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THE "GERRYMANDER." 
From original handbill, 1813. 



WITH THE FATHERS 



STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF 
THE UNITED STATES 



BY 

JOHN BACH McMASTER 

PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES 




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NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

l8q6 



Copyright, 1896, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 






TO 



GERTRUDE STEVENSON McMASTER. 



PREFACE. 



Of the essays collected in this little volume, " The 
Political Depravity of the Fathers " and " Franklin in 
France " were written for the Atlantic Monthly ; " The 
Framers and the Framing of the Constitution " and 
" A Century of Constitutional Interpretation " were 
contributed to the Century Magazine ; " Washington's 
Inauguration " to' Harper's Magazine ; " The Third- 
Term Tradition," " The Riotous Career of the Know- 
Nothings," "A Century's Struggle for Silver," and 
"Is Sound Finance Possible under Popular Govern- 
ment ? " to the Forum. My thanks are due, there- 
fore, to Messrs. Harper & Brothers, and to the editors 
of the Atlantic Monthly, the Century Magazine, and 
the Forum for their permission to reprint these essays. 

The gist of " The Monroe Doctrine " was contrib- 
uted to the New York Times. " How the British left 
New York " was first published in the New York 
Press. To both of these journals an acknowledgment 
of my indebtedness is made. 

John Bach McMaster. 

University of Pennsylvania, 
March, 1896. 



vi i 



CONTEXTS. 



PAGE 

The Monroe doctrine 1 

The third-term tradition 55 

.J'he political depravity of the fathers .... 71 

The riotous career of the Know-Nothings ... 87 

The framers and the framing of the constitution . . 107 

Washington's inauguration 150 

a century of constitutional interpretation . . . 182 

a century's struggle for silver 222 

is sound finance possible under popular government ? . 237 

Franklin in France 253 

How the British left New York 271 

The struggle for territory 281 

Four centuries of progress 313 

ix 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

In the course of the discussion of the Monroe Doc- 
trine provoked by the recent letter of Lord Salisbury 
and the message of President Cleveland, there have 
been developed three views now very current among 
our countrymen. Some agree with the statements of 
the noble lord in his letter, and, without giving much 
thought to the matter, declare that the doctrine per- 
ished with the occasion that called it forth. Some 
admit that it still exists, but incline to the belief that it 
should not apply to a territorial project that does not 
involve colonization or the erection of a monarchy 
where a republic once stood. Others have no hesita- 
tion in declaring that what goes on in Yenezuela is of 
no consequence to us, and that the matter at stake is 
not of enough importance to make it worth while to 
risk a war. 

As the crisis is certainly a serious one, an examina- 
tion of these views is not untimely. The hour has come 
for the people of the United States to decide once for 
all whether there is or is not a Monroe Doctrine. If 
there is, it should be stated as clearly and precisely as 
possible. If there is not, then it becomes us to say so 
frankly and at once. 

The doctrine was originally announced by James 
Monroe in a message to Congress on December second, 

1 



2 WITH THE FATHERS. 

1823, and was made necessary by certain things done 
by Russia and the Holy Allies. Russia still exists. 
But who the Holy Allies were, and what they did 
that so alarmed Monroe, requires a little explanation. 

As all the world knows, the defeat of the French at 
Waterloo was followed by a second abdication of Na- 
poleon, by a second restoration of Louis XVIII to the 
throne of France, and by a gathering of the allied 
kings or their ministers at Paris in the autumn of 1815. 
Their renewed triumph over the Man of Destiny was, 
to the mind of one of them, another signal instance of 
the workings of Providence, another manifestation of 
the truth that God in his own good time will raise up 
those who put their trust in him, and will confound the 
policy of the wicked. So deeply did this truth impress 
Alexander, Emperor of Russia, that he then and there 
determined to rule henceforth, and, if possible, persuade 
his fellow-monarchs to rule in strict accordance with 
the principles of the Christian religion. To accomplish 
this end the more easily, he persuaded Frederick Wil- 
liam, King of Prussia, and Francis, Emperor of Aus- 
tria, to join with him in a league which he called the 
Holy Alliance, and to sign a treaty which is commonly 
supposed to have bound the allies to pull down consti- 
tutional government and stamp out liberal ideas. It 
did nothing of the sort. It was, in truth, a meaningless 
pledge, framed in a moment of religious excitement, 
and well described in its own words, which assert " that 
the present act has no other aim than to manifest to the 
world their unchangeable determination to adopt no 
other rule of conduct, either in the government of 
their respective countries or in their political relations 
with other governments, than the precepts of that 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 3 

holy religion — the precepts of justice, charity, and 
peace." 

Considering themselves members of one great Chris- 
tian family whose real and only sovereign was Almighty 
God, they would look on themselves " as delegates of 
Providence " sent "to govern so many branches of the 
same family," and would make the Word of God and 
the teachings of Jesus Christ their guides in " estab- 
lishing human institutions and remedying their imper- 
fections." 

That the King, the Emperor, and the Czar had any 
hidden motive in forming this far-famed Holy Alli- 
ance ; that they said one thing and meant another ; that 
their intention was less to rule in accordance with the 
maxims of Christ than to set up and maintain absolute 
governments ; that when they signed that league they 
knew they were fbrming a bond of union against the 
spread of liberal ideas, and even then contemplated a 
system of meddling in the affairs of other nations — there 
is no evidence whatever. Indeed, if we may believe the 
stories that have come down to us, Alexander and Fred- 
erick William were the only sovereigns who looked on 
the alliance as anything else than a bit of religions en- 
thusiasm. When Francis of Austria was asked to sign, 
he answered, we are told, that if the paper related to 
matters religious he must show it to his confessor ; if to 
matters political, to his minister. This minister was 
Prince Metternich, who described the paper in three 
words when he said, " It is verbiage ! " 

The alliance having been formed, the next step was 
to invite all the Christian powers of Europe except the 
Pope to join it. England — whose representative at the 
congress of the allies, Lord Castlereagh, wrote home 



4: WITH THE FATHERS. 

that the Emperor was not quite sound in his mind — 
excused herself. The kings of France, Spain, Naples, 
and Sardinia, however, signed gladly, and the era of 
Christian politics was supposed to have opened. 

That this little society of Christian monarchs should 
have any interest for us of to-day is due solely to the 
fact that their treaty contains the words " Holy Alli- 
ance," that the signers have ever since been called the 
Holy Allies, and that to their league have wrong- 
fully been attributed results which sprang from the 
quadruple treaty signed two months later by Russia, 
Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain ; a new alliance 
which bound the four powers to do four things — ex- 
clude Napoleon forever from power ; maintain the 
Government they had just set up in France ; resist 
with all their might any attack on the army of occupa- 
tion; and meet in 1818 to consult concerning their 
common interests, and to take such measures as should 
then seem to be best fitted to serve the peace and hap- 
piness of Europe. 

Unhappily, before 1818 came, a great change took 
place in the political ideas of Europe. The old families 
were once again safely seated on their old thrones. The 
old nobility, the old courtiers, were home from their 
wanderings eager for proscription and confiscation. A 
reaction set in. Liberalism was checked. Absolutism 
came again into fashion, and before five years had come 
and gone the Holy Allies were hard at work pulling 
down and stamping out popular government wherever 
and whenever it appeared in Europe. 

The centre of this reactionary movement was Austria, 
then ruled by Metternich, the very personification of 
resistance to progress, a man who described his policy 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 5 

as not to go backward, not to go forward, but to keep 
tilings just as they were. To do this in Austria was 
easy. To do it in countries which had been stirred and 
awakened by the French Revolution was not so easy. 
But Metternich went bravely to work and began with 
Naples. In 1813 Great Britain had forced Ferdinand, 
King of Sicily, to grant a constitution to Sicily and to 
promise one to Naples ; but no sooner had the allies re- 
stored him to the throne so long occupied by Murat than 
Metternich persuaded him to sign a treaty pledging him 
to keep his kingdom just as it had been, and to bring in 
none of the product of liberal ideas. Ferdinand kept 
his agreement, and constitutional government in Sicily 
and Naples perished. 

