withdrawing members, supply the very scanty information about the Convention.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON- ^9
debates, but grew fearful as the new frame of govern ment, designed to replace the Articles, assumed shape that it had not sufficient strength ; that it would not be much superior in this respect to the Articles themselves. Madison said that Hamilton's early silence was due partly from respect to others whose superior abilities, age, and experience rendered him unwilling to bring for ward ideas dissimilar to theirs; and partly from his delicate position in respect to his own state, to whose sentiments, as expressed by his colleagues, he could by no means accede. In the fourth week of the debates, Hamilton arose to confess himself dissatisfied with both the plans which the convention was trying to harmonize. He would prefer a National Legislature, consisting of an Assembly chosen for three years by the people and a Senate chosen for life by electors. He would have a Governor of the United States, chosen by electors, and to hold office during good behavior. Twelve judges, to serve during life, should make up a Supreme Court, 'in order to give this central government true national strength, it should have power to appoint the governors of the several states, who should then have veto power on all state legislation.
The speech which accompanied this sketch, delivered with the true Hamiltonian spirit, had too much praise of the British government to please the Convention, and his plan met with no consideration. Almost immediately he left Philadelphia and returned to New York, from which place he wrote to Washington that the people of that city feared the Convention would " not go far enough. They seem to be convinced that a strong, well- mounted government will better suit the popular palate
I ;0 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
than one of a different complexion." He added that he was deeply distressed at the aspect of counsels which prevailed when he left Philadelphia, but would rejoin the Convention after ten or twelve days if he had reason to suppose that his attendance would not be a mere waste of time.
The reply of Washington, in which he declared the situation worse than when Hamilton had left, and that he repented having had an agency in the business and urged Hamilton's immediate return, must have been balm to the piqued New Yorker. Even more convincing that the Convention was ready to listen to strong measures was the arrival in New York of Hamilton's colleagues, Messrs. Lansing and Yates, who had left the Convention because the new government, which it was forming, was practically a " consolidation of the states," would destroy their rights, and would bring no benefits in return. Per haps the new system would be stronger than Hamilton had supposed. In rising spirits, he wrote to his returned colleagues offering to go back to Philadelphia " for the sake of propriety and public opinion," if either of them would accompany him. He also inquired twice of his friend, Rufus King, a delegate from Massachusetts, whether " a higher tone " had not been reached in the proceedings. He manifested a desire to be in the Convention when it closed. According to the min utes of the Convention, he . returned some day before August 20, when a motion of his was defeated. He took an active part in the remaining debates. Since the final adoption of the new Constitution was by vote of states, and two delegates were necessary in order to have a state represented, New York was silent;
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 171
but Hamilton was allowed from courtesy to sign the document.
Frequently nothing save respect for the presiding officer,1 and the conviction that the dissolution of the Union would follow, had prevented the disbanding of the Convention. So critical grew affairs that Franklin, not a member of any church, moved that the daily pro ceedings be opened by prayer ; but the proposition was rejected. It is supposed that seventy-three men were connected with the delegations from the various states in the Convention. Of these, eighteen did not attend and ten positively declined the mission. When the final vote on the Constitution was taken, sixteen, who had attended part of the time, were absent. Of these, four at least had withdrawn formally. Three of those who remained refused to sign the document for various reasons. Indeed, of the fifty-five men attending, only thirty-nine signed. Among those who declined to attend were Patrick Henry, Charles Carroll of Carroll- ton, and Richard Henry Lee. Those who refused to sign were Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, Governor Randolph of Virginia, and George Mason, of the same state. Among those who withdrew, refusing to be a party to the further proceedings, were Luther Martin and Mercer, of Maryland, and, as has been said, the two fellow-delegates of Hamilton, — Yates and Lansing, of New York.2
1 One of the rules reads, " When the House shall adjourn, every mem ber shall stand in his place until the President pass him."
2 These figures are taken from a monograph by Paul L. Ford, whose later investigations have supplemented the lists as given in Elliot's "De bates," Vol. I., p. 124, and in Sparks's "Washington's Works." John Quincy Adams made out the list for Elliot, and found sixty-five delegates appointed. Sparks has the same number.
1/2 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
At last the Constitution, the fruits of almost four months of hard labor during the summer of i/S/,1 lay before the Convention phrased in faultless English by the hand of Gouverneur Morris. In three great com promises the members had reconciled the long-standing differences between the large states and small states ; between the slave-holding and non-slavery interests ; between the commercial and agricultural elements. In the closing hours Hamilton had said that no man's ideas were more remote from the plan than his own were known to be ; but he would not hesitate between the chance of good coming from it, and anarchy and con vulsion. In sending a copy to Lafayette, Washington called it a child of fortune, and to Patrick Henry he wished it had been more perfect, but sincerely believed it was the best that could be obtained at that time.
The criticism which had attended the Convention broke out afresh when the printed document was given out. This Convention, called for the express purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation, had deliber ately exceeded its powers and drawn up a new frame, which it now sent to the old Congress proposing that it be submitted to the states. When ratified by nine states it was to go into effect. Here was a revolution. The old government was asked to commit suicide. And
1 "The business being thus closed, the Members adjourned to the City Tavern, dined together and took a cordial leave of each other — after which I returned to my lodgings — did some business with, and received the papers from the Secretary of the Convention, and retired to meditate on the momentous wk which had been executed, after not less than five, for a large part of the time Six, and sometimes 7 hours sitting every day [except], Sundays & the ten days adjournment to give a Comee opportunity & time to arrange the business for more than four Months." Washing ton's diary. See Sparks's " Washington," Vol. IX., p. 541.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 173
what was offered in its stead ? asked the critics. An aristocratic government, formed by aristocrats in a secret convention. There was to be a "president" elected every four years, but as many times as he and his supporters could manage. Having control of the army and navy, he would resemble the mighty Abdul Ahmed, the Turkish Sultan ; the Senate would be his Divan; the standing army his Janizaries; the judges, unchecked by vile juries, his Cadis ; Bishop Seabury his Mufti. Objection was made to the superior powers of the Senate, which would eventually swallow up the House; to the central government having control of the state militia ; to the Supreme Court having power to judge of law, equity, and fact. There was no Bill of Rights ; no assured protection of the individual against the government.1 No wonder, it was said, that President Franklin, of Pennsylvania, had shed tears on signing such a monstrosity. It must never be adopted by nine states. The Assembly of Pennsylvania had convened during the sitting of the Convention, occupying a room in the State House, over that body. When it attempted to bring up the calling of a state convention to consider the proposed Constitution, twenty of the members from the
1 A handbill circulated in Boston enumerated, among others, the fol lowing disadvantages of Federalism upon the New Plan :
I. The Trade of Boston transferred to Philadelphia ; and the Boston tradesmen starving.
4. An infinite Multiplication of Offices to provide for ruined Fortunes.
5. A Standing Army, and a Navy, at all Times kept up, to give genteel Employment to the idle and extravagant.
7. The wealthy retiring to Philadelphia to spend their revenues, while we are oppressed to pay Rents and Taxes to Absentees.
II. Representatives chosen in suck a mariner, as to make it a Business for Life.
13. Religion Abolished.
174 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
country absented themselves to prevent a quorum. The sergeant-at-arms and the clerk, with " a number of volunteer gentlemen," went to Boyd's coffee-house and, seizing two of the absentees,1 carried them into the Assembly to make up the quorum. There they were held and counted present and as voting in the affirma tive. In that way was the convention called in Pennsyl vania, but Delaware succeeded in securing a convention and ratifying the Constitution before Pennsylvania, although that state was second. Similar signs of com pulsion were not wanting elsewhere. It was indeed a pure revolution or overthrow of one frame of govern ment by another. Quite naturally, revolutionary and intimidatory methods would accompany.2
The friends of the new proposition rallied to its de fence. Taking the name of " Federalists," they fastened upon the opposition the name " Anti-Federalists." It was declared in Boston that an Anti-Federalist and a Tory were held in the same esteem. A writer in a Philadelphia paper suggested that the state Assembly should remove all Anti-Federalists from office. The members who ran away from the Pennsylvania Assem bly were threatened with violence.3 In Connecticut it
1 Claymont and Miley.
2 A squib went the rounds of the papers to this effect :
"Here, too, I saw some mighty pretty shows, A revolution without blood or blows; For, as I understood the cunning elves, The people all revolted from themselves."
3 Among the numerous pasquinades circulated on this occasion, one stanza reads :
" Though rascals and rogues they may call, Yet now we may laugh at them all; 'T\vas well we escaped with whole bones, For we merited horsewhips and stones."
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 175
was proposed to " blacklist " those who refused to peti tion the legislature to call a convention. Paul Revere marshalled his four hundred mechanics in Boston, and their resolutions had a persuading effect on the Massachu setts convention. Men of property were urged to stand together for the new plan and to use tar and feathers if necessary. It was a revival of the old feeling against the Tories, and one of the first of many exhibitions of intolerance in the republic. It was suggested by one contributor that if the Constitution were rejected, Shays should be made governor of Massachusetts, and the rest of America should be divided between Great Britain and Morocco ; that Silas Deane, Galloway, and Benedict Arnold should be made governors of America, but that Arnold should not be assigned to Rhode Island lest he be corrupted by living in such a nest of speculators and traitors.
By the close of the year 1787, New Jersey had rati fied. Early in the new year came Connecticut, and then followed Massachusetts, Georgia, Maryland, and South Carolina. One more state was needed. The conven tion of New Hampshire met, but adjourned. It was now June, and attention was divided between Virginia and New York. In the former state the Constitution was attacked by Patrick Henry, Governor Randolph, George Mason, Benjamin Harrison, and young James Monroe. It was defended by Madison and John Marshall. Al though not in the convention, Washington gave his con stant influence for the adoption of the new government. It seemed that Virginia would be the ninth state, but while the debates proceeded, the convention of New Hampshire reassembled and secured that honor.
76
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
and fpcedily will be publifhed;
The good news from New Hampshire, according to the arrangement of Hamilton, was carried by an express, on the shortest route, by frequent change of horse and with all possible diligence, to the New York convention
sitting at Pough- keepsie. Hamilton had made further preparations for this convention by inaugurating soon after the forma tion of the Fed eral Constitution, a "series of papers to be written in its defence." They were issued sepa- over the " Pub-
lius," but when collected were called "The Fed eralist." Madison, who had returned to the Congress at
A Colle&ion of Eflay* written ip fa
+<% of the New 'Qbnftitutioh,
By 0 Citi%tn of Newark.
by the Atithory with ' Additions •' and Alteratibnt;
will h printed en a jutt Paper aitdgwd T}pe% in «w bandfowe Volume 4uo- decytto, \ end dtli-yered to fubfcribtrs at tb« moderate price qfene dollar ^ A ft<w < copies , 'Mill be frttiied dnJkper/iiH rojal wiling pa-' pert frtct tenjbiltutgi.
No bw*sy rttpiired till delivery . o render tbit work more nmplete, wiilfo added, without Any additional gxpe*ce,
PHILO-PUBLIUS,
Articles ftf 'the Convention,
At agreed upw at PAilaJe/pbia, Septem ber ijth, 1787. ,
rately signature
ADVERTISEMENT OF "THE FEDERALIST"1
New York, wrote some of the num bers, as did John Jay, a resident of that city. These essays were bound in two volumes, one in " common " and the other in "finer" binding, and circulated widely.2
1 In the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer.
2 Washington wrote to Hamilton that he had read every performance
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 177
Editors friendly to the new Constitution were urged to reprint portions of them.
In the beginning, Hamilton had written to Madison from Poughkeepsie, "Our adversaries greatly outnum ber us." One month later he wrote, " Our fears dimin ish." The opposition had commanded forty-six out of sixty-five votes when the convention opened and had made their leader, Governor Clinton, president. Ham ilton answered their attacks on the Constitution, defended himself in a two days' controversy with Lan sing against the charge of having been willing in the Philadelphia Convention to sacrifice the states, and even tually saw one of his great opponents, Melancton Smith, voting on the affirmative side. The favorable news from New Hampshire had also a good effect. It had been forwarded by Hamilton's father-in-law, General Schuyler, to Virginia, and had undoubtedly shown the futility of that state holding out. In turn, the news of the adoption in Virginia was hurried to New York, and aided in winning the last of the great states for a trial of the new plan, but only by a vote of thirty to twenty-seven.
Preparations for inaugurating the new government were at once undertaken. It was true that only " eleven pillars " had as yet been placed in the " national edifice." But the adjournment of the North Carolina state con- on both sides of the controversy, and, without an unmeaning compliment, could say that he had seen no other so well calculated to produce con viction on the unbiassed mind as the production of the " triumvirate." To Madison he wrote, " Perceiving that the Federalist under the signature of PUBLIUS is about to be republished, I would thank you to forward me three or four copies, one of which is to be bound, and inform me of its cost."
1 78 THE MEN- WHO MADE THE NATION
vention to see whether another Federal Convention would not be called, was felt to be only temporary. As for Rhode Island, there seemed to be a gen eral determination to ignore her. The constitutional provision for electing a President through electors would require time. The Confederation Congress there fore soon selected the first Wednesday in January for choosing the electors in the different states in such manner as each might wish ; the first Wednesday in February for the meeting of these electors and the cast ing of their ballots ; and the first Wednesday in March for the meeting of the Senate and the House of Repre sentatives, the opening of the ballots, and the real beginning of the new government. Having thus sealed its death warrant, the poor old Congress slowly ex pired of absenteeism. Intrigue had at once begun for the prize of the new capital. Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington, Harrisburg, and New York were advo cated, the latter eventually securing it, because the government was already located there and no place could be agreed upon. The southern members pro posed the Potomac river, but were defeated by the middle states and New England.
Speculations were also indulged in concerning the first President and Vice-President. Before the new gov ernment had been assured one month, Hamilton wrote to Washington : " I take it for granted, sir, you have concluded to comply with what will no doubt be the general call of your country in relation to the new gov ernment. You will permit me to say that it is indis pensable you should lend yourself to its first operations. It is of little purpose to have introduced a system, if the
ALEXANDER HAMILTON" 179
weightiest influence is not given to its firm establish ment in the outset." 1
Hamilton undoubtedly voiced public sentiment when he wrote in a subsequent letter, " I am not sure that your refusal would not throw everything into confusion." Concerning the vice-presidency, he favored John Adams, at this time minister to England, rather than Hancock, although he thought Adams possessed certain " jealous ies " and a rumored hostility to Washington. Still, if not made Vice-President, he might "be nominated to some important office for which he is less proper, or become a malcontent." General Lincoln wrote to Washington that Massachusetts was happy to find it to be "the unanimous voice of this rising empire that Your Excel lency, who has so just a claim to the merit of its estab lishment, should now take it under your protection." Franklin wrote to a French correspondent, " General Washington is the man that all our eyes are fixed upon for President, and what little influence I have is devoted to him."
Hamilton was gratified by this growing assurance that his former chief would become the head of this last experiment in government, to which he had devoted so much energy and for which he had such high hopes. The greatest danger was that the Constitution would be interpreted so narrowly and administered so defer entially that it could not compete with the states which had created it. A military mind was not likely to be hampered by constitutional quibbles. It was also quite natural for Hamilton to suppose that he would not be without influence with Washington ; but that he foresaw
1 Lodge's "Hamilton's Works," Vol. I., p. 194.
I So THE MEN IVHO MADE THE NAT/OAT
his great career as Secretary of the Treasury is un likely. In New York City, Hamilton watched with much interest the preparations being made for the inau guration of the new Constitution, for whose inception and final adoption he deserves more credit than can justly be ascribed to any other man.
"Resolved, That the first Wednesday in January next be the day for appointing electors in the several states, which, before the said day shall have ratified the said constitution ; that the first Wednesday in February next, be the day for the electors to assemble in their respective states, and vote for a president ; and that the first Wednesday in March next, be the time, and the present seat of Congress the place for commencing proceedings under the said constitution." -- Journal of [Confederation] Congress, September 13, 1788.
CHAPTER VI
GEORGE WASHINGTON, THE FIRST PRESIDENT
NEW YORK, April 6, 1789.
SIR : — I have the honor to transmit to your Excellency the information of your unanimous election to the office of Presi dent of the United States of America. Suffer me, sir, to indulge the hope that so auspicious a mark of public confi dence will meet with your approbation, and be considered as a pledge of the affection and support you are to expect from a free and enlightened people. I am, Sir,
Yr obt sevt,
JOHN LANGDON.
MOUNT VERNON, 14 April, 1789.
SIR : — I had the honor to receive your official communica tion by the hand of Mr Secretary Thompson, about one o'clock this day. Having concluded to obey the important and flatter ing call of my Country, and having been impressed with an idea of the expediency of my being with Congress at as early a period as possible ; I propose to commence my journey on Thursday morning which will be the day after to-morrow. I have the honor to be with sentiments of esteem, Sir,
Your obedient servt,
GEO. WASHINGTON.
WASHINGTON had consented to undertake the task of starting the executive machinery provided by the newly adopted Constitution. He accepted the risk as he had
181
1 82 THE MEN- WHO MADE THE NATION
done in the Revolution. If the experiment should fail he would go down with it.
On the day appointed, the first Wednesday in Janu ary, the choice of presidential electors l had been under taken in the several states according to the manner of holding elections in each. In Massachusetts, Maryland, and Virginia the election was left largely with the people. Elsewhere the state legislatures chose the elec tors. Like the faithful citizen that he was, Washington rode up to Alexandria on Wednesday, January 7, to cast his vote. Dr. Stuart, who had married Mrs. Custis, the widow of Mrs. Washington's son, was chosen elector for the district.
During the month before the electors met, there was no campaigning nor electioneering, but it was under stood that Washington's name was one of the two which would be written by every elector on his ballot. Indeed it was only the assurance that Washington would be chosen and would accept the headship of the new venture that had persuaded many timid people to give it a trial.
Although the ballots cast by the electors at their meetings in their respective states on the first Wednes day in February were not to be opened for a month, Washington began quietly to make preparations to leave the comfortable home and the ideal plantation he was trying to make at Mount Vernon, and to undertake again the tribulations of public life. During the eight years of the Revolutionary war he had been at home but twice, and then for a few days only. The six years since the war had scarcely allowed a recovery of his
1 As provided in the Constitution, Article II., Sections i, 2, 3, 4.
ISITYJ
GEORGE
183
affairs and the inauguration of the extensive improve ments which he planned for his estate. His corre spondence reveals the reluctance with which he viewed the prospect. To an office-seeker he said, " The first wish of my soul is to spend the evening of my days as a private citizen on my farm." To his long-time friend, Harrison, he wrote, " Heaven knows that no event can be less desired by me, and that no earthly consideration short of so general a call, together with a desire to reconcile contending parties as far as in me lies, could again bring me into public life." He was obliged to send his secretary, Tobias Lear, to Captain Richard Conway, of Alexandria, to solicit the loan of ^"600 on interest. Otherwise he must be obliged to leave home in debt and without a sufficient sum to pay his travel ling expenses. The financial hardships of the Confed eration bore on the Virginia planter as well as on the Massachusetts farmer. Washington also gave the short crops as the cause of his embarrassment. " Never till within these two years have I experienced the want of money."
Washington paid a visit of respect to his mother at Fredericksburg, now in her eighty-second year. It was a last farewell, since she died the following summer. To Governor Clinton, of New York, who tendered him the use of his house, Washington replied that he would take hired lodgings or rooms in a tavern until some house could be provided. At the same time he wrote to Madison, a representative in the new Congress, to secure such public accommodation for him, as well as for his secretary, Lear, and for Colonel Humphreys, formerly his aide and now a member of his household.
1 84 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
In the meantime the state legislatures had conducted their elections for senators without much difficulty save in New York, where a deadlock between the two branches prevented a choice. Rhode Island and North Carolina were also unrepresented, since neither had yet accepted the Constitution. The election of representatives in the various states had been irregularly conducted, a proc lamation of the governor of New Jersey being necessary to close the polls in the eastern section after two weeks of voting.
The members began to assemble in New York as rapidly as the condition of the roads and the opening of navigation would permit. But when the first Wednes day in March arrived, there was no quorum in either the Senate or the House. It was the same old story of neglect. It would have been a surprise if anything con nected with government had started on time. Neverthe less, as Robert Morris, who had gone to New York as a senator from Pennsylvania, wrote to his wife : " Last night they fired 13 cannon from the Battery here over the Funeral of the Confederation and this morning they saluted the new Government with 1 1 Cannon, being one for each of the States that have adopted the Constitu tion. The Flag was hoisted on the Fort and Federal Colours were displayed on the top of the new Edifice and at several places of the City." x
Some of the members after waiting patiently day after day for a quorum grew discouraged. One wrote home: "We lose ^1000 a day revenue; we lose credit, spirit, everything, by this delay. The public will forget
1 From a manuscript letter in the Pennsylvania Historical Society Library at Philadelphia.
GEORGE WASHINGTON 185
the government before it is born. The resurrection of the infant will come before its birth. The old Congress still continues to meet, but it seems doubtful whether the old government is dead or the new one alive." Others took a more hopeful view of the situation, and after securing lodgings walked about to view the city which had by chance become the first capital under the Constitution.
Especially the new members were interested in the building provided by the city of New York for their accommodation. The City Hall, which stood in Wall street at the head of Broad street , had been erected in 1 700 ; but, with thirty thousand dollars raised by a lottery and a public subscription, it was now remodelled after the plans of Major L' Enfant. A new front was placed on the building, extending it out over the sidewalk on Wall street in a series of arches. It embraced a small balcony, supported by four Doric pillars, and was orna mented above with the eagle, thirteen stars, and bunches of arrows encircled with olive branches.
The vestibule on the ground floor opened into the hall to be occupied by the House of Representatives. This room was sixty-one feet deep, fifty-eight wide, and thirty-six high, being lighted by large windows placed sixteen feet from the floor and hung with blue damask. The four fireplaces were ornamented with Ionic columns and pilasters. Two galleries fronted the speaker's plat form. The lower gallery was on a level with the Senate chamber, which occupied the second story upon the opposite side of the building. This room was forty feet long, thirty wide, and twenty high, with an arched ceil ing. The ceiling was ornamented with a sun and thir-
1 86 THE MEW WHO MADE THE NATION
teen stars. The fireplaces were made of American marble. Crimson hangings were about the windows and the dais over the Vice-President's chair.1
Thirty representatives and twelve senators were nec essary for a quorum. Appeals were sent out by the impatient members already assembled, but it was not so easy to overcome habits of neglecting official duties. At last on April 13, almost a month late, the House had a quorum, and one week later the Senate was equally fortunate. The House then marched up to the Senate chamber and with Langdon, of New Hamp shire, president pro tern, of the Senate, in the chair, the electoral ballots were opened. Sixty-five had been cast by the electors in the various states, and upon each appeared the name of George Washington. With his name there appeared upon the various ballots for Vice- President the names of John Adams, John Jay, Hancock, and a number of men prominent in their respective states. Adams had received thirty-four, and was de clared elected to the vice-presidency. Immediately Charles Thomson, 2 clerk of the Continental Congress for so many years, was sent to the President-elect to notify him of his selection, and Sylvester Bowen [Bourne] was despatched on a similar errand to the Vice-President elect.
In three days, by packet and horse, Bowen reached Braintree, now a suburb of Boston, and found John Adams trying to regain his law practice after ten years' absence on diplomatic service in Europe. The latter
1 A full description of this Federal Hall, with the cut reproduced on page 196, was printed, in the Columbian Magazine, August, 1789.
2 Mention of his services in the Revolutionary times was made in Chapter III.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
I87
three years of that time he had spent most unhap pily as the first minister from the United States to England. He felt himself slighted. His demands for an open trade with the British West Indies were ignored. Mrs. Adams was snubbed by Queen Charlotte, and no minister was sent to the United States in return. In fact there was not lack ing the suggestion, all too annoying because of its truth, that if thirteen min isters were sent to England by these quarrelling states, one would be sent to them. John Ad ams, hard as the granite rocks of his own Massachu setts, remonstrated in vain, and was finally relieved, re turning to America as he said, " from
H* j>
New- York, April 7.
CO-^GRE SS.
Yefterdaj' the
Room, and opens V.ce-Prefideru, Mi Href! Jrnt of the Senate on thi» occa/ios General W /.SHI N G TO N was found to have be* unaninvMiflv chofrn Prefident, and Tnhn Adams,' Eiq. Vice I'rgfsdent, by a plurality amounting to 34. C harries Thompson, E'.q. waj aprf>w*1 to inform th» Prr.ldent of this even: ; and Mr. Bowsr, the Vice-Pissfiilent. Thole gentiemen will accordingly fet olF this day for thsi'c
A committee of both hourei of r
turc app'ijr.ted ar the i >.il is,Ijc!:i, ,m a: :he Secretary's Orf;;e this day, *.\2'.:~ :':o.vcvc* p*?veu in for •:v/ "' - - •• '-.'ate, in the Ho»fi of tivei pj \;.:: Cotigrefsofths United hoe in a fe-v d>.ys to pre.fent our of the geackmen eieds
to the ho
the na nor.-:':'e offke,
Many (fays n cofrefprtndfnt) havi fought, *fitt*n "tnd harrangucd f*jr Che welfare and glory of thf UnJreJ States. Yet.it muft*be confeiled, thst a ira« patriot i* a diara&cir not be fcund. As loag a* oar country feels
FULL NEWS OF THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTION l prison."
The critics of John Adams claimed that he was sur prised at the difference between the number of votes
1 From the Pennsylvania Packet. This was the most complete account published of the first election of a President.
1 88 THE MEN" WHO MADE THE NATION
cast for Washington and the number cast for himself ; that he could not understand how a military life could be considered a better training for the presidency than civil and diplomatic experience. But Washington was only the first of a number of war heroes in America who have been called to civic honors. Adams left at once for New York and was shown gratifying attention all along his way. Horsemen rode out to escort him and officials to greet him. Arrived in New York City, he became the guest of John Jay1 and wife at their beautiful home on the Broad Way. Mrs. Adams had crossed to the continent when her husband returned to America, and she was still abroad. The Vice-President was installed on April 21, without much ceremony.
One week was consumed by Charles Thomson, the other messenger from Congress, in traversing the April highways to Mount Vernon. Two days after his arrival the President-elect was ready to start for New York. He seemed to have a premonition of coming troubles. To his old war friend, Knox, he wrote, " My move ments to the chair of state will be accompanied by feel ings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution ; so unwilling am I, in the even ing of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an ocean of difficulties." In his jour nal, under Thursday, April 16, he wrote, "About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and domestic felicity, and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words
1 Jay was still Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the old Continental Congress. His wife was the celebrated Sarah Van Brugh Livingston, eldest daughter of William Livingston, of New Jersey.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
189
to express, set out for New York in company with Mr Thompson and Col° Humphreys."
As he rode away from the crescent-shaped front of his home, he waved a farewell to Mrs. Washington, who was unable to endure the horseback journey to New York and was debarred from any other means of con veyance by the condition of the roads at that season of the year. As he neared the boundary of his plantation, he found his slaves assembled to bid him farewell.
AN OLD VIEW OF MOUNT VERNON *
When he reached Alexandria, his old friends met him and escorted him by the ferry to Georgetown, and dined with him at Wise's tavern. The citizens of that village presented him with an address as their Fabius who, in the evening of his days, bids farewell to his peaceful retreat in order to save his country once more from
1 This sketch in the Library of Congress, Washington, is marked "Taken Aug. 7, 1798, by Geo. I. Parkyns, Esq." It shows the land approach, which was really the front of the house.
190 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
confusion and anarchy. A body of citizens escorted him to Spurrier's tavern, where he was met by a Balti more corps. Greeted by a discharge of artillery, he entered that city the following afternoon, and stopped at Grant's Fountain Inn, where a committee of citizens waited upon him at six o'clock with an address. Hav ing arrived too late for a public dinner, he ate supper with the gentlemen and retired about ten o'clock.1
At half-past five the following morning he rode out of Baltimore escorted by some citizens, who turned back, after seven miles, upon his solicitation. The next morn ing (Sunday) he reached Wilmington, and rested until Monday, when he was waited upon by the corporation and many inhabitants to present to him an address. Before high noon he had reached Gray's Ferry across the Schuylkill, really the entrance to Philadelphia, and found awaiting him President MifBin, of the state of Pennsylvania, Governor St. Clair, of the Northwest Territory, Speaker Richard Peters, of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and other officials. The hand railing on each side of the bridge had been dressed with laurels inter woven with cedar. A triumphal arch twenty feet high, surmounted by a liberty cap, a rattlesnake flag, and eleven colors, adorned each end. On the west arch was hung a crown of laurel, with a line running to the river bank by which a boy was to allow the crown to descend on the head of the hero as he rode beneath.2
1 William Spohn Baker, of Philadelphia, has left a monument to his industry in collecting incidents concerning Washington. Some of the quotations in this chapter are to be found in his " Itinerary of General Washington" and "Washington after the Revolution." Many of them may he found in Sparks's " Life and Writings of Washington."
2 The Massachusetts Magazine, September, 1792. The illustration on the opposite page is from the same source.
192 THE MEN IV HO MADE THE NATION
As Washington rode through the streets of Philadel phia to the magnificent home of his friend, Robert Morris, continued cheering greeted him. No one could remember having seen so many people on the streets. At three o'clock he sat down to a dinner of 250 covers at the City tavern, where a discharge of artillery greeted every toast. The following morning he accepted numer ous addresses and then departed for Trenton, where he found a troop of horse and a company of infantry, "compleatly equipped and in full uniform," drawn up on the Jersey bank of the Delaware. When the procession arrived at the bridge over Assanpink creek, rendered memorable by the battle of Trenton, it passed under a triumphal arch about twenty feet wide, and supported by thirteen columns. The whole was decorated with laurel, running vines, and a variety of evergreens. On the front of the arch was inscribed, " The Defender of the Mothers will also Protect the Daughters." Above were the dates of the battles of Trenton and Princeton. On the summit was a dome in the shape of a sunflower always pointing to the sun, as emblematic of the hopes of the people in Washington.
" A numerous train of ladies, leading their daughters, were assembled at the arch, thus to thank their Defender and Protector. As the General passed under the arch, he was addressed in the following SONATA, composed and set to music for the occasion, by a number of young ladies dressed in white, decked with wreaths and chap- lets of flowers, and holding in their hands baskets filled with flowers :
"WELCOME, mighty Chief! once more, Welcome to this grateful shore :
194 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Now no mercenary foe Aims again the fatal blow — Aims at thee the fatal blow.
" Virgins fair, and iMatrons grave, Those thy conquering arms did save, Build for thee triumphal bowers. Strew, ye fair, his way with flowers — Strew your Heroes way with flowers" l
Lodging with President Witherspoon at Princeton College, Washington reached New Brunswick under escort on Wednesday, lodged at Woodbridge, and on Thursday morning at nine rode into Elizabethtown. Here he was met and joined by the committee of Con gress 2 and several state officials from New York. Pro ceeding to the Point on Newark bay, he found a barge prepared for him, rowed by thirteen skilful pilots. Crossing the bay and passing through the Kill von Kull, the barge came upon New York bay, to find it alive with small vessels gayly dressed, which fell into line behind the official boat. A barge appeared, bearing General Knox and other generals. At Bedloe's island a large sloop came up with full sail, in which twenty men and women sang an ode to the tune of " God save the King." Other odes were sung from other boats and copies handed to the guest of honor. A Spanish packet dis closed the colors of all nations and gave thirteen guns, with her yards manned.
The shores of New York from the fort to Murray's
1 From the Gazette of the United States, April 29, 1789. The illus tration on the preceding page is from the Columbian Magazine, May, 1789.
- An excellent description of the reception of the first President in New York, written by one of these officials, may be found in "The Life of Elias Boudinot," Vol. II., p. 41.
GEORGE WASHINGTON 195
wharf were filled with people, " heads standing as thick as ears of corn before the harvest." From the fort a battery of eighteen-pounders thundered. At the landing place, the stairs leading up from the ferry were covered with carpet and the railing with crimson. At the head stood Governor Clinton, of New York State, with staff and military. Near at hand the old Revolu tionary soldiers were drawn up. Through this vast crowd, Washington was escorted to the Osgood or Walter Franklin house,1 which had been selected by the committee for his temporary residence. In the after noon there was a dinner at Governor Clinton's and in the evening, despite the rain, a general illumination of the city.
During the week in which Washington recovered from the fatigues of the journey, with no ceremonies -\save being waited upon by the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Chamber of Commerce, the finishing touches were put on Federal Hall, and the city became so filled with strangers that both public and private accommodations were exhausted, and tents were erected on the Bowling Green.
Thursday, the 3Oth day of April, was fair, and the services held in the different churches at nine o'clock were well attended. About noon, a procession was formed composed of a troop of horse, artillery, grena diers, German grenadiers, the infantry of the brigade, the sheriff, the committee of the Senate, the President-elect and suite, the committee of the House, General Knox, Chancellor Livingston, of the state of New York, and a multitude of citizens. As the procession neared the new
1 This house stood near what is now Franklin square.
196 THE MEN IV HO MADE THE NATION
Federal Hall, coming from the Franklin house, the mili tary companies opened ranks and allowed Washington and the civic contingent to pass into the building and up stairs into the Senate Chamber, where he was formally presented to both houses of Congress. Immediately afterward, accompanied by the committees, he stepped out into the little balcony overlooking the street below.
FEDERAL HALL, NEW YORK CITY :
Chancellor Livingston administered to him the simple oath prescribed in the Constitution, while Secretary Charles Otis, of the Senate, held a Bible on a red plush cushion. It had been rather hastily brought from a Masonic lodge near by. As Washington raised the book to his lips, the chancellor waved his hand to the
1 From an engraving in the New York Historical Society's rooms.
GEORGE WASHINGTON 197
multitude below and cried, " Long live George Washing ton, President of these United States." To the repeated shouts, the President bowed, while the artillery made the building reecho with its salute.
Retiring within the Senate chamber, the President read his inaugural address, which would constitute about a column in a modern newspaper. It declared a conviction of his lack of qualification for the high office, but promised his best efforts and begged for cooperation and harmony. One of the senators in a critical way wrote in his journal: " The great man was agitated and embarrassed more than ever he was by the levelled cannon or pointed musket. He trembled and several times could scarce make out to read, though it must be supposed he had often read it before. . . . He was dressed in deep brown, with metal buttons, with an eagle on them, white stockings, a bag, and sword."1
Since Trinity had not yet been rebuilt after the " great fire " of 1776, the entire official body next marched out to St. Paul's Chapel, where service was performed by Bishop Provost. The President was then escorted to the Franklin house. In the evening, the streets were so crowded with citizens to see the fireworks and trans parent paintings at the Battery that the presidential party was obliged to abandon the carriages, which brought it down town, and to walk home on foot. The inauguration ceremonies were now closed, and the Pres ident was free to adjust his time to his public and his private life and to take up matters of state with Con gress. In the absence of all precedent it is remarkable
1 William Maclay's " Journal " has been printed several times. He was from Pennsylvania, and later became opposed to the administration.
198 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
that the complicated machinery of the new government should be started with so little friction.
The adjustment of minor matters caused more annoy ance than weighty affairs. Following English example, the Senate was referred to as the " upper house,"1 and since it sustained an advisory relation with the Presi dent in treaties and appointments, it assumed an air of superiority. It excluded visitors from its debates, refused to publish its proceedings, and ordered the House when it had passed a measure to send it up by its chief clerk with numerous obeisances. The more dem ocratic House declared that if its chief clerk were required to take a measure to the Senate, then no meas ure would be received from that body save at the hand of its secretary. While this very momentous question was under discussion, a bill passed one branch and was sent to the other by a messenger, thus establishing a custom which has held to this day. The first measure to pass both houses and to become a law by the Presi dent's signature determined the form of oath which each officer of the government was required by the Constitu tion to take. It passed almost two months after Con gress began.
There had been a president or chairman of the old Continental Congress; there never had been a Presi dent of the United States. What t'itle could be invented worthy of the dignity of his position and yet consistent with a free government ? At one time the Senate had practically decided upon " His High Mightiness the
1 Since the Senate occupied a room in the second story of the tem porary capitol, both in New York and Philadelphia, some wag has sug gested this fact as a derivation of the term " upper house."