In Spain the reaction was a popular one. Scarcely 
had Ferdinand VII crossed the Pyrenees in 1814 and 
entered his native land than a wild, savage, unreasoning 
outburst of loyalty swept the country. The courtiers, 
the churchmen, the military leaders — every one who 
gathered about the restored king — urged him to destroy 
the present and bring back the past ; to pull down the 
Constitution and set up the old monarchy as it was 
when Napoleon drove him from his throne seven years 
before. He needed little urging, and on May eleventh, 
1814, the work of destruction began. First, he sent 
forth a manifesto from Valencia which destroyed the 
Constitution of 1812 and declared every decree of the 
Cortes null and void. Next, he restored the censorship 
of the press. Then, growing bold, he arrested thirty of 
the most distinguished of the Liberal leaders ; and at 
this point the people began to lend a hand. Excited 
and aroused by the priests, mobs appeared all over the 
country. The writings of Liberalists were burned in 



6 WITH THE FATHERS. 

the market places. The tablets erected to commem- 
orate the Constitution were pulled down. Men whose 
sole crime was a firm belief in constitutional govern- 
ment were flung into prison. Great Britain protested 
and urged the king to stop ; but priests, confessors, and 
palace favorites ruled him, and the work went steadily 
on. May twenty-third he re-established the monaster- 
ies and gave them their old lands ; June twenty-fourth 
he exempted the clergy from taxation ; July twenty- 
first he once more put in operation the most diabolical 
of all the inventions of man — the Spanish Inquisition. 

That France must sooner or later have experienced a 
like reaction was inevitable. Signs of the coming storm 
were already apparent when, on March first, 1815, Na- 
poleon landed with his guards in the bay of Juan, and 
the Hundred Days commenced. When they had 
ended, when the news of Waterloo spread over France, 
the storm broke with fury. A Royalist mob at Mar- 
seilles sacked the quarters of the Mamelukes, drove out 
the garrison, and murdered the citizens. JNTimes was 
pillaged. Avignon disgraced herself by the foul mur- 
der of Marshal Brune, and Toulonse by the assassina- 
tion and savage mutilation of General Ramel. When 
the Chamber of Deputies, chosen in the midst of this 
excitement, assembled, there was a new proscription, a 
new emigration, a new reign of terror. Labedoyere 
was executed. Ney was shot. Royalist committees, in 
imitation of the Jacobin clnbs, sprang up in every 
department, overawed the officials, and forced them to 
drive thousands of Liberalists from the army, from the 
navy, from the courts of law, and from the schools and 
colleges. 

In Germany, in 1815, it seemed as if Liberalism 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 7 

would win. At the very moment when Ferdinand of 
Spain was about to issue his manifesto establishing the 
monasteries, Frederick William (May twenty-second, 
1815) sent forth his promise that Germany should have 
a constitution and representative assembly, and that the 
work of framing the Constitution should begin in Sep- 
tember. But delays arose, and two years sped by be- 
fore even the first step was taken. Then it was too 
late. The middle classes cared not. The nobility were 
eager for a restoration of their old privileges. The sole 
defenders of a Constitution were the professors in the 
universities, the students, and the journalists, who con- 
ducted their cause with so much more zeal than wis- 
dom that when the famous Wartburg Festival took 
place in 1817 Frederick William justly and seriously 
doubted the expediency of granting the promised lib- 
erty. j 

Amid all this reaction, one ruler, and one alone, 
stood out as the earnest friend of liberal ideas. Alex- 
ander of Russia, too, had made promises. But, unlike 
Frederick William, he had kept them, had restored the 
Duchy of Warsaw to independence as the Kingdom of 
Poland, had given it a constitution and representative 
assembly, and in the spring of 1818 summoned the 
Diet. The speech which he addressed to it marked 
him out as one of the most advanced of Liberals ; but 
the Diet had scarcely ended its session when a great 
change came over him. What caused it no man knows ; 
but when, in October, 1818, he met the sovereigns and 
ministers at the Conference of the Powers, Alexander 
was the despot he ever after lived and died. 

By the Quadruple Treaty, signed at Paris in 1815, 

England, Prussia, Russia, and Austria bound themselves 
2 



8 WITH THE FATHERS. 

to maintain the Government they had just set up in 
France, and to hold a Congress of the Powers in 1818. 
They met, accordingly, in September, at Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, and with that conference a new era opens in the 
constitutional history of Europe. Then and there was 
formed the real " Conspiracy of Kings." The reac- 
tionary movement of three years had extinguished in 
the hearts of the best of them the last trace of liberal- 
ism, and they all stood together on a common ground 
of hatred of popular liberty. It was the conference at 
Aix-la-Chapelle, not the Holy Alliance, that united the 
sovereigns in the project of a joint regulation of Euro- 
pean affairs, and turned the Holy Allies into a mutual 
association for the insurance of monarchy. 

Scarcely had this new purpose been formed when 
the alliance was called on to act. For ten years past 
the Spanish colonies in America had been in a state 
of revolt, first against the rule of Joseph Bonaparte, 
and then against the tyranny of Ferdinand VII. Every 
resource of the restored king was used against them and 
used in vain. The struggle went on till, the last fleet 
having been fitted out, the last regiment having been 
sent to perish of yellow fever, and the last dollar having 
been drawn from the treasury, Ferdinand turned to the 
sovereigns of Europe for aid. They had restored to him 
his throne. It is not surprising, therefore, that he 
should ask them to restore his colonies ; but it is amus- 
ing to note the impudence with which he intimated 
that the work of subjugation should be done by Great 
Britain. She might have acted as mediator. More she 
would not do, and as subjugation, not mediation, was 
wanted, Alexander came to the relief of Ferdinand and 
sold him a fleet of war. When it reached Cadiz it was 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 9 

found that this Emperor, who in 1815 was so eager to 
see all Europe ruled in accordance with the teachings 
of Christ, had sold his friend ships so rotten and unsea- 
worthy that not one of them was fit to cross the Atlantic. 

The expedition was put off, and the condition of 
Spanish America was laid before the sovereigns when 
they met at Aix-la-Chapelle. The dangers which 
threatened Europe if a federation of republics was al- 
lowed to grow up in America were discussed ; a propo- 
sition was made that a conference between Spain and 
the powers should be held at Madrid, and that Welling- 
ton should preside ; but Spain wanted troops, not advice, 
and was left to subdue her colonies in her own way. 

Her way was to gather a rabble at Cadiz in the 
summer of 1819, call it an army, and send it off to 
America. Before it could sail, yellow fever broke out, 
the troops went into camp, and while there, were won 
over to the cause of constitutional government by the 
agents of a great conspiracy which had long been grow- 
ing under the tyranny of the King. On January first, 
1820, the day fixed for the outbreak, the troops, led by 
Colonels Quiroga and Riego, rose and declared for the 
Constitution of 1812. The rebellion of the soldiers was 
a small affair in itself, but it set an example ; it stirred 
up others, and on February twentieth the garrison and 
people of Corunna in their turn proclaimed the Consti- 
tution. 

And now rebellion spread fast. Town after town 
followed Corunna. The whole country was up, and 
Ferdinand in great alarm announced his willingness to 
assemble the Cortes. His people had long since learned 
that his word was of no value, and, filling the great 
squares of Madrid, they clamored all day long for the 



10 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Constitution. At length he gave way, and announced 
his willingness to take the oath to support the Consti- 
tution. The next day — the famous eighth of March, 
1820 — was one of wild rejoicing. The prison of the 
Inquisition was sacked ; the instruments of torture 
were broken in pieces ; political prisoners were set 
free, and the Constitution carried in procession through 
the streets. March ninth a mob entered the palace, 
forced the King to make good his promise, and con- 
stitutional government once more existed in Spain. 

As tidings of the collapse of absolutism in Spain 
spread over Europe, all the members of the Holy Alli- 
ance save Alexander seemed uncertain what to do. He 
alone acted with decision, and at once insisted that the 
great powers should require the Cortes to disavow the 
revolution of the eighth of March — the revolution to 
which it owed its existence — and give a pledge of obe- 
dience to the King. In such a demand England posi- 
tively refused to join, and the first proposed attack on 
Spanish liberty by the Holy Alliance was postponed. 

Meantime absolute monarchy fell at Naples. The 
success of the Liberalists in Spain aroused the Carbo- 
nari, a great secret society with lodges in every city and 
hamlet, and a membership numbering at least one 
quarter of the male inhabitants of the Kingdom of 
Naples. They had long been plotting and secretly 
waiting for the hour of deliverance which now seemed 
at hand. Ferdinand of Sicily was the uncle of Ferdi- 
nand of Spain, and as he might some day be called to 
the Spanish throne, he too had signed and sworn to 
support the Constitution of 1812 that his claims to the 
Crown might not be endangered. If he were willing 
to have a constitution in a country which he might 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. \\ 

some day rule, why not force him to give the same con- 
stitution to the kingdoms over which he was already 
ruler ? The Carbonari could see no reason, and, rising 
in armed rebellion, they compelled Ferdinand to pro- 
claim the Constitution of Spain to be the law of the 
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and on July thirteenth, 
1820, he took the oath to maintain it. 