GEORGE WASHINGTON- 199
President of these United States and the Protector of its Liberties " ; but while the debates were going on, the President arrived and was addressed as " Mr. President," and thus the matter was settled.1
Madison introduced a bill to put a tax on foreign goods coming into the country, such as wines, tea, coffee, and sugar, by which some money would be put into the needy treasury. He preferred this as a more indirect tax than an excise which Congress could also levy. The manufacturers of Baltimore had already sent in a list of various articles made in that city with an appeal for " that relief which, in your wisdom, may appear proper." Private interests were thus early at the door clamoring for legislation. The merchants and manufacturers of New York followed with a similar petition. Then came the shipbuilders of Philadelphia asking a discriminating tonnage for home-built vessels. The blacksmiths, tailors, and other workmen of Boston petitioned for the free entry of raw materials and the protection of home manufacture by such an impost as would exclude importations of these goods.2 The mem bers rapidly took sides with the interests they repre sented and soon both houses were engaged in contests over duties on fish, hemp, salt, iron, nails, paper, coal, etc. So rapidly did this revenue measure assume a protec-
1 This apparently important question caused much discussion in the newspapers. One stanza ran :
" Fame stretched her wings and with the trumpet blew, 'Great Washington is near; what praise is due? What title shall he have?' She paused, and said: 'Not one. His name alone strikes every title dead.' "
2 These petitions may be found in the " American State Papers. Finance," Vol. I.
200 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION"
tive aspect that the title of the completed bill reads, " An act for the encouragement and protection of man ufactures." In addition to this revenue measure, this extra session of the new Congress passed laws estab lishing the Departments of State, War, and Treasury, organized the revenue service, and proposed twelve amendments to the Constitution, ten of which were eventually ratified by the required three-fourths of the states. It was six months in session and passed twenty- seven acts and five joint resolutions.
The President took no part in the initiation of these legislative measures. He rode down frequently to the Federal Hall, being announced by the doorkeeper when he appeared at either house, and sitting in the seat of the presiding officer temporarily vacated for him. The relation of the executive to the legislative branch of the government was being determined day by day. One day the President appeared in the Senate with Knox, Secretary of War, to talk over an Indian treaty, but the whole matter was referred to a com mittee. The President started up and exclaimed, "This defeats every purpose of my coming here," and soon after withdrew. The relations of the two branches were not to be patterned after Great Britain.
Precedents were forming for the social as well as the official life of the new chief magistrate. Tuesday after noon of each week, from three to four o'clock, calls of courtesy would be received, and on Friday evenings a kind of social levee would be held. On Thursdays state dinners were to be given. The President, it was understood, was not bound to return calls. With these stated functions and the special occasions, the first days
GEORGE WASHINGTON 2OI
of the President in New York were busy ones. He attended the commencement exercises of Columbia Col lege ; the ball of the Dancing Assembly, where he danced with several ladies ; the theatre, where he saw the " School for Scandal" and a farce called " Old Soldier." Soon after, the French minister gave a ball at which the men in one set of cotillon dancers were dressed in the French uniform and those in another in the old continental blue and buff. The ladies wore ribbons of corresponding colors. An elaborate system of visits and addresses was carried on with each house of Congress. The new minister from the Netherlands presented his credentials.
After one month of this routine, Washington set off one Wednesday morning in a barge for Elizabethtown to meet Mrs. Washington. On her journey, she had lodged in Philadelphia with Mrs. Robert Morris and was now accompanied by that lady, whose husband was in New York as a senator from Pennsylvania. At Elizabethtown, the united company embarked on a barge, as Washington had done a month before, and was rowed by thirteen pilots in white uniforms across the bay to Peck's slip, where a crowd of people awaited a view of " Lady Washington." She was soon at home in the Franklin house. According to the newspapers, " the principal ladies of the city have, with the earliest attention and respect, paid their devoirs to the amiable consort of our beloved President, viz. the Lady of His Excellency the Governor, Lady Sterling, Lady Mary Watts, Lady Kitty Duer, La Marchioness de Brehan, the Ladies of the Most Hon. Mr. Langdon, and the Most Hon. Mr. Dalton, the Mayoress, Mrs. Livingston
202 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
of Clermont, Mrs. Chancellor Livingston, the Miss Liv ingstons, Lady Temple, Madam de la Forest, Mrs. Mont gomery, Mrs. Knox, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Gerry, Mrs. Edgar, Mrs. M'Comb, Mrs. Lynch, Mrs. Houston, Mrs. Griffin, Mrs. Provost, the Miss Bayards, and a great number of other respectable characters." 1
In a few days a dinner was given en famille to a few prominent officials, when a boiled leg of mutton was served according to Washington's custom of having but one dish. A glass of wine followed. On these occa sions the silver service was massive, being valued at thirty thousand dollars, but the menu was very simple. On a great occasion it included soup, fish roasted and boiled, meats, gammon, fowls, etc. For dessert, "apple- pies, puddings, etc. ; then iced creams, jellies, etc. ; then water-melon, musk-melons, apples, peaches, nuts." The middle of the table was garnished with small images and artificial flowers. On such occasions there was a heavy solemnity. After the cloth had been removed, the President filled his glass and drank the health by name of each one present. All imitated him. Then the ladies withdrew, and the men attempted some con versation. At one time the President kept a nut-pick when the cloth was taken away, but used it to drum on the edge of the table. Soon all went upstairs to drink coffee. Becoming President could not make a social star out of the reserved Washington.
As rapidly as Congress created the executive depart ments, the President called to their heads the most able men. Hamilton, his former aide, became the Secretary
1 In the growth of democracy in America, we have sloughed off much of this class tendency inherited from the old world. „
GEORGE WASHINGTON
203
of the Treasury ; Knox, who had been Secretary of War under the Articles of Confederation, was continued in that office. Randolph, of Virginia, was made Attor ney-general, and Osgood, of Massachusetts, Postmaster- general, although the latter office was not considered of cabinet rank for several years to come. Jay continued as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, until the following March, when Jefferson, recently returned from three years' ser vice as minister to France, became the Secretary of State, as the department was thenceforth called. Jay, who had been given a choice of any office by the President, asked to be made head of the Supreme Court when that body should be created.
After consulting his cabinet upon the propriety of making a journey into New England, " for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the country and determin ing the temper and disposition of the inhabitants toward the new government," the President set out about the middle of October, Hamilton, Knox, and Jay accom panying him a few miles out of the city. His party was composed of himself, one aide, Colonel Jackson, and Secretary Lear, together with six servants. He passed through various cities to Hartford, being received with many honors on the way. Thence he went by Worces ter to Cambridge, where he was met by the militia, given a salute from two land batteries and from the French squadron in the harbor, while the bells of Boston were rung. As he entered that city with Lieutenant-Gov- ernor Samuel Adams, he found the workingmen drawn up under appropriate banners to welcome him. In front of the State House was an arch across the street bear ing the inscription " To the Man who unites all hearts "
204 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
and "To Columbia's favorite son." Side panels com memorated the relief of Boston by Washington in 1776. Entering the State House and appearing upon a balcony supported by thirteen pillars, the President was greeted by a vast concourse of people in the street below. An ode was sung by a choir stationed on the arch, and the trades procession passed in review.1
John Hancock, governor of Massachusetts, had sent forward a messenger requesting Washington to dine with him, but now sent word that he was too ill to call on the guest. Washington was resolved to stand strictly on his dignity as President and therefore dined at his lodgings at the "Widow Ingersoll's, which is a very decent and good house." The following day being Sun day, the President, according to his custom on this jour ney, attended the Episcopal church in the morning and the Congregational church in the afternoon. Between the two meetings, Governor Hancock appeared with the statement that "he was still indisposed; but as it had been suggested that he expected to receive the visit from the President which he knew was improper, he had re solved at all haz'ds to pay his Compliments to-day." So ended probably the first contest between state rights and the federal Union.
Four days were spent in Boston in receiving and reply ing to addresses, visiting the French fleet, and in dining and receiving the public. The President next went through Salem and Newburyport to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He was surprised at the different recep tions to see so many ladies with black hair, "in greater
1 The illustration on the opposite page of the arch in front of the State House is taken from the Massachusetts Magazine, January, 1790.
206 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
proportion and blacker than are usually seen in the Southern states." In Portsmouth harbor he fished for cod and caught two. Turning back at Portsmouth, he visited Lexington battlefield, skirted Boston, and hurried through Connecticut, being welcomed at New York with a federal salute after an absence of four weeks. He had studiously avoided entering the state of Rhode Island because it had not yet come into the Union by ratifying the Constitution. When that action was taken the fol lowing summer, the President made a special tour of the state.1
The six weeks ensuing before the first of January were spent in receptions, attending the theatre and danc ing assemblies, sitting to painters and sculptors, and in routine executive business. The chief event was the first public Thanksgiving Day by order of the President's proclamation, at the request of Congress made before adjournment. The last Thursday in November was se lected, and the President attended services at St. Paul's, although the weather was stormy and the congregation small. New Year's Day brought a large official recep tion at the President's house. A week later the first regular session of the first Congress opened with a visit from the President. He rode down to the Federal Hall in his coach, preceded by Humphreys and Jackson of his staff upon white horses and in full uniform, and fol lowed by Secretaries Lear and Nelson in a chariot, and the members of his cabinet each in a carriage. There was a long ceremony of bowing and making addresses
1 No coercion was used toward Rhode Island, but it was understood that the relief from tonnage duties, which had been granted vessels of that st?te by Congress, woul.l not be continued much longer.
GEORGE WASHINGTON 2O/
and replies. In the evening the President received at home, clad in a new suit, the cloth and buttons for which he had ordered at Hartford on his eastern journey. Mem ories of the Revolutionary " associations " had not en tirely passed away. In February, the President's family left the Franklin house and occupied the Macomb house on Broadway below Trinity, much nearer to the Federal Hall. This was leased for one year. In March, the re built Trinity was ready for consecration. Washington and his family attended, sitting in the Presidential pew, which was richly ornamented and covered with a canopy.
By the middle of August, Congress was ready to adjourn, after a busy and profitable session. It had listened to the reports on the finances which it had ordered Secretary Hamilton to prepare, and had adopted his suggestion that all the debts of the states and of the Union be assumed and paid by the United States. In order to get the debts of the states included, Hamilton had made a bargain with Jefferson that the national capital should be located eventually on the banks of the Potomac, where every Virginian had long hoped it would be. The votes of the Pennsylvania members were necessary to get this agreement through Congress, and the leaders had to allow the capital to stop ten years in Philadelphia on its road south. This satisfied the lodg ing-house keepers of that city and gave them some chance of keeping the capital permanently.1
The New York people, who had spent so much money on the Federal Hall and had begun a fine President's
1 This struggle for the seat of government had continued for many years, and resembled closely a fight for spoils. Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Morristown, and Annapolis were considered at different times.
/*?!
UNIVERSITY
208 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
mansion, protested vigorously; but they had to abide by the decision, and prepared to bid farewell to the departing President, who would return to Philadelphia instead of New York for the next session. It was many years before the growing interests of the country demanded the permanent residence of the President at the seat of government between sessions of Congress.
According to the newspapers, Washington " took opportunity to express his great reluctance at leaving the city and those who had taken so much pains to treat him, not only with dignified respect, but with reverence and esteem, as the Father and Patron of the United States. Mrs. Washington also seemed hurt at the idea of bidding adieu to these hospitable shores." A proces sion composed of Governor Clinton and staff, the cabi net, Chief Justice Jay, the city corporation, clergy and citizens, escorted the President and Mrs. Washington to the wharf, where the lines opened and the distinguished couple passed through to a barge, rowed by thirteen men in white jackets and black caps, which soon landed them at Powles Hook (now Jersey City). The party also included the two grandchildren of Mrs. Washington, Major Jackson, Secretary Nelson, two maids, four white and four black servants, and sixteen horses. They remained four days in Philadelphia, Mrs. Washington being indisposed. The President dined with several companies and attended a Fete Chamfetre and banquet at Gray's pleasure gardens on the Schuylkill. At Balti more another reception awaited them, and at George town the Potomac company was assembled to consult with Washington about their work. The entire journey had been made in twelve days.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
209
Before the last of November, Washington was back in Philadelphia to attend the second session of the first Congress. The city, not to be outdone by New York, had provided him a large double house on Market street, owned by Robert Morris.1 Every Tuesday afternoon, a reception was held in the dining room, from which the chairs were re moved. The Presi dent was
" clad in black vel vet ; his hair in full
THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA
dress, powdered and gathered behind in a large silk bag ; yellow gloves on his hands ; holding a cocked hat with a cockade in it, and the edges adorned with a black feather about an inch deep. He wore knee and shoe buckles ; and a long sword with a wrought and polished steel hilt, which appeared at his left hip ; the coat worn over the sword, so that the hilt, and the part below the coat behind, were in view. The scabbard was of white polished leather. He stood always in front of the fireplace with his face towards the door of entrance. ... He received his visitors with a dignified bow, while his hands were so dis posed of as to indicate that the salutation was not to be accom panied with shaking hands. This ceremony never occurred in
i Philadelphia also began the erection of a permanent residence for the President with the hope of retaining the seat of government, ^The building, a cut of which is shown above, was never occupied by Wash ington, since the furnishing would probably be at his expense. It was afterward used by the University of Pennsylvania.
210 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
these visits, even with his most near friends, that no distinc tions might be made." 1
The doors were opened at three and were closed fif teen minutes later. The President then made a tour of the room, speaking personally to every guest. Return ing to his place, he was bidden adieu by each one, and the function was ended. The alarm of those who feared a monarchy was much increased by these receptions. A senator pronounced them "a feature.of royalty, certainly anti-republican. This certainly escapes nobody. The royalists glory in it as a point gained. The republicans are borne down by fashion and a fear of being charged with a want of respect to General Washington. If there is treason in the wish, I retract it, but would to God this same Washington were in heaven!"2 Thornton, later secretary of the British legation, described the President as affecting state and not a little flattered because the British minister always wore full dress in calling upon him. He also noted that he travelled in a " kingly " style. " On his last journey he foundered five horses, and I am informed that his secretaries are not admitted into his carriage, but stand with their horse's bridles in their hands till he is seated, and then mount and ride before his carriage." Another English visitor wrote home that " he has very few who are on terms of intimate and unreserved friendship ; and what is worse he is less beloved in his own State (Virginia) than in any part of the United States."
In truth, political parties were beginning to arise along this cleavage of the old aristocracy and the new democ-
1 From Sullivan's " Public Men of the Revolution," page 120.
2 Maclay, of Pennsylvania, in his "Journal."
GEORGE WASHINGTON 211
racy. The country was too new to institute issues, and therefore reflected the old-world struggle between aristocratic England and the new democratic France. Washington's descent from a Yorkshire great grand father, his environment as one of the wealthiest men in the United States, and his naturally reserved tempera ment would have arrayed him on the side of England, even if Hamilton, born in the British West Indies and a cool calculator of men, had not urged that side upon him. On the contrary, Jefferson, of Welsh descent, never financially prosperous, a philosopher who believed in the innate goodness of man and had hopes for his future, would have been on the side of France even if he had not caught the fever of the Revolution while serving as minister to that country. Thus political parties, bound to arise among thinking men, found leaders in the Presi dent's cabinet, through the antipodal natures of two men. Washington, unwilling to engage the young re public in another war, issued a proclamation of neu trality between the warring England and France, and the storm broke forth. He was accused of ingratitude to the country which had aided America in the Revolu tionary struggle ; of yielding to the influence of the British monarchy ; of assuming by royal edict the power of declaring war or peace which' belonged to Congress. He restrained his Virginia temper under these vicious attacks from the French sympathizing papers of Philadelphia, but to Henry Lee he wrote : "For the result, as it respects myself, I care not; for I have a consolation within no earthly efforts can deprive me of, and that is that neither ambitious nor interested motives have influenced my conduct. The arrows of
212 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well-pointed, can never reach the most vulnerable part of me ; though, whilst I am up as a mark, they will be continually aimed."
It was too late to think of withdrawing, for, yielding to the manifestations of approval of the people in a southern trip which extended as far as Georgia, and supported by the unanimous opinion of his cabinet, Washington had accepted a second term and had again received every electoral vote. His enforced restraint of the French minister to America, " Citizen" Genet, brought out a scurrilous broadside called the funeral of King Washington, where the President was pictured on a guillotine. Jefferson said that at a subsequent' cabinet meeting where this cartoon was very injudiciously intro duced by the Secretary of War, the President got into a passion and declared " that he had never repented but once having taken a second term and that was every moment since ; that he had rather be in his grave than in his present position ; that he had rather be on his farm than to made Emperor of the world ; and yet they were charging him with wanting to be a King."
In 1795 Jay, who had been appointed special envoy to England, brought back a treaty with that country, which furnished to the French sympathizers a further proof of what they called the English bias of the aristo cratic President. They declared that he had been cap tured by British gold ; that he was a hired employee of the king of England ; and pictured the oblivion which awaited him and his confidential adviser, Hamilton. " Along with the awful sentence of execration which awaits that ambitious Catiline, who has been the princi-
GEORGE WASHINGTON'
213
pal adviser and chief promoter of all your measures, the name of Washington will descend with him to oblivion." " Stript of the mantle of infallibility . . . you will ap pear before them a frail mortal, whose passions and weaknesses are like those of other men. Your voice may have been heard when it called to virtue and glory, but it will be lost in the tempest of popular fury when ever it shall speak the language of lawless ambition."
When the President was at the capital, Philadelphia, the opposition papers compared him with Caesar Augus tus, Cromwell, George III., Louis XVI., Lafayette, the Duke of Richmond, and Lord North ; when he made a temporary visit to Mount Vernon they sneered that "We, the people, are now on a tour with the Constitution."
Suspicion attended the regular celebration of the President's birthday by artillery salutes, parades, and
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calls, with a ball in the evening by the Dancing Assem bly. Many thought the ceremonials attending the open ing and closing of sessions of Congress, which were borrowed from England, too aristocratic for a republic.
214 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Others criticised the President for attending the South- wark theatre or Rickett's circus, especially since " The President's March " had been composed to be played on such occasions, and the audience was likely to applaud as the President and suite entered his decorated box.
Much of the President's official and even private life was borrowed from Europe or from the royal colonial governors. It was offensive only to those persons who mistook the American political Revolution for a social revolution. There was never any attempt to level social distinctions nor any promise to secure social happiness.
As the days went quietly by and the people returned to public order and a proper recognition of their civic duties, the avenues of trade were opened, commercial friction ceased under national control, and for the first time Fortune smiled on the young nation. Its first President had successfully avoided being drawn into the foreign wars and had established for the United States that unique position she was to occupy for almost one hundred years — a neutral nation. When the presiden tial machinery had been successfully tried a third time, it quieted the voices of those who feared a return to monarchy. The assured success of the new Constitu tion may be dated from this time. A permanent form of Union had been created ; it had begun through its chief representative to gain the affections of the people ; it had yet to gain sufficient power from its creators and its later rivals — the states.
Nevertheless, political abuse followed Washington to the end of his administration. Having clearly demon strated to the people in a " Farewell Address " his
GEORGE WASHINGTON 21$
determination to retire, and satisfied with the election of Vice-President John Adams as his successor, he received numerous addresses during the closing days, and gave a farewell dinner at which he brought tears to many eyes by drinking for the last time as a public man the health of his guests. On Saturday, March 4, 1797, he attended the hall of the House of Representatives on the corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets, to see his suc cessor take the oath of office. When the crowd dis persed, so many followed the ex-President that the new President seemed by contrast to walk home unattended.
Some who thus accompanied him may have wished to rebuke an editorial in the Philadelphia Aurora of that day beginning, " Lord, now lettest thou thy ser vant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salva tion." It suggested the appropriateness of this text because " the man who is the source of all the misfor tunes of our country is this day reduced to a level with his fellow-citizens." "When a retrospect is taken of the WASHINGTON administration for eight years, it is the subject of the greatest astonishment that a single indi vidual should have cankered the principles of republi canism in an enlightened people just emerged from the gulph of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the public safety so far, as to put in jeopardy its very existence."
In the New York Minerva, Noah Webster insisted that the writer of that article could not pass through the eastern states without at least one coat of tar and feath ers ; and one impetuous defender of the President pub licly whipped the editor for printing the libel. A few weeks later, far removed from such abuse, the serene
2l6 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Washington could write from Mount Vernon, " To make and sell a little flour annually, to repair houses (going
fast to ruin), to never want Biographers, Eulogists 0
Hifcorians.
United States, ) Dec. 22, 1799. f
JOHN" ADAMS.
WASHINGTON ENTOMBED. George Town, Dec. 20.
On Wednesday- laft, the mortal part of WASHINGTON the Great— the FatheH of his Country and the Friend of man, w; configned to the tomb, with solemn honor and funeral pomp.
A multitude of persons affembled, from] many miles round, at Mount Vernon, tin choice abode and laft residence of the il< luftrious chief. There were the groves- the spacious avenues, the beautiful an< sublime scenes, the noble manfion— 'but alas! the auguft inhabitant was now no] more. That great, soul .was gone. Hi mortal part was there indeed ; but ah ! lr,>\\
build one for the security of my papers of a public nature, and to amuse myself in agri- cult u ral arid rural pursuits, will constitute employment for the few years I have to remain on this terrestial globe."
In writing these lines, Washington lit
tle thought that two years more would bring that fatal ride in the cold rain, the sad result of which stirred to its depths the national heart which he had done so much to create. Appropriate exercises were held in the chief cities and in many villages. According to custom, a funeral cor tege passed through the streets in Philadelphia1 and New York, although the remains of the first President were laid away within the grounds of his Mount Vernon.
1 The illustration of the funeral procession is from Janson's " Stranger in America." The newspaper clipping is from the Ulster County, N.Y., Gazette.
CHAPTER VII
THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE EXPONENT OF DEMOCRACY
"They [the pieces written by Hampden] contain the true principles of the revolution of 1800, for that was as real a revo lution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form ; not effected indeed by the sword as that, but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people." — JEFFERSON TO JUDGE SPENCER ROAN, 1819.
IT is impossible to say when the conviction that a conflict must ensue between the state and general gov ernments first became fixed. During the contest be tween the large and the small states in the Philadelphia Convention, a few delegates held " private meetings to protect and preserve, if possible, the existence and essential rights of all the states and the liberty and freedom of their citizens." In the New York state convention, Hamilton pronounced such an idea chi merical, but Lansing replied : " I am, however, per suaded that an hostility will exist between them. This was a received opinion in the late convention at Phila delphia." In the Virginia state convention, Patrick Henry predicted the overthrow of state supremacy be cause the new Constitution destroyed the Confederacy. The attorney-general of Massachusetts found a danger ous intention in " the consolidation of the Union," as advocated in the letter of the Philadelphia Convention,
218
THOMAS JEFFERSON
210
which accompanied the finished document to the Congress.
Several of the states, in ratifying the Constitution, had expressly confined the central agency to the pow ers given it in that agree ment and had reserved the right to withdraw from the Union if the central government should exceed that authority. How ne cessity gradually made impossible the latter pro vision is to be told in the later pages. The former stipulation was impossible from the first. The grow ing oak cannot be bound by bands covering it from base to crown.
Perhaps the first depar ture from a rigid observ ance of the powers actually given it, was when the United States created a bank as advocated by Hamilton. Search as one would, the word " bank " did not appear in the Con stitution. Hence the sum-
I
220 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
ming up or concluding provision "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers " was declared elastic enough to cover the bank. It has done service many times since, and the actions under it sanctioned as " implied " powers in contradistinction to the expressed powers.
The masses were not interested in the bank question, but a subsequent action of the central government affecting citizenship attracted more attention, arrayed thinking men, and clearly defined the attitude of parties on this subject. Certain of the editors who attacked the administration as described in the preceding chap ter were men who had recently come from foreign countries.1 Goaded by their assaults, the Federalists in 1798 raised the period of residence required for citizen ship to fourteen years, gave power to President Adams to banish dangerous aliens, and provided fine and im prisonment for any one writing or printing " any false scandalous and malicious writings " upon the govern ment or its higher officers. The Constitution had left the question of citizenship to the states. Here was plainly an infringement on their rights. Where could an agency be found to protect the citizens of the states against these assaults of the Union ? Later, Jefferson said: "The leading republicans2 in Congress found themselves of no use there, browbeaten as they were by
1 Party spirit, just arising, produced an encounter in the House of Representatives, an old cartoon of which is shown herewith.
2 Those who opposed the Federalist or aristocratic centralizing party were called Republicans by their great leader, Jefferson. He objected to using the word " Democratic," borrowed from the Democratic clubs of France. Some modern writers call the party the Democratic-Republican.
222 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
a bold overwhelming majority. They concluded to re tire from that field, take a stand in their state legisla tures, and endeavor there to arrest their progress. The Alien and Sedition laws furnished the particular occa sion." Securing the cooperation of Madison, Jefferson ar ranged to have the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky protest against this assumption of power and violation of the contract between the states and the Union.1
Regardless of these legislative protests and of the petitions which poured into the ensuing Congress for the repeal of these acts, the Federalists in the rage for war with France raised the regular army to thirteen thousand men2 and prepared further to develop "the rising navy of America." It was planned to add six frigates, twelve sloops, and six small vessels to the Con stellation, the Constitution, the President, and the United States, and to raise the marine corps to nine hundred. President Adams was authorized to buy private vessels or those built by subscriptions. For
1 Since the legislatures of the states voiced the sentiments of the people, it was customary for them to send memorials to Congress. Jefferson framed the protest adopted by Kentucky, and Madison that by Virginia. They declared that the Union was a compact created by the states without a central judge, and each party must be its own judge; that in the Alien and Sedition acts the Union had surpassed its powers, and that the states were in duty bound to interpose. The following year (1799), the Kentucky legislature went much farther, and declared the right of the state to make null and void any unconstitutional act of the Union. Only a few states responded to these appeals, and these generally unfavorably.
'2 Washington, who was called to the head of the provisional army, was hailed in a ballad of the day :
" But hark ! the invading f >e alarms,
Responsive cannons rattle;
And Washington again in arms
Directs the storm of battle."
THOMAS JEFFERS
these unusual expenditures, he was permitted to borrow five million dollars, two millions of which were to be repaid from the proceeds of a direct tax levied on land, dwellings, and slaves.
The war spirit aroused by the treatment of the American envoys in France1 seemed to sustain these expenditures. " Millions for defence, not one cent for tribute" furnished enough sentiment; but when the practical payment of the taxes began, opposition was manifest among the common people. One more score was laid up against the aristocrats who had always been opposed to France. To Jefferson the protests of the people were an assurance that no set of men would ever be allowed to turn the government under the Constitu tion far from its real intent without incurring their dis pleasure and a removal from power. To an old friend he wrote: "The Spirit of 1776 is not dead. It is only slumbering. The body of the American people is sub stantially republican." 2 He tried to rally public senti ment by gentle means. He sent pamphlets containing criticisms on the Federalist measures to his friends to distribute, but not to "sound men." "It is the sick who need the medicine, and not the well. Do not let my name appear in the matter." He was Vice-President at this time. The lawyers in North Carolina he called
1 Marshall, Pinckney, and Gerry had been sent over to adjust the claims of the United States merchants because of French depredations on our commerce, and to secure a cessation of the practice. The hints they received that a gift must precede negotiations were made public when they published their correspondence, with the substitution of the letters X, Y, and Z for the names of the writers. A sudden rage against France followed.
2 The quotations from Jefferson in this chapter are taken from Ford's "Jefferson's Works," in ten volumes.
224 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
"Tories." Therefore, "The medicine for that state must be mild & secretly administered." He had prophesied, " If we can keep quiet, therefore, the tide now turning will take a steady & proper direction." In 1799, he could say of New York, "The public opinion in this state is rapidly coming round" and "a wonderful and rapid change is taking place in Penn sylvania, Jersey, & N. York. Congress is daily plied with petitions against the alien & sedition laws & standing armies."
As the election of 1800 came on, and the Federalists pushed through their final place-making scheme of form ing a set of circuit courts, Jefferson wrote to a corre spondent that perhaps modesty ought to forbid him saying anything on the election question ; and that his private gratifications would be served by being left at home. " If anything supersedes this propensity, it is merely the desire to see this government brought -back to its republican principles." When a sufficient number of electors had been chosen to insure the defeat of President Adams and the Federalists, Jefferson looked upon it not as a personal victory, nor yet as a victory for a party, but as the revolt of the people, the return to first principles, and the rescue of the country. In ask ing Livingston to accept a cabinet position, he said : " Come forward then, my dear Sir, and give us the aid of your talents & the weight of your character towards the new establishment of republicanism : I say its new establishment ; for hitherto we have only seen it's travestie."
This cabinet making received a rude shock, as the completion of the choice of electors drew near, by the
THOMAS JEFFERSON 2 2 5
fear that there would be no election. According to the Constitution, each elector placed two names upon his ballot, and the name receiving the highest number was to be President and the next Vice-President. Seventy-three electors had written " Thomas Jefferson " and " Aaron Burr " on their ballots. Sixty-five had written "John Adams " and sixty-four of these had also written " Charles Pinckney." Being tied, neither Jeffer son nor Burr was elected President. The framers of the Constitution, although perhaps not foreseeing this very contingency, had provided for a possible hitch in the electoral machinery by sending contested elections to the House of Representatives for settlement.1 When some of the Federalist members, after thirty-five bal lots cast during the week, came over and voted for Jefferson against Burr, thus making him President, he saw in the action " a declaration of war on the part of this band." But he thought the patriotic part of the Federalists had been separated from their quondam leaders and were now "in a state of mind to be con solidated with us if no intemperate measures on our part revolt them again." " If we can once more get social intercourse restored to it's pristine harmony, I shall believe we have not lived in vain."
Jefferson was right in believing that a revolt of the people against ill-advised legislation had placed him in the presidential chair. It was the first political revolu tion ; the first revolt of the lower social orders against the upper ; of the governed against the governing class ; of the " plain people" against the "well-born." It is true that Jefferson was a college-bred man and a large
1 According to the Constitution, Art. II., Sec. I., 3.
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THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
SOLEMN ADDRESS.
T O
CHRISTIANS & PATRIOTS,
UPON THE
APPROACHING ELECTION
Prefident of the United States:
IN ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET, ENTITLED,
Serious Confederations," &c.
NEW-YORK ;
PRINTED BY DAVID DENNISTON. 1800.
CAMPAIGN DOCUMENT OF 1800
land-holder ; that the democracy which supported him contained many of the aristocratic tendency ; but it was as nearly a democracy as the limited suffrage and „._ . the small emi gration from Europe had made possible up to that time. However, Jef ferson was mis led in thinking that the entire people had de serted their leaders and parties were at an end. In deed, could he have journeyed into New Eng land, the home of Federalism, he would have found great alarm over his election.
The Feder alists1 had
printed pamphlet after pamphlet before the election,
1 One of these pamphlets bore the title, " Serious Considerations on the Election of a President." Another, "The Voice of Warning to Christians on the Ensuing Election of a President of the United States."
THOMAS JEFFERSON 227
-pointing out that in his writings Jefferson had declared that the mountains were formed first, and the rivers had then burst through them ; whereas, the Scriptures said clearly that the waters had been gathered in one place, and the dry land had appeared. They also quoted his doubts about the Deluge, since all the atmospheric waters would cover the earth only to a depth of fifty- two feet, and his saying that black men must have always been black and could not have been created in the image of God. He also had cast discredit on mis sionary effort by saying that it did him no injury for his neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no gods ; that it neither broke his leg nor picked his pocket. Once when approached for a contribution, he had said that a broken church building was good enough for Him that was born in a manger. At another time he had par taken of a public dinner on Sunday.
Notwithstanding these warnings, the foolish people had made him their President. They would have for their ruler a man who believed that the only chosen people on earth were those who labored in the earth ; a philosopher who had invented a whirligig chair; a scientist who had written a foolish account of a monster which he called a mammoth ; a man of whom a for eigner truly said that a good mechanical genius had been spoiled by making a Vice-President. The well- balanced administrations of Washington and Adams were to be exchanged for what would be a series of experiments under this " philosopher." His theories of government were well suited, it was declared, for some island savages, but not for civilized people. Rumors were not lacking that he would declare in his inaugural
228 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
address a confiscation of property according to the ex ample of his admired French Revolutionists. The memory of confiscated Tory estates was too recent in America to brand such rumors as idle tales.
President Adams, cut off with one term, explained his defeat by saying that "a group of foreign liars, encouraged by a few ambitious native gentlemen, have discomfited the education, the talents, the virtues, and the property of the country." A Connecticut news paper deplored the rise of democracy : " The Rulers are Servants of the People, is one of the favorite cant ing doctrines of modern times. The true source of much mischief in the world — it is putting those into power who ought to be in servitude. ' Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride to the Devil ' says the prov erb."
Nor did the " well-born " Federalists refrain from mocking the new rulers. When a poet of the people wrote new words to the Federalist "Adams and Lib erty " song containing such lines as,
" Let all true Americans join heart and hand And witness this day their heart-felt satisfaction,"
a shout of ridicule went up from the Federalist critics. In derision they composed a new " Liberty song" for these yearners after liberty and reason, whose poets played havoc with metre and rhyme :
" Liberty's friends thus all learn to amalgamate, Freedom's volcanic explosion prepares itself; Despots shall bow to the fasces of Liberty, Reason and Philosophy, 'fiddledum, diddledurn.1 Peace and Fraternity, higgledy, piggledy, Higgledy, piggledy, < fiddledum, diddledum.' "
THOMAS JEFFERSON 229
Under such circumstances, the inauguration and es pecially the inaugural address were awaited with no little anxiety. The new city of Washington, buried in the woods, afforded little opportunity for ceremonies, yet sufficient for the new President, who wished to de monstrate to the people by contrast how far republican simplicity had been changed into aristocratic ostentation. Four years before he had insisted that the news of his election as Vice-President should not be carried to him by gentlemen of distinction, but "indorsed to the post master at Charlottesville " to be delivered at Monticello.
" In addition to its usual populace," according to the newspapers, the " city " of Washington on the 4th of March, 1801, contained "a large body of citizens from adjacent districts." The Washington artillery ushered in the clay with a salute. " At ten o'clock the Alex andria company of infantry, attended by the artillery, paraded in front of the President's lodgings." At eleven o'clock, Burr took the oath as Vice-President before the assembled Senate. Soon after the President-elect, "at tended by a number of his fellow-citizens, among whom were many members of Congress, repaired to the capitol. His dress was, as usual, that of a plain citizen without any distinctive badge of office." There was a discharge of artillery as he entered the building and another as he left it. Having entered the Senate chamber, Burr arose, and Jefferson occupied his seat. " After a few moments of silence," Jefferson arose and read his inau gural address. Reseating himself for " a short period," he then walked to the secretary's desk and took the oath of office. At night there was a " pretty general illumination."
230 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Compared with the inaugurations of Washington and Adams, these exercises were simple ; but they occurred under different environment. The woods surrounding the new capital did not offer as much possibility for display as did New York or Philadelphia. The story, widely circulated at the time, that Jefferson rode unat tended to the capital and tied his horse to a tree near the spring was based to some extent on this contrast, but to a greater degree upon the desire to magnify democratic simplicity. The growth of party comity and the subsidence of partisan alarm is illustrated by comparing this inauguration with those of later times, when the incoming and outgoing presidents, although party enemies, occupy the same carnage in the pro cession. President Adams, with one term to two of Washington, could not endure the ordeal and left the capital at four o'clock on the inauguration morning, having sent Mrs. Adams on a few days before.
The death of a son a few weeks before, and a scurril ous letter written by an enemy on the last day of his administration, combined to make his farewell to official life most unpleasant to remember. Having " trotted the Bogs," to use his own expression, five hundred miles in fourteen days, he reached his home and became "the farmer of Stony field." 1
The inaugural address gave much comfort to the Federalists ; it gave little hope to the extreme Republi cans. Instead of declaring a proscription of property, it insisted that the will of the majority must prevail, but must be rightful and reasonable, and that the minority should possess their equal rights which the laws must
1 "The Works of John Adams," Vol. XL, p. 364.
\
THOMAS JEFFERSON
231
SPEECH
OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
DELIVERED AT UlS INSTALMENT,
MAICH 4, l80I,
AT THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.