The men of Portugal were next to awake, and in 
September, 1820, they deposed the Regency which 
ruled in the name of the absent King, set up a Junta, 
and elected a Cortes to frame a constitution. For a 
moment it seemed not unlikely that France might throw 
off the yoke of absolutism. But Louis cried out for 
another meeting of the powers, and in October, 1820, 
the Emperor of Austria met the Czar and the King 
of Prussia in the little town of Troppau, in Moravia. 
England sent an ambassador, but he was instructed to 
look on and do nothing. France sent two envoys, but 
they took opposite sides, and her influence counted for 
nothing. The three founders of the Holy Alliance 
were thus free to do as they pleased, and very quickly 
decided what course to take. Ferdinand was to be in- 
vited to meet them at Laybach ; a summons was to be 
sent, through him, to the Neapolitans to abandon their 
Constitution or fight ; and a circular explaining and de- 
fending this new doctrine of armed intervention was 
to be issued, in the name of the three powers, to all the 
Courts of Europe. 

The circular went forth on December eighth, 1820, 
to every foreign court. The events of March eighth in 
Spain, and those of July second in Naples, had pro- 
duced, the circular said, a deep feeling of inquietude 
and alarm, and a desire to unite and save Europe from 



12 WITH THE FATHERS. 

the evils ready to burst upon her. That this desire 
should be most keen with governments which not long 
ago had conquered the revolution, and now see it once 
more appearing triumphant, is natural. The other pow- 
ers have therefore availed themselves of an incontest- 
able right, and have decided to take common measures of 
precaution and restrain such States as, having revolted 
against legitimate governments and institutions, are 
seeking by their agents to introduce like disorders and 
insurrections into other States. As the revolution at 
Naples strikes deeper root every day, and sensibly men- 
aces the tranquillity of the neighboring powers, it is 
necessary to immediately apply to her the principles 
agreed on. 

Before resorting to force, however, it was thought 
best to make one effort of a peaceful character, and 
summon the King of Naples to meet the allied powers 
at Laybach. \ 

Thither, in January, 1821, with the consent of the 
Neapolitan Parliament, the old King, leaving his son to 
act as regent, accordingly went, only to be told that if 
the order of things existing since July, 1820, were not 
at once abolished an Austrian army would occupy Nea- 
politan soil. The same demand was made known to 
the Prince Regent at Naples, who stoutly refused to 
consider it, and summoned the Parliament, which de- 
clared that it considered the old King as under restraint 
at Laybach ; bade the Grand Duke of Calabria continue 
to exercise the Regency, and ordered measures to be 
taken for the safety of the State. A rush to arms fol- 
lowed. The Prince put himself at the head of most of 
the troops. The King appealed to the others, but they 
answered that they would not serve against their fel- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 13 

lows, and cried out for the Constitution. Ferdinand, 
now reduced to impotence, abdicated, and went back to 
Sicily; and one hundred thousand Austrians entered 
Italy and crushed the republican uprisings in Naples, 
in Piedmont, in all Italy, and Ferdinand, in spite of his 
abdication, was restored to the throne of Naples. 

A new declaration and a new circular was now pub- 
lished by the Holy Allies, about to end their conference 
at Laybach, and in this circular was announced a prin- 
ciple which was to guide them in their future dealings 
with nations struggling for liberty. Having, in the 
language of the time, " taken the people of Europe into 
their Holy keeping," the three autocrats declared that 
henceforth all " useful or necessary changes in the legis- 
lation and administration of states must emanate alone 
from the free will, the reflecting and enlightened im- 
pulse of those whom God has rendered responsible for 
power ! " 

Thus committed to the extermination of popular 
government, the members of the Holy Alliance next 
turned their attention to Spain. When the Congress 
at Laybach adjourned in 1821, it did so with the under- 
standing that it should meet again in 1822. That the 
question of intervention in the affairs of Spain would 
then come up, and that when it did, Great Britain would 
have much to say was well known to the powers. What 
they would do might be doubtful, but the course she 
should pursue was to her certain. She would leave the 
revolution in Spain to run its course ; she would urge 
the European powers to do the same, and, following 
her own interests, would acknowledge the independ- 
ence of the Spanish South American colonies. A trade 
so great had sprung up with them that it was impos- 



14 WITH THE FATHERS. 

sible to put off the day when she must have in each, 
if not a minister, at least a diplomatic agent. Such 
a policy ran so directly counter to the wishes of the 
Holy Alliance that it was felt to be necessary that it 
should be upheld by her foremost diplomat, and her 
Prime Minister, Lord Castlereagh, was accordingly 
chosen to represent her. In the instructions which he 
drew up for himself, and which the Cabinet and the 
King approved, he was commanded to inform the Con- 
gress that it was the intention of England to send 
accredited agents to some of the South American re- 
publics, which meant a steady opposition on England's 
part to any intervention by the Holy Alliance. Un- 
happily, when the Congress met at Vienna, in Septem- 
ber, Castlereagh was dead ; Canning was Prime Min- 
ister, and the Duke of Wellington was England's 
representative. 

After a short session at Vienna, the Congress ad- 
journed to Yerona, where, in October, 1822, the affairs 
of Spain were carefully considered. ~No declaration 
was made in the name of the alliance, but an agree- 
ment was entered into that certain changes should be 
demanded in the Spanish Constitution, and, if not 
granted, the French army, supported, if necessary, by 
Russia, Austria, and Prussia, should invade Spain. 

The demand was made and was refused ; the am- 
bassadors of the members of the Holy Alliance left 
Madrid, and on April seventh, 1823, a French army, 
led by the Duke of Angouleme, crossed the frontier 
and entered Spain. 

That moment Canning began to act. He knew, 
as everybody knew, that when the allies had once set- 
tled the affairs of Spain they would go on and settle 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 15 

the affairs of her former colonies, now recognized as 
republics by the United States. Turning to Richard 
Rush, who represented our country at London, he pro- 
posed that the United States should join with England 
in a declaration that, while neither power desired the 
colonies of Spain for herself, it was impossible to look 
with indifference on European intervention in their 
affairs, or to see them acquired by a third power. 
Hardly had the request been made, when Canning re- 
ceived a formal notice that later in the year a Congress 
would be called to consider the affairs of Spanish 
America, and again pressed Rush for an answer. Rush 
had no instructions, but with a courage that did him 
honor, he replied that "we should regard as highly 
unjust and as fruitful of disastrous consequences any 
attempt on the part of any European power to take 
possession of thein by conquest, by cession, or on any 
other ground or pretext whatsoever," and promised 
to join in the declaration if England would first ac- 
knowledge the independence of the little republics. 
This she would not do, and the joint declaration was 
never made. 

One of the arguments which Canning used is given 
in Rush's letter to Secretary Adams, and shows that he 
at least had no temporary policy in mind. " They " 
[the United States], said Canning, " were the first power 
established on that continent, and now confessedly the 
leading power. They were connected with South 
America by their position and with Europe by their 
relations. Was it possible they could see with indiffer- 
ence their fate decided upon by Europe ? Had not a 
new epoch arrived in the relative position of the United 
States toward Europe which Europe must acknowledge ? 



16 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Were the great political and commercial interests which 
hung upon the destiny of the new continent to be can- 
vassed and adjusted on this hemisphere without the co- 
operation or even knowledge of the United States ? " 

"When Monroe received the letters of Rush he 
seems to have been greatly puzzled how to act. The 
suggestion of England that the time had come to make 
a declaration of some sort admitted of no dispute. But 
how was it to be made ? If he joined with Great Brit- 
ain would he not be forming one of the " political con- 
nections " Washington had denounced in his " Farewell 
Address " ; one of the " entangling alliances " of which 
Jefferson had given warning in his first inaugural 
speech ? Should he make it alone, would he not be 
violating that policy of non-interference in the affairs 
of the colonies which he had himself advised in six 
messages and two inaugural speeches ? Uncertain what 
to do, he turned to Madison and to Jefferson for ad- 
vice, and sent the letters of Rush to Monticello. The 
reply of Madison was long and interesting, and as no 
editor has ever yet thought it worth while to give the 
letter a place in his collected writings, I give it in full.* 
The answer of Jefferson was written late in October. 