-WITH TRANSLATIONS INTO THE FRENCH, ITALIAN, AND GERMAN TONGUES.
protect, and to violate which would be oppression. Where some thought that he would avow enmity to the existing government, he said, " I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest gov ernment on earth." In stead of declar ing attainder of treason upon his political op- ponents, he said: ''We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Repub licans; we are all Federal ists." It was said in a Fed eralist paper that some rabid Republicans, who had cut the legs from their boots in imitation of the style " coming over the ankle " as Jefferson wore them, were so disgusted with such peaceful and forgiving doctrine that they repaired to the outer portion of the capitol grounds and stitched
PARIS, PRINTED AT THE ENGLISH PRESS.
TITLE-PAGE OF JEFFERSON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS
232 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
the legs on again. A Massachusetts paper pronounced the address ''pertinent, judicious, and conciliatory."
The conciliatory spirit in which Jefferson entered upon his duties was the reflection of his high ideal of the presidency. He was to be the father of his people, anticipating their wants, careful of their rights, swaying them by love instead of force. The word "coercion" was to be stricken from the national vocabulary. But very early in his administration he was to learn that a President in fact is quite otherwise from a President in theory; that a part of the people as well as their leaders would remain in opposition to the administration. At first he wrote : " With the people I have hopes of effecting it \_i.e. harmony]. But their Coryphaei are incurables. I expect little from them." Presently he noted " Hamiltonians, Essex-men and Revolutionary tories, etc.," who should have "tolerance but neither confidence nor power."
Harmony could never be brought to the government with these opposing Federalists in possession of its offices. This thought grew upon Jefferson as the demand of his people for the positions of these aristo crats increased to a clamor. The Federalist newspapers added to the fury by pointing out how President Adams "had taken pains to leave the several departments in the hands of men of the most distinguished talents and unquestionable patriotism." In completing this good work he "continued filling all the offices till nine o'clock of the night at twelve of which he was to go out of office himself," as Jefferson complained. But this partisan arrangement was not necessarily fixed; it could be reme died by the President removing the appointees. It was
THOMAS JEFFERSON 233
the first time this question had arisen. The leading Republican papers did not. doubt the right of displacing these aristocrats. " To retain such men in trust under such appointments would be political suicide, and the new administration would MERIT every affliction which could not but result from a sufferance of evil."
When Jefferson had brought himself gradually to entering upon the "painful operation" of substituting at least one-half Republicans for Federalists,1 the latter began to alter the soft words which the inaugural address had called out. Newspapers printed lists of removals under the head, " We are all Republicans — We are all Federalists ! ! ! ' When Jefferson petulantly assured demanding applicants that death gave him few vacancies to fill, the Federalists declared the assertion inhuman ; that he said, in fact, " My foes are in my way and I cannot wait the general operation of natural t demise to remove them out of it." It was rumored that a system of " denouncing " office-holders for removal would be inaugurated according to the mode of the French Revo lution.
Nor did Jefferson's Appointments please the Federal ists. They had at first hinted he could not find enough educated men in his whole mob to fill the cabinet posi tions. Madison as Secretary of State was expected, but Albert Gallatin as Secretary of the Treasury pro-
1 In 1807, Jefferson wrote to William Short: "Out of about six hun dred offices named by the President, there were six Republicans only when I came into office, and these were chiefly half-breeds. Out of upward of three hundred holding during pleasure, I removed about fifteen, or those who had signalized themselves by their own intolerance in office, because the public voice called for it imperiously, and it was just that the Republi cans should at length have some participation in the government. ... In this horrid drudgery, I always felt myself as a public executioner."
234
THE MEN II 'HO MADE THE NATION
voked a howl of indignation. It was declared " a hand some thing that Americans should hire a Genevan to keep their money," that a man with "the brogue still hobbling on his tongue " should assume the position created by the great Hamilton. When the Republicans pointed out that Hamilton was also a foreigner, the Federalists said that Hamilton had served in the war
of the Revolution fighting for his adopted country, while Gallatin had been only in the " whiskey war," and that against his adopted coun try.
Gallatin, a for eigner who could appreciate the op portunities offered in America, a col lege man yet in
strong sympathy with the common people, a special stu dent of finance, a resident of the frontier of that day, was well calculated to fall in with Jefferson's cherished ideas of ''individual freedom, economy, and reform." This shibboleth had been put forth by Jefferson in the inau gural address, and it has stood for democracy for a cen tury. He was the father of the principles of the modern Democratic party ; thirty years later Andrew Jackson was to create the party machinery and party organization.
FEDERAL CARTOON ON GALLATIN
THOMAS JEFFERSON 235
In the interest of economy, the circuit courts, the final creation of the Federalists, were readjusted, and the judges deprived of their life-tenure offices;1 a number of consulates were abolished and replaced by cheaper " com mercial agents " appointed from among the natives ; nineteen inspectors of revenue were discharged, and their duties placed on the supervisors. The forces of the army and navy were reduced. The construction of the warships was stopped. All but twelve of those built were sold and only six left in commission. The United States, the Constellation, the Gen. Greene, and the John Adams were brought up to the Anacostia branch of the Potomac at Washington, where they floated at high tide or stuck in the mud when the tide went out. Their guns lay rusting and the wheels rotting on the bank. Work on the various fortifications was stopped. " En couragement of Agriculture and of Commerce as its handmaiden " had been advocated in the inaugural address, but commercial New England thought the handmaiden ill protected. A newspaper pictured the Americans, after one hundred years of this Jacobin rule, naked and having lost all knowledge of trade, manufac tures, ships, and shipbuilding, gazing stupidly at some chance ship as did Montezuma's people upon the arriv ing Spaniards.
Jefferson at one time expressed the hope that a time might come when no tax-gatherer should be seen in America. At his suggestion, Congress cut out the
1 No doubt the Supreme Court of the United States began about this time to feel the pressure of the great number of cases it must pass upon, and to demand an intermediary body between itself and the District Court already established.
236 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
excise law of Hamilton and the later direct taxes of the Federalists. Yet so much did the receipts from the customs duties increase during this period of prosperity and before the rise of American manufactures that they atoned for these abandoned taxes and yielded a surplus year by year. Of the national debt, Jeffer son said, " We can pay off his [Hamilton's] debt in fifteen years ; but we can never get rid of his financial system."1
Even while the President and his Secretary of the Treasury were planning the emancipation of the people from a debt, fate was placing the administration in a position where not only an addition to the debt was demanded, but where his constitutional principles and his conscientious scruples were to be rudely shaken. The time had arrived for the first expansion of territory.
In May following his inauguration, Jefferson wrote to Monroe : " There is considerable reason to apprehend that Spain cedes Louisiana and the Floridas to France. It is a policy very unwise in both and very ruinous to us." Ever since the birth of the United States, Spain had proven a troublesome neighbor on the south, al though not an aggressive neighbor. But under the French, headed by the ambitious Napoleon, Louisiana might easily revive the dream of a colonial empire in America. No country was safe from that man. France, in her struggle for liberty, fraternity, and equality, had been the idol of Jefferson. England, in attempting to restore monarchy, had been his detestation. He now wrote to Livingston, the American minister to France :
1 During Jefferson's two administrations, Gallatin paid over $23,000,000 on the national debt.
THOMAS JEFFERSON 237
" France placing herself in that door [New Orleans] assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. . . . The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sen tence which is to restrain her forever within her low- water marks. . . . From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." He also sug gested that France could reconcile the Americans to the transfer of the whole of Louisiana to her only by ceding to them the island of New Orleans and the Floridas.
The " island of New Orleans " 1 once in the possession of the United States would remove the immediate ques tion of a seaport for the Mississippi trade. Appreciat ing the " fever into which the western mind is thrown by the affair at N. Orleans," Jefferson sent Monroe, a man possessing " the unlimited confidence of the admin istration and of the western people, and of republicans everywhere," to France to effect the purchase, and, failing in that, to "cross the channel." Only by a successful mission could the country prevent getting " entangled in European politics, and, figuring more, be much less happy and prosperous."
Before Monroe's arrival, Livingston, haggling with Napoleon's representative for the "island" and the Floridas, was astonished to be asked, " What will you give for the whole of Louisiana?" Upon Monroe's arrival the bargain was struck, and soon Jefferson
i The " island " \vas formed by the Mississippi river, Lake Ponchar- train and a bayou called the Iberville river. It included the city of New Orleans, and its acquisition would solve the troublesome question of a market and transfer place for western products.
238 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
could write, "The territory acquired, as it includes all the waters of the Missouri & Mississippi, has more than doubled the area of the U. S. and the new part is not inferior to the old in soil, climate, productions & important communications." As a man of peace he rejoiced that war with France had been averted, and this vast territory secured through negotiation. He had visions of " giving establishments in it to the Indians on the east side of the Missipi, in exchange for their present country, and open land offices in the last & thus make this acquisition the means of filling up the Eastern side, instead of drawing off it's population. When we shall be full on this side, we may lay off a range of States on the Western bank from the head to the mouth & so, range after range, advancing com pactly as we multiply." The alarm of the Eastern states over the purchase was to him quite natural. " These federalists see in this acquisition the formation of a new confederacy, embracing all the waters of the Missipi, on both sides of it, and a separation of it's Eastern waters from us." "The future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Missipi States will be our sons ; . . . and if they see their interests in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Missipi descendants ? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better."
The opposition rested not only on the danger of separation by too large a domain, but also on the inabil ity of the government under the Constitution to acquire additional territory. Jefferson had always been a stickler
THOMAS JEFFERSON 239
for the exact powers as stated. On this point, he wrote to Gallatin : " There is no constitutional difficulty as to the acquisition of territory. ... I think it will be safer not to permit the enlargement of the Union but by amendment of the Constitution." He therefore drew up such an amendment whose adoption would be the ratification by the nation of the action of the President and Senate. " It is a case of a guardian, investing the money of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory ; & saying to him when of age, I did this for your good ; I pretend no right to bind you ; you may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can ; I thought my duty to risk myself for you." But when some one pointed out that such an avowal would be taken by the opposition as a confession that the admin istration had overstepped its powers, the President wrote to his friends that "the less we say about constitutional difficulties the better," and that "it will be desirable for Congress to do what is necessary in silence.'"
To the end he thought : " I had rather ask an enlarge ment of power from the nation, when it is found neces sary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." But the prece dent has been followed without the amendment in many subsequent acquisitions, and Jefferson stands as an un willing violator of his foundation principle of strict con struction. Necessity was continuing to make the nation.
In his message to Congress in October, 1803, Presi dent Jefferson announced that the purchase of Louisiana would add nearly $13,000,000 to the national debt,
OF T :
•UNIVERSITY
240 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
most of which would be payable after fifteen years ; 1 before which time the existing national debt would all be paid. He therefore hoped that the interest on this additional debt could be met without a new tax. Already Gallatin had cast about for further means of paring expenses, but could find nothing save the much pared navy. The commercial interests protested in vain. Many recalled the inauguration day of Jefferson when, in a Philadelphia procession, a great barge or boat on wheels bore the legend, " THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE SUPPORTER OF THE NAVY." Events had soon shown that Jefferson was more in sympathy with domestic than foreign commerce, and that democratic retrenchment could not favor a large expenditure for a navy. In connection with the subjugation of the pirates on the north African coast, Congress had authorized the con struction of not more than fifteen " gun-boats." Modelled on the plan of the celebrated vessels of Naples, they were low and of narrow build, seventy-one feet long, generally sloop rigged, and carried two long thirty-two- pounders. They cost about $5000 each. Numbers in stead of names were used to designate them. Numbers 2 to 10 inclusive saw service in the Mediterranean. So impressed was Jefferson with this style of vessel, its utility for harbor defence, facility of preparation and movement, cheapness of its construction, and economy of its service, that Congress from time to time ordered 157 of them of varying sizes, carrying one or two guns and manned by about thirty sailors.
1 The Hartford Courant estimated that the purchase of Louisiana would average a tax of $30 for each family in the state, and would never be worth 30 cents to any family.
THOMAS JEFFERSON 241
Gallatin insisted that they were not to take the place of a navy, but as no frigates were built after 1807, com mercial interests declared that the country was being sacrificed to a foolish economy. Some showed that while a frigate of 56 guns would cost as much as 25 gunboats of one gun each, yet that the 420 gunners necessary to man the frigate would be sufficient to man only 10 gunboats ; that the 2520 men necessary to man 56 gunboats of one gun would man 6 frigates of 336 guns. Many later critics of Jefferson's economic policy claim that the War of 1812 would not have gained such adverse headway if the proper defence had not been sacrificed to a theory.1
The decay of Spanish power in the new world coupled with the meteoric career of Napoleon in the old had inflamed the minds of many ambitious men in the United States to build an empire on the Spanish ruins. The age of romantic expeditions seemed to be returning. Francis Miranda, a South American adventurer, sailed from New York with a small number of men to liberate his native Caracas from Spanish rule. An ex-Vice- President, Aaron Burr, of New York, foreseeing the revolt of Spanish Mexico, planned an incursion from New Orleans into the upper portion of that country.
In his message to Congress in December, 1806, Jef ferson reported that he had tried to prevent " a great number of private individuals combining together, arm-
1 Before 1809, 176 gunboats, of the 257 planned, had been built at a cost of $1,800,222. Seven were lost in gales, and five destroyed by the British at New Orleans. They were of such little value in the War of 1812 that they were ordered laid up, and in 1815 forty were sold at prices ranging from $220 to $690 each. See Goldsborough's " U. S. Naval Chronicle."
242 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
ing and organizing themselves contrary to law to carry on military expeditions against the territories of Spain." To a friend he wrote, " The designs of our Catiline are as real as they are romantic," and a little later thought that Burr intended " to take possession of New Orleans as a station from which to make an expedition against Vera Cruz & Mexico." Still later : "Burr's enterprise is the most extraordinary since the days of Don Quixot. It is so extravagant that those who knew his under standing would not believe it if the proofs admitted doubt. He has meant to place himself on the throne of Montezuma, and extending his empire to the Alle- gany seizing on N. Orleans as the instrument of com pulsion for our Western States."
Naturally opposed to the coercion of the people, Jefferson waited quietly until Burr had actually started on his way down the Mississippi and then set in motion the whole military machinery to stop him. Although he thought the expedition composed of " fugitives from Justice or from their debts . . . and of adventurers & speculators of all descriptions," " who were longing to dip their hands into the mines of Mexico," he imag- ined'that Burr after being captured was shielded by the Federalists, who made his cause their own. It seemed a good time to crush the remnant of that party. After Burr had been convicted, he would commit for trial those " who by boldness betray an inveteracy of crimi nal disposition. Obscure offenders & repenting ones should lie for consideration." Even Burr's counsel, Luther Martin, should be tried as an accomplice, and, if not convicted, the trial would at least " put down this unprincipled & impudent federal bull-dog."
THOMAS JEFFERSON 243
The trial of Burr at Richmond, Virginia, on a charge of treason assumed to Jefferson a political aspect. Chief Justice Marshall, who presided in the circuit court at Richmond, was a Federalist whose life term under the Constitution had made his removal impos sible. When he decided that Burr had not committed an overt act of treason as denned in the Constitution, Jef ferson asked whether his letters, his rendezvous, and his flight were not "overt acts." It was all clearly a part of politics ; of " that rancorous hatred which Marshall bears to the government of his country, & from the cunning & sophistry within which he is able to en shroud himself." Yet if the escape of Burr from pun ishment should bring an amendment to the Constitution making the justices of the Supreme Court removable by the President, it would be worth while. Meanwhile, " the enterprise has done good by proving that the attachment of the people in the west is as firm as that in the east to the union of our country."
From a less partisan standpoint, the Burr episode proved beneficial in showing that the charge of treason is not to be used in the new world as a cloak for unde served punishment ; that a centralizing of the Union by such means must lead to tyranny ; and that our fathers were wise to specify in the Constitution exactly in what treason should consist. If a guilty person escape under failure to prove an overt act, the sentence of social ostracism which the public places upon a man even charged with treason is sufficiently deterrent. The fate of Aaron Burr stands as a warning to the American who is tempted to incur even the suspicion of treason.
In a last and perhaps the saddest instance of his
244 THE MEN~ IVHO MADE THE NATION
administrations, Jefferson was doomed to find that man is weak by nature, that patriotism dissolves rapidly before material interests, and that it must at times be replaced by coercion. In attempting to build up a navy on an economic plan, England fed her sailors upon such poor food that desertions were numerous. Made drunk on shore, Jack came to his senses on board a man-of-war to find himself duly articled as a sailor and doomed to weevilled biscuits and a rope's end. Upon the now abandoned theory of " once a subject always a subject," England reserved the right of stop ping any vessel, lining up its seamen on deck, and selecting such men as could be proven deserters. Often the proof was scanty, for the sailor had no fixed home nor means of identification. Gallatin estimated that the American vessels employed about 25,000 British sailors annually since so many American sailors were engaged in the fisheries. Various means were suggested in America for stopping this impressment. Jefferson opposed the plan of giving each American seaman a certificate, since it might be lost so easily. He would have the number of sailors apportioned to the tonnage of a vessel, and let the overplus be taken. Neither remedy was adopted, and the obnoxious practice con tinued.
In 1807, the British frigate Leopard overhauled the American frigate Chesapeake within sight of the Caro lina shore and carried off four sailors, three of whom were American citizens. The country was instantly aflame. Jefferson wrote : " Never, since the battle of Lexington, have I seen such a state of exasperation as at present. And even that did not produce such unanim-
THOMAS JEFFERSON 245
ity. . . . ' Reparation for the past and immunity for the future ' is our motto. Whether these will be yielded freely or will require resort to non-intercourse, or to war, is yet to be seen." War, with its " speculations of con tractors and jobbers, and the introduction of permanent military and naval establishments," was as objectionable to Jefferson as to Gallatin. The latter said : " Money we will want to carry on the war ; our revenue will be cut up ; new and internal taxes will be slow and not sufficiently productive ; we must necessarily borrow. This is not pleasing, particularly to me ; but it must be done." Indeed, war seemed the only thing left, unless the insults were to be quietly borne. A treaty had been attempted the preceding year, but England refused to yield her right of impressment, and, as Jefferson said, "we must back out of the negotiation as well as we can." Also a mild retaliation had been tried by refus ing to allow any trade with England or her colonies. The action simply amused her. She was not dependent on the American trade.
The proposition of a neutral nation was a novel one, and, as the United States found it during the continued Napoleonic wars, a most trying one. It makes the American blood boil to-day to read the humiliating story of England and France grinding American commerce between the upper and nether millstone. Each was try ing to starve out the other, and no American vessel must bring in goods. By these continued insults, America was often brought to the point of declaring war, but could not decide which of the two countries gave the greater cause. But the long-continued grievance about the impressment of American seamen on British vessels,
246 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION'
coupled with the old animosity of Jefferson and his fol lowers toward England, finally turned the scale.
War would have been supported eagerly by the coun try, but Jefferson hesitated to abandon his principles. He ordered all British vessels out of American waters, organized the full quota of the Virginia militia, but did not call together the war-declaring power, the Congress. Me sent an armed vessel to the American agents in England to demand reparation from that country. Two days after Congress had revived the useless non-inter- , course act of the preceding year, news was received that England would sustain her officers in making impress ments. The President at once advised that all American commerce be withdrawn from the seas by an embargo, in order to prevent impressments and seizures. It was a part of the old system of commercial restriction. It meant suicide to thwart your enemy.1 Yet so strong was Jefferson's influence and so urgent the demand for action that such a measure passed the House in three days and the Senate in four hours.
The difficulty of enforcing the embargo law was apparent from the beginning. The collector at New Orleans let forty-two vessels go after he knew of the embargo because he had no copy of the law. The mer chant interests of Maryland continued to send out pro visions, naval stores, and lumber, with no arrests, be cause no one would accept the marshalship of that state. Shut out of ports, captains started on foreign voyages from obscure river points until a special law was passed
1 He thought it the only action which could " save us from immediate war & give time to call home So millions of property, 20, or 30 ooo sea men, & 2000 vessels."
THOMAS JEFFERSON 247
for ''vessels coming down the rivers." In the Maine district of Massachusetts, lumber, flour, and pork were slipped over into Canada until inspectors were given power to guard any "collection" of goods "suspected to be intended for exportation." So much flour was sent into seaboard states, undoubtedly
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to be smuggled out, that the governors were asked to make application for flour when needed and to
issue permits to reship it to other American ports. When the governor of South Carolina permitted 57,250 barrels of flour and 129,400 bushels of corn to be shipped away, the administration suspected that much of it found its way abroad. The collector near St. Lawrence, a region formerly supplying potash to Mont real, resigned " from fear or at least a wish not to lose his popularity with the people." The President re moved the collector at New Bedford " for worse than negligence." Editors encouraged this resistance by print ing funeral notices of the burial of liberty. Authors turned upon Jefferson the full strength of their invec tive.1 The collector of Sullivan was "on the totter."
Evasions of the embargo law continued until it be came necessary to consider as "suspicious" every vessel apparently bound for another state which had on
1 William Cullen Bryant, aged thirty-one, wrote a satire on the embargo, in which he addressed President Jefferson :
" Go, wretch ! resign thy Presidential chair, Disclose thy secret measures, foul or fair."
248
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
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Milnor, Mofelf, T. Pukim, jr jr, KuiTeli.
V«t)
STATH of
ufetf*. kh-.«dr Him ?, C
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anvi tbouAtnJs of C»ti ot various dctu-tn-
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July.
ros, 4»4
board articles in de mand at foreign mar kets.1 A force was sent to Lake Cham- plain, but the people stole two of the gov ernment rafts. When the captors, who were supposed to be Cana dians, were made pris oners, the judge re fused to find bills against them. All the little gunboats in commission and three frigates were sta tioned along the coast and additional reve nue cutters purchased. Gallatin thought the law could be enforced only with a small army along the Lakes and British lines gener ally. "The people there now are alto gether against the
1 The opposition news papers insisted that under this provision a cow was seized in Vermont as she was walking toward the Ca nadian boundary line.
• THOMAS JEFFERSON 249
law." Collectors were harassed by suits in the state courts. Fishing vessels allowed to go to the Banks "in ballast" had secreted goods on board and sailed to the Indies. Scores of captains took their chances and sailed secretly without any papers. Quantities of flour and pork were smuggled over to Canada on sleds during the winter. An insurrection broke out at Oswego, New York, where goods were being shipped to Canada, and the militia was called out to aid the regulars. A mob at Newburyport held the custom-house officers while a vessel sailed away. Canadian traders claimed that the embargo was an infraction of their treaty rights on the Lakes, which had been guaranteed in the peace of
1783-
Jefferson himself, although loving his people, loved his theory still more. He suffered with them, but was satisfied to claim that " while the embargo gives no double rations it is starving our enemies. This six months' session [of Congress] has drawn me down to a state of almost total incapacity for business." He endeavored to set a pattern for patriotism by sending to Colonel Humphreys for some deep blue cloth to make a coat. "Homespun is to become the spirit of the times." " My idea is that we should encourage home manufactures to the extent of our consumption of every thing of which we raise the raw material."
Holding such sentiments, he was " disposed to act boldly" on the embargo. He regretted that "in some places, chiefly on our northern frontier, a disposition to oppose the law by force has been manifested." Still, " could the alternative of war or the embargo have been presented to the whole nation, as it occurred to their
250
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
representatives, there could have been but one opinion, that it was better to take the chance of one year by the embargo." Those Federalists who " are endeavoring to convince England that we suffer more by the embargo than they do," he considered " as subjects for a mad house." " The Tories of Boston threaten insurrection if their importation of flour is stopped."
NOTICE.
THE MAYOR decidedly disapproves the
mode of applieati* Paper yesterday. !< thisjx>rt, tor relict.
He informs the j. on the present em< former occasions, j perfon, without disti
a Morning \n*. pursued by the Sailors of
Mic thai the Corporation will, :;enc\. as they have douc on i>vide. fur the wants ot every .lion, who mav lie confidered
proper objects of rt ief
The Mayor canm t a mcludc this notice, without exhorting all classe of Citizens to refrain from assembling in the mode as proposed, and el'pecial- ly diffuadesthe Sailors from meeting in the Park,
MayorVOffiee, New- York, ) " January 9, 1808. )
B. C. So^rrawiCK.Priwtcr, 92, Broadway. 4 Doors frotu ^'all-st
Soon after the law was passed Jefferson confessed to Gallatin : " This embargo law is certainly the most embarrassing one we have ever had to execute. I did not expect a crop of so sudden & rank growth of fraud & open opposition by force could have grown up in the U. S." Each month the handwriting on the wall grew Riots occurred in the seaport cities.
more legible.
THOMAS JEFFERSON 2 5 I
The mayor of New York issued an appeal for order and advised against agitation meetings. When Con gress met, Gallatin assured the President: "What I have foreseen has taken place. A majority will not adhere to the embargo much longer." l He also told of a rumored convention of the five New England states and, possibly, New York. " Something must be done to anticipate and defeat this nefarious plan." By Feb ruary the crash came. Jefferson wrote : " I thought Congress had taken their ground firmly for continuing their embargo till June, and then war. But a sudden and unaccountable revolution of opinion took place last week, chiefly among the New England and New York members, and in a kind of panic they voted the 4th of March for removing the embargo, and by such a majority as gave all reason to believe they would not agree either to war or non-intercourse. This, too, was after we had become satisfied that the Essex Junto had found their expectation desperate, of inducing the people there to either separation or forcible opposition."2 A theory had again yielded to necessity.
The closing days of Jefferson's administration were as sad as the inception was joyous. His embargo was repealed, and to Jefferson the loss of a theory was as
1 Some of the opponents of the embargo claimed that Jefferson by speculating in tobacco had made ^"30,000 out of the law. One of the toasts offered at Salem, Massachusetts, was: "To THE MODERN JUDAS ISCARIOT. He has received his thirty pieces of silver; let him now go hang himself." A song went the rounds:
" Where, oh where is our highland daddy bound? He's bound to his plantation with thirty thousand pounds, With a gunboat embargoed to plough his native ground."
2 Ford's "Jefferson's \Vorks," Vol. IX., p. 244.
252 THE MEN IVPIO MADE THE NATION
the loss of a favorite child. A nomination sent to the Senate was rejected. " This reception of the last of my official communications to them could not be unfelt." The public debt was not wiped out ; taxes were still levied ; the presence of armed vessels and militia proved the futility of non-coercion ; insurrection showed on all sides ; the coming war spirit began to be felt. Only democratic simplicity was left, and Jefferson, refusing the offer of " the good citizens of our country to meet
MONTICELLO
me on the road on my return home, as a manifestation of their good will," preferred "taking them individ ually by the hand at our court house and other public places." Sending the eleven servants and the house hold goods forward in the great wagons which had been brought from Monticello for that purpose, he started in a one-horse vehicle with a driver, and another servant on horseback. Escaping with difficulty at Culpeper Court House a group of patriots who wanted to hear " Old Tom " speak, he reached that notable home on the mountain shelf, second in Amerfcan interest only to
THOMAS JEFFERSON
253
the home at Mount Vernon. It was a lonely home. Forty-four years Jefferson lived a widower, faithful to the promise given, it was said, to his dying wife. If he had not lived longer than his retirement from office, so many had been the disappointments, so radical had been
the contradictions which necessity compelled in his theory and practice toward the Union, that his end would have been sad to contemplate. But fate allowed him seventeen years of enjoyment of ease, removed from unpleasant contact with political life, pursuing scientific investigation, improving the surroundings of Monticello,
254 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATTON
and, above all, seeing arise over on the opposite slope four miles away, the white dome of that pride of his old age, the non-sectarian University of Virginia. ^ Over his grave, halfway up the wooded slope of Mon- ticello, stands a stone bearing an inscription written by himself. It is a silent witness to his desire to forget the discouraging eight years during which he was President of the United States and the exponent of the rule of the people. It was true that the national debt had been re duced $33,580,000 under his administration and that a clear surplus would remain after the expenditures of his retiring year. It was also true that home production and consumption had been stimulated under his restrictive measures. But another would reap the fruits of this new condition in an " American system," as yet not elaborated. Even the sun of national prosperity was obscured' by threatening war clouds. Above all, the conviction must have been forced home that the re stricted political form in which the Union had been created could not continue if its', commercial interests were allowed to grow as they naturally would.
CHAPTER VIII
HENRY CLAY, THE FATHER OF PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS
" I turn from this imposing pageant, so rich in glitter, so poor in feeling, to think of him who should have been the cen tral figure of this grand panorama — the distant, the powerless, the forgotten ... the lifelong champion of a diversified Home Industry ; of Internal Improvements. ... More grateful to me in the stillness of my lonely chamber, this cup of crystal water in which I honor the cherished memory with the old, familiar aspiration —
" ' Here's to you, HARRY CLAY ! ' "
— GREELEY at the Inauguration of President Taylor.
THE English colonists had formed a thin fringe of people along the Atlantic coast, gathered in little groups about some harbor or navigable stream. They had small means of communication save through the mother country. All interests bound them to the east. Upon- the west lay bewildering forests which concealed foes both human and animal. Streams furnished nat ural waterways, but these were often broken by rapids or at certain seasons were too shallow to be navigable. Although it was necessary to make a portage about rapids and to confine travel to the high-water seasons, it was easier than trying to make wagon roads out of the Indian trails.
255
256 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Waterways, therefore, became a prominent factor in determining the lines of movement. They had enabled the French to form a complete chain about the English. French traders and Jesuits went swiftly and silently in their birch bark canoes, up and down the St. Lawrence, over the Great Lakes, and on the Mississippi. They jour neyed easily from Quebec to New Orleans, while the Eng lish were confined to the Atlantic coast by the great barrier of the Alleghany Mountains. Not a waterway, save the Potomac, led toward the west. At various times the English colonists called the attention of the home government to these advances of the French, and in 1716 Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, led a party as far west as the sources of a branch of the Rappahannock, where bottles were buried containing the claims of George I. to the land.
The expulsion of the French not only from the land due west of the English, but from Canada as well, was accomplished in the wars ending in 1763, and the atten tion of the colonists was thus turned to their " back country." The claim of the Indians was gradually bought up in various treaties, and " settlers " flocked into the "wild lands." Companies were formed for securing grants of this new land and selling it to the settlers or to immigrants brought from Europe.
For several reasons, the Virginians were most inter ested in the new region. Being a country people, and accustomed to depend upon their rifles for food, they easily bore the solitude and the privations of pioneer life. Their agricultural instincts carried them into the interior and away from the commercial sea. The slave labor which they employed cultivated the ground exten-
HENRY CLAY 2$?
sively rather than intensively, and their favorite crop, tobacco, by impoverishing the soil, demanded new lands. Under her charter, Virginia, as previously stated,1 claimed all the land lying north of the North Carolina boundary, and west of the other states. Be cause of this claim, the Virginians had borne the brunt of the western campaigns against the French, one of her militia officers, George Washington, saving a rout after Braddock's defeat. A further reason for Virginia being foremost in settling the trans-Alleghanian region lay in the fact that she was brought most closely in touch with it by both natural and artificial roadways.
The Braddock expedition, in attempting to go from tide-water to the head of the Ohio river, had chosen a road long known to traders, and indeed for part of its distance used by an earlier expedition. It went up the Potomac river or a trail parallel to it as far as Will's creek, where now stands Cumberland, Maryland, and thence over the mountains, and crossing the Youghio- gheny to the Monongahela, passed down that river to the junction forming the Ohio. Braddock's soldiers had made a good road over this route ; but the traveller, after reaching Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg), must embark on the Ohio, and run the risk of the savage on its northern shore.
The line of movement, therefore, turned south from Will's creek along the Shenandoah valley until it was joined by another road leading directly from Richmond. The two combined to make the " Wilderness road"2
1 In Chapter I.
2 A description and map of the "Wilderness road" may be found in the publications of the Filson Club, Louisville, Kentucky.
258 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
leading along the New, Holston, and Clinch rivers, in what is now the southwestern point of Virginia, to the Cumberland Gap. Just before the Gap was reached, a branch of the road passed down the Clinch into what is now Tennessee. After passing the Gap, the main road turned sharply north into the blue grass region of Kentucky.1
Daniel Boone first "blazed" with his tomahawk the trees along the two hundred miles of what became the "Wilderness road." He removed his family from North Carolina to the Kentucky country, only to be captured by the Indians. After his escape he found that his family had returned to Carolina. Unshaken in his hope of the western country, he joined a company which established Boonesborough. A blockhouse had been built on the Elkhorn before 1775, and to the few cabins erected under its protection the name of " Lexington " was given when the news of April iQth reached that distant region. Travellers began to find their way into Kentucky and returned to excite the imagination with stories of the wonderful land. The forests abounded with game, the streams with fish, and the open woods with berries and grapes. The fertility of the soil was so marked that all vegetation assumed unusual size. In various places were salty marshes or
1 The most northerly route used by the people in migrating to the Ohio valley led up the Mohawk and over Lakes Ontario and Erie. Another lay through Pennsylvania, up the Juniata, and sheer over the mountains to the Conemaugh. A third went up the Potomac river to Will's creek, whence a northern branch crossed the mountains to the Monongahela river along the Braddock road. A southern branch led down through the Clinch valley to Tennessee, or through the Cumberland Gap by the Wilderness road to Kentucky. A fourth route brought the Carolinians into Tennessee around the southern base of the mountains. — See U. S. Census, 1880.
HENRY CLAY 259
"licks," so called because wild animals came there to lick up the salty earth. The noise of their bellowing and fighting made the woods ring. The buffalo, one of the wild animals frequenting these licks, had made broad paths or "traces" by many years' passing of his huge body and hard hoofs. Other animals of incredi ble0 size must inhabit the country or have done so heretofore, since bones of gigantic size were found in the marshes at these licks.1 There were also springs of various mineral tastes which were said to possess differ ent curative powers.
With such attractions, a small exodus took place from Virginia and the Carolinas for "old Kaintuck," which continued many years.'2 A large proportion of the fam ilies of Kentucky are descended from Virginians, but generally of the middle class socially. They were dis senters from the Established church of the Virginia colonial aristocracy.
These dissenting sects, freed from persecution in the Revolution, sprang up immediately after and increased with amazing rapidity. The Baptists assumed that pre dominance which they have since enjoyed in the south. Their converts were made among the middle rather than the upper class, which adhered to the successor of the Established church, the Episcopal.
In all Virginia there is scarcely a less promising region than the "slashes" or low, swampy ground on
1 Jefferson was interested in these bones of the extinct "mammoth." The attention of Europe was called to them by Thomas Ashe in his "Travels."
2 The attempt to imitate the spelling of the Indian word led to many variations in the name of this region, until the modern form was adopted by an act of the state legislature of Kentucky.
26o THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
the South Anna river. The Rev. William Clay, a Baptist clergyman ministering to his parishioners in that locality, and said to have done much of his preach ing in the open air, could scarcely have dreamed that
the seventh child born in his rap idly increasing
^|';! l; IF T \ R K A S U N 8 family was d es-
.,J jjj tined to rise by
a new clemoc-
f, £j i ii^J j Jd 'E JNJ £ Y £ L i\ A/ 1 racy superior to
H ;j the Virginia ar istocracy from
jU ELECTE]) 'PRESIDENT which he was
considered for-
y^Y^V% ever barred at
3hH:!.^|! Js4 \&W^- $ «* tne t^1116 °f his
birth. The good
man passed away
& when the boy,
IRISH ADOPTED CITIZEN : J
Henry, was but four years of
jBatnm»r<; age, leaving lit
tle more than a blessing to his large family. ^j For ten years the widow man aged to pay tuition to one Peter Deacon, a dissipated schoolmaster, who taught little Henry reading, writing, and the science of arithmetic "as far as Practice." Fate, in her apparent ill humor, was really smiling upon
HENRY CLAY 261
the lad for she not only placed him in a log schoolhouse with an earthen floor and " puncheon" seats, but she allowed him to sit on a bag of grain or flour on a horse's back journeying to and from the mill of Mrs. Darricott on the Pamunky river. " The mill boy of the slashes " 1 made the fortune of Henry Clay in the new strength of democracy.
A second father, who had come into the household in the meantime, was seized by the Kentucky fever and carried the family, save Henry and one other, to the promised land. Henry was left as a clerk in the high court of chancery at Richmond, and, under the patron age of the chancellor, was licensed by the state to sign himself "Attorney at Law," when not quite twenty-one years of age. What caused young Clay to take his for tunes into the west must be a conjecture. Perhaps it was the influence of the general migration ; perhaps the good judgment which foresaw an environment better suited to his qualifications than the polished Richmond ; perhaps the ties of his family, now residing thirteen miles from Lexington, Kentucky.
Lexington was the acknowledged leader of trans- Alleghanian settlements at that time. In 1788, the Transylvania Seminary, duly chartered by the Virginia legislature, offered tuition for £$ a year, " one half in cash, the other in property." " Property " was explained as "pork, corn, tobacco, etc." At the same time a dancing school was opened, as announced in the Kentucky Gazette, founded the year before. Thus Lexington became "the literary and intellectual cen-
1 The practice of rallying men under some sobriquet of the leader has been replaced in later times by the names of the two great parties.
262 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
tre " of the west, although Frankfort, from its more central position, was chosen as the first capital.
To this "western Athens" came the " mill boy of the slashes." " Without patrons, without the favor or coun tenance of the great or opulent, without the means of paying my weekly board," as he said later, "I remember how comfortable I thought I should be if I could make one hundred pounds, Virginia money, per year, and with what delight I received the first fifteen shillings fee."
The new country of that day presented opportunities for rapid advancement unknown in the conservatism of the older portion. The standards of excellence were a vigorous body, great physical courage, and "a good shot." The rifle was a constant companion of the com mon people. Contests in marksmanship were inevita ble and their arbitration final. The professional man was not exempt from this requirement, and many a young man was said to have " shot his way into the state legislature." Clay did this when he was but twenty-six years of age.1 The common agency for the self-education of the professional man was the debating society.2 Even in Richmond, Clay had availed himself of that aid, and he continued it at Lexington. It was a mimic of the combats in the state and national legisla tive arenas in the days before the human voice was replaced by the printing-press. Clay's forensic prowess
1 In later years, Clay was fond of telling the story of this accidental shot which hit the centre of the target. A bystander demanded that he repeat the shot if it were skill instead of accident, but Clay refused until some one should do equally well.
2 The Danville Political Club, organized in 1786 to meet every Saturday night, was one of the most famous of these early debating societies in Kentucky.
HENRY CLAY 263
in the state legislature soon advanced him to a vacancy in the United States Senate. The fact that he lacked a few months of the age demanded by the Constitution for that office was not considered a barrier on the frontier.
The Journal of the Senate of the United States for Monday, December 29, 1806, bears this record :
" Henry Clay, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of Kentucky, in the place of John Adair, resigned, produced his credentials and took his seat in the Senate. The credentials of Mr. Clay and Mr. Reed were severally read, and the oath was administered to them as the law prescribes."
Clay at once took his place as the representative of the western people. During this one session he secured a circuit court for the trans-Alleghanian states, made easier certain land laws, secured the appointment of commissioners to lay out a canal on the Kentucky side about the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, and voted favorably on the call of Worthington, of Ohio, for a report from the Secretary of the Treasury showing what had already been done toward opening roads and canals by the national government and describing plans for the future.1 He also heard President Jefferson's report upon a survey for the "Cumberland national road," a project in which Clay was to become deeply interested at a later time.
1 Albert Gallatin, of foreign birth and practical turn of mind, had never shared the conscientious scruples of his* leader, Jefferson, on works of public benefit. In 1808, he made an exhaustive report to Congress upon the topography of the United States, suggesting a network of canals, roads, and rivers to be improved by the central government, at an estimated cost of Si 6,000,000.
264 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
The residents of the Atlantic coast plain, remaining in the environment of their European ancestors, contin ued to be a reflex of old-world types and ideals. The compelling environment of the trans-mountain region produced a new type out of their brothers who migrated thither. It was closely allied to the soil and fiercely American. Clay had shown the result during Jeffer son's embargo struggle by offering legislative resolu tions that the members should wear clothing of American manufacture.1 The embargo kept out foreign goods. It was an easy step to the thought of some kind of a per petual embargo which would compel the American peo ple to patronize their home productions and thus keep the money at home. Now a high tariff would act as an embargo. At the same time it would protect the American workingman, who was manufacturing these articles, from foreign competition. Those Americans who persisted in buying foreign goods must pay the tariff duties on them. The money thus obtained could be used in improving the means of internal transporta tion. These in turn would aid in getting both the raw materials to the factories and the manufactured products to the market. Thus Clay evolved his mutually recipro cal "American system" of a protective tariff, domestic manufacture, and internal improvements.
In 1810, discussing a Senate bill to give preference to American products in supplying the army, Clay attacked "Dame Commerce, a flirting, flippant, noisy "jade," as opposed to domestic manufacture. He declared his
1 This resolution of Clay in the Kentucky legislature was ridiculed by a fellow-member, and a duel followed in which Clay was wounded in the shoulder.
HENRY CLAY 26$
pleasure and pride in being clad in American clothing. " Others may prefer the cloths of Leeds and London, but give me those of Humphrey ville." Such sentiment held largely among Clay's western constituency, and, as the balance of population was gradually shifted from the Atlantic coast and its European influences to the western valley, Clay was able to formulate his policy. The patriotic sentiment engendered in the war of 1812 enabled him to announce the American system soon after peace had come, when the times demanded a re arrangement of the disordered finances and industries of the country. This same westward movement had con tributed in another way to Clay's policy by showing the need of better means of communication over the mountains.
The importance of connecting the waterways of the Atlantic slope with those of the Ohio valley had been realized before the Revolution, but assumed a new value in the aspirations of the young republic. Railroads were not yet contemplated ; it would be impossible to find water to fill a canal over the mountains ; therefore, a roadway was the only agency left. It would be a vast enterprise, and one for which private capital had not yet sufficiently accumulated. The wealthy state of Vir ginia, particularly interested in the western country, might undertake it. But if the shortest portage be chosen, the highway would not lie entirely in one state. Naturally the national government suggested itself as a common agency well suited to undertake the road. No one could have foreseen what effect this would have on the Union.
The western people felt the importance of such com-
266
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
munication with the older section. When they crossed the mountains, they bade farewell to friends, since the journey was not one to be voluntarily undertaken. Several of the middle western states, beginning with Ohio, arranged with the national government for a share of the public land sales to build roads from the Atlantic to the states. From this fund, three commissioners
COMPLETED" PROJ ECTED
THE CUMBERLAND ROAD, SHOWING APPROXIMATE DATES OF COMPLETION
had been appointed in 1805 to search for the shortest and most desirable portage over which to construct the road. They determined upon a route from old Fort Cumberland on the Potomac to the Ohio, a distance of 141 miles. It lay for some distance along the old Braddock road. Such was the report which Clay heard during his first term in Congress.
Clay was a southern man, bred in the principles of strict construction. When he made his first appear ance in Congress, John Quincy Adams pronounced him "a young man — an orator — and a republican of the the first fire." Yet the republicanism and the strict construction of Clay in Kentucky were not those of Jef ferson in Virginia. They would not let constitutional theories stand in the way of coveted benefits. Clay appreciated the humor in Jefferson's dodging the point
HENRY CLAY 267
by saying that when states gave permission to the gov ernment to build a road, then the constitutional objec tion was removed. According to that reasoning, all restrictions on the national government could be re moved and strict construction and state sovereignty would have committed suicide. Clay believed that the money granted to the Cumberland road was fully justified by the "common defence and general wel fare " as well as by the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execu tion the foregoing powers." If the Cumberland road was justified, then any other road over which troops, ammunition, or anything necessary for the common defence must pass, would be justified. If the Congress had power to make such a roadway, it had also power to dig a waterway when that form of communication was more desirable than a road. Post-roads Clay would construct under the expressed power to establish post- roads, but he would not restrict such improvements to those over which the mails were to be carried. He would not have a standing army, but would depend upon a well-organized militia for which free means of movement must be provided. Whatever illustration he needed upon this point was supplied by the war of 1812. In agitating the war, Clay and the other "war-hawks " in Congress had boasted that the Americans would invade Canada and "roll it up." The difficulty of invading a thousand miles of border was early shown in the northwest. Governor Harrison, of the territory of Indiana, was placed at the head of over 10,000 ill- equipped raw militia men, recruited in Kentucky, Vir ginia, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. When no more men
268 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
could be accepted, Governor Shelby, of Kentucky, offered to lead the independent militia from his state. The spirit of the days of '76 seemed to have come again. But when the troops in several divisions started through the wilderness between the Ohio and Lake Erie, they could find no roads leading to the enemy.
The governor of Ohio furnished a band of " pio neers " who made a kind of cleared way for the middle division. It was the autumn season, rainy, cold, and muddy. When the columns tried to approach the west ern end of Lake Erie they came into the Great Black Swamp of the Maumee river. Three miles a day was good progress. Provisions were so far behind that each man had to carry enough for seven days. Many had recourse to nuts and bark of trees. Contemporary writers praise the endurance of the troops.
"From Urbanna to the Rapids of the Miami is 150 miles. The route of the army was through a thick and almost track less forest. As there were a great number of baggage waggons attached to the army, it became necessary to open a new road the whole distance. The soil of the land was moist, being in many places a perfect swamp. The weather was rainy and man and horse had to travel mid-leg deep in mud. Fre quently the van had to halt for the rear, which was as often detained on its march in relieving waggons and horses from the mire. . . . The men themselves were destitute of many articles of the first necessity. . . . When the horses themselves were no longer able to draw, these gallant sons of Mars har nessed themselves to the sleds and in this manner conveyed their baggage sixty miles through frost and snow. . . .
" In this Swamp you lose sight of terra firma altogether — the water was about six inches deep on the ice, which was very
HENRY CLAY 269
rotten, often breaking through to the depth of. four or five feet. ... It was with difficulty that we could raise fires ; we had no tents, our clothes were wet, no axes, nothing to cook in, and very little to eat. A brigade of packhorses being near us, we procured from them some flour, killed a hog (there being plenty of them along the road ;) our bread was baked in the ashes, and the pork we broiled on the coals — a sweeter meal I never partook of. When we went to sleep, it was on two logs laid close to each other to keep our bodies from the damp ground." ]
On the same subject, Clay said in debate :
" We should not have lost Moose Island during the late war if we had possessed military roads. Massachusetts and the Union were unable to send a force sufficient to dislodge the enemy. On the northwestern frontier, millions of money and some of the most precious blood of the state from which I have the honor to come, was wastefully expended for the want of such roads. ... In travelling from Philadelphia in the fall of 1813, I saw transporting by government from Elk river to the Delaware large quantities of massy timber for war vessels. The additional expense from wagons and horses would have gone far to complete the canal."
All through the disastrous campaigns in the north west the same lack of supplies continued. Flour was transported by packhorses, each animal carrying only one-half barrel. Additional horses had to accompany the packhorses to carry forage for them. Much of the flour was spoiled by rain or snow on the way. It was said that the cost of that actually consumed was $100 per barrel. Of the four thousand packhorses,
1 Brown's " Views of the Campaigns of the Northwest Army," pp. 39, 43-
2/0 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
but eight hundred survived. Many of the contract ors who had not taken the lack of roads into con sideration were ruined and forfeited their contracts, leaving the government at the mercy of extortionists.1 These experiences were vividly portrayed in Congress by members when pleading for appropriations to be spent on means of communication. Speaking of the highway which had been begun through the Black Swamp, one said :
" Not a solitary traveller now finds his way along that road ; it is principally indicated by broken fragments of baggage wag ons and gun carriages, scattered remains of flour barrels and the mouldering skeletons of horses and oxen, remaining as they were left, just visible above the surface of the mud and wet which destroyed them." 2
Others pictured the hardships of the emigrants in crossing the mountains :
" A farmer with a fine family of children, finding a difficulty of procuring subsistence in some of the older states, and look ing forward to their future welfare, determines to go to the western country where land is cheap ; he sets out with a little cart and two poor horses, to carry his wife and half a dozen children ; and not knowing the distance or the road accurately his slender means is soon exhausted ; the horses are unable to carry further all that is dear to him ; he is broken down by sickness, and his children cry around him for that relief which he is unable to afford them; and when he arrives at his desti-
1 General Harrison, the western commander, was accused of extrava gance in having spent $1,160,000 for supplies in a year and a' half. See " State Papers of the I4th Congress," 2d Session, Vol. I., Report No. 21.
2 "American State Papers," miscellaneous, Vol. I., p. 593.
HENRY CLAY
\Si
nation, he is separated forever from all those relations which he may have left behind him." l
It was impossible to resist such appeals. The demand of those who had migrated to the new country was aided by the cry of their friends in the east who wanted to exchange let ters and visits with them. Commerce, ever aggres sive, demanded better facilities. Conscientious scruples about constitu tional construction must vanish from each con gressman's mind under such pressure from con stituents. The first appropriations for the Cumberland road were made from the two per cent fund.3 Later the money was advanced from the United States
1 Harrison, of Indiana. See " Debates of Congress," Vol. II., Pt. 1.^(1826), p. 358.
'2 This public testimonial to the father of theCumberland road is located on that great highway near Wheeling, West Virginia.
3 Ohio agreed not to tax the public land lying within her limits for five years, if the United States would give her MONUMENT TO HENRY CLAY 2
2/2 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
treasury to be replaced from this meagre fund ; at last all disguise was thrown aside, and money was voted directly to complete the road not only to the Ohio river at Wheeling, but through the state capitals of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.1
Although the American system contributed powerfully to the making of the Union, since it ignored the agency of the states, it begot a most pernicious practice of "log-rolling" among the members of Congress, as well as a never satisfied hunger among the people for further public benefits. In order to gain the passage of some local benefit measure, a member was obliged to promise aid to a similar enterprise fathered by another. An appropriation for one locality incited the cupidity of its neighbors.2 When Clay pushed his Louisville canal survey through the Senate during his first session by a vote of 1 8 to 8, John Quincy Adams explained it as having "obviously been settled out of doors." He also made a calculation that the senators from the three states interested in the canal (Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio),
five per cent of the proceeds of the sales of these lands for building roads. Subsequently two per cent of this five per cent was granted for making a road to the state of Ohio. The same agreement was afterwards made with the states of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Having once entered upon the building of this road, the Federal government found it impossible to stop. Sixty distinct acts were passed for the road between 1806 and 1838, and almost $7,000,000 appropriated.
1 That is through Columbus, Indianapolis, Vandalia, and Jefferson City. Before it was fully completed, the road was given by the United States to these four states. They have given it to the respective counties through which it passes, by whom it is still maintained.
2 In 1804, the Ohio Canal Company was incorporated by the legisla ture of Kentucky for building a canal about the Falls at Louisville. The enterprise solicited Congressional aid, since it would benefit the govern ment salt works on the Wabash, and would hasten the sale of public lands along the Ohio river.
HENRY CLAY 2/3
together with those interested in the Chesapeake and Delaware canal (Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania) could influence enough additional members to carry both those measures.
The self-interest attached to all these claims for pub lic benefit is illustrated by the Maysville road. The people of central Kentucky desired an outlet to the Ohio river, and a company was organized to construct a road from Lexington to Maysville. In order to get the national government to subscribe to the enterprise, it was proposed to make it a link in a great " national " road which should branch southwardly in Ohio from the Cumberland national road, and, passing through Ken tucky and other intervening states, eventually reach New Orleans. Fortune seemed to favor the plan. Henry Clay, the virtual father of "internal improve ments," resided near Lexington, and Andrew Jackson, the President of the United States, near the line of the proposed road in Tennessee.
Notwithstanding the opposition of the southern Atlantic states, whose hopes of a road to New Orleans through their territory had been raised by surveys and reports made at various times, the Maysville road meas ure was put through both houses of Congress. In vain did the opposition show the folly of spending $50,000 on three counties of Kentucky. At this rate it would cost four millions to satisfy the state and seventy-two millions to appease the eighteen states. They showed that the national government had already incurred obli gations for public improvements amounting to one hun dred and six millions. Forty-two such projects were now pending in Congress, including bridges, roads, rail-
274 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
roads, canals, and river improvements. The patronage was raising up an army of contractors and wire pullers, they said, equal to the standing armies of Europe. Clay's " American system " was declared not a whit less odious than the European system.
" The President is now supposed to allow the money drawn from the pockets of the people of the nation by indirect taxation to be squandered in making state and neighborhood roads from the Ohio river to Mr. Clay's farm at Lexington, merely that the credit of the project may be given to Mr. Clay." President Jackson, although approving appropriations for the Cumberland road, and for rivers, harbors, and canals, vetoed the Maysville road bill.
One effect of this veto was to recall the people to their senses in the mad race for public benefits. No one who knew Andrew Jackson could hope that he would change his attitude toward the inauguration of new projects. His influence was also so strong with his understood successor,' Van Buren, that no hope could be seen in the future. Before the end of Van Buren's administration, the public improvement craze had been transferred to the states, and their disastrous experiences following the panic of 1837 cooled the ardor of these internal expansionists.
Another effect was to bring Clay forward as the champion of public improvements unlimited. " By the injudicious exercise of the veto power," said one news paper, "Jackson has lost all chances of a second term. The cry is — Now FOR CLAY!" The veto made him an opponent of Jackson in the election of 1832. It made Jackson unpopular in districts expecting a share
HENRY CLAY 275
of the public usufruct. It was reported that at Mays- ville, when the President passed down the river on his way home after the adjournment of Congress, "not a single bow" was offered to him. "As the boat rounded off from shore, the General from the deck bowed to the citizens — but not a HAT moved. Silent contempt was his reward at this place."1 But indignation was not sufficiently widespread to defeat Jackson and elect Clay. The people were neither unappreciative nor ungrate ful for the efforts of Clay in their behalf. His journeys to and from Washington at the opening and closing of Congress were continued ovations. Especially was this true if he were bidding farewell to public life and retiring to his Kentucky farm, as he so frequently did. His carriage or the public coach was stopped at the edge of every hamlet by the enthusiastic people, who drew it by hand to the city tavern, where a speech must be made by the great "Harry Clay."2 Later, a public meeting, an informal serenade, or a banquet awaited "the man who wins all hearts." If the time of his arrival chanced to be so fortunate, he graced the annual horse trot or the agricultural fair. The local poet fashioned an appropriate stanza :
" The peopled favorite, Henry Clay, Is now the ' Fashion ' of the day ; And let the track be dry or mucky, We'll stake our pile on old Kentucky.
Get out of the way, he's swift and lucky, Clear the track for old Kentucky.11
1 Louisville Advertiser, July 9, 1830.
2 When Clay came to Washington in 1848 to address the Colonization Society, Senator Crittenden said of him that he could get more people to listen to him speak and fewer to vote for him than any man in the United States.
276 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
If he chose to travel by the Cumberland road, public recognition was doubly enthusiastic for the man whose efforts were largely responsible for this great link between the east and west.1 He himself testified : " I have free passage across the mountains. I am invited to dinners, suppers, and balls. Taverns, stages, and toll-gates have been generally thrown open to me free of charge. A monarch might be proud of the reception with which I have everywhere been honored."
Much rivalry was manifest between the stage lines on the road for the honor of carrying him. If he chose the Old Line or the Oyster Line on one trip, he must promise to patronize the Good Intent the next time. The drivers of the Pathfinder, the Republic, and the Pro tection contested with the drivers of the Erin go BragJi and the Central America for the distinguished passenger. The landlord of the Mount Vcrnon, the Pancake, the White Goose and Golden Swan, or the Cross Keys stood upon his steps to welcome the father of the "American system." It was said that Clay knew by name many of the drivers and landlords along the road.
His enemies sneered that the " hero of the knife and fork" or "the table orator" was again upon his trav els ; they suggested that the American system should be
1 " He was met on his entrance into the town by the Cumberland Band, who escorted him to the hotel and there discoursed some of their best music. Soon after his arrival, he received a large concourse of our citizens, who, as has been the case many thousand times before in this and other places, were delighted with his bland, courteous manner. After some time spent in gazing upon the features and listening to the voice of this most remarkable man of the present century, Mr. Clay in a few glowing words returned his thanks to the assembled multitude, wished them many returns of a happy new year, and amid loud cheering, retired to his room." — From the Cumberland (Md.) Civilian.
HENRY CLAY 277
called the "Bribery system" or the "Eating system." Nevertheless, when Clay visited Pittsburg the Anchor paper mills gave its workmen a holiday and the cham pion of American industry a mighty feast. The straw manufacturers made for Mrs. Clay a mammoth straw hat, and the silversmiths of New York presented a tablet to their protector.
Clay's admirers delighted to pass along the story that at one time, when he was thrown from a coach on a pile of limestone broken to repair the road near Uniontown, he remarked, " Well, we ought to have a good road now, since we are mingling the limestone of Pennsylvania with the Clay of Kentucky." His constituency espe cially admired the reply of Mrs. Clay, who passed the card room in the Capitol and was asked whether she regretted seeing her husband play for money. " Oh no, he nearly always wins."
By 1809, the art of applying steam to navigation, as perfected by Fulton on the Hudson, had reached the middle west. With the coming of the steamboat, a demand arose for the clearing of streams and the construction of harbors by the national government. Although large appropriations were made, many doubted whether the constitutional provision for regu lating commerce covered internal as well as ocean com merce. But the same law of compulsion which was making the nation decided affirmatively.1 This hesitancy, however, cut off artificial waterways or canals not a part of rivers from national aid. A new departure was
1 According to a report of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army, the total appropriation for rivers and harbors made by Congress between 1789 and 1892 amounted to over $236,000,000.
!?8 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
made in the Erie Canal constructed by the state of New York after years of petitioning Congress for assistance. Ohio and other states followed her example.
Ofihf Ptumgf <>f Ihe-fintt Boat from (he Grnutl Canal into the Hudson, nl the Cily r,f .-Ilknuy, on Wftln<-*.tl<nj. Ortobrr 8, 1823.
ity »( .ill in the Im
n<l the bells to ring. At which time disjoint com. ami rhamplain Cimals, ami there join the Canal 1 Boat ; from thence tlown the canal. On their \w ifc, iv.'d by another Boat, with ih« Milimry
bej wifl arm-cat 11 o'clock. i-sM-d with flags, and moored i
Just when the canal and steamboat had reached their highest point of popularity, their rival, and ultimately their deadly foe, appeared. At the inauguration of Jackson, a model of a newly invented railroad car had been shown in the rotunda of the Capitol, in which " eight persons were drawn by a thread of common sew ing cotton." In his " First Book of History," Peter Parley said :
" But the most curious thing at Baltimore is the railroad. I must tell you that there is a great trade between Baltimore and the states west of the Alleghany mountains. . . . Now in order to carry on all this business the more easily, the people are building what they call a railroad. This consists of iron bars laid along the ground, and made fast so that carriages with small wheels may run along them with facility. In this way each horse will be able to draw as much as ten horses on a common road. A part of this railroad is already done, and if you choose to take a ride upon it you may do so. You will mount a carriage something like a stage, and then you will be drawn along by two horses at the rate of twelve miles an hour."
HENRY CLAY
279
The members of Congress went over to Baltimore by stage for the purpose of riding on the new road, and were surprised to
see one horse draw four car riages on which were seated one hundred and fifty people. Soon the steam locomotive had replaced horses and sails.1 The eccentric Davy Crockett described his ex perience on the railroad :
"This was a clean new sight to me ; about a dozen big stages hung orito one machine and to start up a hill.
Baltimore and the states west of the Alleghany Mountains. The western people buy a great many goods at Bal timore, and send in return a great deal of western produce. There is, there fore, a vast deal of travelling back and forth, and hundreds of teams are con stantly occupied in transporting goods and produce to and from market.
Raa-road Car.
8. Now, in order to carry on aU this Business more easily, the people are Jmihling what is called a rail-road. This consists of iron bars laid along il
(From Peter Parley's " First Book of History")
1 A very popular song to be heard in the theatres of the day, began as follows :
" At the inns on our route
No ostler comes out To give water to Spanker or Smiler; But loll'd at our ease We ask landlord to please . Put a little more water in the boiler.
And we're no longer gee up and gee ho, But tiz, fiz, fiz, off we go."
280 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
After a good deal of fuss, we all got seated and moved slowly off; the engine wheezing as if she had tizzick. By-and-by she began to take short breaths, and away we went with a blue streak after us. The whole distance is seventeen miles, and it was run in fifty-five minutes."
Railroads were used at first to connect waterways, both natural and artificial. That they could ever
The Farmer, the .Statesman, m& Patriot,
BOSTON; J. FISHER, No. h COURT STREET.
supplant canals was doubted. When a Cincinnati newspaper in 1830 predicted that within twenty years
HENRY CLAY 281
the many hundreds of canals planned, at a cost of $30,000,000, would be filled up or drained to make foundations for railroads, other papers " recorded " it as a "matter of curious speculation." Railways were never considered fit subjects for national aid beyond the granting of public lands through which they passed. Private capital accumulated sufficiently to build them before the demand for extensive construction arose. They never entered into Clay's American system.
In many parts of the United States one may find a well-kept railway running beside the grass-grown bed of a deserted canal. Having passed the day of its use fulness, it remains a silent witness to the fickleness of popularity. Here and there over the land one finds evidences of the dead hopes of the thousands who time and again tried to reward their champion with the presidency. No man ever had such followers as Clay ; so faithful through many defeats, yet never sufficiently strong to accomplish their purpose. Adopting a homely phrase familiar to every Kentucky hunter, they " picked flint and tried it again." A thousand voices were always ready to respond :
" Here's to you, Harry Clay, Here's to you with all my heart. And you shall be the President, And that before we part. Here's to you, Harry Clay."
CHAPTER IX
ANDREW JACKSON, THE PEOPLE'S PRESIDENT
" But, unaided by any such or other improper means, and opposed by an organized corps of Leading men, and intriguing politicians, in almost every state of the Union, he is emphati cally the CANDIDATE OF THE PEOPLE."- — /'Vw// an Address to the People of Ohio on the Next Presidency. Cincinnati, 1824.
" Freeman, cheer the Hickory tree In storms its boughs have sheltered thee ; O'er Freedom's Land its branches wave, Twas planted on the LION'S GRAVE."
— Campaign Song of 1828.
WAR is always a disturbing element in history. It is revolution as opposed to peaceful evolution. Peace is the normal condition, war the abnormal. The war spirit is contagious ; it is unreasoning ; it is tyrannical. It demands a harmony of action ; it denounces opposition as unpatriotic ; it does not hesitate to restrict free speech and civil rights. The man who opposes war does so at his peril ; the political party which opposes war invites defeat. Those who opposed taking up arms in the Revolutionary war were proscribed, banished, and their property confiscated. Those who opposed the war of 1812 were accused of treason;1 their names
1 Tn Adams's " History of the Administrations of Jefferson and Madi son," see the " blue light " charges.
282
ANDREW JACKSON 283
were held up to scorn in later years ; their political hopes blasted, Not a man who took part in the pro testing convention at Hartford could ever hope for political preferment at the hands of the people.
The triumphant close of the war brought such pres tige to the Republicans or Jefferson party that the Fed eralists ceased to be recognized in national politics, and the political "era of good feeling" followed. Men had looked forward to a cessation of partisanship as a kind of millennium. It was felt that with the abeyance of party issues, the welfare of the entire country would be more carefully considered. But it was soon seen that parties form the mechanism of popular government; that the people must have working lines if the government is to be a thing of life ; that with the disappearance of party issues, personal issues are sure to arise. In that case, the good of the government is lost sight of in consider ing the qualifications of the various leaders and in the resulting personal strife.
This predominance of the personal element in " the era of good feeling" was well illustrated in the election of 1824. Four years before, party feeling may be said to have reached its lowest point at the second election of Monroe, when he received every electoral vote cast save one.1 There was absolutely no national party or issue. But in 1824, there were so many candidates before the electors that no one had a majority.
In the quarter of a century since the people had revolted and elected Jefferson, a state of affairs similar to that time had arisen. Political power is constantly
1 It is said that one elector threw away his vote rather than have another unanimously sleeted President after Washington.
284 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
slipping unperceived from the hands of the many to the hands of the few. By 1824, it had come to be under stood that the Secretary of State should be the next President, the " Secretary succession" as it was called. Therefore, John Quincy Adams received some electoral votes. But a certain element in Washington rallied about William H. Crawford, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury, and tried to change the order of succes sion to the presidency. Adams was from the north Atlantic and Crawford from the south Atlantic section, the former seats of political contests. The migration of the people, as described in a previous chapter, had brought forth a new and unperceived element — the west. Its people were grateful to the champion of their great internal improvement system, and the elec toral votes of Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri were given to Henry Clay. He was the choice of the people as opposed to the politicians, but of the higher class of people. He might have been elected had not another candidate been put forward by the masses of the people. This fourth candidate, Andrew Jackson, is an illustra tion of war as a disturbing agent in political plans. His war record was his great and almost sole qualification. In the local Indian wars on the southwestern frontier, he had endeared himself to the borderers as the pro tector of their homes and families ; in the battle of New Orleans he had made himself a national hero, since it was a kind of redeeming victory in a rather inglorious contest on the land.1 The American people have, since
1 A handbill in the New York Historical Society, reproduced on page 286, shows that no news of the battle of New Orleans had reached that city until after the news of the peace came.
ANDREW JACKSON
285
the days of Washington, deemed the presidency the only suitable reward for a war hero. Much to the dismay of politicians, the rough old Indian fighter re ceived the highest number of electoral votes, although not a majority.
When the unsettled election went into the House of Representa tives, Clay, the low est on the list, was dropped.1 His strength lay in the west and would naturally go to Jackson. They were the two candidates of the people ; they rep resented the new as against the old. But contrary to all expec tation, Clay lent his influence to Adams ANDREW JACKSON a
and secured his election. When Adams made up his cabinet, Clay was made Secretary of State. His turn would come next. Clay could not believe that "the ; killing of two thousand five hundred Englishmen at New Orleans " qualified Jackson for the presidency.
Immediately arose the cry of "a corrupt bargain."
1 According to the Constitution, Amendment XII., Sec. I.
2 From an old print of the painting by Earle.
286 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Clay had sold himself for thirty pieces of silver.1 It was " a coalition of Blifil and Black George — a com-
bination, un heard of till now, of the Puritan and the blackleg." The hero of the people had been defeated by a political trick. But a clay of reckon ing was only four years away.
Under un known and un trained leaders, but men who matched the keenness of the politician with the subtlety of the borderer, the "Jackson men" devoted themselves for four years
1 A stanza of doggerel, current at the time, runs :
" Harry Clay was a cunning chap, His debts had thrown him all aback. So he felt a longing for Treasury pap. He made a bargain with John the great, I shan't the particulars here relate, But Harry was placed in the chair of State, Heigh-ho, says Harry."
LausDfoI
Glorious
PEACE.
An express passed thlwity this
at New.York, which w*«fcliv*red to Mr, Havens, who, politely shewed us it* contents, which are as follow {
« A British Sloop of War,* with Mr. Carrol, and a Treaty of PEACE has just arrivM-iigncd on the 24lh December.
When the Expres. left New-York, at deven o'clock, Ian night, the city was brilliantly ilhj.
atnated.
KP Ko Mail from New-0cle»n* •ftwrib, /, Mv^fUtfiOgm^
ANDREW JACKSON 287
to the interests of their candidate. They marked every representative who had voted for Adams, and defeated many of them. They changed the complexion of Con gress until the Adams administration was turned into a series of defeats. This they were able to do largely through the extension of the suffrage.
When the Declaration of Independence declared the political equality of men, it was not thought wise to put the theory into practice. The suffrage was con trolled by the states and was, in all save two, restricted to holders of property. Such had been the custom in England and the colonies. It is estimated that not more than one person in twenty-three had sufficient prop erty to vote when Washington was elected President. Gradually, in state after state, new constitutions were formed which removed or lowered suffrage restrictions.
Although thus securing the privilege of voting, the people had small share in the election of President and still less in determining the candidates to be voted upon. The makers of the Constitution questioned the judgment of the masses and therefore provided that the people should choose electors, presumably the best men in each community, who should meet and select the man in the United States best qualified to be President. But it was soon seen that electors could be chosen who would undoubtedly vote for a certain man, and in that indirect way the people have been in reality voting for the Presi dent since the very first election.
The Constitution allowed the several states to decide how these electors should be chosen, and the state legislatures seemed to furnish a ready agency. In the first election of Washington, the electors were chosen
288 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
by the people in only three out of the eleven states. The President was thus twice removed from the direct choice of the people. Democracy has gained slowly by sloughing off old political forms and methods. For years the people slowly gain strength through evolu tion, and then suddenly break through the upper stratum in what is called a political revolution. Such an upheaval came in 1800, as already described; another was preparing in 1824.
In the election of 1824, the people as usual had no power in choosing candidates. Crawford had been named by a caucus of the members of Congress. That method had been invented, after the unanimous elec tions of Washington, and was followed during the subse quent elections to 1824. Yet the state legislatures felt themselves nearer to the people than Congress, and they began to nominate candidates. Adams was nomi nated by the legislatures of several New England states ; Clay by Kentucky and four other states ; and Jackson by his own state of Tennessee and by Pennsylvania.1
No nominations were necessary for the campaign of 1828. All were either "Jackson men" or "Adams men." No party names were known. The administra tion papers, especially those that read their doom in the coming in of the masses, attacked the record of Jackson. They claimed that he " possessed only the bravery of a RUFFIAN and the warlike cunning of an INDIAN CHIEF. . . . CONSTANTINE was violent, uxorious, and a gambler :
1 By 1840 this system of nominating by state legislatures had begun to give way to a nomination made by a convention of delegates chosen by the people of a state. This in turn was superseded by a national convention consisting of delegates chosen from the different states, a custom prevalent to the present day.
ANDREW JACKSON
289
JACKSON is all this beside a Duellist and a Murderer." He would make a fine contrast to the polished, religious Adams, with "his CHICANERY, — his BRAWLS, — his SWEARING, — his SHOOTING and DAGGERING." He was called "the man of the Pistol and Dirk, the fireside HYENA of character, the Tennessee SLANDERER, the GREAT WESTERN BLUEBEARD." Pamphlets were printed giving the particulars of Jackson betting $5000 in 1806 on one of his race-horses and then killing the owner of the rival horse on the duelling field. When an editor contemplated putting mourning lines on his paper for Jackson's unfortunate opponent, that bully threatened any one found sympathizing with his victim. The pamphlets also described how General Jackson and his friends in 1813 attacked Colonel Benton and his brother with pistols and dag
HUZZA
FOR
<KCii.Ja<*kson!
gers, during which Jackson's arm was shattered by a ball. Thus they pictured the man who was proposed for the presidency instead of the polished gentleman, John Quincy Adams.
The Jackson men ridiculed the piety
of Adams, a piety which asked twenty thousand dollars in addition to the regular appropriation of fourteen thou sand for furnishing the President's mansion. One-third of this money had been lavished, they said, on the apart-
WITH THE
YANKEES!
POSTER OF 1828
2QO THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
ments of Adams's British wife and part in buying — Shades of Puritanism — a billiard table! Also $2613 had been spent for " Dry Goods." What did that mean ? No wonder that while most presidents have retired poor, this man had amassed a fortune. Also contrast the record of the two men. Jackson had always been a man of the people ; Adams was a descendant of the " well-born " and had "turned a complete political som erset " to the Jeffersonians when he saw the Federalists losing power in Massachusetts. While Jackson was pledging his estate to raise money for his troops, Adams was investing his salary in Russian bonds. Jackson had resigned the governorship of Florida, declined a cabinet position under Monroe, and had always surren dered his commission when he took off his sword ; Adams had been a public pensioner for almost a quarter of a century, must have received at least $200,000 in salaries, and had never resigned nor declined an office.
When the Adams men called Jackson " half horse — half alligator," his followers accepted it as a tribute. The term had originated among the rougher element in the new west, who boasted that they were not of women born. The printing-presses were few in the Jackson country and the illiterates many ; hence they had re course to the "oldest campaign agency in the world — the song. One of the most popular began :
" We are a hardy, free-born race, each man to fear a stranger, Whate'er the game, we join the chase, despising toil and danger, And if a daring foe annoys, whate'er his strength or force is, We'll show him that Kentucky boys are alligators-horses.
" I s'pose you've read it in the prints how Pakenham attempted, To make old Hickory Jackson wince, but soon his scheme repented ;
ANDRE I V JA CKSON
291
For we, with rifles ready cocked, thought such occasions lucky, And soon around the General flocked, the hunters from Kentucky."