" The question presented by the letters you have 
sent me is the most momentous which has ever been 
offered to my contemplation since that of Independ- 
ence. That made us a nation ; this sets our compass 
and points the course which we are to steer through the 
ocean of time opening on us. And never could we 
embark upon it under circumstances more auspicious. 
Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to 

* The letter will be found at the end of the essay. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 17 

entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe ; our second, 
never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cisatlantic 
affairs. America, ISTorth and South, has a set of inter- 
ests distinct from those of Europe, and peculiarly her 
own. She should therefore have a system of her own, 
separate and apart from that of Europe. While the 
last is laboring to become the domicile of despotism, 
our endeavor should surely be to make our hemisphere 
that of freedom.-' 

Thus encouraged, not simply to meet an emergency, 
but to " point the course which we are to steer through 
the ocean of time opening on us," Monroe consulted 
his Secretaries. John Quincy Adams was then Secre- 
tary of State, and it was at one of these Cabinet meet- 
ings that he suggested as a third part of the doctrine 
the maxim relating to colonization. 

In the autumn of 1818, as Mr. J. B. Prevost, the 
American Commissioner sent out by the President to 
receive the formal delivery of Astoria, was on his way 
home he stopped at the port of Monterey, in California. 
While there he wrote a long report of his mission ; de- 
scribed the Columbia River, the climate, soil, and physi- 
cal features of Oregon, and closed his narrative with an 
account of an incident which he thought most serious. 
Until 1816 the Russians, he said, had no settlement 
south of fifty-five degrees. But in that year, excited 
very probably by the glowing descriptions of Humboldt, 
they had established two colonies of an important char- 
acter. One was at Atooi, on a Sandwich Island, and 
the other on the California coast a few leagues from 
San Francisco, the most northerly settlement of Spain. 
Only two days before he reached Monterey two vessels 
had left that town for the Russian settlement, carrying 



13 WITH THE FATHERS. 

to it implements of husbandry and mechanics of every 
sort. So plain an intention to make a permanent set- 
tlement in the Pacific by a race bnt just emerging from 
savagery and ruled by a chief who sought not to eman- 
cipate but to enthrall, ought surely, Mr. Prevost thought, 
to excite the serious apprehensions of the United 
States. 

But it did not excite the apprehensions of the United 
States, and no more was heard of the Russians till one 
day in February, 1822, when the Chevalier Pierre de 
Politica placed a most alarming document in the hands 
of the Secretary of State. It was an edict of the Em- 
peror Alexander, and set forth that the pursuits of com- 
merce, whaling and fishing, and indeed of all other in- 
dustries whether on the islands or in the ports and gulfs 
of the northwest coast of America, from Behring Straits 
to fifty-one degrees, were exclusively granted to Russian 
subjects. Foreign vessels were therefore forbidden not 
only to land on the coast and islands, but even to come 
within one hundred Italian miles of them. 

So unexpected an attempt to define the boundary 
of the two countries aroused the President, who de- 
manded of the Russian Minister the grounds on which 
it was based. "Why had not the boundary been ar- 
ranged by treaty ? Why were vessels of the United 
States excluded beyond the limit to which territorial 
jurisdiction extended ? He answered that the Russians 
had long had a settlement at Novo Archangelsk, in 
latitude fifty-seven, and that fifty-one degrees was about 
midway between that settlement and Astoria at the 
mouth of the Columbia. The restriction forbidding 
an approach to the coast was laid in order to keep out 
foreign adventurers who, not content with carrying on 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 19 

an illicit trade injurious to the interests of the Russian 
American Fur Company, had supplied arms and am- 
munition to the natives of the Russian possessions in 
America and incited them to revolt. Against these 
doctrines Adams protested ; but Politica cut short the 
discussion by the statement that he had no authority to 
continue it, and a year passed before it was resumed. 
A letter was then received from the Baron de Tuyl, 
who had succeeded the Chevalier de Politica, asking 
that the American Minister at St. Petersburg be given 
power to settle the differences by negotiation. The 
invitation was accepted, and instructions duly drawn 
and despatched. 

While Adams was busy framing the instructions 
under which our Minister at St. Petersburg was to act, 
the Russian Minister called one day in July, 1823, at 
the State Department, and in the course of conversa- 
tion Adams announced to him " that we should con- 
test the right of Russia to any territorial establishment 
on this continent, and that we should assume distinctly 
the principle that the American continents are no long- 
er subjects for any European colonial establishments." 
A week after this conversation the instructions were 
sent off to St. Petersburg, and in giving an account of 
them to Mr. Rush, at London, Adams reasserted the 
principle. When the time came for Monroe to write 
the customary annual message to Congress there were 
thus three matters to be very seriously considered — the 
attempt of Russia to colonize in California, and her 
selection of 51° of north latitude as the south boundary 
of Alaska ; the threatened intervention of the Holy 
Allies in the affairs of the South American Republics ; 
and the proposition of Canning for a joint declaration 



OQ WITH THE FATHERS. 

against thein. Meeting after meeting was held by the 
Cabinet to discuss these matters ; but what was done had 
best be described by Adams himself. " I remarked," 
says Mr. Adams, " that the communications recently 
received from the Russian Minister, Baron de Tuyl, 
afforded, I thought, a very suitable and convenient op- 
portunity for us to take our stand against the Holy 
Alliance, and at the same time to decline the overture 
of Great Britain. It would be more candid, as well as 
more dignified, to avow our principles explicitly to 
Russia and France, than to come in as a cock-boat in 
the wake of the British man-of-war. 

" This idea was acquiesced in on all sides. 

"... Mr. Wirt made a question far more important, 
and which I had made at a much earlier stage of these 
deliberations. It was, whether we shall be warranted 
in taking so broadly the ground of resistance to the in- 
terposition of the Holy Alliance by force to restore the 
Spanish dominion in South America. It is, and has 
been, to me a fearful question. It was not now dis- 
cussed ; but Mr. Wirt remarked upon the danger of as- 
suming the attitude of menace without meaning to strike, 
and asked, if the Holy Alliance should act in direct hos- 
tility against South America, whether this country would 
oppose them by war. My paper and the paragraph 
would certainly commit us as far as the Executive con- 
stitutionally could act on this point ; and if we take this 
course, I should wish that a joint resolution of the two 
Houses of Congress should be proposed and adopted to 
the same purport." 

In the end the views of Jefferson and Adams pre- 
vailed, and when the message was read to Congress on 
December secondj 1823, the members heard a formal 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 21 

statement of the doctrine which has ever since been 
known by the President's name. 

After reviewing onr relations with Russia he said : 

" In the discussion to which this interest (the rights 
of the United States on the northwest coast of America) 
has given rise, and in the arrangements by which they 
may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper for 
asserting, as a principle in which the rights and inter- 
ests of the United States are involved, that the Ameri- 
can continents, by the free and independent condition 
which they have assumed and maintained, are hence- 
forth not to be considered as subjects for future coloni- 
zation of any European powers." 

Turning next to the Holy Alliance he said : " We 
owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable rela- 
tions existing between the United States and those pow- 
ers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on 
their part to extend their system to any portion of this 
hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With 
the existing colonies or dependencies of any European 
power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. 
But with the governments who have declared their in- 
dependence, and maintained it, and whose independence 
we have, on great consideration and on just principles, 
acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for 
the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any 
other manner their destiny, by any European power, in 
any other light than as the manifestation of an un- 
friendly disposition toward the United States. 

" Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted 
at an early stage of the wars which have so long agi- 
tated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains 
the same, which is not to interfere in the internal con- 



22 WITH THE FATHERS. 

cerns of any of its powers ; to consider the Government 
de facto as the legitimate Government for us ; to culti- 
vate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those 
relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy ; meeting 
in all instances the just claims of every power, submit- 
ting to injuries from none. But in regard to these con- 
tinents circumstances are eminently and conspicuously 
different. It is impossible that the allied powers should 
extend their political system to any portion of either 
continent without endangering our peace and happi- 
ness ; nor can any one believe that our Southern breth- 
ren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own 
accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we 
should behold such interposition, in any form, with 
indifference." 