The Adams men accepted this challenge to make the issue on Jackson's war record. Pamphlets were issued describing how General Jackson had put to death sixteen helpless Indians on the morning after the battle of the Horse Shoe ; l how he arbitrarily invaded Spanish Flor ida and put to death two Englishmen, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, whom he found there ; how the Secretary
MOURNFUL TKACJED1
Jacob Webb, David Morrow, John Han-is, Henry Lewis, David Hunt, and Edward Lindsav,
of War had suggested that he be court-martialled for his conduct ; how he had hoisted a British flag at St. Mark's and so decoyed four Indians on board and then hanged them ; how he had sworn by the Eternal to execute Woods, a volunteer, who had an altercation with an offi cer while the army was near Mobile, and had done so.
JA rare pamphlet in the Library of Congress bears the title, "A Review of the Battle of the Jlorse Shoe and of the Facts relating to the Killing of Sixteen Indians on the morning after the Battle by the Orders of Gen. Andrew Jackson."
292 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Above all they dwelt upon Jackson putting to death :- six militiamen at New Orleans for having returned to their homes under the impression that they had been called out for three months' instead of six months' ser vice. Handbills were circulated showing the six black coffins with descriptive stanzas beneath. One stanza runs :
" See Six BLACK COFFINS rang'd along,
Six GRAVES before them made ;
Webb, Lindsay, Harris, Lewis, Hunt,
And Morrow kneel'd and pray'd."
The only attack which touched the war hero was that aimed at his wife and her past history. It is a story al most incomprehensible now, when the frontier with its unconventional life has passed away. Jackson, the young lawyer, crossing the mountains from his native Caro lina to a pioneer life in western Tennessee, took lodg ings with another young man in the side cabin of Mrs. Donelson, who lived with her deserted but not divorced daughter, Mrs. Robards, in the main cabin. The condi tion of the woman, deserted by her jealous husband, appealed to the chivalrous nature and impulsive tem perament of Jackson. Simply upon rumor that the hus band had obtained a divorce from the legislature of the state of Virginia, Jackson married Mrs. Rob ards. As a lawyer he should have been more careful. Even the later action of having a second and legal marriage ceremony after the divorce had been really granted could not amend his past carelessness. When he came into political life his enemies would not take into consideration the extenuating circumstances of the lack of communication on the border, the fierceness of
ANDREW JACKSON 293
the loves and hates of the borderer, and the lack of a rigid standard of life.
0*;«»1*R Or THE MMXflJ? OEKm
GENERAL .1 A € Si SO A
Jf/;/*V« A SVffLBMf.\T TGtTJIK "CO/'f/.v /,'.
n M. j ii ?i i. i) i! ' v i
f if iff
i
COFFIN HANDBILL, CAMPAIGN OF 1828
The Adams papers in the campaign found a rich morsel in this " scandal." " Who is there in all the land that has a wife, sister, or daughter, that could be pleased to see Mrs. Jackson (Mrs. Robards that was) presiding in the drawing-room at Washington? There is POLLUTION in the touch, there is PERDITION IN THE EXAMPLE OF A PROFLIGATE WOMAN." Jackson writhed under these stings, but comforted himself with his coming revenge when this slandered woman should be the first lady in the land; when her defamers must grant her the defer ence due to a President's wife. As the campaign drew to a close and his election became assured, no prospect was as pleasing as his coming revenge. Mrs. Jackson, or " Aunt Rachel " as her friends called her, had been in Washington when her husband was senator. She was a woman not without a certain beauty, but falling
294 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
short of the present standard by the defects of her border training and life. She was said to be illiterate and fond of her fireside and her pipe. But to Jackson's faith ful nature she was the embodiment of attractiveness.
After Jackson's election had been assured, the people of Nashville prepared an elaborate dinner and ball for him and Mrs. Jackson before their departure for Wash ington. On this occasion, kind women of that city pre pared for the wife of the President-elect a gown more in keeping with her station than the ones she usually wore. At nine o'clock on the night prior to the recep tion, Mrs. Jackson died. Rumor said that in a hotel at Nashville, while on a visit connected with the prepara tion of the gown, she had overheard a comment upon the weight that her past record would be about the neck of her husband ; that she returned to the Hermitage in tears, and in a week was dead. Her husband sat by her body day and night unwilling to believe that fate had snatched from his hands the prize now that it was within his grasp. When he started on his lonely journey to Washington it was with a firm resolution to defend and protect all women against the tongue of slander. Only when one knows the story of Mrs. Jackson can one appreciate her husband's defence of Mrs. Eaton.1
Down the Cumberland to the Ohio and up that stream to Pittsburg by boat, and across the mountains by " a plain two-horse wagon," came the presidential party. At every city there was an artillery salute, but from any
O'Neal was the daughter of a Washington tavern-keeper. She married Major Eaton a few weeks before he became Jackson's Secretary of War. Some gossip concerning them, which had been current, was renewed by the politicians. Jackson defended her, even to the extent of disciplining his niece and threatening the Dutch minister.
ANDREW JA CKSON- 295
further courtesies the recent affliction of the President ex cused him. He arrived quite unexpectedly at Gadsby's tavern in Washington d^i the morning of February 12. In the afternoon a salutevwas fired and another at sunset.
As the 4th of March approached, the newspapers announced " a great concourse of strangers in the city of every degree in life." They were Jackson men, who seemed to fear that their hero would be again tricked out of his rights. They proposed to see " Old Hickory " in the " White House." Many had come in carts» and on horseback for hundreds of miles. The aristocratic office-holders compared them to the barbarians descend ing on ancient Rome. To Webster they appeared to feel a relief as if the country had been freed from some awful danger. It was democracy coming into its own.
The committee of arrangements announced that there would be no military array on the inauguration day but such as was voluntary. The new President was to be ''surrounded by no praetorian guard." In truth the only military company in Washington was commanded by an Adams office-holder, who refused to call it out to grace these barbarians. Two companies of artillery were hastily formed to fire salutes as the President, escorted by the Congressional committee, a few old Revolutionary soldiers, and a great rabble, went from Gadsby's to the Capitol. Ten thousand people "gave salutations" when he appeared on the eastern portico of the buildirig to read his very brief address. They swept away like whipcord a wire cable stretched to keep the multitude back from the " privileged class." Later, amidst more salutes, "Old Hickory " was escorted by the throng to his future place of residence..
296 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
That night came the reception. For hours were heard the crash of glass and the breaking of furniture as the crowd surged through the President's mansion, eager to see their representative in possession of his own. A Massachusetts man said : " I never saw such a mixture. The reign of King MOB seemed triumphant. I was glad to escape from the scene as soon as possible." Not withstanding the warning published by a man who had lost a purse of $400 at the theatre the night before, the "cut-purses " were busy and but few arrested. A Jack son newspaper acknowledged, " At the Mansion of the President, the Sovereign People were a little uproari ous, indeed, but it was anything but a malicious spirit."
The next day a heavy rain drove away some of the spectators, but many remained. They thought there ought to be " a clean sweep " of the office-holders instead of stopping with the President.1 They were said to have " flocked here in crowds in the vain hope of reward for services which they believe themselves to have rendered during the campaign." " The situation of the Presi dent himself is far from enviable." Other newspapers reported that the office-seekers intruded upon his private hours and " perforated " the whole of his mansion to get a peep at him.2 Webster pronounced the multitude
1 The Baltimore Patriot said that when a gentleman apologized for making such a lengthy call on the President, the latter replied, " Sit down, sir, and stay. I like to have you. You are the first man who has come to see me without asking for an office."
2 " Turn out ! turn out !
They are rogues no doubt;
And honest men and true are come to put them all to rout.
Why the d— 1 should they stay
In their seats a single day
For noble fellows like ourselves they all should clear away."
— The Massachusetts Journal, 1829.
ANDREW JA CKSOtf
too many to be fed without a miracle. They construed the promise of reform in Jackson's inaugural address to mean turning out the professional office-holders. " The power of removal," said a Virginia paper, "is founded on the idea that no radical reform of abuses of the government was to be expected from gentlemen who were hacknied in the abuses of office and opposed to the cause of Jackson and reform." The Jackson organ in Washington promised that the President " would reward his friends and punish his enemies." 1
The Adams men were soon in a panic. They had taken comfort from a resurrected letter from Jackson to Monroe written years before in which he advised against the removal of officers. At a farewell dinner given to Clay on the day after the inauguration, that departing statesman had proposed the toast, " Let us never despair of the American Republic." But what was the republic to men who saw the political guillotine before their eyes ? Fifteen postmasters were dismissed in New Hampshire in ten weeks ; yet, when a dismissed clerk in Washing ton committed suicide, a New Hampshire newspaper said, " The People bid the Executioner go on in the good work of reform even if some do bleed by their own hands."
1 The Central Hickory Club summed up the situation from its stand point in a circular issued in 1832:
When Gen. Jackson came into power there were in office in this city :
Of his enemies about 288
Of his friends about 71
Majority of enemies 217
At the end of 1831, the relative strength of parties was as follows:
Gen. Jackson's enemies 173
His friends 140
Majority of enemies 33
298
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Andrew Jackson has always borne the odium of the father of the spoils system, but a larger view will see that system as a result of this democratic revolution. To say that Jackson discovered in it any moral wrong would be to ascribe to this old Indian fighter a sentiment of to-day which has taken years to build up and is held only by the highest civic type. His standard, as formed by his war training, was embodied later in the immortal saying of Marcy, " To the victor belong the spoils." With such men in power, personal encounters were not uncommon. The general rule was to employ fists for ruffians and the duel for gentlemen. The practice of 11 posting " men by handbills was not uncommon.1
Jackson never contemplated himself in the role assumed by Jefferson — the political saviour of his coun
try ; but he had been called forth
To the Public.
I publish (inicRil JHFF OKEEX to HIP world, as a ami a C<ncur(f.
. WATSO.'V WKIIlt,
Of *«•»» York.
bnmn, «. 1S32,
reluctantly to re form the abuses under which his people labored." When ever he found such abuse he would destroy it. He soon found one in the second
United States bank. Adopted by Congress at the close of the war of 1812 to restore the national finances, and chartered for twenty years, this great corporation, on a first capital of $35,000,000, earned more than $3,000,000 annually. Its headquarters were located
1 Two of these handbills are shown in illustrations in this chapter.
ANDREW JACKSON 299
in Philadelphia, with twenty-five branch banks in vajious cities, employing over five hundred people. Its bank-notes were accepted at par the country over. Jackson had known little about the bank until a quar rel concerning the appointment of its officers reached him. Now a bank is always an object of suspicion among the masses of the people, and the methods of the banker are always suspected. Those who have not the faculty of making money suspect those who have. In his second message, Jackson raised the in quiry whether the United States could not manage a bank exclusively and get all the profits where it now held one-fifth the stock and received only that share of the profits. Three times in as many annual mes sages this suggestion was made.
In 1832, Clay brought before Congress a petition for rechartering the bank, although it had four years yet to run. It must have time to close up its affairs, he said, if this hostile suggestion of the President should be adopted. Immediately the Jackson men brought for ward twenty-two charges against the bank, chiefly of using undue influence in the national and state legis latures, and of accommodating politicians with loans. Nevertheless the bill to recharter passed both houses, but was vetoed by the President on the ground that it was a monopoly. " Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by the act of Congress." It was the old Jeffersonian protest against privilege legislation.
Once aroused against the bank, the wrath of Jackson knew no bounds. He paid his bills in gold instead of
300
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
United States bank-notes, and his followers aroused fur ther distrust by calling constant attention to the ninety- five counterfeit bank-bills which had been detected. The President now ordered the receivers of the public money to make no further deposits with the branches of the bank and to draw out whatever remained of the $8,000,000 annually deposited. He also deprived the
CITY OF
NEW-YORK
POSTING " AN ENEMY
United States bank of distributing the pension money. But the United States continued to receive money and there was no place to put it. A treasury in a treasury building had not yet been thought of. Why not let the smaller banks throughout the country, those which could with difficulty compete with the great monopoly, have the use of this money ?
The banks thus chosen were immediately named " Jackson's pet banks." Under their unexpected for tune, they began to speculate. Jackson detested paper
ANDREW JACKSON
301
money, but his action brought out a flood of it. Banks sprang up like mushrooms.1 From 1834 to 1836 the banking capital increased $81,000,000. The reaction was sure to come, and it brought the panic of 1837. Even this was precipitated by the President issuing an arbitrary order that the land offices should refuse to accept anything save specie in payment for the public lands. This panic Jackson bequeathed to his protege, Van Buren, with the presidency.
The disastrous results of this meddling with the national bank brought no discredit to the President in
MEDAL ON JACKSON DESTROYING THE BANK
the opinion of his followers. They thanked God that he knew nothing of finance since then he would be honest with them. But the affair formed such an example of amateur juggling with national finances that no one has since dared to repeat it. The chief Executive had learned a lesson.
1 This stanza was copied extensively in the opposition papers : " He managed the people, he governed the Banks; And played while in office all sorts of queer pranks; He killed the old monster, and then with a grin, He got many little ones of the same kin."
302 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
As will be described in the next chapter, the always smouldering contest on the relative power of the state and national governments had broken forth under Jack son. It was, to a certain extent, made possible by the defeat of the New Englanders or Adams men and the election of Jackson. The triumphant southerners wished to reap advantage of their victory and bring the national government back to its restricted origin. Opportunity was given in the tariff legislation which had imposed higher duties on coarse stuffs, such as clothing for slaves, until it was felt in the south to be unbearable, and received the title, " the tariff of abomi nations."
The state of South Carolina, the state of Calhoun and Hayne, took the lead and prepared to resist the collec tion of the duty in its ports. The action was grounded by Calhoun in a doctrine foreshadowed by the Vir ginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798-99, but now elaborated into a specific remedy. " When the United States government transcends the powers given to it by the states, any state has the right to declare such law null and void and forbid its enforcement within her borders." Calhoun and his followers in " nullification " wished to trace this doctrine back to Jefferson, the father of democracy. The election of Jackson recalled Jefferson afresh to the public mind. He had died only three years before. New editions of his writings were published. His library was being sold at auction in Washington when Jackson was inaugurated.
A great celebration of his birthday was planned for the dining room of the " Indian Queen " in Washington, April 13, 1830. The guests assembled at five o'clock
ANDREW JACKSON
303
and found a list of twenty-four toasts. The fourth was indicative of the spirit running through the whole : " The Kentucky Resolutions of '98 : drawn by the same
EXPOSITION
SE
BY TltK SPECIAL COMMITTEE
T?HE TARIFF;
I MID OlUlKBKD «0 1
SOUTH CAROLINA TARIFF PAMPHLE
i
hand which drew the Declaration of Independence, a practical illustration of Jefferson's republican principles, and a correct definition of the relative powers of the State and Federal governments." In a later toast the
304 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
action of Governor Troup, of Georgia, in resisting the United States government in the case of the Ind ians, was linked with the Resolutions of '98, "He planted upon her borders the standard of States' Rights."
President Jackson arrived at the beginning of the banquet and sat through the regular toasts and speeches. As a native of South Carolina, he was supposed to be in sympathy with the sentiment of the occasion. Thirty years before he had written to a candidate: " Have you always been an admirer of State authorities ? Will you banish the dangerous doctrine of implication ? " But he was now the President of the United States and had taken an oath to execute its laws and support its au thority. One may imagine the increasing wrath with which he heard through the four hours of the regular toasts and speeches these attacks upon the power he represented, and one may image the satisfaction he felt when called upon for the first volunteer toast. Every ear was strained. The promoters of the banquet, who hoped to commit the chief executive to an approval of the resistance of South Carolina, expected such a senti ment as, "South Carolina: may the Federal Union under the principles of '98, remember the rights of a sovereign state." l But upon the astonished listeners fell the words, " Our Federal Union : it must be pre served."
Perhaps no one was more surprised than Calhoun, but none was less daunted. Called upon as Vice-President for the second volunteer toast, he gave, " The Union :
1 In December, 1829, at a dinner in Charleston, South Carolina, this toast was "drunk with cheers": "The President and Vice-President of the United States: South Carolina gave them to the Union for the com mon benefit; she hopes everything from their wisdom and patriotism."
ANDREW JACKSON 30$
next to our liberty the most dear ; may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the Union." Here was the essence of the doctrine of nullification. A Virginian also offered the sentiment, " Our Federal Union must be preserved, by doing equal justice to all its parts."
The President departed soon after his toast, the Penn- sylvanians followed, and many others withdrew to the anterooms to discuss the unfortunate incident, but the banquet continued until near morning, the account fill ing the unusual space of eleven newspaper columns.
The opposition editors claimed that the President's toast was a challenge to the nullificationists. " It was as much as to say, * You may complain of the tariff and perhaps with reason ; but so long as it is the law it shall as certainly be maintained as that my name is ANDREW JACKSON.' ' No one who knew the stubborn nature of Jackson could doubt that. Nevertheless, Cal- houn persisted, and South Carolina passed a nullification ordinance. Governor Hayne made a vow to resist "if the sacred soil of Carolina should be polluted by the footsteps of an invader." Buttons bearing a palmetto tree appeared by thousands, and medals were struck bearing the words, " John C. Calhoim, First President of the Southern Confederacy." There was already one President, and he was the President of the United States. There was no room for two. On his death-bed he is said to have lamented his dereliction in not hang ing the other "president" as a "traitor." However much a southern man or states' rights man, he was above all the President. He ordered the revenue col-
306 THE MEN" WHO MADE THE NATION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
WASHINGTON. DEC. IOTH, mt.
lectors in South Carolina to employ gunboats if neces- sary to collect the duties under the tariff, quietly sent the general of the army, Scott, to Charleston, and shifted land and naval forces to have all in readiness.
He likened the situation to a bag of meal open at both ends. " Pick it up in the mid dle or endwise, PROCLAMATION , .. .„
and it will run
out. I must tie the bag and save the country." To the same listener1 he said, ''Dale, they are trying me here ; you will witness it ; but by the God of heaven, I will up hold the laws." Yet he tempered his measures with a proclamation to South Carolina beginning, " Fel low-citizens, of my native state," in which he appealed to them not to incur the odium of treason by resisting the execution of the laws.
The effect in the northern states was magical. A
1 See the Autobiography of Gen. Nathan Dale.
JOHN MILLER, HENRIETTA STREET,
P*m Om SUlliq a* I
COPY OF JACKSON'S SOUTH CAROLINA PROCLAMATION
ANDREW JACKSON
southern man, a borderer, a man never in touch with centralizing tendencies, Jackson had quickened the national feeling as had not been done since the days of Hamilton. Union meetings were held in various cities, and the section formerly at enmity with Jackson sud denly became his supporter.
Certain ones who indulge in conjecture are inclined to believe that if Jackson had been allowed to bring to a close this contest with his native state, the country might have been spared a later experience with nulli fication and its offspring— secession. But Clay, the great pacificator, came forward, with a mathematical compromise by which the objectionable tariff was scaled down gradually for ten years, and the contest was be queathed to posterity. South Carolina, however, never forgot the " Force bill " passed to give power to the Pres ident, and she patiently bided her time for nearly thirty years until she found herself sufficiently supported to attempt secession.
Perhaps the good feeling so unexpectedly manifested in New England toward the President persuaded him to listen to an invitation which came to him in March, 1833. " The Republican citizens of Boston would feel proud to exhibit to the victor at New Orleans the plains of Lexington and the trenches of Bunker Hill." There was no political reason why the President should further endanger his feeble health by touring the country. He had been triumphantly inaugurated for a second term. Some thought his purpose was to exhibit the " heir apparent," Van Buren, who was to accompany the party ; others imagined the old war hero coveted a revenge in thus penetrating the enemy's country, con-
308 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Goit,>eCrij>p!«*!
Democratic Ticket.
FOR PRESIDENT, )
fident of winning their hearts as he had won others by the charm of his personality. In the political campaigns he had been caricatured by his enemies in the eastern
states until people were pre pared to believe anything about him. " Captivating as he renders himself with his bandanna handkerchief, his frock coat, his amiable condescensions and the fas cination of his barroom and public talk," said one news paper. Opposed to this de scription was an item which went the rounds of the press written from Washington at the time of the inaugura tion, describing him "not the tall, muscular, rawboned, weather-beaten, and stern-looking soldier. He is not much if any above middle size, of rather weak and deli cate form, very thin flesh, not erect or commanding in figure. His eyes are dim or weeping and obscured by spectacles. In his dress he is exceedingly plain — rather negligent. In his manners, he is courteous and engaging. He would be taken for a Tennessee Farmer rather than the Chief Magistrate of a Republic."
In May, the " Grand Cavalcade " started for Balti more.1 As it moved from city to city, day after day brought out the flags, the processions, the banners, the
1 Two of the many cartoons put forth on the tour are reproduced on pages 309 and 313. They are in the Library of Congress.
FOR VICE PRESIDENT,
RICHARD M. JOHNSON;
'OUJb KLKCTOKX.
j"OHN M, GOODENOW,
OTHNIEL LOOKER, JACOB FELTER; JAMES B, CAMERON* DAVID 8. DAVIS, •* JAMES FIFE,
ELECTORAL TICKET OF 1836
310 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
thousands struggling to reach the hand of the people's President. In the old Independence Hall at Phila delphia, he was obliged to recline on a couch whilst a multitude still struggled to get the coveted hand-shake. So great became the crush, that some leaped from the windows for safety. The venerable Bishop White, chap lain of the old Continental Congress, struggled with the crowd to pay his respects, but retired defeated.
The Adams papers much lamented this exhibition of sycophancy, this "almost man worship." One said, " Many a time did President Adams arrive at our wharves unannounced and walk up from the wharf almost unattended, like any other citizen of the repub lic." But Adams was not democracy's hero. The friendly newspapers said that Jackson's hand grasp was something more than Mr. Adams's " pump-handle shake."
Whenever possible, Jackson rode on horseback in the processions. In Philadelphia, for five hours he was in the saddle, and even the opposition newspapers admitted that he was a "superb horseman." At New York, " many persons did not scruple to run between the legs of the prancing animal at the imminent risk of being trodden down so that they might grasp the hand of their beloved President or even touch the hem of his garments." The bedstead in which he slept was sup ported by four marble columns with a mirror at each corner. The counterpane and pillow cases were made of figured white satin, trimmed with silver fringe. " Nothing is too good for the man who saved our country."
As he entered New England a cooler air was encoun-
BORN TO COMMAND
is
•BZ AOTREW THE FIRST.
A CARTOON OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1832
312 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
tered. A Boston newspaper congratulated the people because they had made "no such ridiculous or servile exhibitions of sycophancy as at Philadelphia and New York." It thought there was too much military display for a civic officer. But civic display was not wanting. As the President entered Providence " mounted on a beautiful white palfrey," he rode under arches made of hickory boughs. As he approached Norwich, a young lady placed a wreath of roses on his head. At Lowell, three thousand young women, operatives in the mills, dressed in white and wearing different colored sashes, formed an escort. School children were drawn up at the roadside to see the President pass by. In Boston, the " girls in white dresses and the boys in white under clothes and dark jackets " waited in the churches for hours to form a procession. One lad is said to have burst into tears on beholding the object of their atten tions because he was only a man.
Throughout Jackson displayed that gentleness and courtesy so inconsistent with the stories of his cruelty and revengeful spirit. Instead of devouring children, as some imagined this southwestern ogre would do, he kissed them and presented gold pieces to the proud mothers, according to the newspaper accounts. To a woman who had walked from Germantown to Phila delphia to see him and had been accorded a private view, he was quoted as saying, " My dear woman, had I known it, I would cheerfully have met you halfway." He tarried in New Haven over Sunday, attending the Trinity Church service in the forenoon, the North Pres byterian in the afternoon, and the Methodist in the evening. His horsemanship won especially the hearts
ANDREW JACKSON
313
of the ladies. " He completely eclipsed all the young sparks on the review," wrote a Boston reporter. " He sat on his horse as though he had been a part of the animal, waving his hat on either side as he passed the multitude."
New England and the higher class of the north generally were receiving not democracy's hero but the President who had scotched " nullification." He was not allowed to forget this fact. He rode under banner
CARTOON ON JACKSON'S TOUR
after banner bearing his famous toast, " The Union : it must be preserved," or, " The Union : it must and shall be preserved." 1 The governor of Massachusetts referred in his address to "that National Sovereignty and Inde- pendence which you so valiantly defended when assailed by Foreign Foes and that Union under the Constitution which . . . you no less triumphantly asserted on a late
1 In the official account of the banquet, the toast of Jackson was worded as given on page 304. In many other accounts the latter part was changed to " It must and shall be preserved."
314 THE MEN- WHO MADE THE NATION
memorable occasion against internal Disaffection and Disloyalty:' Human nature could not be proof against such adulation. When the spokesman for the select men of Roxbury closed his welcome with the sentiment,
"And may his powerful arm long remain nerved Who said The UNION — it must be preserved,"
the general was said to have replied most emphatically, " It shall be preserved, Sir, as long as there is a nerve in it."
This prolonged excitement soon told on a body en feebled by arduous Indian campaigns. The President was able to visit Bunker Hill, where the details of the battle were described to him, and he was presented with I* two harmless memorials of the i;th of June, encased in a box." But because of illness he had to forego Lexington, the docking of the Constitution, and a con clave of the Grand Lodge of Masons, to which order Jackson was devotedly attached. Leaving Boston after several days' illness, he reached Portsmouth, New Hamp shire, where he was presented some goods woven from the cotton grown on his own plantation. From this point word came that the tour was abandoned and that the President was hastening home by the quickest route.
Various rumors arose. Some said he was disgusted with the strife between his own party men, who thought they had a monopoly on him, and the general populace, who had been won by his personality and now wished to do him honor. The administration newspaper at Washington when he reached home said that he feared further exposure to the northeast winds. The opposi tion hinted that he had become alarmed at the feeling
ANDREW JA CKSON 3 1 5
aroused among his old friends in the south and west by this flirting with the enemy. A Richmond paper longed for the days of a real democratic President like Jefferson, who when he had occasion to go to the Capitol, went alone, attired in his red breeches and white waistcoat, and tied his horse at the rack. " Imagine him like his snobbish successor, making a tour through his provinces, aping the fashions of European potentates, surrounded by courtiers and dependants." Jackson's triumphal tour was compared with the contemporary progress of George IV. to Dublin and Edinburgh. But his greatest offence was in accepting the degree of Doctor of Laws from that hotbed of aristocracy and Federalism - Harvard College.
His defenders pointed to a similar honor conferred upon President Monroe, but the critics replied that Monroe was a college man and deserved it. Jackson had never before seen the outside of a college. How could he reply to the President's Latin address as was customary ? Indeed, this part of the ceremony caused much conjecture. It was rumored that, as in so many instances, the President would rise to the occasion. Major Jack Downing said that he nodded his head to the address, but possibly at the wrong time since some of the students tittered. It was agreed that he made no response save a bow.1
1 "Major Jack Downing" (Seba Smith), in his burlesque description of the tour, wrote that at Cambridge some students took him into an adja cent room and conferred on him the degree of A.S.S., which they assured him stood for " amazin' smart skolar." A counterfeit Major described the President visiting Downingville. " « You must gin 'em a little Lattin, Doc tor,' says I. Here he off hat agin and says, ' E pluribus unum,' says he, ' my friends — sine qua non ! ' '
THE MEN" WHO MADE THE NATION
However, said the opposition, the degree of Doctor of Laws may not be so inconsistent, because the President is so very fond of doctoring the laws. A South Carolina newspaper denounced "the triumphal entry of General Blowblubber and his kitchen cabinet among the lick spittles of the North — a sorry scene of mutual degrada tion." A toast was offered in the same state —
" Let slaves bow down and kiss his toes Freeman defy — and pull his nose." 1
LAWRENCE'S ATTACK ON JACKSON
Colonel David Crockett, of Tennessee, who had served under the General in the Indian wars, insisted upon the
1 Lieutenant Randolph, a dismissed naval officer, once tried to pull Jackson's nose. A lithograph of the attempt of Richard Lawrence to shoot the President is preserved in the museum of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. Jackson refused to believe that he was insane but suspected a political motive for the act.
ANDREW JA CKSON 3 1 7
floor of Congress, that he had been a Jackson man until Jackson had turned into a Van Buren man. In a speech in Philadelphia he told " the story of the red cow," justifying his desertion of the ex-Democrat. 1 When Crockett reached Boston, he refused to visit " Cam bridge where the big college or university is ; where they keep ready-made titles or nicknames to give peo ple. . . . There had been one doctor made from Ten nessee already, and I had no wish to put on the cap and bells."
Perhaps the gain in new constituency would have off set the loss of the old if opportunity had been given of testing it in a third election. Certainly Jackson is the one President upon whom opinion is unanimous as to the possibility of a third term if he had so desired it. His refusal assured the permanence of the limitation established by common consent. His nomination had been a rebuke to the professional office-holding in the nation ; his election was a return of power to the peo ple ; his interference with the national finances was a deterring example ; his attitude toward nullification was the temporary salvation of the Union, although he after wards tried to explain it away ; his triumphal tour was a fortunate harmonizing of the lower and the upper, the newer and the older classes, which healed the breach otherwise likely to result from the political revolt of the people in his election.
1 A farmer, teaching his son to plough, told him to plough across the field to the red cow. " He kept a ploughing and she kept a walking all day, and at night they had the worst looking field you ever saw. I fol lowed Jackson as long as he went straight, but when he began to go this and that way, I wouldn't follow him any longer."
CHAPTER X
DANIEL WEBSTER, THE DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION
So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore ! The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore !
— WHITTIER ON WEBSTER, 1850.
Thou shouldst have lived to feel below Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow, — No stronger voice than thine had then Called out the utmost might of men, Breaking the spell about the wound Like the green withes that Samson bound ; Redeeming in one effort grand, Thyself and thy imperilled land !
— WHITTIER ON WEBSTER, 1861.
THE middle period of national growth had now been reached, when it was possible to recognize certain Union-making elements. The consent of Washington to assume the leadership, the show of national force in putting down the "whiskey rebellion," and gratitude toward the central government for paying the Revolu tionary debts of the respective states had a fitting close in the voluntary retirement of the war hero and the peaceful inauguration of his successor. Part of the revenue collected by the national government had been spent by it in improying means of communication and
DANIEL WEBSTER 319
providing for the safety of commerce. Jefferson's elec tion gave the masses a confidence that they were not to be barred from power in the Union. His purchase of Louisiana and his coercion during the embargo, no less than his suppression of Burr's expedition, strength ened the power whose encroachment he so much feared. Burr's fiasco settled forever the possibility of a division of the Union between east and west along the line of the dividing mountains.
The pride of the people in the city of Washington, although the capital grew very slowly, could not be ignored. It was the independent seat of an indepen dent government, under neither the jurisdiction nor the protection of any state.1 In it the highest court of the nation sat, giving decision after decision which declared the supremacy of the Union over the states in the unexpressed powers.2 The national government was visible to the people in the branches of the two United States banks,3 and in the tariffs on imported goods which Congress changed from time to time at will.
Many of these actions of the central power were undoubtedly departures from the thoughts of the fathers when they conjectured the future scope of the Federal agency. Yet the fathers could not possibly have imag ined the development of the country, the expansion of
1 This was due to the foresight of the framers of the Constitution. (Art. I., Sec. 8, Par. 17.) A lithograph (1848) is reproduced on the next page.
2 These " formative cases " may be studied in the Supreme Court reports and in any constitutional history. The principal ones of the early period are : McColloch vs. Maryland, Chisolm vs. Georgia, Fletcher vs. Peck, United States vs. Peters, and Marbury vs. Madison.
3 The first bank existed from 1791 to 1811; the second, from 1816 to 1836. They were joint stock enterprises, in which the United States was a shareholder.
DANIEL. WEBSTER 321
territory and population, and the increase of trade, which had made these departures necessary and caused them to be supported by a majority of the people. That they should cause alarm was very natural ; that a protest was demanded equally so. South Carolina, noting the increasing number of her homes deserted by emigrants to the western country, and ascribing the cause to the withdrawal of capital under the burden of the high tariff, had assumed the leadership once held by Virginia, and inaugurated resistance to the tariff-mak ing power. Calhoun became her spokesman. He was not a large slave owner and would not be heavily oppressed by the tariff, but he gave himself up to his state and to the southern slavery interests, although thereby he endangered his chances of national prefer ment through the increasing strength of the anti-slavery sentiment. To meet this danger threatening his South Carolina as well as the other states, he revived and formulated more clearly the nullification doctrine of the Kentucky resolutions of 1799, as described in a pre ceding chapter.1
This increasing power of the national government being once recognized and its danger realized, the original intent of the founders as we'll as the nature of the Constitution itself was sure to be discussed in the debates in Congress. It was precipitated most unex pectedly in the Senate in December, 1829, through a resolution offered by Foote, of Connecticut, that inquiry should be made as to the advisability of offering for sale any more of the public lands until more of the sev enty-two million acres already surveyed and offered had
Y ! In Chapter VII.
DANIEL WEBSTER
323
been sold. Benton, of Missouri, the accepted champion of the western lands, replied that the unsold land was largely refuse and swamp; that settlers should be encouraged by opening new lands; that only in this way could the best blood be secured for the new coun try. In the second week of the general debate on this question, Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, the recog nized spokesman of Calhoun and his nullification doc trine, accused the so-called " American system " of being the father of this idea of not opening more western land since "it wanted for its factories that low and degraded population which infests the cities and towns of Europe . . . and will work for the lowest wages. It could overcome this need only by preventing the draw ing off this population from the manufacturing states." It had brought about "a manufactory of paupers to make rich proprietors of woollen and cotton factories." In this combination of interests, Hayne saw a dangerous growth of the Union, which was being, consolidated for selfish purposes.1
Hayne was the son of a Revolutionary soldier, pos sessed of a winning personality, and a man high in the counsels of his state. He was the most dashing orator in the Senate, perfectly fearless, and with sustaining con fidence. He was much more polished, more judicious, and more popular than Benton. To his attack, there fore, a reply must be made. There was no question upon the choice of a defender for manufacturing New England.
1 One of the cartoons of the day, which is shown on the opposite page, represents Daniel Webster playing a hand-organ and assisting Henry Clay in his great American system. The effect of Clay's project is suggested in the American people as a cage of monkeys. Andrew Jackson, entering the room with his white hat, pronounces the whole thing a humbug.
324 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
The issue was far from a part .of the daily routine of debate. Indeed, it penetrated the inmost parts of the national existence. Its words would later become deeds. For such a task nature seemed to have reserved Daniel Webster. His soul revelled in lofty themes, far above the average politician of his time. His imagination framed the possibility and trend of future events. Im practical and negligent in business, lacking the high moral nature of the people he represented, he was a strange instrument to word the theory upon which one section of the people would wage war on another section thirty years later.
Webster had not reached Washington until the ses sion was almost a month old, and he was occupied with a case then being heard in the Supreme Court. How ever handicapped, he was still a New England man, and he arose immediately to reply to Hayne, but an adjourn ment postponed his speech until the following day. The increased attendance the next day showed that the event of the session had begun, although few realized that the opposing theories on the nature of the government were to be represented in flesh and blood. Sections and the ories now coincided, and a dispute over the past record of the one was to grow into a contest over the merits of the other. The attitude of Massachusetts and the south toward the west was to be lost sight of in the Union versus the individual states. It was to be a mental combat, free from the brutality of the old gladiatorial shows ; yet, unfortunately, but the prologue to a mortal struggle thirty years later.
Webster's reply was a calm, scholarly history of the western land question. His eloquence was ponderous,
DANIEL WEBSTER
325
his gestures few, his cool manner a strong contrast to his nervous opponent. Only once did he notice the great question of consolidation raised by Hayne. " I am a Unionist. ... I would strengthen the ties that hold us together."
Hayne could scarcely wait for " an opportunity of returning the shot." He insisted that the debate should not be postponed because of his antagonist's engage ment in the Supreme Court. Webster, with good effect, folded his arms and in his sonorous voice exclaimed : " Let the discussion proceed, I am ready. I am ready now to receive the gentleman's fire." For parts of two days, Hayne repelled the " uncalled-for and unprovoked attack " on the south and made a bitter personal show ing of the "unpatriotic" record of New England and Webster in the embargo of 1809 and the war of 1812. Webster afterward said that to gain this material "the vicinity of my former residence was searched, as with a lighted candle. New Hampshire was explored from the mouth of the Merrimack to the White Hills."