The doctrine was for all time, and, put in plain lan- 
guage, was this : 

1. No more European colonies on either of the 
American continents. 

2. The United States will " not interfere in the in- 
ternal concerns " of any European power. 

3. " But in regard to these continents (North and 
South America) circumstances are eminently and con- 
spicuously different," and if any European power at- 
tempts at any future time to extend its political system 
to any part of this hemisphere " for the purpose of op- 
pressing " the nations or " controlling in any other 
manner their destiny," the United States will in- 
terfere. 

Monroe might have informed the Holy Allies of his 
doctrine under cover of an official note. But he pre- 
ferred to announce it before the world, and in his mes- 
sage warned them that any attempt on their part to 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 23 

violate the doctrine would be " dangerous to our peace 
and safety " and a " manifestation of an unfriendly dis- 
position toward the United States." 

At home the declaration was read with pride and 
satisfaction, and an attempt was at once made by Clay 
to have so much of it as related to the intervention of 
the Holy Alliance in the affairs of South America em- 
bodied in a joint resolution of the House and Senate. 
The influence of Clay was great. He was Speaker of 
the House : he was a candidate for the presidency. 
But factional spirit ran high. The friends of Adams, 
of Jackson, of Crawford, of Calhoun had no notion of 
allowing him to pose as the champion of popular lib- 
erty, and the resolution had so little support that Clay, 
yielding to political necessity, told the House he would 
let his resolution lie on the table. By this we are told 
he abandoned the doctrine in its infancy. We think 
not, and against the act of Clay when Speaker of the 
House in 1824 would put this act of Clay when Secre- 
tary of State in 1825. 

During the summer of that year common rumor 
and the appearance of a great French fleet on our coast 
gave the republics of South America good reason to 
believe that France was about to invade Cuba and 
Porto Rico, with the intention of securing one or both 
of the islands for herself. Such an event was so much 
to be dreaded that Mexico called on the United States 
" to fulfil," in the words of Mr. Clay, " the memorable 
pledge of the President of the United States in his 
message to Congress of December, 1823." Clay, with 
as little delay as possible, acceded to the request, ap- 
plied the Monroe Doctrine, instructed our Minister at 
Paris to notify France " that we would not consent to 
3 



24 WITH THE FATHERS. 

the occupation of those islands by any other European 
power than Spain, under any circumstances whatever," 
and bade Mr. Poinsett call on Mexico to assert the 
Monroe Doctrine " on all proper occasions." * 

But in England, according to our Minister then 
resident in London, the new doctrine was heard with 
extravagant delight. The English people, English 
statesmen, and the English press were loud in their 
praises of the firm stand taken by the United States. 
" The question," said Mr. Brougham, " with regard to 
South America is now disposed of, or nearly so, for an 
event has recently happened than which no event has 
dispensed greater joy, exultation, and gratitude over all 
the freemen of Europe : that event, which is decisive 
of the subject in respect to South America, is the mes- 
sage of the President of the United States to Congress." 

The London Courier, the London Times, the Morn- 
ing Chronicle, Bell's Weekly Messenger, the Liverpool 
Advertiser, were loud in the praise of the new doctrine, 
and when the French administration journal L'Etoile 
denounced the message and called Monroe a dictator, it 
was the London Times that hastened to defend him.f 
The South American Deputies in London were wild 
with joy, and South American securities of every sort 
rose in value. 

Having thus announced that we would not meddle 
in European affairs nor suffer the nations of the Old 
World to interfere with the domestic concerns of the 
nations of the New, it soon became necessary to define 

* Clay to Poinsett, March 26, 1825. Clay to Poinsett, Nov. 9, 
1825. 

f Extracts from these journals will be found at the end of the 
essay. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 25 

our own attitude toward the young republics of South 
America. One day in the spring of 1825, just after 
Clay had become Secretary of State, separate interviews 
were held with the Ministers of Mexico and Colombia 
at their request. In the course of conversation each 
announced that his Government was most anxious to 
have the United States represented at a congress of 
republics soon to be held at Panama, that he had been 
empowered to extend such an invitation, but had been 
instructed before doing so to ask if it would be agree- 
able to the United States to receive it. 

Clay answered, after consulting Adams, that the 
United States could not be expected to take any part 
in the war with Spain, nor in any council for deliberat- 
ing on the means of continuing the struggle for inde- 
pendence, and that before expressing a willingness to 
receive the formal invitation it would be desirable to 
know what subjects would be discussed, how the con- 
gress was to be organized and act, and what powers 
were to be given to the diplomatic agents composing it. 
Each Minister promised to report this answer to his 
Government, and no more was heard of the matter till 
November. Then the Ministers replied to Clay, and 
formally extended the invitation. In answer to the 
question what was to be discussed, Mexico suggested 
the kind of opposition to be made to colonization in 
America by European powers, and the sort of resistance 
to be offered to the interference of any neutral nation 
in the war between the young republics and Spain. 
Colombia approved these and added two more — the 
independence of the negro republic of Hayti, and a con- 
sideration of the means to be used for the abolition of 
the slave-trade. Guatemala suggested that as the powers 



26 WITH THE FATHERS. 

of the Old "World had formed a continental system, and 
held congresses to consider their interests, the republics 
of the New World should meet, form an American sys- 
tem, and discuss American interests. 

Though the answers were far from satisfactory, 
Adams accepted the invitation, and in his annual mes- 
sage to Congress aroused his enemies with the State- 
rs o 

ment that " Ministers will be commissioned to attend " 
the congress. In those days the committees of the 
Senate were not elected, but were appointed by the 
Yice-President, and exercising this power, John C. 
Calhoun, well knowing what was coming, deliberately 
placed on the Committee on Foreign Relations a ma- 
jority of senators hostile to Adams. It is needless to 
say they came from the Southern States. 

The feeling in the Senate over the presumption of 
the President in sending word that " Ministers will be 
commissioned" was bitter. What business had he to 
take such a step without first consulting them ? " Will 
be commissioned," indeed ! They would see ! So strong 
was the indignation that it is quite possible that Adams 
thought it prudent to yield, for the day after Christmas 
he sent a long message on the subject and the names of 
three men to be Ministers. His constitutional right to 
act without the Senate he did not doubt, he said, but as 
to the expediency of using that authority he was ready 
to consult Congress. The opposition in the Senate 
were angry before ; now they were furious, and showed 
their rage in four ways : They endeavored to have the 
message, which was confidential, considered with open 
doors; they made a call for information which they 
knew Adams would not give ; they passed a resolution 
censuring him for his conduct, and finally received 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 27 

from tlie Committee on Foreign Relations, appointed 
by Calhoun, a long report, ending with a resolution 
that it was not expedient for the United States to be 
represented in the congress at Panama. 

It was on this resolution that the Senate debate oc- 
curred. But to cite it as a disavowal of the Monroe 
Doctrine is idle. Other motives produced the opposi- 
tion. Hatred of Adams, hatred of Clay, but, above all, 
the many phases of the slave question, were reasons 
enough why Randolph of Virginia, Hayne of South 
Carolina, Woodbury of New Hampshire, White of 
Tennessee, Van Buren, Buchanan, Polk, Berrien, and 
Calhoun should oppose the congress at Panama. Was 
it to be expected that any gentleman from the region 
south of the Mason and Dixon line, the Ohio, and the 
parallel thirty-six-thirty, would consent to see the United 
States enter into any kind of a league with republics, or 
even apply the Monroe Doctrine in behalf of republics 
that had abolished slavery, that wanted vigorous action 
to be taken for the suppression of the slave-trade, and 
were demanding recognition for the negro republic of 
Hayti ? 

" Other States," said Hayne, " will do as they please ; 
but let us take the high ground that these questions be- 
long to a class which the peace and safety of a large 
portion of our Union forbids us to discuss. Let our 
Government direct all our Ministers in South America 
and Mexico to protest against the independence of 
Hayti. But let us not go into council on the slave- 
trade and Hayti." 

" If slavery," said White, of Tennessee, " is an in- 
fliction, then all the Southern and Western States have 
it, and with it their peculiar modes of thinking upon all 



28 WITH THE FATHERS. 

subjects connected with it. . . . Is it then fit that the 
United States should disturb the quiet of the Southern 
and "Western States by a discussion and agreement with 
the new States on any subject connected with slavery ? 
Let us then cease to talk of slavery in this House ; 
let us cease to negotiate upon any subject connected 
with it." 

" Sir," exclaimed Mr. Holmes, of Maine, " under 
such circumstances, the question to be decided is this : 
With a due regard to the safety of the Southern States, 
can you suffer these islands (Cuba and Porto Rico) to pass 
into the hands of buccaneers drunk with their newborn 
liberty? . . . "What, then, is our policy? Cuba and 
Porto Rico must remain as they are. To Europe the 
President has distinctly said we cannot allow a transfer 
of Cuba to any European power. We must hold a 
language equally decisive to the South American States. 
We cannot allow their principle of universal emancipa- 
tion to be called into activity in a situation where its 
contagion from our neighborhood would be dangerous 
to our quiet and safety." 

But it is needless to quote more. From Benton, 
from Randolph, from Berrien in the Senate, and from 
a host of members of the House, came sentiments of 
the same sort. It would be unjust to these men, how- 
ever, to suppose that hostility to emancipation was their 
sole objection. They were influenced, and influenced, 
much, by the belief that a purpose of the congress at 
Panama was to pledge this country to make common 
cause with the South American republics in carrying 
out the principles of the Monroe Doctrine. In resist- 
ing such action they were right. It was not the inten- 
tion of Monroe, it is not our policy, to ever make with 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 29 

any nation an agreement of this kind. The House of 
Representatives did well, therefore, when, in consent- 
ing to vote money for the mission, it spread this resolu- 
tion on its journal : 

"It is therefore the opinion of this House that the 
Government of the United States ought not to be rep- 
resented at the Congress of Panama except in a diplo- 
matic character, nor ought they to form any alliance, 
offensive or defensive, or negotiate respecting such an 
alliance with all or any of the South American repub- 
lics ; nor ought they to become parties with them, or 
either of them, to any joint declaration for the purpose 
of preventing the interference of any of the European 
powers with their independence or form of government, 
or to any compact for the purpose of preventing coloni- 
zation upon the continents of America, but that the 
people of the United States should be left free to act, 
in any crisis, in such a manner as their feelings of friend- 
ship toward these republics and as their own honor and 
policy may at the time dictate." 

Thus was affirmed two parts of the Monroe Doc- 
trine : 

1. Not to form any alliance with any foreign nation, 
nor join with it in any declaration concerning the in- 
terference of any European power in its affairs. 

2. To act toward them "in any crisis" as our 
" honor and policy may at the time dictate." 

Thus was our true attitude toward the nations of 
the New World defined, and the Monroe Doctrine 
completed. 

Of the men who took part in that famous debate 
two are of especial interest to us, for in the course of 
time each was called on to apply the doctrine he op- 



30 WITH THE FATHERS. 

posed, and each in turn abandoned the position he held 
in 1826. One is James K. Polk ; the other is James 
Buchanan. 

In 1826 Polk in his speech said : 

" When the message of the late President of the 
United States was communicated to Congress in 1823, 
it was viewed, as it should have been, as the mere ex- 
pression of opinion of the Executive, submitted to the 
consideration and deliberation of Congress, and de- 
signed probably to produce an effect upon the councils 
of the Holy Alliance, in relation to their supposed in- 
tention to interfere in the war between Spain and her 
former colonies. That eif ect it probably had an agency 
in producing ; and, if so, it has performed its office. 
The President had no power to bind the nation by such 
a pledge." 

When Polk uttered these words he was a member 
of Congress from Tennessee. But when our country 
was next called on to apply the doctrine Polk was 
President of the United States, and had been elected 
by a party whose cry was, " Give us Texas or divide 
the spoons ! " ; ' The whole of Oregon or none ; fifty- 
four, forty, or fight ! " and saw before him a war with 
Mexico and serious trouble with England. In 1826 
the Monroe Doctrine, he thought, had been " designed 
to produce an effect on the councils of the Holy Alli- 
ance " and " had performed its office." Now he found 
it had still an office to perform, gave his " cordial con- 
currence in its wisdom and sound policy," and sent 
this message to Congress : 

" It is well known to the American people and to 
all nations that this Government has never interfered 
with the relations subsisting between other govern- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 31 

ments. We have never made ourselves parties to their 
wars or their alliances ; we have not sought their terri- 
tories by conquest ; we have not mingled with parties 
in their domestic struggles ; and, believing our own 
form of government to be the best, we have never 
attempted to propagate it by intrigues, by diplomacy, 
or by force. We may claim on this continent a like 
exemption from European interference. The nations 
of America are equally sovereign and independent with 
those of Europe. They possess the same rights, inde- 
pendent of all foreign interposition, to make war, to 
conclude peace, and to regulate their internal affairs. 
The people of the United States cannot, therefore, 
view with indifference attempts of European powers to 
interfere with the independent action of nations on this 
continent." 

The cause of these remarks was the dispute — in 
which we were then engaged with England — regarding 
the ownership of the Oregon country. She claimed as 
far south as the Columbia River. We claimed as far 
north as fifty-four degrees forty minutes. It was as 
much a territorial dispute as that now going on with 
Venezuela. Yet Polk did not hesitate to apply the 
Monroe Doctrine and to assert that, "in the existing 
circumstances of the world, the present is deemed a 
proper occasion to reiterate and reaffirm the principle 
avowed by Mr. Monroe, and to state my cordial con- 
currence in its wisdom and sound policy. The reasser- 
tion of this principle, especially in reference to North 
America, is, at this day, but the promulgation of a 
policy which no European power should cherish the 
disposition to resist. Existing rights of every European 
nation should be respected, but it is due alike to our 



32 WITH THE FATHERS. 

safety and our interests that the efficient protection of 
our laws should be extended over our whole territorial 
limits, and that it should be distinctly announced to the 
world as our settled policy, that no future European 
colony or dominion shall, with our consent, be planted 
or established on any part of the North American 
Continent." 

Again a little while and Polk applied the doctrine 
to the purely territorial case of Yucatan. A war had 
broken out between the Indians and the whites, who, 
driven to desperation, appealed for help to England, 
Spain, and the United States, offering in return the 
dominion and sovereignty of the Peninsula. This 
was not a case of interference by any foreign power. 
ISTo effort was being made by any European nation to 
" extend its system." Two such powers had been in- 
vited by a hard-pressed people struggling for life to 
defend them and receive in return their country. But 
Polk — taking the broad ground that any European peo- 
ple who by any means gained on our continents one foot 
of territory more than they had in 1823, though they 
did so with the consent and at the request of the 
owners of the soil — sent this message to Congress in 
1848: 

" While it is not my purpose to recommend the 
adoption of any measure with a view to the acquisition 
of the ' dominion and sovereignty ' over Yucatan, yet, 
according to our established policy, we could not con- 
sent to a transfer of this l dominion and sovereignty ' to 
either Spain, Great Britain, or any other European 
power. In the language of President Monroe, in his 
message of December, 1823, ' we should consider any 
attempt on their part to extend their system to any por- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 33 

tion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and 
safety.' " 

They would be controlling "the destiny" of the 
people concerned. 

Precisely the same view was taken by Cass, when 
Secretary of State under Buchanan, in the case of Mex- 
ico. The political condition of Mexico was frightful. 
Since the day Spain acknowledged her independence 
in 1821 there had never been a moment of quiet. In 
thirty -three years thirty-six governments had been set 
up and pulled down, and of them all the worst were 
those of Miramon and Juarez, by whom such enormi- 
ties were committed that England, France, and Spain 
decided on armed intervention in Mexican affairs. 
Against this, in 1860, both Cass and Buchanan pro- 
tested. 

" While," said the Secretary, " we do not deny the 
right of any other power to carry on hostile operations 
against Mexico for the redress of its grievances, we 
firmly object to its holding possession of any part of 
that country, or endeavoring by force to control its 
political destiny." 

" I deemed it my duty," said the President in his 
message in December, 1860, "to recommend to Con- 
gress, in my last annual message, the employment of a 
sufficient military force to penetrate into the interior. 
. . . European governments would have been deprived 
of all pretext to interfere in the territorial and domes- 
tic concerns of Mexico. We should thus have been 
relieved from the obligation of resisting, even by force 
should this become necessary, any attempt by these 
governments to deprive our neighboring republic of 
portions of her territory — a duty from which we could 



34 WITH THE FATHERS. 

not shrink without abandoning the traditional and es- 
tablished policy of the American people." 

Three statements are contained in this exposition of 
the doctrine : 

1. That we have a duty resting on ns which we can- 
not shirk without abandoning the traditional and estab- 
lished policy of the American people. 

2. This duty is to resist any attempt by a European 
government to deprive our neighboring republic of 
portions of her territory. 