In his reply, Hayne had the sympathy and support of three-fourths of the Senate. Even Vice-President Calhoun, the presiding officer, was said to have sent suggestive notes to him by the pages. He was ready to meet Webster on the Union question. "Who, then, are the friends of the Union ? Those who confine the Federal Government strictly within the limits prescribed by the Constitution ; who would preserve to the States and the People all powers not expressly delegated ; who would make this a Federal and not a National Union. . . . And who are its enemies ? Those who are in favor of consolidation ; who are constantly steal-
326 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
ing power from the States and .adding strength to the Federal Government. . . . Our fathers desired not the consolidation of the government, but the consolidation of the Union. We want a Federal Union ; not a Na tional Union." When he concluded, an adjournment was made to the following day, although Webster had arisen to reply.
The friends of Hayne rejoiced, claiming a victory. The friends of Webster questioned whether the New England orator could refute the apparently authentic statements concerning his own past history, his state, and the intentions of the fathers of the Constitution. On the latter point only did he himself seem to have any hes itation, and that upon grounds of expediency rather than ability. To a friend on the evening before his second reply, he expressed the conviction that the attack upon New England was secondary to Hayne's exposition of a system of politics which went far to change the form of government from that which was established by the Constitution into that which had existed under the prior Confederation. He expressed his intention of putting that attempt to rest forever, so far as it could be done by an argument in the Senate. Yet the fol lowing morning, in the cloak-room of the Capitol, he unfolded to another friend l his doubts about the advis ability of the action. Being assured that it was high time that the people should know what the Constitution really was, Webster replied, " Then, by the blessing of Heaven, they shall learn, this day, before the sun goes down, what I understand it to be."
News of the intellectual combat had gone forth, and
1 Bell, of New Hampshire.
DANIEL WEBSTER 327
many visitors had come into the city. Before the hour of opening, twelve o'clock, the Senate chamber was packed, the very stairs being filled with men who clung on to each other "like bees in a swarm." Across the rotunda, the Speaker sat in the deserted House of Representatives. One member who had come over to the Senate found himself wedged in behind one of the swinging doors back of the Vice-President's chair, and broke the glass in the door, so that he might hear the speaker.1 The statement of the anti-Jackson men that they were returning to the old Whig principles of Revo lutionary days may have suggested the blue coat and buff waistcoat which Webster wore on this occasion. None knew better than he the effect of appropriate dress.
All opening preliminaries were postponed to hear the great senator from Massachusetts. Having presented in consistency for inconsistency in the past record of both men and sections, he came to consider the nature of the Union, and to show that there could be no nullification save in revolution. If the states had created the Union, then it was bound to obey four and twenty masters of different wills and different purposes. " It is, sir, the people's constitution, the people's government ; made for the people ; made by the people ; and answerable to* the people. . . . The State legislatures as political bodies, however sovereign, are not yet sovereign over the people." He closed with the well-known appeal for " liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable."
The new theory had been pronounced. The silent
1 Wentworth, of Illinois.
328 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
and necessary growth of power in the central govern ment was now to be understood as having been there intentionally and from the beginning. The listeners sat silent as if amazed, although the Vice-President pounded lustily with his gavel and cried angrily, " Order ! Order ! " A group of Massachusetts men who clustered in a corner of the gallery and who " shed tears like girls " felt that Calhoun was trying to break the spell of the concluding appeal. Once, indeed, he had sharply interrupted the speaker to inquire if he meant anything personal. Hayne had done the same thing. But the imperturbable Webster assured each that such was far from his intentions. The listeners may have felt otherwise.
In a rejoinder, Hayne pointed out the words in the preamble to the Constitution — " We the people of the United States." " It is clear they can only relate to the people as citizens of the several States, because the Federal Government was not then in existence." In a counter-rejoinder, Webster showed that " so far from saying that it is established by the Governments of the several States, it does not even say that it is established by the people of the several States ; but it pronounces that it is established by the people of the United States in the aggregate." l
The debate on the Foote resolution dragged on until May, but it was only the firing of the smaller pieces. The twenty-pounders had spoken. Each side claimed
1 In the first draught of the Constitution, the preamble had read : " We the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts," and so on through the list of thirteen states; but, since no one knew how many of the states would adopt the new government, the preamble was changed to " We the people of the United States."
DANfEL WEBSTER
329
Mn. HAYNE, OF SOUTH CAHOLW.
'JHE
CMWBUK0 BY MR.
the victory. "They say that the Southern Orator is more than a match for the New England Lawyer " a southern newspaper asserted. Another said, "The theory of Webster that for a state to resist an uncon stitutional law is
treason; that the i DANlEL WKB8TEH, General Govern ment derives its power not from the concessions of the States but by the grant of the peo ple; that Congress is the sole judge of the extent of its powers under the Constitution ; that the federal judici ary is the tribunal of last resort and irresponsible ex cept to Congress by impeachment — these views de stroy the sovereign character of the states and tend to concentrate power in the central government."
The Jacksonian newspapers claimed that " Mr. Web ster has been foiled in his great object. Mr. Hayne's are the true views of the Constitution — that it is a lim-
THE PUBLIC
BKIKG UNDER CONSIDERATION.
.IKATK, JAW UAH IT 25, 18391
WASHINGTON
KAtKS (^ SKAT03
1835.
330 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
ited constitution : formed by sovereign states and pos sessing certain specified powers. Mr. Webster's theory would give it substantially unlimited authority over the state governments and in effect reduce them to mere corporations." It was a revival of the old theory of government by a select few which had fallen with the first Adams and had arisen with the second Adams, but to be crushed by Jackson. Again they said : ''The im portance of this debate must be apparent to all. It is deeply felt here. . . . Webster depends upon his speech, which is to go forth North and West, to rally all that can be collected in the crusade against the States, against the South, and against the present Administration."
The latter prophecy seemed likely to be fulfilled. At the office of the National Intelligencer in Washington forty thousand copies of Webster's speeches were struck off. The Massachusetts presses added as many more. Fulsome praise attended the circulation, until the Jack- sonian papers cried " the force of puffing can no further go." Some compared the services of Webster with those of Jefferson in saving the country. Others com pared him with Washington.
" When erst oppression's iron hand Bore long and heavy on our land, A cry arose, and Heaven anon Sent the deliverer, Washington.
" So when a second crisis came (Rebellion, glorying in the name, Reared high her flaming torch elate), Webster appeared and 'saved the State.' "
Addresses from various bodies, and resolutions from state legislatures of New England, were showered upon him.
DANIEL WEBSTER 331
Clay, who was in temporary retirement, wrote that the speeches were the theme of praise from every tongue.1 Soon after, Webster made a triumphant tour as far west as Ohio, where he was turned back by the preva lence of the cholera. He was feasted and toasted all along his journey "for his devotion to the stability of the Union." The new theory of the Union was widely discussed as a new idea — "a newfangled idea in an old democracy." Wags compared the union of the states with the union of man and wife, having a resultant ri^ht
o G
of revolution. A toast was offered to "The Fair — While they are for Union we defy the world."
From an unprejudiced view point, Hayne was histori cally correct in his stand. The people through the states had sent the delegates to the two conventions which finally resulted in the Constitution. That document was reported to the several states and ratified by the people residing therein. The senators and representatives are chosen by the people of the states. But whatever the fathers had meant or understood, Webster was pro phetically correct. It had been found impossible to retain the reserved powers in the states. The Union had been made and was to be made not by theory but by necessity. Geographically and commercially the whole must be superior to one of its parts. Hayne was speaking the language of the past; Webster that of
1 The friends of the Union pronounced it a victory over Calhoun and his theory of nullification.
The chorus of a song of the day ran :
" John C. Calhoun, my Jo John, I'm sorry for your fate, You've nullified the tariff laws, you've nullified your state. You've nullified your party, John, and principles, you know, And now you've nullified yourself, John C. Calhoun, my Jo."
332 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
the future. The " cause " was " lost " thirty years before the first gun was fired.
A debate could settle nothing. Even the compromise between South Carolina and the Union, which closed the tariff incident, left sectional theory open to further dis cussion. Unfortunately these theories found exemplifi cation in a sectional fact in the annexation of Texas and the resulting war with Mexico.
In the light of the present day, one must see the accession of Texas as an event in the territorial expan sion of the American people. It was an evidence of the land hunger inherited from our English ancestry. The ensuing war with Mexico, entirely unprovoked, was another result of overbearing English blood, the desire to fight something, to take a gun occasionally and go out to kill something. The American settlers in Texas had been drawn largely from the southern states. They had taken their slaves with them. To the north ern view, the war seemed to be undertaken by the southern slave owners against a weak sister republic in which slavery had been abolished. The fact that President Polk, whose orders had precipitated the war and who notified Congress that war existed by the act of Mexico, was a southern man and a slave owner gave further color to this charge of a war for the benefit of slavery.
In truth, the first lines were drawn, not on sections, but on the support of the President. Senators from the following states supported, for instance, the first war measure: New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Mis souri, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas. Those from the
DANIEL WEBSTER 333
following states opposed it : Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine. The following states were divided, one senator voting affirmatively and the other negatively: Connecti cut, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, and Michigan. It was not a slavery war in its beginning, but it had that appearance to the anti-slavery element in New England.
Calhoun voted in the affirmative and supported the war throughout. Webster was absent when the first measures were passed, but opposed the war unto the end, thereby still further endearing himself to the anti- slavery people of New England as their champion.
New Hampshire had first sent Daniel Webster to Congress in 1813, where he served two terms. When he removed to Boston, he again served four years in Con gress and was then made United States Senator from Massachusetts. Thrice was he chosen to this position by the legislature of his state. Although far from possessing the habits of the Puritan, he was felt to be the protector of New England both as to character and interests against the attacks of the other sections. After listening to his reply to Hayne, " New England men walked down Pennsylvania Avenue . . . with a firmer step and bolder air. . . . You would have sworn they had grown some inches taller in a few hours' time. They devoured the way, in their stride. ... No one who was not ready to exclaim, with gushing eyes in the fulness of gratitude, 'Thank God, I too am a Yankee!'"1 When the "Godlike Daniel," as they called him, re signed to accept a cabinet position under Harrison,
1 March's " Reminiscences of Congress," page 125.
334 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Massachusetts waited patiently until he was again free, and upon the first opportunity, in 1845, sent him back to his old place. Other senators exceeded in time the eighteen years served by Webster in the Senate. Few endeared themselves so much to their constituents ; none made such a reputation for oratory on so few speeches.
When the " Force bill " which Jackson put through Congress to punish South Carolina, as described in the last chapter, was pending in the Senate, Calhoun arose as the protector of the rights of that state to hurl his condemnation and even defiance at it and its author. The reply of Webster drew crowded galleries and at its close made them, despite the rules, rise to cheer " Daniel Webster, the defender of the Constitution." Had not the Hayne- Webster controversy preceded and overshad owed it, this would have been the great constitutional debate. Soon after, the censure by the Senate of Jack son's conduct in the bank controversy brought forth a "protest" from the chief executive. Webster's reply was considered by many to have surpassed his previous efforts in constitutional argument. Upon these three great occasions the reputation of Webster as the " de fender of the Constitution " rested. The crucial test was drawing near.
Those who conceded to genius the right of inconsist ency readily pardoned Webster for having changed his attitude upon the tariff and other questions at different times. In truth, shifting conditions in a growing body make a permanent attitude impossible either in a party or a leader. Webster once said, "Politicians are not sun flowers ; they do not turn on their god when he sets the
DANIEL WEBSTER 335
same look that they turned when he rose." The great strength which the anti-slavery element was gaining in his own Massachusetts was not unknown to Webster, nor the importance of cultivating it unappreciated. Would he fall in with the rapidly rising sentiment in favor of the national regulation of slavery, or would he abide by the old idea of leaving the matter to the indi vidual states ?
In 1833, Webster had written to an inquirer: "Con gress has no authority to interfere in the emancipation of the slaves or in the treatment of them in any of the States. That was decided in 1790. I regard slavery as a great evil, morally and politically, but the remedy lies in the several States." In 1848, when the Whigs overlooked Webster as a presidential possibility and were carried away by the war hero, General Taylor, Webster might have repudiated the candidate and thrown his influence to Ex-President Van Buren, who had reappeared as a Free-Soil or anti-slavery candidate. When in a speech at his home, Marshfield, he ignored Van Buren, and decided of the two evils of Whig and Democratic candidates to support the Whig, he bitterly disappointed the anti-slavery people of his state. His efforts to keep back the growing slavery question and to bring out the old issues of the tariff and the bank are almost pitiful. He was like some giant trying by main strength to hold in place the floodgates beyond which surged the constantly increasing tide of public sentiment. The people had been "fooled" for some time, but they could not be fooled all of the time.
Sentiment in the south grew with that in the north, but from an opposite standpoint. With the increase of
336 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
means of transportation and communication between the two sections, the property of the slave owners became more in peril. Pamphlets and newspapers came over the border to tell the slave that he was bound to his master by no moral right. School-teachers followed to teach the slave to read. The " under ground railroad " with its scores of routes and its thousand stations offered a premium to the runaway slave who could reach the border. If the master ignored a runaway, he encouraged the others to take a similar leave. If he pursued him into the north, every mind conspired against him to keep him out of his property. If an example was not made of the returned slave, the effect on his companions was lost. A run away slave was like a runaway horse — he simply awaited another opportunity. Escaping again to the north, he showed his scars and wounds, and in a moment's time created more anti-slavery sentiment than constitutional theories and judicial decisions could overcome in a life time.1
The Constitution had distinctly recognized slaves as property to be restored to lawful owners, and the Con gress had assented to this hypothesis with very few dissentients in the act of 1793. According to its provisions, the owner could reclaim his property before either a national or state magistrate, and the governor of the state was bound to return the slave as he would return a criminal escaping from justice. The chief difficulty in enforcing the law lay in identification. The blacks had no distinctive marks, no identity, no lineage,
1 The New York Tribune of Feb. 28, 1851, estimated the number of fugitive slaves escaping the preceding year at ion.
DANIEL WEBSTER 337
and often no definite names. No doubt free negroes were sometimes taken by mistake, and the people of the north came to believe every seizure an abduction.
A disposition became manifest as the cases increased to ignore the old fugitive slave law — through state court decisions, refusals of governors to honor requisi tions, and "retaliatory laws" passed by various state legislatures. To make matters worse for the slave owner, the United States Supreme Court decided that the national government could not compel state officers to execute the old law.1 Hence the growing demand on the part of the south for a new fugitive slave law which should ignore the states and give more strength to the national officers in returning fugitives. The northern states had been encouraging the growth of the Union ; the southerners wanted to have the benefit of it.
As this proposed Fugitive Slave law took shape in Congress, sectional animosity flamed up afresh. The anti-slavery men insisted that the machinery of the United States government should never be prostituted to returning men to bondage. The south hoped that the attitude of the north would be assumed only after mature deliberation, since the decision would be final. If justice to their interests could not be obtained in the »Union, then it must be obtained out of the Union. One member of the Senate in a speech gave only a week's respite before the south would take action. A southern convention was called to meet at Nashville and filled all with apprehension.2
1 In the case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania (1842).
2 Two sessions of this convention were held in 1850. Delegates were present from seven southern states. Nothing save resolutions resulted.
z
338 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Between these two hostile camps of radicals or hot- bloods of both sections, the conservative commercial men who saw ruin in the threatening disunion ran to and fro, crying, " Peace ! Peace! The Union! The Union ! " A Washington newspaper asked what was to become of its invested capital when the Union was at an end. Three and four columns from Washington on the signs of the times could be found in every outside news paper.
" Union " meetings were held in many cities and reso lutions adopted condemning " the fanatical efforts of the Abolition and free-soil agitators." Calhoun, the protector of the south, who sat "with cast-iron countenance" in the shadow of coming death, hoped for nothing from such demonstrations. " The cry of 'Union, Union, the glorious Union ! ' can no more prevent disunion," said he, "than the cry of 'Health, health, glorious health !' on the part of the physician can save a patient lying dangerously ill."
In this tension, Clay, the great pacificator, again came forward with a compromise by which each side should gain something and yield something.1 The north, for one thing, was to allow the Fugitive Slave measure to pass. The proposition met a storm of protest. James Russell Lowell paid his compliments to the proposed- " compromise " :
"Now God confound the dastard word! My gall thereat arises : Northward it hath this sense alone,
1 The several provisions of the Compromise of 1850 may be found in any text-book. They were popularly known as the " five bleeding wounds in the body politic."
DANIEL WEBSTER 339
That you, your conscience blinding, Shall bow your fool's nose to the stone, When slavery feels like grinding."1
All awaited the attitude which Webster would take. It was the last combat of the old gladiators. Clay was there, even then having premonitions of that ailment which soon proved fatal. Calhoun was there, too feeble to speak, but gesturing whilst his speech was read by another through the courtesy of the Senate. A reporter described him as " pale and thin and seemed quite feeble. He appeared more like a corpse than a living being, he was so ghastly and pale." Webster alone seemed to retain both the physical and intellectual strength of the past.
In February, 1850, a Washington correspondent wrote to his paper, " All are looking forward with no incon siderable interest for the long-promised speeches of Calhoun, Benton, and Webster. . . . What course Mr. Webster will take I will not attempt to foreshadow. I believe no man knows and that all rumors in respect to it are idle and utterly unfounded." On March 3, he wrote : "We yet see no signs of Mr. Webster appearing as compromiser for the benefit of the South. It is evi dent he elects to play the part in which he has been told he would be sure to make a great hit"; — and that was as a Massachusetts anti-slavery man.
A few days later it was rumored that the great oracle would speak on the ;th of March. "Our city is now teeming with strangers," said a Washington news paper. It afterward declared that " the Senator from Massachusetts rose to address the most crowded audi-
1 From "An Interview with Miles Standish."
340 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
ence we have ever seen on the floor and in the galleries of the chamber." The official Congressional Globe says :
"THURSDAY, March 7, 1850.
"At an early hour this morning, the Senate chamber was com pletely occupied by ladies and such few gentlemen as had been able to obtain admittance, who endured several hours patient possession of seats, and even of the floor, that they might hear the long-expected speech of the Senator from Massachusetts."
Upon this great assemblage the deep voice of the orator fell in a fresh plea for the Union : " Mr. Presi dent, I wish to speak to-day not as a. Massachusetts man, nor as a northern man, but as an American and a member of the Senate of the United States. ... I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union." For three hours he continued with a rather tedious history of human slavery, and a review of the necessity for each point in the proposed compromise. Upon the Fugitive Slave provision he was not uncertain. "I propose to support that bill to the fullest extent, to the fullest ex tent." In a portion of the speech, when depicting the horrors of a dissolution of the Union, he glowed with the old-time fire, but as a whole the effort must rank only as an historical dissertation.
An outline of the speech reached Boston the next day and was printed under the head " By Magnetic Telegraph." 1 When the entire speech came by mail
1 The use of the telegraph had been greatly extended by the Mexican war, but the service for many years after was very inadequate. Sometimes the transmission of a speech would suddenly end, and the editor would be compelled to add a note, " The remainder of this message will be printed to-morrow."
DANIEL WEBSTER
341
there was a diversity of opinion corresponding with the attitude on slavery. One newspaper, which had learned "from Washington that Mr. Webster will speak in the Senate on Wednesday and make a whole-souled Union speech," failed to relish a speech which conceded too much to the Union. " It has caused considerable sen sation in this city (Boston), and, we must add, not a very satisfactory one. We do not so much desire
SPEECH OF MR..WEBSTE
MR^CLAY'S RESOLUTIONS.
IN rits SEN ATI OF TUB U»mtu STATES, MARCH 7, 1860.
SECOND EDITI0
Seno!wfro
•'" . 3V Vies PRIMIDBNT. Th» raaoluuons tubmiUed by the SenoWfrom Kentucky were made tie
4*»l«»rd«*a£ tbedagat 12 o'clock- The Senator from Wwcoiuin (Mr. WAUUW) hu Uke floor.
./, ji». W«U!M. Mr^resiiienl, this v^t audience has (tot assembled to bear me ; and there w'.fclt
"*!jlftjl|J)ll. in my opMon, woo can asstmblc *uch an audience. They^Jxp«ct to hear turn, and I fe^it
orators to enlarge upon the beauties of our Union as statesmen who will have the courage to propose means forits preservation." Another Boston editor pronounced it a speech to promote the unity of the Nation — a spirit of compromise, forbearance, and generosity. When one newspaper said, " We expect very little from Mr. Web ster," another replied, "We trust in Heaven he has not spoken in vain."
Garrison's Abolition Liberator declared that Webster had "betrayed the cause of Liberty, bent his supple
342 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
knees anew to the slave power, and dishonored the State which he was sent to Congress faithfully to represent." Wendell Phillips reviewed the speech in many columns. Whittier called it "the scandalous treachery of Webster" and turned upon him the full strength of his scorn in " Ichabod." A public meeting of colored people in Boston pronounced the speech " wicked." Demon stration counteracted demonstration. When the Aboli-
ILLUSTRATION IN AN ABOLITION PUBLICATION
tionists held a condemnation meeting in Faneuil Hall, the Whigs sent Webster a congratulatory address with three hundred signatures for his efforts "toward the common good of the country." Similar addresses were sent from New York and other cities. A citizen of California sent Webster a chain of solid gold, to which the New York merchants hung a magnificent watch. When a Whig newspaper asserted that Webster's use fulness as a public man was gone forever, a Democratic
DANIEL WEBSTER 343
editor equally insisted that he had burst the narrow and prejudiced sectionalism which had heretofore con fined and cramped his mind.
This very praise of Webster by the Democratic press was the most disgusting to the anti-slavery peo ple, since it showed to them the price Webster was to receive for their betrayal. Phillips thought it " the best bid that has yet been made for the presidency. It is the shrewdest thing Daniel ever did." An anti-slavery writer said : " It has been attempted to glorify this speech by giving to it the title ' For the Constitution and the Union.' Less grandiloquently, perhaps, but quite as truthfully it might have been entitled, ' A job for the presidential chair.' '
Was Webster candid ? Did he really believe the Union was in danger unless the south obtained its demands? No amount of human logic can determine the hidden motives of a man, and a man who defiantly refuses to make explanations while still being criti cised. It is likely that his lordly nature, refusing to be driven by radicals, set itself in the old way of the Union and there remained defiantly. He had even gone out of his way in the speech to defy instructions from his constituents and to abuse the Abolitionists. " I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing that is good or valuable." "He even defies the instructions of federal Massachusetts and offers the open hand of friendship to the south," said a Pennsylvania editor.
Two months later, Webster visited Boston and spoke for twenty minutes in front of the Revere House. He denied that he had stepped backward or abandoned his
344 THE ME^ WHO MADE THE NATION
old position. " In that course of pacification I shall per severe regardless of all personal consequences." Some reports of the occasion describe the immense enthusiasm, and others the lack of it. A cart loaded with iron which at one time drowned the voice of the speaker was attrib uted to the trickery of his enemies.
During the ensuing days, Webster said there had not been an hour in which he had not felt a crushing sense of responsibility and fear for the Union. He drew applause from the gallery of the Senate by declaring, " I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall be my country's, my God's, and Truth's." When a friend suggested that he make some apology for his attitude he replied, " Like the old Deacon, I never make paths until the snow ceases to fall." But the snow of criticism was not likely to be checked by his continuing in his speeches to abuse both Abolitionists and Free-Soilers, especially when the speeches were delivered as far south as Virginia.
Even then, as the presidential election of 1852 drew near, some hoped the prize would be his. Clay was ap proaching his end ; there was no other Whig leader. But on the first ballot in the Baltimore convention Webster received only 29 out of 293 votes! Through the fifty- three ballots, the south never once rallied to Webster. If the Abolitionist charge was true that he had betrayed them, he never received the thirty pieces of silver. A military hero, General Scott, had again won the honors from a civic idol. Determined yet to win, his friends in Massachusetts nominated him as an independent Whig candidate, and issued pamphlets in his behalf. The action was followed in Pennsylvania and Georgia. Three
DANIEL WEBSTER
345
weeks before the election, word came that his name had been withdrawn, and one week later, the news followed that Daniel Webster was dead.
It is as specu- L i
lative to say that a broken heart caused his physi cal death as that the /th of March caused his politi cal death. Web ster was the idol of New England, but she never won
ADDltESS AND PROCEEDINGS
FRIENDS OF DANIEL WEBSTER.
ASSEMBLED IN FANKH1. HALL
©n toe&tua&fts, 0fptcmbcr 1311), 1832,
MASS COX VKNTIOX.
for him a single state outside her section. In truth, she had lost the balance of politi cal power to the newer west, but failed to realize it. Every attempt of Webster to gain legislation for her interests, alien ated him from the agricultural south. Every time he accepted relief from eastern manufacturers in the hard-pressed condition of his finances, due to careless business habits, he caused the western and southern people to fear that as President he would be the servant of such masters.
A WEBSTER CAMPAIGN PAMPHLET, 1852
346 THE MEN IV HO MADE THE NATION
In the making of the Nation, the matter of the presidency, which closed in failure the career of the preeminent New Englander, was as unimportant as his attitude on the tariff, which gave question to the open ing of his career. Higher than the petty details of economic legislation, higher than the services of any President before his time, must be reckoned the efforts of Webster for the Union. He put into usable terms the silent growth of the central power, and couched the whole in such eloquent language that it became an all- potent watchword against disunion, — " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! "
CHAPTER XI
HORACE GREELEY, THE ANTI-SLAVERY EDITOR
CLINTON, LENAWEE Co., MICH. Feb. 4, 1848.
H. GREELEY, ESQ. : Please send me the New York Daily Tribune and I will pay you at the end of the year. By so do ing you will promote the Whig cause in this section of country
and oblige,
Yours, etc.,
HENRY W. STEVENS.
NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 1848.
H. VV. STEVENS, ESQ. : . . . I published newspapers seven years on credit with lots of subscribers and came near starving to death thereby. For the last seven years I have gone on the opposite track. ... I have since had not only a goodly array of subscribers, but enough to eat, a good suit of clothes, and very often some change in the vest pocket. Wishing you a share of the same blessings, I am,
Yours truly,
HORACE GREELEY.
Newspapers had been printed in the American colo nies seventy years before the Revolution, yet at the beginning of that struggle they numbered less than forty. They had no part in the formation of public opinion. The political contests involving the adoption or rejection of the Federal Constitution put a new value
347
348 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
The JBaffle of Liberty, Strangling the
•r
upon printed communications, and the number of publi cations increased rapidly. As has been previously said, the rise of political parties was marked by an abusive press,1 but the cessation of party spirit in the " era of good feeling " caused a subsidence of this acrimony. The first thought was that the home of the newspaper would
be at the headquarters of politics — the national capi tal. The development of business enterprises later showed that the newspaper demanded a commercial foundation, and would thrive best in the greatest business centre.
In 1835, James Gordon Bennett, after numerous ex periments in founding jour nals, left the city of Wash ington and started a penny paper, the Herald, in New York City. Four years ear lier, there had reached that city a kind of tramp printer, whose gaunt and awkward
figure, light hair, and high voice made him the ridicule of his fellow-printers, as he sought work among them. Horace Greeley had been a precocious child in the Ver mont hills, where he had later learned his trade. Now, like Whittington of old, he had come with $10 in his pocket to the "great Metropolis," as he called it, to make
1 See Chapter VI.
True American Ticket.
For President,
HENRY- HiRMSON.
HORACE GREELEY
349
his fortune. As a lad in the country school, he was reported to have replied to a questioning visitor, " Sir, I intend to be an editor." This ambition caused him to attempt the Morning Post, and then the New Yorker, but each failed.
The campaign year of 1840 brought a change in Gree- ley's ill fortune. The Whigs, profiting by the success of the Demo crats with Jack son, decided to pass by all po litical possibil ities and to take up an old soldier with a military record. Jackson had represented
the frontier element on the southwest, and William Henry Harrison was selected to catch the frontier vote on the northwest.1 Political preference thus followed closely the migration of the people.
The Democrats scoffed at the idea of sending to the White House a candidate of the wilderness, who needed only a log-cabin to dwell in, a coonskin cap to wear, hard cider to drink, and a pension to make him con tented where he was. The Whigs accepted the chal lenge and rallied the people under these symbols. The party leaders in New York asked Greeley to assume the editorship of a campaign paper to be issued simulta-
1 Harrison had been a candidate in 1836, although the Whig party as a whole had not nominated him in a convention.
CAMPAIGN SYMBOLS OF 1840
350 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
E LOG
CABIN.
neously in New York City and Albany. On Saturday, May 2, 1840, the Log Cabin appeared under the manage ment of H. Greeley & Co. With the financial backing of the New York Whigs, it was
a success, and the compensation it afforded enabled Greeley to undertake still another journalistic venture. The following April, he announced a " New Morning Journal of Politics, Literature, and General Intelli gence," which would be "a welcome visitant at the family fireside." Associating with himself in this Trib une a competent business manager, he soon brought the paper to an unprecedented circulation, ranging for weeks at a time above one hundred thousand copies.
As a reformer by nature, Greeley opened the columns of his paper to every worthy cause. When the Trib une was over thirty years old, he said, " Doubtless many readers have heard of the Isms of the Tribune . . . and yet as one mind has presided over its isms from the outset, so one golden thread of purpose may be traced through them all." At another time he declared that one had " better incur the trouble of test ing and exploding a thousand fallacies than, by reject ing, stifle a single beneficent truth."
His impetuous nature made him a militant reformer.
HORACE GREELEY
351
Dfcturrs cf
In discussing the subject of woman's rights, he went to the extreme of a division of labor between the sexes, and was cartooned accordingly by his critics. As a vegetarian and a follower of the theories of Dr. Graham,1 he scrupulous ly carried out in his private life the sys tems which he advocated as editor. He met
the obliga tions which he thought rested upon the edi tor to instruct the people orally by mak ing lecture tours through out the coun try, until it was said that his face was as well known as
that of Washington. Stones of his eccentricity of dress and habits frequently preceded him. As one reporter said : " Horace Greeley is advertised for another lecture
1 Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian clergyman, published in 1840 his " Bread and Bread Making," in which he advocated the use of unbolted flour. In a Grahamite boarding-house in New York City, Greeley first met Miss Cheney, a Connecticut schoolmistress, who afterwards became his wife.
Cor. of t\6 Triliune, Feb. 19?A.
352 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
to-night at the Odd Fellows Hall and for a sermon on Sunday at Temperance Hall. His novel appearance attracts more attention than his lectures, and always secures him a good audience." 1
Although.too liberal for a partisan, Greeley imagined himself a rigid party man. " An eager, omnivorous reader, especially of newspapers, from early childhood, I was an ardent politician when not half old enough to vote."2 On the contrary, he was often so at variance with leaders and principles that people were obliged to choose between Greeley and the party. He felt that his efforts for his party often went unrewarded. "We have done our share at shouting, screeching, hurrahing, exhorting, entreating, to influence our readers to vote for this or that ticket or party." Beginning with Jack son, the value of the partisan newspaper had been ap preciated, and its editor supposed to be rewarded. But Greeley was given nothing. When the election of Har rison first brought the Whigs into power, there " came the great scramble of the small mob of coon minstrels and cider suckers at Washington, I not being counted in," said Greeley. " I was sent once to Congress for ninety days merely to enable Jim Brooks to secure a seat therein for four years." He was usually patient, but the letter3 from which these sentences are taken was the lament of the outraged and yet instinctive spoilsman.
If the party leaders ever had a disposition to reward
1 Baltimore correspondence in the Washington Union, March 16, 1850.
2 The quotations from Greeley in this chapter are taken from his "Recollections of a Busy Life."
3 To Governor Sevvard of New York. " Recollections," p. 315.
HORACE GREELEY 353
Greeley, his conduct during those ninety days in Con gress must have shown them what a dangerous man he would be in office. He created more general dis turbance than the proverbial bull in the china shop. No sooner did he see the manifold abuses which have come to be accepted as incident to legislative bodies, than the politician was lost sight of in the reformer. He was no respecter of party issues nor party men in his reform movements.
Scarcely had he taken his seat when he wrote to the Tribune about the shameful waste of time by men being paid from the public money, although custom was too strong to hope for much relief. " Brethren," said the wise African preacher, " blessed are they who expect nothing, for they will not be disappointed." Subsequent editorials were headed, — " A Day Overboard " and " Kill ing Time." "The House devoted the interval to doing nothing — an employment for which it possesses ex traordinary capacities." On another day, "The House accomplished the funeral honors of one member last week, and by dint of rigid economy saved one over on whom to spend to-day." He found but one method of checking adjournment and that by demanding the yeas and nays upon every such motion. " Blessed be the memory of the man who invented the yeas and nays." Eventually this failed, since he could not find enough supporters to demand the call. One measure only was he certain would pass — that appropriating money for the pay of the members.
Aside from attacking the pay granted by law as being excessive, he investigated the amount of mileage charged by each congressman in going to and returning from
2A
354
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Washington. The law, framed many years before this time, supposed that travel could be performed at the rate of twenty miles per day, and allowed $8 for every twenty miles between the capital and the mem ber's residence. By the introduction of railways and steamboat lines, one could now travel one hundred miles per day at a cost of $5, but the original rate had not been changed. Even this liberality had not pre vented abuse, as it seemed to Greeley in examining the records. One day there appeared in the Tribune the name of every member of Congress, followed by sta tistics showing the sum collected by the member and the real distance between his home and Washington. Here are some of the largest excesses and the excess charged by some of the principal members of Congress at that time, as shown in Greeley's table :
Name |
Actual No. of Miles by Post Routes |
Miles charged |
Mileage charged |
Excess of Mileage charged |
Albert G. Brown, Miss. |
1047 |
233° |
$1864.00 |
$1026.40 |
John C. Calhoun, S.C. |
531 |
923 |
738.00 |
3I3-60 |
S. R. Giddings, O. |
338 |
850 |
680.00 |
409.60 |
Andrew Johnson, Tenn. |
437 |
590 |
472.00 |
122.40 |
Abraham Lincoln, Ills. |
780 |
1626 |
1300.00 |
676.80 |
Isaac E. Morse, La. |
1281 |
26OO |
2O8O.OO |
1055.20 |
W. W. Downes, La. |
1190 |
2800 |
224O.OO |
1288.00 |
Lewis Cass, Mich. |
524 |
1081 |
864.00 |
445.60 |
Daniel Webster, Mass. |
440 |
530 |
42O.OO |
68.00 |
Total extra mileage charged — $62,105.20.
Greeley's comments were amusing. "Thirty years ago the member from Cincinnati jolted in stage-coaches and charged $400 for the trip. His successor by steamer
HORACE GREELEY
355
and cars sleeps like a top and travels like a lord and yet charges $632.40." In Alabama, the great turnpike crossed two branches of a river. A member who lived near one branch charged mileage down that branch and up the other to the pike road. One man in Ohio lived nearer Wash ington than another and yet charged $400 more. A Louisiana member in his "circumbendibus" charged mileage down the Red river to the Mississippi, down that stream to New Orleans, and back up the same river to the Ohio and then to Washington.
When the Tribune containing these compilations of Greeley reached Washington, a "question of privilege" brought it to the floor of the House. Greeley was denounced as a falsifier and de- famer of the honor of the mem bers, and 'almost personally as saulted. He replied that he regretted the figures as much as anybody, but since they were taken from the public records, he could not change them. In the Tribune s account of the day, he said, "Contrary to usual usage in
If
356 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
the Holiday season, I believe, and contrary to my expec tation, we have had a breezy, stirring, spicy sitting in the House to-day." And he assured his readers that it was quite worth the money it cost whether anything came of it or not.1
The reform ended as most reforms do. The commit tee on mileage was made the scapegoat, the incident attributed to "a demagogue who wants to make ap plause," and a committee of investigation appointed. A few weeks later, Greeley chronicled "the funeral of Mileage Reform."
Meanwhile, the messengers selected to carry the votes of the electoral colleges which chose Taylor for President had arrived in Washington, and Greeley began to investi gate the mileage charged by them. A man from Maine, whose actual expense Greeley estimated at $60, claimed and received $148.75. One from Arkansas charged $266.25 f°r IQ65 miles of travel, "by Congressional cir cles," as the Tribune put it. These messengers com plained that even this pay was insufficient, and Congress, " to avoid reducing their own," as Greeley claimed, doubled it.