3. That, if necessary, resistance must go even to the 
use of force. 

This was sound and to the point. But amid the dis- 
order and confusion which marked the closing months 
of Buchanan's term his views concerning affairs in 
Mexico were lost sight of. South Carolina had seceded ; 
State after State was following her in rapid succession, 
and the people on both sides of the Mason and Dixon 
line were far too busy with their own concerns to know 
or care what any foreign power might do in Mexico. 
Yet the three powers were not unmindful of the warn- 
ing, and before proceeding to meddle in the affairs of 
Mexico they met at London in October, 1861, made a 
Convention, and solemnly agreed* not to acquire a foot 
of soil, nor meddle in any way with the Government of 
Mexico. 

Scarcely had the allies landed at Vera Cruz when 



* u 



Art. II. The high contracting parties engage not to seek for 
themselves, in the employment of the coercive measures contemplated 
by the present Convention, any acquisition of territory, nor any spe- 
cial advantage, and not to exercise in the internal affairs of Mexico 
any influence of a nature to prejudice the right of the Mexican na- 
tion to choose and to constitute freely the form of its Government." 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 35 

the intention of Napoleon to violate the Convention 
and found a French empire in Mexico was disclosed. 
Spain and England then indignantly withdrew, and left 
him to go on in that career which closed with the tragic 
death of Maximilian. To many the invasion by the 
French seemed the end of the Monroe Doctrine. One 
writer in the London Times, in 1862, declared Napoleon 
had done a real service to the world " in extinguishing 
the Monroe Doctrine." Another in the Westminster 
Review spoke no more than the belief of all who hated 
us when he said : " The occupation of Mexico is the ex- 
tinction of the Monroe Doctrine. That doctrine, it 
must be owned, is both absurd and arrogant in theory 
and in practice." 

But the doctrine was not extinct. In the long cor- 
respondence which followed it is indeed true that Seward 
does not mention the name of Monroe, yet again and 
again he asserted the doctrine. In 1862, still trusting 
to the false assurances of Napoleon, he informed our 
Minister at Paris that the United States avoided " inter- 
vention between the belligerents," because it regarded 
" the conflict as a war involving claims by France on 
Mexico which Mexico has failed to adjust." * A year 
later, when the throne had been offered to Maximilian 
and had been accepted, and Napoleon was desirous to 
have the Empire recognized by us, Seward wrote to our 
Minister that popular opinion in this country favored 
" a government " in Mexico " republican in form and 

* Seward to Dayton, August 23, 1862 : " This Government, re- 
lying on the explanations which have been made by France, regards 
the conflict as a war involving claims by France which Mexico has 
failed to adjust to the satisfaction of her adversary, and it avoids 
intervention between the belligerents." 



36 WITH THE FATHERS. 

domestic in its organization " ; that to the mind of Lin- 
coln this " popular opinion of the United States is just 
in itself and eminently essential to the progress of civili- 
zation on the American continent " ; that if France 
ignored it and adopted " a policy in Mexico adverse to 
the American sentiments," she would prepare the way 
for a collision between France on the one hand and the 
United States and the American republics on the other, 
and that the United States would not recognize any 
government in Mexico which was not the choice of the 
Mexican people. 

To this view the House of Representatives sub- 
scribed, and in April, 1864, not quite two months be- 
fore Maximilian landed at Yera Cruz, unanimously 
declared that it did not accord with the policy of the 
United States to recognize any monarchical govern- 
ment erected in America by any European power on 
the ruins of a Government once republican. Warn- 
ings, protests, notes were of no avail. Maximilian 
came, and a year passed away before the end of the 
civil war gave us the time and the means to enforce 
the doctrine. Then, in the summer of 1865, General 
Sheridan, with fifty thousand veteran troops, drew 
up on the banks of the Rio Grande, and for the first 
time in our history the Monroe Doctrine was backed 
up with arms. France was notified once more that 
" the people of every State on the American continent 
have a right to a Republican Government if they choose," 
and that any attempt by a foreign power to prevent the 
enjoyment of such institutions is " in its effects antago- 
nistic to the free and popular form of Government 
existing in the United States." Napoleon might still 
have failed to understand the doctrine, but he did not 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 37 

fail to "understand the thousand other reasons, armed to 
the teeth and waiting on the banks of the Bio Grande, 
and in 1866 the French troops were withdrawn. 

Since that day the Monroe Doctrine has been in 
many ways and at many times affirmed and asserted by 
Presidents, by Secretaries of State, by the people. Sec- 
retary Fish upheld and described it in 1870.* Presi- 

* " 1870, July 14. Report of Secretary Fish to President Grant. 

" The United States stand solemnly committed by repeated dec- 
larations and repeated acts to this doctrine, and its application to the 
affairs of this continent. In his message to the two Houses of Con- 
gress at the commencement of the present session, the President, 
following the teachings of all our history, said that the existing ' de- 
pendencies are no longer regarded as subject to transfer from one 
European power to another. When the present relation of colonies 
ceases, they are to become independent powers, exercising the right 
of choice and of self-control in the determination of their future 
condition and relations with other powers.' 

" This policy is not a policy of aggression ; but it opposes the crea- 
tion of European dominion on American soil, or its transfer to other 
European powers, and it looks hopefully to the time when, by the 
voluntary departure of European governments from this continent 
and the adjacent islands, America shall be wholly American. 

" It does not contemplate forcible intervention in any legitimate 
contest ; but it protests against permitting such a contest to result 
in the increase of European power or influence ; and it ever impels 
this Government, as in the late contest between the South American 
republics and Spain, to interpose its good offices to secure an honor- 
able peace. . . . 

" It will not be presumptuous after the foregoing sketch to say, 
with entire consideration for the sovereignty and national pride of 
the Spanish American republics, that the United States, by the pri- 
ority of their independence, by the stability of their institutions, by 
the regard of their people for the forms of law, by their resources as 
a Government, by their naval power, by their commercial enterprise, 
by the attractions which they offer to European immigration, by the 
prodigious internal development of their resources and wealth, and 
by the intellectual life of their population, occupy of necessity a 



38 WITH THE FATHERS. 

dent Grant asserted it in his message asking for the 
purchase of San Domingo in 1870. The whole country 
demanded an adherence to it in 1879, when the Inter- 
oceanic Canal Congress met under the direction of Fer- 
dinand de Lesseps in Paris. Resolutions declaring that 
the people of the United States still adhered to the doc- 
trine asserted by Monroe, and could not view the at- 
tempt of the powers of Europe to build a canal across 
the Isthmus of Darien in any other light than a mani- 
festation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United 
States, were introduced into the House of Representa- 
tives by Mr. Burnside in 1879 and by Mr. Crapo in 
1880, and were sustained by the Committee on For- 
eign Affairs. This was a new application. Hitherto 
the assertion of it had been limited to occasions of po- 
litical or military interference with the affairs of Ameri- 
can powers. JSTow it was asserted when the enterprise 
was of a commercial character, and this new position 
was well explained by Mr. Blaine. The United States, 
he said, would not interfere with the digging of the 
canal. But capital so interested must look for protec- 
tion to one or more of the great powers of the world, 
and no European power could ever be allowed to ex- 
tend such protection. This was nothing more than 
pronounced adherence to principles long since an- 
nounced, and which, in the belief of the President, were 
an integral and important part of our national policy. 



prominent position on this continent which they neither can nor 
should abdicate, which entitles them to a leading voice, and which 
imposes upon them duties of right and of honor regarding American 
questions, whether those questions affect emancipated colonies or 
colonies still subject to European dominion." — Senate Executive 
Documents, 41 Cong., 2 Session, III, No. 112, pp. 7, 9. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 39 

In the course of these many years it is indeed true 
that the doctrine was denied and circumscribed almost 
as many times as it was affirmed. But the denial had 
been from within, not from without ; that distinction 
was reserved for our time and for Lord Salisbury. 

Many years ago, in a tobacco store in New York 
city, there was a young man named Robert Sekom- 
burgk. For reasons best known to himself, he gave up 
his position of clerk, went to an island off the coast of 
South America, studied its flora, its fauna, its physical 
features, and made a map of it, which he sent to the 
Royal Geographical Society at London. The map was 
so well done, and the geography of South America so 
little known, that the Geographical Society urged 
Schomburgk to continue his studies on the main-land, 
and under a grant made by the British Government in 
1835 he began the work of exploring the little strip of 
territory she had obtained from Holland in 1814, and 
which is now known as British Guiana. 