Writing daily to the Tribune, Greeley next conceived a system of increased compensation for members of Congress, based on increased length of service. "The longer a man serves the more useful he becomes," was
1 In a lecture on Lincoln, published in the twentieth volume of the Century, Greeley said of Lincoln's attitude on this question, " But as I had made most of the members my enemies at an early stage of that short session by printing an elaborate expose of the iniquities of Congressional mileage; and as he did not join the active cabal against me, though his mileage figured conspicuously and by no means flatteringly in that expose, I parted from him at the close of that Congress with none but grateful recollections."
HORACE GREELEY 357
the principle. In the same way, the chairmen of com mittees on whom extra labor devolved were to be given greater pay. When he offered another resolution, to deduct pay for absenteeism of members, an insinuat ing amendment was offered and adopted, to deduct pay for the time spent by members while in the House engaged in writing for their newspapers.
In some such spirit each of Greeley's reform measures was met. He was always frank, and added in his reports, "Voted down by a large majority." In this way went his effort to prevent a gift of $250 which Congress was accustomed to grant each clerk and page before adjourn ment ; his labor to prevent flogging in the navy; to stop the payment of a bounty to recruits for the army ; and to cut off the liquor ration given to the sailors of the
navy.
When the House finally adjourned after giving the usual gratuities, Greeley went over to the Senate, but soon left. The next day he wrote, "The Senate was still passing extra gratuities to everybody — and if the bottom is not out of the Treasury, may be doing so yet for aught I know." Returning to New York, he issued an address to his constituency and the people, explaining his efforts in their behalf, and closing with a characteristic request :
It is that you and they will oblige me henceforth by remem bering that my name is
HORACE GREELEY.
So closed the public service of the reform editor in politics. A fortnight later he was lecturing throughout New England on "My Experience in Congress." James
358 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
Gordon Bennett said in the Herald, " We have not probably, in the last thirty years, been blessed with such a perfect specimen of a little mean pettifogging dema gogue in Congress as Hon. Mr. Greeley has furnished in his own career during the last few months."
Social reforms Greeley would encourage by the proper education of the people; political reforms he would leave to government action through parties. The Abolition reform is now considered as affiliated with the great agitation for equality of the second quarter of the cen tury, but to Greeley it seemed a political question, which could be solved best through the regular political parties. It had arisen from small beginnings.
Save for an occasional anti-slavery petition from the Friends or Quakers to Congress, the question had lain idle for the first forty years under the Constitution. The northern states had provided for emancipation, and it was gradually dying out in that section. The profit arising from the increased growth of cotton in the ex treme south had made slave labor very profitable, and, creating a demand for slaves, had overcome the early anti-slavery sentiment in the border states. Into this quiet there came slowly and at first imperceptibly the disturbing factor of Abolitionism.
The great reform wave which swept around the civil ized globe about 1830 took many shapes in the United States. The churches assumed new vigor, especially in the missionary field. There was talk of evangelizing the world and of the coming of the millennium. Peace societies and temperance bands were formed. An agita tion was begun against carrying the mails on Sunday, against the theatres and lotteries. The condition of the
HORACE GREELEY 359
Indian and of the slave was considered. The return of the latter to Africa seemed feasible, and colonization was tried anew. One reformer would devote the proceeds of the public land sales to the purchase of the slaves after the public debt had been paid. Another would raise the necessary $2,000,000,000 by subscription. In the dissemination of these reform ideas the Abolition press played no small part.
Benjamin Lundy, a saddler, son of a Quaker preacher, wandering from place to place with a small printing outfit, subsisting no one knew how, content if only he might occasionally issue his Genius of Universal Eman cipation, was not a heroic figure in the political world. Statesmen were apt to sneer at this John the Baptist of Abolitionism crying in the wilderness. He pro nounced a new dictum, — that slavery was wrong not from the generally accepted standpoint of political econ omy, but that it was an ethical wrong ; that it was for bidden by God speaking through the Scripture ; that the negro was a man and brother.
William Lloyd Garrison, issuing his Liberator from the third story of an old building in Boston, with the
THE LIBERATOR.
THE X, I BE n A TO It
aid of a printer and a negro apprentice, was unlikely to appeal to a young man like Greeley, who looked to great parties and party organs for needed reforms. Greeley
360 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
would entertain only practical methods, and Garrison's cry for " unconditional emancipation " seemed most impractical. Emancipation thus far in nearly all the states had been conditioned on age or service. Slavery lingered long in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jer sey, and Pennsylvania.1 As late as 1827, the last emancipation law of New York had gone into effect in that state and had freed almost ten thousand slaves. Garrison, on the other hand, argued that if slavery were wrong, emancipation was right ; that if emancipation were right in ten years or for persons born hereafter in slavery, it was right at the present time. He would have no conditions.
Nor was much more to be expected from another editor, Elijah P. Lovejoy of Illinois, who persisted in buying one printing-press after another as they were destroyed by the mobs and thrown into the Mississippi, until the local warfare culminated in his death. " He dieth as the fool dieth," declared the Attorney-general of Massachusetts in the public meeting called for Fan- euil Hall. " He took refuge under the banner of liberty — amid its folds ; and when he fell, its glorious stars and stripes, the emblem of free institutions, around which cluster so many heart-stirring memories, were blotted out in martyr's blood," replied the young Wendell Phillips.
Of these apparently futile attempts to enlist the American press in a philanthropic movement, Greeley afterward said: "Whatever of impunity they enjoyed
1 In 1840, there were 1129 slaves in the so-called "free " states. Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Michigan, alone of all the states in the Union, held no slaves at that time.
HORACE GREELEY 361
throughout the greater portion of the North was accorded them rather through contempt for their insignificance than willingness to let them be heard. . . . And while I could not withhold from these agitators a certain measure of sympathy for their great object, I was utterly unable to see how their efforts tended to the achieve ment of their end." Those who claimed that the circu lation of these Abolition papers and the pamphlets which frequently accompanied them bred insurrection among the slaves, found an example in the Nat Turner rising of 1831. In one day, sixty-three whites were murdered on Virginia plantations. A similar plot was discovered, it was claimed, in North Carolina. The whites in Vir ginia soon restored order, killed thirty of the negroes, and then demanded the suppression of these disturbing papers by the northern state governments.
A South Carolina paper called upon the governor of that state " to demand of the governors of the Northern states those moral assassins of life and character, virtual Robbers of property, and actual Incendiaries, to be delivered up to justice here to suffer condign punish ment for their enormous crimes against God, man, their country, and society." The editors of the Liberator were indicted in North Carolina, and the taking of a copy from the post-office by a negro made a crime. The Georgia legislature was reported to have offered a reward for the arrest and conviction of its editors. Abolition efforts continued. In his Seventh of March speech, 1850, Webster estimated that "within the last twenty years as much money had been collected and paid to the abolition societies, abolition presses, and abolition lecturers, as would purchase the freedom of
362
THE MEN ITHO MADE THE NATION
every slave, man, woman, and child, in the State of Maryland and send them all to Liberia."
(tod defeat the
wolutionnry chemc of a I deceitful gang «f bypocritical.
THK
DEVIL
IS IN THE
CAMP !
fOlLADEI.PHtA
1839 PRK E 10 CENTS
ANTI-ABOLITION PAMPHLET
A Richmond newspaper had once insisted that " the people of the North must go to hanging these fanatical wretches if they would not lose the benefit of the South ern trade, and they will do it." And again, ''Depend
HORACE GREELEY 363
upon it, the Northern people will never sacrifice their present lucrative trade with the South, so long as the hanging of a few thousands will prevent it." Although the commercial interests of the north might not use such extreme measures, the spirit took shape in mob bing these persistent disturbers of trade. " Hootings, howlings, blackguard revilings, rotten eggs, stoned win dows, &c., &c., were among the milder demonstrations of repugnance to which they were habitually subjected," says Greeley. He went so far as to predict that had it been supposed slavery was endangered by their efforts, the Abolitionists would scarcely have escaped with their lives from any city or considerable village whence they attempted to hold forth.
Although sympathizing with this proscribed band, Greeley had no part with them. As he himself said, " I was never a member of any distinctively Abolition Society, and very rarely found time to attend an Aboli tion meeting." Yet not one man in ten south of the Mason and Dixon line but would have declared that Horace Greeley was one of the blackest of black Aboli tionists, while many upon the north of that line held the same opinion.1 The confusion arose from a failure to distinguish between Abolition and " non-extension of slavery" feeling. Greeley would not have slavery inter fered with except by lawful means ; he would simply con-
1 Editors of southern newspapers circulated lists of merchants who advertised in the Tribune, suggesting that patronage be withheld from them. Greeley was indicted at Richmond, Virginia, for circulating an incendiary publication — the J^ribune. Some postmasters refused to deliver the paper at their offices. Greeley was assaulted personally in the streets of Washington, and his reporters were at one time excluded from the gallery of the House of Representatives.
364
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
fine it to the states where it already existed. However, to the slave-holder the distinction seemed slight since each aimed at his property. The one would deprive him of it at home, the other would prevent him taking it with him to the western country.
Greeley belonged to the poorer class of the north and was unrestricted in his sentiment by fear of losing trade or property. Further, his was an unusually sym pathetic nature, easily appealed to by human suffering. He had been reared in the broken parts of New Hamp shire and Vermont, where slavery had scarcely been known. Above all, his erratic disposition, when once he had taken a stand, knew no moderation nor tolerance.
\
ESCAPE OF HENRY Box BROWN
To him it seemed that the southern statesmen were inclined to demand too much protection for their pecul iar institution, and during his one term in Congress he
HORACE GREELEY 365
reported in the Tribune that there was " too much foot- licking by the Northern members on the slavery ques tion." As far back as 1851 he did not hesitate to say editorially : " We loathe and detest all laws which give or withhold political rights on account of color. ' A man's a man for a' that,' and ought to have the full rights of manhood whether his ancestors were Celts, Goths, or Hottentots, whether his complexion be ebony or ivory." Abolitionists had not gone beyond that. When a negro was shipped from Baltimore to Philadelphia in a box, Greeley said: "If a box should come directed to us with a live man in it, we should at the very least pre sume him the owner of himself until somebody else proved a title to him. That done, we should let that somebody take his property running, recognizing no obligation resting on us to help him catch it." 1
As a party man, Greeley could not embrace such independent movements as the Liberty and Free-Soil offshoots, although he applauded their aim. "We care not how fast Messrs. Birney & Co.2 may ripen public sentiment in the North for Emancipation, we will aid them to the best of our ability, but we will not refuse the good now within our reach, out of deference to that which is unattainable." He had no sympathy
1 The experience of Henry " Box " Brown, who was shipped from Balti more to Philadelphia in a box, was widely published and illustrated. In 1850 he was noted in the newspapers as engaged in painting a panorama in the city of Philadelphia.
2 In 1840, the Abolitionists split into two factions on the question of running a candidate for the presidency. One wing nominated James G. Birney of New York; the other formally withdrew from participation in the national government. In 1848, the Birney faction united with the Free- Soilers or Free Democrats in nominating Ex-President Van Buren of New York.
366 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
with the radical or extreme Abolitionists like Garrison, Phillips, and Tappan, who accused the people of allow ing the government to be prostituted to the use of the slave-holders. Restricted constantly by the guarantees of slavery to be found in the Constitution, they refused to take further part in public life. The American Anti- slavery (Abolition) Society resolved " That Secession from the United States government is the duty of every Abolitionist ; That the Abolitionists of this country should make it one of the primary objects of this agita tion to dissolve the American Union." In the heat of his indignation, Wendell Phillips cried : "The Constitu tion of our fathers was a mistake. Tear it to pieces and make a better. . . . It does what its framers intended — protects slavery." Garrison went further and declared the "Union a Lie, an Imposture, a Covenant with Death, and an Agreement with Hell ! " 1 " Up with the flag of DISUNION that we may have a free and glorious Republic of our own ; and when the hour shall come, the hour will have arrived that shall witness the over throw of slavery."
Thereafter meetings of Abolition societies were re ported in the Tribune as gatherings of "union-breakers," although in 1854 some radical stanzas on the Anthony Burns case appeared in the Tribune, utterly at variance with the editorials, but for which Greeley made no apology.2
1 The Liberator, June 20, 1856.
2 They were addressed to the American flag, and contained these lines :
" All hail the flaunting Lie ! " It shields a pirate's deck,
The stars grow pale and dim, It binds a man in chains,
The stripes are bloody scars, It yokes the captain's neck,
A he the vaunting hymn. And wipes the bloody stains.''
BOSTON SLAVE RIOT,
SPEECHES OF COUNSEL ON liOTH KlUtb, (
368 THE MEAT WHO MADE THE NATION
Greeley had not joined in the criticism of Webster for his support of the Fugitive Slave law, but the execu tion of the law would impress his tender nature most unfavorably. At first, there seemed to be no spirit of resistance to this act of the general government. A Kentucky paper described the return of thirty slaves from Ohio " without encountering the least obstacle, or even an unkind word." Within two years, over one hundred fugitives are recorded as returned, in addition to the many of which accounts never found their way into the newspapers.
The first evidence of mob resistance appeared quite naturally in Boston, the home of Abolitionism. The story of the rescue of Shadrach from the hands of a United States commissioner, which brought out a proc lamation of President Fillmore by the hand of Secretary Webster, was printed and widely circulated. The ex ample was imitated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and in the famous case of Addison in central Ohio. The unnecessarily brutal methods employed by some of the northern " nigger hunters" added to the sense of indig nation. Stimulated by rewards offered by owners, the lowest class of men in the northern cities scoured the country in search of negroes. Newspaper columns teemed with stories of unconscious negroes dragged before the commissioners with blood oozing from their wounds. In retaliation the negroes were sometimes supplied with arms by their sympathizers. Similar stories were circulated of wounded and dying United States marshals and deputies. Identification was almost impossible, and the courts often hastened judgment for fear of a rescue. Naturally many captives claimed an
HORACE GREELEY 369
alias, and the suspicion grew among the northern people that free blacks were being impressed into slavery.
Every impediment was placed in the way of the claim ants to these fugitives. A writ of habeas corpus was the first step, followed by an attempt to quash the indict ment, or by an appeal from the commissioner to the state court. A prolonged war was inaugurated between marshals, sheriffs, and deputies, which claimed at least a score of victims.1 A justice of the United States Supreme Court said : " If any tuppeny magistrate or any unprincipled interloper can come in and cause to be arrested the officers of the United States, whenever they please, it is a sad affair. ... If habeas corpuscs are to be taken out after that manner, I will have an indict ment sent to the United States Grand Jury against the person who applies for the writ, or assists in getting it, the lawyer who defends it, and the sheriff who serves the writ. ... I will see that my officers are supported." 2 On the other hand the governor of the state of Ohio declared, " The process of the United States courts must not be slighted or resisted ; but as long as I repre sent the sovereignty of our state, I will see that the process of our state courts shall not be interfered with or resisted, but shall be fully enforced." 3 It was a strange position into which this making of a nation had brought a northern state. Consistency is an impossi bility in a growing body.
1 Many of these cases are described in a pamphlet entitled " The Fugi tive Slave Law and its Victims," published in New York City in 1861. The illustration on page 375 of the escape of a fugitive slave by jumping from a window is taken from the Child's Edition of Torrey's " Slave Trader."
2 Justice Grier.
3 Governor Chase.
3/0 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
The governor of Ohio was sustained in this nullifica tion attitude by the " personal liberty " laws which many of the northern states had passed in opposition to, and defiance of, the national Fugitive Slave law. Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania placed such laws on their statute books. Although not uniform, they provided generally that the claimed person should have the benefit of habeas corpus and a jury trial ; that he be given counsel at the expense of the state ; that two witnesses were necessary for identification, and that the use of the state jails and the assistance of the state officers be absolutely forbidden in all fugitive cases. Heavy punishment was also provided for any attempt to seize a free person. These laws were almost prohibitive. With possibly no place to lodge a captured black, an noyed by writs, faced by good lawyers, unprotected from the mob, the United States official did not enter will ingly upon such duty. The slave claimer, in the prob able event of an unfavorable verdict by a jury, found himself fined and imprisoned for attempting to take a free person.
The states based these laws upon the assumption that the rendition of fugitives should have been left to the respective states. If it should not have been so left, the action of the states was unconstitutional. If it should have been, they were compelling their officers to violate the oath which they had taken to support the laws of the United States as well as the state. It was also a breach of faith on the part of the states toward the Union. In any event, the states were assuming to them selves the right to judge the actions of a superior body
HORACE GREELEY 3/1
the Congress. Although in the past insisting that the
implied powers belonged to the Union and that the final arbiter was the Supreme Court, they now found them selves resting upon state sovereignty and state courts. When the United States Supreme Court reversed such a decision of the Wisconsin court,1 the state legisla ture resolved that when the Federal government tran scends its power, " positive defiance " is the only remedy. Wisconsin, in 1859, had become the Virginia and Ken tucky of 1798-1799 and the South Carolina of 1832. People become forgetful of traditions and past policies only in the face of unbearable conditions and on the verge of revolution. To this condition they had been brought, not only by the sight of slave hunting, but by a bit of fiction which made every runaway a hero and pos sibly a martyr.
Literary "hits" were uncommon in those days. The editor of the National Era, a weekly "Anti-slav ery, Literary, and Political" newspaper, published at Washington, knew not what the future had in store for his rather meagre subscription list when he made the announcement at the head of his editorial page in the spring of 1851 of a new story entitled "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the Man that was a Thing."2 During the run of the serial, although the editor was compelled fre quently to apologize for the absence of instalments because of the non-arrival of the manuscript, readers began to send in testimonials accompanied by lists of new subscribers. " We hope she will not be in a hurry to finish it," wrote one, while another prayed that she
1 The case of Ableman vs. Booth, in the Wisconsin Reports for 1859. *- This sub-title was afterward changed to " Life Among the Lowly."
372 THE Ml-:N WHO .MADE THE N ATI Off
VOL. V.-NO. 23.
might keep it going all winter. By January, the editor was talking of twenty thousand subscribers, and before the serial closed in March he had more than that num ber. The matter was stereotyped as it ap peared in the Era, and one week before the last instalment was due, " Uncle Tom's Cabin " appeared in two vol umes in Boston. The demand was enormous. " Three paper mills are constantly at work man ufacturing the paper, and three power presses are working twenty-four hours per day in print ing it, and more than one hundred bookbind ers are incessantly ply ing their trade to bind them, and still it has been impossible as yet to supply the demand." In two months, over one hun dred thousand copies had been sold at prices ranging from $i to $2, plus the postage.
In 1852, the Tribune gave five columns to .a review of this new work of fiction in two volumes,1 in the course of which it said, "We are informed by the author that
1 A copy of the first edition of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," the title-page of which appears on the opposite page, is in the Library of Congress.
THE NATIONAL ERA.
WASHINGTON, JUNK v>, 1851.
UUPVllOIIT SgcrtHH BY THK Al'TKOK.) Forth* N»rWn»l Kr».
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN:
OR,
LIFE AMONG THK LOWLY.
a Hanoi //"minify.
L»te in the afternoon of a chilly J»j in Kol> raarj,lwo gentlemen weresittiug aloneovrr their
»ti.» U a »»ll.fnrai«h*.l .lining nirlor. <B the
HORACE GREELEY
373
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN;
-IFF, AMONG THE LOWLY.
for many years of her life she avoided all allusions to the subject of slavery, on account of its painful and repulsive character, believing that it would pass away with the advance of light and civil ization. The en actment of the Fugitive Slave law in 1850 com pelled her to look at the subject with newly awak ened interest, and the result is to be found in the present vol umes." The re view expressed a profound con viction that this " Uncle Tom's Cabin" was des tined to add im measurably to the cause of human freedom.
The final effect was not seen at first. A Washing ton political paper pronounced it excellent fiction, with its " scenes of life and frolic, which are likely to make the book current everywhere, North and South, for we are informed this book is not confined to the limits of our land." Another writer said that the sales at first
BOSTON: JOHN P. JEWETT & COMPANY.
CLEVELAND, OHIO: . JEWETT. PBOOTOK * WOBTHIKGTON. 1852. .
3/4 THE MEW I t'MO MADE TV/A" NATION'
were fully as large proportionately to population in one section as in another ; in the south as in the north. But to the amazement of the people of the south, the readers in the north accepted the work as fact instead of fiction. "The human being who can read it through with dry eyes is commended to Barnum," wrote a reader to the Era.
The reason for this northern view is easily found. The publication of the story was coincident with the execution of the Fugitive Slave law of 1850. The columns in which the serial appeared were surrounded by descriptions of the capture and return of actual fugi tives. Any negro returned to bondage might be a saintly Uncle Tom doomed to a later death at the hands of some cruel overseer. Any woman with her child might be an Eliza trying to join her husband in a free land. The novelist had created a sentiment for every runaway slave.
Under the influence of the printing-press, this great question had virtually passed beyond the politicians to the people. It is astonishing that party leaders still hoped to settle it by ignoring it and introducing some other subject.1
The election of 1852 was as nearly a farce as the American people, bound in their political machinery, have ever been compelled to go through. Each party in making nominations was seeking for a man without a record on this disturbing slavery question ; a neutral
1 In an editorial just before the Whig nomination of 1852, Greeley said : " And it is so easy and natural for forty or fifty good fellows around a bountiful dinner table to harmonize and fraternize on a suggested course, and fancy the people will readily fall in — forgetting that the rich, warm light in which the matter glows through their wine-glasses will be absent when it strikes the public eye."
HORACE GREELEY
375
man who would not bring tint to litmus paper; a light so dull that no radiance should be expected upon this problem, or so brilliant that it would blind the eyes of the people to this domestic issue. The Democrats selected Pierce of New Hampshire, almost unknown, and hence uncommitted on the disturbing question. The Whigs chose a war hero, General Winfield Scott, of the regular army, who was therefore an ideal can didate. The flag of our country ! Glori ous war record in Mexico ! No civil rec ord on anything ! With these ideal can didates, standing on conservative plat forms and the Com promise of 1850, the party leaders fondly imagined that they EsCAPE OF A FUGITIVE SLAVE
could continue to throw dust in the eyes of the people and keep down the slavery issue.1
1 The Whigs had never succeeded in electing a candidate except Har rison and Taylor, both war heroes. They hoped to repeat the story with " Old Chippewa " Scott. Lowell ridiculed this practice under " Old Tim- bertoes" in the first series of the " Biglow Papers."
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HORACE GREELEY 377
If strong men cried out because of the darkness of the night, indications were not wanting that a dawn of new and better things was approaching. It was the last campaign for the eld Whig party. It had forfeited its life. Horace Greeley in the Tribune began to speak of "the late Whig party,." and; soon "changed the name of his widely circulated "Whig Almanac" to "The Tribune Almanac." Although supporting the Whig candidate for party's sake, he " spat upon " the plat form, as he said editorially. With the deaths of Clay and Webster the compromising party perished, to be replaced by a new spirit of uncompromising hostility to the further growth of slavery. It was to come from the masses of sound thinking, right judging, plain peo ple, who could no longer be led by a " Godlike " coun sellor or "an idol of the people," but were to bring for ward a new guide, untrained by surroundings other than their own. For years, Horace Greeley and his Tribune had been preparing just such an independent thinking constituency. His was the hand that closed the dying eyes of the old Whig party ; but his also was the hand which helped rock the cradle of the heir to the throne — the infant Republican party.
CHAPTER XII
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, A NEW TYPE OF AMERICAN
"I am young and unknown to many of you. I was born, and have ever remained, in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the county." -— Address of A. Lincoln to the voters of Sanga- mon county, Illinois, 1832.
THE quiescent years which immediately followed the compromise of 1850 gave comfort to those who had feared the dissolution of the Union and for the time proved their prediction that compromise alone could accomplish this salvation. The old leaders seemed to have passed with the old regime. Calhoun had died in the midst of the conciliatory measures ; two years later, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster passed away ; Benton had finished his thirty years' service in the Senate and was gradually retiring from national view. There remained only the statesmen of a later school — Cass, Everett, Buchanan, Marcy, Davis, and Seward — edu cated men, trained in the art of diplomacy and the finesse of political management. Their footsteps were not easily regulated by the march of the people. They had been taught to believe that the voice of the politi cian is the voice of the people ; that the masses must be led and are willing to be led blindly.
378
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 379
On the contrary, the time was at hand for a new leader, one able to hear and willing to obey the public will. He must come from the people themselves and be trained by their environment. Presumably such a char acter had arrived on foot in the little village of Win chester, in western Illinois, some twenty years before. With thirty-seven and one-half cents in his pocket, Stephen A. Douglas, a Vermonter, began a public career which placed him in the United States Senate before 1850, and retained him there fourteen years. Higher honors seemed within his reach. During the forty-nine ballots taken in the Democratic convention at Baltimore in 1852, the name of Douglas at one time attracted ninety-two votes,1 although Pierce was finally nominated. Of these ninety-two votes not one-third came from the south, where the strength of the party lay.
Douglas was a man of unusual ability and of pardon able ambition. If he deliberately set about to gain the gratitude of the south before the next election, to secure the 117 votes which that section would hold, the action would not be blamable if the means employed should be equally free from criticism. One marvels that such a shrewd man should have chosen the buried slavery question as the means to this end. Its resur rection alone would prejudice its case. However, Doug las's shrewdness may have caused him to see that the lull was only temporary ; that it must break out again in the course of the western expansion of the people. The man who could offer a satisfactory solution for this coming problem must secure the good-will of both sections.
1 The number necessary to a choice was 188.
380 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
The word " Nebraska" covered a vast tract of Indian country, extending from Iowa and Missouri to the Rocky Mountains, and in a north and south direction from Indian Territory to the Canadian line. The Cali fornia migration across the plains demanded some kind of territorial organization, and Douglas, as chairman of the Senate committee on territories, brought in a report to that effect. Lying to the north of the slavery indus tries belt, and in the due west line of free labor, the chances were that the laws of the movement of the people would make it a non-slavery country. This law of nature had been supplemented by the Compromise of 1820, which admitted the slave state of Missouri, and then drew a hard and fast line between slave and free soil on the line of "thirty-six thirty."1
Some questioned whether an agreement so restrict ing the future was binding upon succeeding generations. Others thought that Congress possessed no power to prevent slavery in a territory, but that the question should be left to the people who formed a state out of that territory. Dividing the region into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska, and incorporating an amendment explicitly repealing the Missouri Compromise, Douglas pushed such a bill through the Senate in thirty-three days, arbitrarily and almost discourteously. His political
1 The Mason and Dixon line, the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, which had been run by those two surveyors, became the first dividing line between slave and free states, simply because all the states lying to the north freed their slaves. The ordinance of the Northwest Territory made the Ohio river an extension of this dividing line. The larger part of the proposed state of Missouri lay to the north of the mouth of the river, but south of the head of the river. Therefore, that state was admitted as slave, but all other states formed from the Louisiana purchase west of her and north of her southern boundary (36° 30') were to be free.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 381
fortune was at stake, and he could not risk delay until the north had become aroused. On the last day of debate in the Senate, he spoke until daylight to crowded galleries, and in the gray light of dawn he won by a vote of 37 to 14. The firing of cannon at the navy yard announced his victory, but one of his opponents truly said that the echoes would not die away until slavery itself was dead.
Douglas followed the bill over to the House, using his lieutenants and the administration, and in two months secured its passage by 113 to 100. Excitement ran high; 128 speeches were made; one session of thirty-six hours exhausted the members ; arms were brought on the floor ; and at one time bloodshed was with difficulty avoided.1
The effect upon the north was beyond description. Douglas had said : " I shall be assailed by demagogues and fanatics there, without stint or moderation. Every opprobrious epithet will be applied to me. I shall prob ably be hung in effigy in many places. This proceed ing may end my political career. But acting under the sense of duty which animates me, I am prepared to make the sacrifice." He made the mistake of think ing that the ensuing "tornado" had been raised "by Abolitionists, and Abolitionists alone." The northern newspapers almost regardless of party blew the first blasts. They devoted columns to descriptions of the
1 This theory of home rule, or "squatter sovereignty," had been formu lated by Cass, of Michigan, some years before. Douglas's bill declared that it was " the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institu tions in their own way."
382 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
indignation meetings, and one declared that if it had three times as much space and were issued thrice a day room would still be wanting for the resolutions. Greeley assured Douglas that he had made more Abolitionists than Garrison and Phillips had done in fifty years. Ten state legislatures added their voices of protest. Two thousand censuring sermons were said to have been preached in New England. Memorials poured into Washington. One was presented which bore the signatures of over three thousand clergymen. Douglas himself presented one from five hundred Chi cago clergymen. Rash characters were not lacking to write him insulting rejoicings at the recent death of his wife, a southern woman, and to predict still more bereavements.
Stephen Arnold Douglas became Benedict Arnold Douglas. Men demanded to be shown the thirty pieces of silver for which he had betrayed his master — the people. In derision, that sum was sent him by some women of Ohio. He testified that he could have trav elled from Washington to Chicago by the light of him self burning in erfigy. When he did reach home the people of Chicago jeered and hissed him until, after three hours' attempt, he retired from the platform with out speaking. If, as his critics said, Douglas had "de sired to buy the South at the presidential shambles," he paid the penalty.1 He may have gained the good will of Missouri and the few states directly interested
1 It should be stated that Douglas and his friends always contended that he had been moved by his sense of justice and not by ambition. He used frequently to say : " God Almighty placed man on the earth and told him to choose between good and evil. That was the origin of the Nebraska bill."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 383
in opening new slave territory, but his scheme did not appeal to the Gulf states, where the price of slaves would be increased with each extension of slavery. He lost the leadership of the young Democracy of the north, those who might wish to migrate to Kansas but had no desire to compete with slave labor. The Ger mans shared this feeling, and they held the preponder ance of political power in the northwest.
The farthest-reaching effect of this reopening of the slavery question was not the failure of Douglas, but the turning of public men again into politics. Their ser vices were needed to fill the breach made in the com promise bulwarks of a free north. Among these was the man destined by a natural endowment of sound judgment and an environment of practical training to assume the vacant leadership which Douglas had tried for but lost. " I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again," declared Abraham Lincoln in a subsequent speech. Douglas was in 1860 what was called a west ern man and a man of the people ; yet he had been born in Vermont, and represented only the transplanted product of the west. Lincoln was for two generations at least the creation of the American frontier.
The westward movement of the people had produced that peculiar line along the front edge of population known as the frontier.1 Occupying succeeding lines of position westwardly, its advance may be noted by chronological order. The type of people on the Atlantic
1 A study of the sociological aspects of the building of the American nation during the crossing of the continent may be found in the author's "The Expansion of the American People."
384 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
coast plain was a reflection of the old world. Clay rep resented the first frontier after the movement across the mountains had begun. Jackson, of Tennessee, illustrates a frontier farther removed from eastern influence, and therefore a cruder and more native element. Abraham Lincoln represents a later and more westward location, and is therefore a still more representative product of American environment. Clay and Jackson were born
• JL
-•-''^•^mtK..
CARTOON ON LINCOLN COERCING THE SOUTH
on the Atlantic slope. Lincoln was entirely a creation of the inland region. If the American people, under possibilities of wealth and luxury surpassing those of Rome, have avoided the enervation and effeminacy which destroyed that nation, it is largely because of this fron tier, which has constantly stimulated and revived the older portion with rich young blood from near to nature's heart.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 385
Lincoln is the first and, by a combination of circum stances, the foremost representative of this isolated frontier type. At the same time, he is the last of his kind, since the rapid increase of means of communica tion and the passing of the crude frontier have made a duplication impossible. He was a new type of American. Those who believe in the preparation of an agent for a given purpose need not search far for the influences which fitted Lincoln for his peculiar task.
The environment of the frontier begot self-help. This was illustrated by every step in the training of Lincoln. Whether mastering English grammar at the age of twenty-three or six books of Euclid when he was past thirty-five, whether he guided his flatboat down the Sangamon, or procured a compass and chain, studied Flint and Gibson a little, and "went at it " as a deputy surveyor, the lesson was preparing him for a rulership where he must cast aside a multitude of discordant counsels and depend upon his own judgment. The problems of the frontier life were not to be solved by a text-book ; neither were the problems confronting that President who should follow the reopening of the slavery discord. Precedent was wanting in both cases. Originality was demanded.
The spirit of investigation engendered by life on the frontier was an excellent fitting for thorough inspection and for slow action. When the question of internal improvements was paramount in Sangamon county in 1832, Lincoln in his address to the voters was able to speak from actual experience of the stages of water in the Sangamon river concerning the possibility of making it navigable for large craft. His patent for
386 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
buoying up vessels over shoal water was due to flatboat experience. When he gave his lecture on " Discoveries, Inventions, and Improvements," he was reflecting this side of the border training. His dissection of the me chanical toys of his children illustrates the same thing. For his utensils and tools, the frontiersman must depend largely upon his ingenuity, and must be extremely care ful in their use, since they could not easily be replaced. The peculiar characteristic of Lincoln's administration was, that he never did anything so hastily that he was obliged to undo it.
When Lincoln addressed the people his language was the simple speech of the frontier, convincing in its direct ness and offensive only to overtrained ears. When he delayed issuing the Proclamation of Emancipation, in accord with his promise to himself and his Maker, until the enemy had been driven out of Maryland, he was simply demonstrating the reliance of the borderer on a personal God.1 In the lonely vastnesses of frontier sur roundings, religious feeling was closely akin to both superstition and melancholy. In his private correspond ence, Lincoln sometimes says, " I always was super stitious," and again, "I was drawn to it by fate." In condoling with a friend upon his fears lest he do not love the woman he is about to wed, Lincoln insists that "our forebodings are all the worst sort of nonsense." But he adds, " You know the hell I have suffered on that point and how tender I am upon it." Sometimes he is "quite free from the 'hypo,'" and again "My spirits are gotten so low that I feel that I would rather
1 Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, describes the dramatic situation in his diary for September 22, 1862. See Shucker's " Life of Chase," p. 453.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 387
be in any place in the world than here." Only an appreciation of this element in Lincoln's life can explain his conduct in his love affairs ; nothing save his own realization of this tendency can explain the manner in which this strong man by his homely stories and sorry jests tried to avoid the end to which this melancholy would naturally lead.
Removed from the conservatism of the older states, the frontiersmen were never bound by strict allegiance to party. Nearly every variation from the established parties had come from the western people. This ten dency was now to have a fresh illustration, and Lincoln's attitude was to be typical of his people.
The long-continued agitation of the slavery question had cut deep lines across the Whig and Democratic parties, although enough supporters remained in each to maintain their existence. Men from both parties, who opposed the extension of slavery in the territories in general, had formed the Free-Soil party.1 Where its membership was made up most largely of former Democrats, the party was called Free Democrat or Free- Soil Democrat. The passage of the Douglas bill crystal lized these elements, together with the Know-Nothings,2 into a regular party. A state convention was called at Jackson, Michigan,8 July 6, of "all our fellow-citizens, without reference to former political associations, who think that the time has arrived for a union at the North
1 The Free-Soil party was formed from a fusion of the Liberty party and the Barnburners of New York in 1840.
'2 The Know -Nothing or Native American party, formed about 1842, was another of these offshoots which indicated the political unrest of the times.
3 A local convention was held at Ripon, Wisconsin, in March preceding, to form a new party.
388
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
to protect liberty from being overthrown and down-trod den." Thousands gathered under the oaks near the race
track, on ground now a part of the city of Jackson, adopted the name " Republican," and drew up a platform protesting against the repeal of the Compromise line and the opening of the territories to the chances of slavery. Candi dates for the state offices were nomi nated on this plat form.1
SCENE OF THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION, JACKSON, MICHIGAN
Similar " Repub lican " party con ventions were held
a week later in Wisconsin, Vermont, Ohio, and Massachu setts. During the ensuing October, while the Illinois state fair was being held at Springfield, public announce ment was made, at a political meeting, of a convention to organize the Republican party in that state. Lincoln
1 The Jefferson men were called " Republicans " in 1800. After the end of the era of good feeling, the Clay and Adams men were sometimes called "National Republicans." The Whigs frequently used the word " Repub lican" in their platforms. It was by no means a new name, but under it was organized a new party. The favorite campaign song of 1860 had for a chorus, " Ain't I glad I joined the Republicans."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN- 389
objected to his name being added later to the call for a Republican state convention. " I suppose my opposition to the principle of slavery is as strong as that of any member of the Republican party ; but I have also sup posed that the extent to which I feel authorized to carry that opposition, practically, was not at all satisfactory to that party." He was satisfied later, and became an ac tive member of the party. In its national convention in 1856, he received 101 votes for the nomination for Vice- President. He was one of four men constituting a "mass" meeting at Springfield to ratify the action of the Republican state convention.
The Illinois friends of this unusual man began to entertain the most ambitious hopes for him, and in their unskilled but effective manner they tried to make his good qualities known to the east. He had acquired some fame as a stump speaker at the agricultural fairs, in the local campaigns, and especially as the opponent of the " Little Giant," Douglas, in the arranged debate of I858.1 He was also known as a lecturer. One must appreciate the use to which the lyceum was put in the middle west, where newspapers were few and periodicals a luxury, to understand why Lincoln trained himself by writing serious lectures upon Law, Slavery, Temperance, Sectionalism, and The Perpetuation of our Political Insti tutions. He delivered some of these lectures before vari ous clubs throughout Illinois and Kansas.
1 Political debates were not at all uncommon in the western country. At nearly every patriotic celebration or agricultural fair there was " speak ing," which frequently led to an impromptu debate. Lincoln and Douglas often met thus upon the platform prior to the set debate between them, which was held at seven different places and covered several months. The immediate prize was the United States Senate, and Douglas won.
390 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
It was this combined reputation which secured for him an invitation to deliver a " political lecture " in New York City, although he was afterward criticised for accepting $200 for it.1 The Tribune declared that " No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience." Those who expected to be amused by a medley of homely stories and crude western colloquialisms found a polished dic tion oddly at variance with his reputation among them. The habit of recasting the thoughts of others in the best words he could find had given Lincoln command of the style of the classics with the vocabulary of the Saxon, whenever he chose to exercise them.
If Lincoln's friends hoped that a favorable impression made in New York could persuade the eastern people to look upon him as a presidential possibility, they could not have read with patience the statement made in the most enthusiastic report of the lecture, that "it is not probable that Mr. Lincoln will be heard again in our city this year, if ever." Nor could they have been more pleased with the three cheers for Seward which the audience gave before dispersing. Their candidate was truly in the enemy's country.
With all his ability, Seward was not the man for the hour. He would have dealt with the problem as a trained statesman. Not indeed along the old line of compromise and conciliation, but as a radical northern man, hostile to the slavery system and hostile to the
1 The invitation came from the Young Men's Central Republican Union, and the address was delivered in the Cooper Institute. Lincoln had sup posed he was to speak in Beecher's church. Since an admission fee was charged, he could not see why he should be criticised for receiving pay.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 39 1
slave owners. Some Princeton students, who burned him in effigy as the supposedly remote cause of the John Brown raid, were not the only ones who dreaded while they detested his attitude. Lincoln was never accused of supporting Brown. The final great task before the new leader was not to kill slavery, not even to suppress rebellion ; but to preserve the Union and especially to restore the Union. A rabid anti-slavery man who believed in a higher law might have brought about the former ends ; he could not have accomplished the latter. Bayonets could be only a temporary agency. As the campaign year of 1860 opened, Greeley declared in the Tribune that the political leaders talked to the people as if they believed them to be fools, and at the same time he gave warning that the people could not be misled much longer. When the time came for discuss ing possible candidates, the Courier and Enquirer said that the Republican party, being sane, would nomi nate no other man than William Henry Seward. This was the accepted opinion in the eastern states, with the possible exception of Greeley, who favored Bates, of Missouri. Seward, virtually the head of the Republi can party, a college-bred man, trained by a long career in public life, an unyielding advocate of northern prin ciples, where the strength of the party lay, possessed all the qualifications necessary for an "available" candi date. Aside from personal animosity against Seward, Greeley was keen enough to see that the times demanded a change ; that the continued westward movement had brought the period for another shifting of the balance of political power. He gave space in his columns to letters from western correspondents describing as a pos-
392 THE MEN- WHO MADE THE NATION
sible candidate "Abe Lincoln." An "Old Man" sent a short biography from Mason county, Illinois, describ ing Lincoln reading his borrowed law books by candle light and splitting rails to pay for the candle. His kind ness was illustrated by a story of his helping an oppo nent in a law case. Another correspondent told how young Lincoln had pulled fodder two days to pay for Weems's " Life of Washington " which he had borrowed and had accidentally damaged by water. From an " Hon est Carpenter" came the story of Lincoln, the man of the people, defending a case for two days and charging a poor man only two dollars. " A Thrilling Episode in the Life of 'Abe Lincoln' ' was a description of his defence of young Armstrong for murder. The men of the prairie might lack political training, but they knew how to bring things to pass.
The people of the eastern states began gradually to learn about the campaign methods of the westerners. They heard of the scene in the Illinois state Republi can convention at Decatur, which met in "a rudely con structed shelter," when two men came forward from the entrance bearing a banner stretched between two com mon walnut fence rails. On the banner was printed : —
ABE LINCOLN The Rail Candidate for President in 1860
Two rails, being part of 3000 cut in 1830, ten miles south of Decatur, by Abe Lincoln and John Hanks
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 393
It was said that Lincoln himself rose above such small tricks to catch popular favor ; that when asked about the rails he had said : " I did land in Macon county a very poor boy; cleared ground, put up a log house, and split about 3000 rails. Now, whether these two rails are specimens of what I made then, of course I cannot say; but one thing I will say — I've made a good many better-looking rails than either of these." The correspondent who sent this story to the eastern papers added that this reply "brought down the house." J
As public interest began to turn more to this unpol ished man of the west and his crude though virile con stituency, newspaper reporters were sent to sound the people in that locality. One wrote back that " here on the shores of one of the Upper Lakes and near the head springs of the Father of Waters, you catch the first breath of western enthusiasm for 'Old Abe.' The country has so long been accustomed to contemplate only the political sections of ' north and south ' that it is slow to grasp the idea that there is a WEST — that it is mighty in number and power — that it is determined to make its influence felt in the politics of the nation." The abuses of Buchanan's administration which culmi nated in the Covode investigation was breeding a spirit of distrust of professional statesmen. Another corre spondent wrote: "You eastern men, politicians espe-
1 This story, and especially the motto on the banner, was printed in many different versions in the eastern papers. The one given here is taken from the Tribune. The story as it reached England made Lincoln and Hanks split 3000 rails in one day. See " A Memoir of Abraham Lincoln, President-elect," London, 1861.
394 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
cially, can hardly realize the strong hold upon the western heart which can be gained by a man like Lincoln — a pioneer as well as a statesman; a great man, and yet a simple and unostentatious dweller on the prairie like the rest of us."
No doubt, in the light of later events, the Seward people deplored the holding of the Republican national convention in Chicago — the enemy's country. But the western people were ever ready to reply that the party had really been organized by them before it was taken up in the east. No convention had ever been held so far from the Atlantic coast. Political power had drifted westward unperceived. Of the eight men who made a showing on the first ballot of the conven tion, five came from west of the Alleghany Mountains. In finesse the westerners soon showed themselves the equal of their more trained opponents. The " shouters," whom the Seward men had brought along, took posses sion of the great "wigwam" the first day,1 but while they were serenading their candidate that night, the Lincoln supporters, headed by a strong-voiced captain of a lake steamer, packed the galleries and did the shouting on the day it was most effective. Correspond ents wrote that "the Chicago mob" did the loudest shouting, although the Seward people started it.
On the third ballot the convention was stampeded fjr Lincoln, ancTthc man on the roof of the "wigwam," who was hauling up by a string the results of the voting and throwing the papers down to the crowd in the street,
1 This was a large temporary frame structure on Lake street, near the river. It was decorated for the occasion by the women of Chicago. Its site is now occupied by a business block.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 395
was able to announce that " Old Uncle Abe " had the prize. The roar of the crowd and the boom of cannon started a campaign of noise if not of education. Rati fication meetings were held all through the Mississippi valley, at which " rails, wedges, and ox-goads, ten feet high," were to be seen. Some young men desiring to protect their shoulders and heads from the dripping of their torches, made capes and caps of oilcloth, and this " Wide Awake " organization was imitated every-
'
LINCOLN AS GREELEY'S MAN
where. Rails were carried on the shoulders of men, and mounted flatboats were drawn through the streets. It was said in the western vernacular that Lincoln would " spread like wildfire over the prairies," and that he would "sweep the northwest like a herd of buffalo." The nomination was naturally a disappointment to the Seward people. Some declared that it was " a mat ter of impulse," "purely an accident," and "decided more by the shouts and applause of the vast con-
396 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
course." 1 Thurlow Weed, of the Albany Evening Jour nal, shed bitter tears ; but Greeley wrote to his paper that the Illinois people were claiming a victory of the people over the politicians. " It will be a campaign of the 1840 stamp."
When a speaker in the New York ratification meet ing said that " if we had had a choice we would have preferred the great statesman from New York," he was greeted with "prolonged applause." Yet he begged the audience to allow the Lethean stream to flow over their disappointments and blot them out forever. Most of the speakers, according to even Republican papers, were "lugubrious in spirits." When the Brooklyn "wigwam" was dedicated, a speaker thought it "a deplorable lesson of the Chicago convention that a man who had adhered his life long to a principle, which prin ciple built up the party, should have his throat cut from ear to ear by that party." At Albany, " very many were heartsick at the result of the nomination." Ac cording to the Tribune correspondent in Washington, the keynotes of the ratification meeting at that place were "disappointment" and "acquiescence." In Pitts- burg, Seward's defeat was "sadly received," but "all deferred to the wisdom of the Convention." The New York Herald thought the Democratic party, if it could get together, would "sweep the country, through advan tage given it by the Chicago philosophers." 2
1 Henry J. Raymond, in the New York Times, said, "The arrangements for the convention were in the hands of Mr. Lincoln's friends, and they had been made with special reference to securing the largest possible con course of his immediate neighbors and political supporters."
2 A campaign " Life " was a necessity. The official one of Lincoln could not describe the national and diplomatic positions he had held, but
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
397
A Philadelphia editor asked : " Why should Lincoln be President? He has no record. He is unknown in
HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN I
Congress. His coarse style was seen in the Lincoln- Douglas debate. He is only a flatboatman and a rail- splitter ; a county court lawyer and a ready stump speaker." A Democratic paper characterized him as "a third-rate, slang-whanging lawyer, possessing no
had to be satisfied with describing how he had once been kicked by a horse, had shot a wild turkey, and had kept a store which " winked " out. It was humiliating to the eastern Republicans.
398 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
proper qualification but as Old Abe Lincoln, Old Uncle Abe, Honest Old Abe, and people are expected to accept nicknames instead of fitness."
Among some of the eastern Republican papers, there was at first a ludicrous attempt to improve this product of the western plains. One tried to find a good family tree for him ; to show that he came originally of aristo cratic blood. Under a headline, " Good Blood," one article traced his family to the Lincolns of Hingham, Massachusetts, "who came over in 1637." "He un doubtedly came of this parentage, since he has the same qualifications as the New Englanders." Editors in the middle states claimed that he was descended from the Lincolns of Virginia, who had formerly been residents of Chester, Pennsylvania. Greeley said that " some fastidious gentlemen appear to be a good deal disturbed at the presentation made of the Republican candidate for the presidency as having once been a rail-splitter" ; but that it proved the possibilities of America, since a man emanating from the class called mud-sills should have risen so high.
After the convention had adjourned, many of the delegates from the older states paid a visit to Spring field to see this man whom accident, as they supposed, had placed upon their ticket. They departed saying that they would trust his honest face anywhere. Reporters in the governor's office in the State House described the crowds,1 which had come from Chicago "to see the elephant." Some of the Ohio delegates brought back with them a rail, "one of the 3000 split by old Abe."
1 Owing to the courtesy of the governor of Illinois, Lincoln received the delegations in the governor's office instead of his own rather limited home.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 399
When the nominating committee arrived, there was manifest a certain lack of reverence for the prairie candidate, together with some apprehension for the conventionalities of the occasion. The speaker who introduced the delegates was reported in the eastern papers as saying, " Come up, gentlemen ; it's nobody but Old Abe Lincoln." One of the number said after ward that he was afraid lest he should meet " a gigantic rail-splitter with the manners of a flatboatman and the ugliest face in creation " ; but he added, " he's^ a com plete gentleman."
On this occasion, the neighbors, with true western hos pitality, brought in refreshments of various kinds, but Lincoln sent them away and regaled his visitors with ice water. One newspaper correspondent described Mrs. Lincoln ; "standing beside her almost gigantic husband, she appears almost petite, but is really about the average height of ladies." Another assured the public that she was "presentable."
It was the fate of this isolated environment to make a man raised in it misunderstood by those of his con temporaries who had not experienced its peculiar forma tive influences. It is the natural inclination of each man to judge others by his own standard. Few who looked for the new leader imagined that he would come from beyond the mountains ; fewer yet that he would come from a lower class of society, but little removed from the "poor white" of the south. If competition with slavery caused that class, it was especially retribu tive that the system itself should breed the man under whom it was destroyed.
It is easy now in retrospect to laud Lincoln, and place
400 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
him upon a pedestal as the foreordained agency to smite the shackles from the slave ; but it is harder to trace the causes which made him the agency and still more diffi cult to realize how much misunderstood he was at the time. Much of his campaign was taken up, not in prov ing that he was the friend of the slave, but that he was not an Abolitionist,1 had never favored the political
"THE NIGGER IN THE WOODPILE"
equality of the black and the white, and had never declared for emancipation even in the District of Columbia save with compensation to the owner. As a border man he had seen the evils of the system, but he was a lawyer believing in preventive legislation for the future and not retroactive legislation for the past. Of southern descent, he believed in the right of property
1 Two of the many cartoons representing Lincoln and Greeley as Abolitionists are reproduced on this and a preceding page.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 401
and home rule — the two principles for which the south was contending. As a northern resident he believed in liberty and equality — the principles for which the north was contending.
During the campaign, to every delegation which came to beg a promise that he would not interfere with slavery in the states, he insisted that his words at no time could have given alarm to the southern people ; that as a northern man he had always been known to be opposed to the system ; that as President he would enforce the laws ; and if any power could be found in the Constitu tion or the laws, enabling him to interfere with slavery in the states, he would do so. He knew full well that no such power existed. Even after his election, he wrote to Alexander Hamilton Stevens, whom he had known in Congress : " Is it possible that the South entertains fears that a Republican administration would directly or indirectly interfere with their slaves or with them about their slaves ? The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington."
Perhaps no President-elect had ever been seen by so few people at large as Abraham Lincoln. This may explain the extended system of invitation arranged by the Republicans to have Lincoln pass through the prin cipal northern cities on his way to be inaugurated. Such a post-election tour was indeed a novelty. Or the purpose may have been to counteract secession and to create additional supporters for the coming administra tion. Attempt was made to have Bates, of Missouri, and others join the "grand cavalcade." No one can believe that the initiation of this visionary project lay
2 D
402
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
with the plain man ostensibly at the head of it, but rather that he was in the hands of his friends. Noth ing could possibly come of it. The President dared not commit himself in his speeches. Lacking the gift of saying nothing gracefully, he was obliged to mouth commonplaces which satisfied no one. If he tried to brighten up these compulsory speeches with some of
his subtle wit or naive jokes, they fell harshly on the ears of men deeply oppressed by the solemnity of the times.
No indignity was offered the party, but there was a sneering tone in all the eastern papers reporting the progress of this wild west caravan. " Old Abe kissed by a Pretty Girl " was a poor headline to add dignity to
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 403
a President, even if it appeared in a Republican news paper.1 " Simple Susan " was the nickname for the rail-splitter in other papers. Northern cartoonists pic tured him supporting the dignity of his office on the point of bayonets or as a hunter recoiling from his first shot at the bird Confederacy. The New York City committee of reception, boarding his train at Albany, tarried at one end of the car and viewed with aristo cratic horror Mrs. Lincoln adjusting the President's tie and ''fixing him up a little bit." They, like others, saw the exterior man only. They could not go beneath the surface. They did not realize, as is now seen in retrospect, that Nature had departed from her usual form and had reverted to a rudimentary type near to her own likeness.2 They contrasted him in his manners and appearance with the polished Seward, who would have adorned this great office.
New York City received him in "a sulky unbroken silence, such as never before characterized so great a New York crowd." The same witness,3 standing
1 The New York J^ribune, February 18, 1861. This incident of Grace Bedell, which occurred at Westfield, Indiana, was indicative of the great heart in a homely man, who could not be made unnatural by being chosen President.
2 " Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote :
For him her Old World moulds aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new."
— LOWELL, Commemoration Oder
3 Walt Whitman, the poet, himself a resident of that city.
404 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
amidst the enormous crowd opposite the Astor House when the distinguished guest arrived, saw a tall figure which " step'd leisurely out of the centre of these barouches, paus'd leisurely on the sidewalk, look'd up at the granite walls and looming architecture of the grand old hotel, — then, after a relieving stretch of arms and legs, turn'd round for over a minute to slowly and good-humoredly scan the appearance of the vast and silent crowd." Walt Whitman feared to hear at any moment the crack of the assassin's pistol, or, escaping that, some marked insult or indignity. " For he pos sessed no personal popularity at all in New York City and very little political." The whole reception was just such a " dash of comedy as Shakspere puts in his blackest tragedy."
The culmination of this most unfortunate trip occurred at Harrisburg, when the President-elect, yielding again to the persuasion of his friends, abandoned the tour and slipped into Washington by night. Even the replacing of his high hat by a comfortable soft felt was sufficient ground for the story that he went in disguise. Fate was trying to show in his true light this uncouth noble man whom she had brought forward for the great task ; but, to the people, Fate seemed trying to humble their pride still further by fresh evidences of his crudity. For tunately, becoming President could not spoil Lincoln. The White House was to him a place of residence — nothing more. A reception was simply a meeting with friends. But one may imagine the consternation of his forced supporters and the delight of his enemies when the story was freely circulated that at his first reception he came into the drawing-room holding Mrs. Lincoln
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
405
by the hand and, to relieve the situation, remarked, " Here come the long and short of it."
After the inauguration, the eastern statesmen, whom he had taken into his cabinet for the sake of party har mony, slowly awoke to the fact that Lin coln was the Presi dent. It seemed incredible that this untrained man, who opened cabinet ses sions with readings from wretched "com ic " papers of the day, and who interlarded the gravest discus sions with his back woods stories, could safely guide the gov ernment without their dictation. Only in the later light may one see how this Union.
If Lincoln had yielded to Greeley and other hotbloods and declared emancipation under war powers before he had exhausted his civil powers, he would have destroyed the little law-abiding sense preserved through an aggra vating civil war. His border training had taught him caution and patience. Few civil wars, if any, have been followed by so little punishment inflicted upon the van quished by the victors. No forfeitures of life or even
MR. READY-TO-HALT
dallying man was saving the
L
406 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
liberty for any time, few forfeitures of estates and those with due compensation, no working of treason or at tainder of blood, marked the close of the contest. The sense of law, order, and fairness had been preserved by the deliberate movements of the President.
If Lincoln had closed the war by compromise, as so many begged that he would do, the Union would have been impaired, and slavery, the basic cause of the con flict, would have remained. But the borderer had never learned to compromise ; that was left to the professional statesman. Nature, the standing enemy of the fron tiersman, neither gives nor takes quarter, and that was the school in which this unprofessional statesman had been taught.
If at any time Lincoln had met any representative of the Confederacy, as he was frequently urged to do, he would have recognized the existence of another govern ment within the territory occupied by the United States, and the Union could never have regained its dignity and supremacy. But his sound judgment and tact, trained by experience for emergencies, gave back the central government as pure and uncompromised as when it was entrusted to his hands.
Frequent disappointment and long delays taught the backwoodsman patience. Generations before, the fron tier of Virginia had taught a soldier the same lesson of retreat and waiting. Washington, the wealthy and high born Virginian, would not have expressed it as did this first great typical American, " I never cross the Sanga- mon until I come to it " ; but the principle was the same. In floating down the Mississippi, Lincoln had found it sufficient to meet the obstacles of each day ; as President,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 407
he never anticipated the problems of the next day or the next year. In this he furnishes a striking contrast to his successor.
Therefore, during the progress of the war, Lincoln never troubled himself with the question of how the Union was to be restored when the war should be closed ; how the taint of secession was to be wiped out ; what should be done with the leaders of the fallen enterprise; what the status of the freedman should be. Although a lover of the law, he had little toleration for its sophis tries and its mazes. He would apply to legal questions the simple tests of his early life and say, " This is right." His simple nature, unprejudiced by class distinctions, would have exercised its accustomed charity toward a vanquished foe. His sympathy as a borderer, a curse to him during the war, would have been a blessing after its close. Years before, he had said of the southern people : " If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up."
To say that had Lincoln lived, the country might have been spared the dark period of reconstruction,1 is specu lation. Yet such a conclusion is forced by his simple words on this subject spoken to a serenading party on the night after the fall of Richmond and but three days
1 During the years following the close of the Civil War, while the southern people, starved into submission, but unconvinced that they were wrong, were trying to adjust their new relations with the freedmen, many northern statesmen believed that they could be brought back to their personal and commercial relations by the force which had been employed in restoring their political relations. To this unfortunate period the term " reconstruction " is applied. It may be said to have ended with the final withdrawal of the Federal troops in 1877.
408
THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
before his death. For four years, Congress had been anticipating this question of reconstructing the Union and had been splitting hairs over words. Lincoln said that whether the states had been out of the Union or not was merely a " pernicious abstraction." "We are all agreed that the seceded States, so called, are out of
LINCOLN'S LAST RECEPTION
their proper practical relations with the Union, and that the sole object of the government, civil and military, in regard to those States, is to again get them into that proper practical relation." Nothing could be simpler.
Walt Whitman, who had become a hospital nurse in Washington, thought he saw something new in Lincoln's face as the long war days drew to a close. " It was that
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
409
new virtue unknown to other lands, and hardly yet really known here — Unionism." At his last reception,1 Whit man saw Lincoln "dressed all in black, with white kid gloves and a claw-hammer coat, receiving, as in duty bound, shaking hands, looking very disconsolate and as if he would give anything to be somewhere else." A few weeks later, Whitman felt " as if the world had come to an end " when he heard in the early dawn the news boys crying the assassination of the President. A few
THE IHESIDEMT IS DEAD!
WAR DEPARTMENT,
Washington, April 15, 1865.
To MA J GEN, MX,
Abraham Lincoln died this morning at 22 minutes after Seven o'clock
EESTANTON.SecofWar,
hours more and the dead walls were placarded with the black-bordered bulletins of the Secretary of War an nouncing the end.
All the mysticism of the border and of Lincoln's early life seemed to appear as the end drew nigh. Premoni tions in this man of destiny cannot be satisfactorily dis missed as creations of a disordered intellect. As well
1 The illustration of Lincoln's last reception reproduced on the opposite page is taken from an old lithograph in the Library of Congress.
XT*
-r^ftf
410 THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION
might one attempt to assign Lincoln's recourse to read ing Scripture prophecy and mysteries to the same cause. He is not to be judged by ordinary rules. Few men would have dared to describe to a cabinet the vision of his own death, even if he thought he had seen it. Few would have ventured to predict a military victory solely on the recurrence of a former dream of a vessel coming into a harbor in full sail. To Whitman's poetic mind, the interpretation of the dream was otherwise. The precious ship of the Union had been saved ; she was even now entering the port amidst the rejoicing of the people; but — the captain of the vessel lay dead upon the deck.
" The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won ; Exult O shores, and ring O bells !
But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead."
INDEX
ABOLITION reform, 358-368, 382, 400.
Adams, John, quoted, 3, 55, 80, 127 ; and Samuel Adams, 61 ; delegate to First Continental Congress, 77, 84- 104; on commander-iii-chief, no; on Independence, m-ii8; chosen Vice-President, 186-188 ; becomes President, 215 ; war measures of, 223 ; on election of 1800, 228 ; retires to his farm, 230.
Adams, John Quincy, 266, 272, 284, 288-294, 310-
Adams, Samuel, the father of, 49 ; appears in Boston town meeting, 50-53 ; suggests committees of cor respondence, 51 ; on the Boston Massacre, 56-60; attracts others to the patriot cause, 61-64; a pro scribed rebel, 63 ; and the tea party, 64-69; and the Port Bill, 69-76; a delegate to the Continental Congress, 77, 84, 94-100; welcomes President Washington, 203.
Albany Congress, 18.
Alexandria commissioners, 154.
Alien and Sedition laws, 220-223.
Allen, Ethan, 12.
" American system," 264-266.
Annapolis Convention, 155-157.
Articles of Confederation, formed, 137- 139; financial troubles of, 139-150; commercial difficulties under, 151- 154-
BANK, Jackson on the, 298-301. Birney, James G., 365. Birthday, Jefferson's, celebration, 302- 306.
Boston, Massacre, 56-60; Tea Party, 64-69; Port Bill, 69-76; visit of President Jackson, 307-315.
Braddock's expedition, 257.
Brown, Henry Box, 364, 365.
Burns, Anthony, 367.
Burr, Aaron, in election of 1800, 225; organizes an expedition into the southwest, 241-243.
CALHOUN, John C., 302-305, 321, 325, 328, 332, 338, 354, 378.
Canals as public improvements, 278.
Capital of the United States, 178, 207.
Charters, colonial, 11-15.
Clay, Henry, early life of, 259-263 ; in the Senate, 263 ; evolves his Ameri can system, 264-266; and the Cum berland Road, 266; on the War of 1812; 267-270; and the Maysville Road, 273; as a presidential candi date, 274-281, 284 ; a traveller on the Cumberland Road, 276; as Secretary of State, 285 ; Compromise of 1833, 307; Compromise of 1850, 338; death of> 375. S?8 ; as a frontiersman, 384.
"Coffin handbills," 291.
Colonial discord, 1-15.
Colonists, isolation of the, 255.
Commissioners, Virginia and Mary land, 154.
Committees of Correspondence, 51, 72.
Compromise of 1850, 335-345.
Concord and Lexington, 105-108.
Congress, a, suggested, 72, 77.
411
Congress, First Continental, 72-104; Connecticut delegates to, 86.
412
INDEX
Congress, financial troubles of, 119- 123, 127-136, 139-150; calls a con vention, 157.
Congress, Second Continental, 108- iii.
Constitution of the United States framed, 157-172; adopted, 173-180.
Continental money, 119-123; 127-136, 140.
Convention, Annapolis, 155-157.
Convention, Constitutional, 157-172.
Convention, national nominating, 287.
"Critical period," the, 148.
Crockett, David, 279, 316.
Cumberland national road, 266, 271, 276.
DEANE, Silas, 86, 127-132. Debates of Lincoln and Douglas, 389. Declaration of Independence, 113-118. Dickinson, John, 54, 80, 81, 102, 137,
157-
Douglas, Stephen A., 379-384. Duche, Rev., 95-99.
ELECTION, of 1800, 224-229; of 1824, 283; of 1852, 344, 374; of 1840,
349-
Embargo of 1808, 246-251. England and impressment, 244-246. English predominance in the colonies,
14-17.
" Era of good feeling," 283. Established Church, 2-7, 259. Examination of Franklin, 29.
FEDERAL Hall, New York City, 185.
Federalist party, formed, 174; rash actions of, 220-224 ; oppose election of Jefferson, 226; death of, 319.
" Federalibt, The," 176.
First Continental Congress, called, 72- 78 ; delegates to, 79-92 ; action of, 92-101 ; entertainment of, 101-104.
Fitch, John, 166.
Foote's resolution, 321.
France, aids America, 127-132; war fever against, 222; and the Missis sippi valley, 256.
Franklin, Benjamin, third trip to England, i ; efforts for union, 17 ; and the Stamp Act, 23-32 ; examina tion of, 29; on Parliamentary cor ruption, 33 ; on the navigation laws, 36; daily life in England, 40-44; and the Hutchinson letters, 42-45; returns to Philadelphia, 45 ; secures aid from France, 127-132; in the Constitutional Convention, 163-172.
Frontier, the American, 255-259, 383- 387.
Fugitive slaves, 335-342, 368-370, 373.
GALLATIN, Albert, 234, 236, 239-241, 244-251.
Garrison, William Lloyd, 341, 359-368.
Graham, Dr., reforms of, 351.
Greeley, Horace, on Clay, 255; early career of, 348 ; in the campaign of 1840, 349 ; founds the Tribune, 350 ; as a social reformer, 351 ; in Con gress, 352-358 ; and the Abolition reform, 358-366; and the Fugitive Slave law, 368-370 ; on " Uncle Tom's Cabin," 371-374; and the election of 1852, 374-377 ; handwriting of, 376 ; effects of his labors, 377 ; quoted, 382; and Lincoln, 391-398, 405.
Grenville, George, 19-26.
" HALF horse and half alligator," 290.
Hamilton, Alexander, an aide, 135; delegate to Annapolis Convention, 155-157; delegate to Philadelphia Convention, 161-171; and "The Federalist," 176; in the New York State Convention, 177-180 ; made Secretary of the Treasury, 202; his reports, 207; head of party, 211 ; on the implied powers, 219.
Hancock, John, 62, 109, 179, 204.
Harvard College and President Jack son, 315.
Hayne, Robert Y., 302, 323-332.
Henry, Patrick, 2, 90, 104.
Hughes, stamp agent, 26.
Hutchinson letters, 42-45.
INDEX
I IMPRESSMENT of American sailors,
244-246.
Improvements, internal, 255-281. Inauguration, of Washington, 195 ; of
Jefferson, 230; of Jackson, 294-296. Independence, growth of sentiment for,
111-113; declared, 114; committee
on declaration of, 112, 114-116. Internal improvements, 255-281.
JACKSON, Andrew, on internal im provements, 274 ; in the election of 1824, 284-286; in the election of 1828, 286-294; journey to Washing ton, 294; inauguration, 295-297 ; and office-seekers, 297; as a foe to the bank, 298-301 ; and Jefferson's birth day celebration, 302-304 ; and nulli fication, 304-306 ; tour to New Eng land, 306-316; contribution to the Union, 317; and Clay's "American system," 323.
Jackson, Mrs. Rachel, attacks upon, 291-294.
Jefferson, Thomas, writes Declaration of Independence, 113-118; becomes Secretary of State, 202 ; head of party, 211 ; rallies people against the Federalists, 220-224; elected Presi dent, 224-229; inaugurated, 229-232; and the offices, 232-235 ; economic plans, 235 ; purchases Louisiana, 236-240; and the navy, 240; and Burr's expedition, 241-243 ; on im pressment, 244; tries an embargo, 246-251 ; retires to Monticello, 252- 254; birthday celebration, 302-306; as a frontiersman, 384.
KANSAS and Nebraska, 380, 383. Kentucky, beginnings of, 257-259 ; Lex ington, 261.
LEXINGTON and Concord, 105-108.
Lincoln, Abraham, and mileage reform, 354. 356; on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 383; as a frontier product, 383- 387 ; and the new Republican party, 387-389 ; as a prospective candidate,
413
389-393 ; nominated, 394 ; and Sew- ard, 395-398 ; campaign of, 399-401 ; en route to Washington, 402-405 ; efforts for the Union, 405-407; on reconstruction, 408 ; death of, 409.
Log-cabin campaign, 349.
" Log-rolling," 272.
Louisiana, purchase of, 236-240.
Lovejoy, Elijah P., 360.
Lowell, James Russell, 338, 375, 403.
Loyalists, treatment of, 143-146.
Lundy, Benjamin, 359.
MADISON, James, 4, 153, 154-158, 168, 175, 176, 233.
Marshall, Christopher, 117; diary of, 46.
Massachusetts, Colonial Church in, 3, 4 ; delegates to First Continental Congress, 84-86.
Maysville Road, 273.
Mileage reform, Greeley on, 353-355.
Missouri Compromise line, 380.
Morris, Robert, early career, 124-126; efforts in Philadelphia, 133-136 ; as financier, 139-141 ; as a friend of Washington, 149; misfortunes of, 150; nominates Washington in the Constitutional Convention, 164.
NAVIGATION Acts, 35-37.
Nebraska and Kansas, 380-383.
New Hampshire delegates to First Con tinental Congress, 83.
Newspapers, and the Stamp Act, 27; early history of, 347.
New York, on Port Bill, 72; delegates to First Continental Congress, 91 ; commercial troubles of, 152; adopts the Constitution, 177; Lincoln in,
390- 403. Non-importation, Associations of, 52-
54-
North, Lord, 61, 64, 65, 131. Nullification, 302-307, 331.
"PARLEY, Peter," on the railroad.
279. Pennsylvania, race differences, 7-9;
414
INDEX
charter of, 13 ; delegates to First Con tinental Congress, 81 ; ratifies the Constitution, 173.
Personal liberty laws, 370.
" Pet banks," 300.
Philadelphia, on Port Bill, 72; Sons of Liberty of, 79-81 ; First Continental Congress at, 79-104; second Con gress at, 108-111; captured by the British, 132-136; entertains the Con stitutional Convention, 165; as the capital, 209; visit of President Jack son, 308-310.
Phillips, Wendell, 342, 343, 359.
Port Bill, Boston, 69-76.
Potomac navigation commissioners, 154-
RACE prejudices, 7-9.
Railroads, beginnings of, 278-280.
Reconstruction, period of, 408.
Religious persecution, 3-7.
Removals from office under Jefferson, 232-235.
Republican party, the, 377, 387-389.
Revere, Paul, 68, 71, 105.
Rhode Island delegates to First Conti nental Congress, 87 ; not represented in the Philadelphia Convention, 156, 159-
SERVANTS, indentured, 9-11.
Seward, William H., 390-398.
Shays's Rebellion, 160.
Smuggling, colonial, 20-22.
Sons of Liberty, 54-56; of Philadel phia, 79-81.
South Carolina delegates to First Con tinental Congress, 81-83.
Spoils system, Jefferson and, 232-235; Jackson and, 296-298; Greeley on the, 352.
Spotsvvood, Governor, 256.
" Squatter sovereignty," 381.
Stamp Act, 23-32, 37.
States rights and the Union, 218.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 371-374.
Suffolk resolutions, 99.
Suffrage extension, 287.
TARIFF, the first, 199; of 1832, 302;
South Carolina on, 302-307. Taxation of America, 19-41. Tea and the American colonies, 64-69. Thomson, Charles, 79-81, 93, 94, 186,
1 88.
Tories, treatment of, 143-146. Town meeting, the, 47-49. Townshend, Charles, 38-40, 61, 64. Troops in Boston, 56-60.
" UNCLE TOM'S CABIN," 371-374.
Union, beginnings of the, 14-19, 98, 101 ; Morris's efforts for, 139; Ham ilton and the, 169; Washington's services for the, 214, 318; Jefferson and the, 224, 254; Clay's contribu tion to the, 255, 281 ; Jackson on the, 317; the silent growth of the, 318- 320; and the states, 321 ; in danger in 1850, 338 ; Webster's contribution to, 346.
VIRGINIA and Kentucky resolutions, 220-223, 303.
Virginia, Colonial Church in, 2-7; dele gates to First Continental Congress, 88-91 ; adopts the Constitution, 175; and the Ohio valley, 256-259.
WAR, Revolutionary, 105-149; with France in 1798, 223; of 1812, 267- 270, 282 ; with Mexico, 332.
Washington, George, delegate to First Continental Congress, 89, 102; made commander-in-chief, no; quoted, in; faith in the government, 149; entertains Potomac commissioners, 154; at the Constitutional Conven tion, 162-172; suggested for the Presidency, 178 ; accepts the Presi dency, 181-186; journey to New York, 188-195 ; inauguration of, 195- 197; administration of, 197-216; journey to New England, 203 ; po litical attacks upon, 210-215 ; expe dition to the Ohio, 257 ; and Lincoln, 406.
INDEX
415
Waterways as means of communica tion, 255.
Webster, Daniel, on Clay's "American system," 323 ; debate with Hayne, 324-331; political career of, 333; reputation as an orator, 334; on slavery, 335; on the Fugitive Slave Act, 338; Seventh of March speech, 339-343 ; and the Convention of 1852, 344; as an independent candidate,
345; contribution to the Union, 346;
and Abolitionists, 361 ; on Webster,
368 ; death of, 375, 378. Webster, Noah, 167, 215. Whig party, 327, 375. Whitman, Walt, 403-410. Whittier, John Greenleaf, 318, 342. Wilderness Road, 257. Writs of assistance, 21,
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