By 1839 the survey was completed, and in his me- 
moir Schomburgk, taking the ground that Great Brit- 
ain owned the Essequibo River, and was therefore en- 
titled to all the territory drained by its tributaries, drew 
a line around the sources of the rivers which enter the 
Essecpiibo from the west, and urged Great Britain to 
claim the drainage basin of that river, which she did. 
It is interesting to note that while she was thus assert- 
ing ownership over the water-shed of a river in South 
America because the Dutch had once had settlements 
there, she was denying our claim to the water-shed of 
the Columbia River, which had been discovered, ex- 
plored, and named by Captain Gray, a citizen of the 
United States, had been explored by Lewis and Clark, 
4 



40 WITH THE FATHERS. 

and settled at Astoria by the fur company founded by 
John Jacob Astor. 

But she did more than assert her claim, and in 
1810 Schomburgk was sent to mark out on the ground 
the line, slightly modified, which he had traced on 
paper. Against this act of aggression Venezuela pro- 
tested, and by order of Lord Aberdeen the boundary 
marks came down, and a new line was offered which 
Yenezuela could not and did not accept, and no more 
was heard of the dispute till 1850. A report was 
then current at Caracas that Great Britain was about to 
seize the country between the Schomburgk line and the 
Essequibo, and to allay the excitement caused by the 
report the British charge, acting under orders from 
London, assured the Yenezuelan Minister that he must 
not mistrust for a moment the sincerity of the formal 
declaration made in the name and by the authority of 
the home Government that Great Britain did not in- 
tend " to occupy or encroach on the territory in dis- 
pute." Before the year ended, Yenezuela gave a like 
assurance in almost the same words, and " the agreement 
of 1850" was completed. 

Yenezuela had by this time entered on a career of 
civil commotion and disturbance, and for sixteen years 
the boundary dispute went unnoticed. During this 
period each nation accused the other of violating the 
"agreement of 1850," and the charges seem to be well 
founded. At length, in 1876, Yenezuela again brought 
up the boundary question, intimated that she would ac- 
cept a compromise line in lieu of her just rights, and, 
after four years of effort, received from Lord Salisbury, 
early in 1880, a statement of " the claims of her Maj- 
esty's Government by virtue of ancient treaties with 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 41 

the native races." This was a great surprise. What 
ancient races were referred to when the treaties were 
made ? By whom these unknown tribes had been recog- 
nized and vested with the right to make treaties were 
matters known to Great Britain and to her alone. These 
Indians, in fact, had no more right to make treaties 
with Great Britain than have those who inhabit the 
United States. 

But a greater surprise was yet to come. Lord 
Salisbury asked Venezuela to suggest a line — which she 
did — and, waiving all claims east of the Schomburgk 
line, offered to take that marked out by Lord Aber- 
deen in 1844. Before an answer could be made, the 
Beaconsfield Ministry fell from power and Lord Salis- 
bury gave place to Lord Grenville. From him, in 
1881, came the astonishing reply that in the course of 
the five-and-thirty years which had elapsed since Aber- 
deen drew the line so many settlers had gone into the 
disputed territory under the belief that it belonged to 
Great Britain that it was impossible to deprive them 
" of the benefits of British rule." Lord Grenville then 
proposed a new line far to the west of those proposed 
by Schomburgk and Aberdeen. 

In the course of thirty years the territory which in 
1850 Great Britain had admitted was " in dispute," the 
territory which she solemnly pledged her word she did 
not intend " to occupy or encroach " on, had become so 
full of British subjects that she would not give it up. 
If this is not an act of aggression, if this is not seek- 
ing to control the destiny of a nation, if this is not 
spreading her system, then what is it ? To the offer 
of a new line thus made by Lord Grenville, no answer 
was ever returned by Venezuela, and the dispute 



42 WITH THE FATHERS. 

dragged on for three more years. Meantime more 
English settlers were going into the territory west of 
the Essequibo, and when in 1884 Great Britain heard 
that land grants had been made in it by Venezuela, she 
dropped all diplomacy, and, in the words of Lord Salis- 
bury, began " to assert their undoubted right to the ter- 
ritory within the Schomburgk line, while consenting to 
hold open to further negotiation and even arbitration 
the unsettled lands between that line and what was 
considered to be the rightful boundary," Venezuela 
insisted that all or none should be submitted to arbitra- 
tion ; and at last when Great Britain began to fortify 
the territory covered by the agreement of 1850 she 
broke off diplomatic relations in 1887. 

So the matter stood when in 1895 Congress passed 
the joint resolution under which Mr. Olney wrote his 
now famous letter to Mr. Bayard, which called forth 
Lord Salisbury's yet more famous note to Sir Julian 
Paunceforte. In this note a foreign government for 
the first time not only denies the existence of the Mon- 
roe Doctrine, but the very right of the United States 
to assert it. " I must not," says his lordship, " be un- 
derstood as accepting the Monroe Doctrine on the part 
of her Majesty's Government. It must always be men- 
tioned with respect because of the great statesman to 
whom it is due, and the great people by whom it has 
generally been accepted." But "no statesman," his 
lordship continues, "however eminent, and no nation 
however powerful, are competent to insert into the 
code of international law a novel principle which was 
never recognized before, and which has not since been 
accepted by the Government of any other country." 

It is not placing a forced meaning on Lord Sails- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 43 

bury's language to say that it flatly denies not only ex- 
istence, but the very right of existence to the Monroe 
Doctrine. We have, then, but one of two alternatives : 
We must take this time -honored doctrine and put it 
away beside the leather fire-buckets and the tin post- 
horns of our forefathers as a curiosity — a thing which 
once served its purpose, but is now, as Lord Salisbury 
says, utterly inapplicable to the state of things in which 
we live — or we must so act that no statesman however 
eminent, no nation however powerful, will ever again 
have the slightest doubt of its existence and its meaning. 

In the assertion that the doctrine has no place in 
the law of nations Lord Salisbury is right. It does not 
need to be there. It belongs to a class of facts whose 
existence does not and must not depend on the consent 
of nations. When Monroe announced his doctrine he 
was not inserting, or attempting to insert, a principle 
into the law of nations. He stated a simple fact. The 
time to make that fact known to the world had come. 
But who could make it known ? Was it the struggling 
republics of South America not then recognized by 
Spain, or England, or any European power ? or the 
republic of the United States, then, as to-day, the lead- 
ing power in this hemisphere, the great representative 
of popular government ? 

The moment was a critical one. It was not Mexi- 
co, nor Buenos Ayres, nor Chili that the Holy Allies 
proposed to attack, but the Republican institutions and 
the Republican governments of the New World. It 
was not against the Holy Allies, therefore, that Monroe 
spoke, but against the destruction of Democratic gov- 
ernment in America. His doctrine was not for 1823 
merely, but for all time. 



44 WITH THE FATHERS. 

For Mexico, for Buenos Ayres, for Central Ameri- 
ca, for Chili to have made such an announcement in 
1823 would have been foolish in the extreme, because 
they could not have made it good. We alone could 
declare it because we alone were strong enough to sup- 
port it. 

When in the course of time it was expedient for 
the people of this country to declare their independ- 
ence they did so, and our independence is to-day un- 
questioned because we have maintained it and so com- 
pelled the nations of the world to recognize it. When 
in the course of time it became necessary for our good 
and for the good of the republics of South America to 
announce a principle which is to this hemisphere what 
the balance of power is to Europe, it was announced, 
and we have maintained it and must continue to do so 
till every power accepts the Monroe Doctrine just as 
they accept our national existence. 

Either we determine the status of Republican gov- 
ernment and Republican institutions in the two Ameri- 
cas, or the nations of the Old World will do it for us. 

Lord Salisbury asserts that even if there was a 
Monroe Doctrine it could not apply to Venezuela be- 
cause Great Britain is not attempting to colonize or 
to extend her system. But the Monroe Doctrine is not 
limited to these conditions. It distinctly declares that 
no nation of the Old World is to oppress or in any 
other manner seek to control the destiny of any nation 
in the JSTew. The area now claimed arbitrarily, and 
with no proof submitted, by Great Britain is one hun- 
dred and nine thousand square miles — an area which is 
exceeded by no States in the Union save Texas, Cali- 
fornia, and Montana ; an area ninety times as large as 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 45 

Rhode Island, fifty -four times as large as Delaware, 
thirteen times as large as Massachusetts, and forty 
thousand square miles larger than the six New England 
States. Were we to lose so great a tract, were Great 
Britain to take from us New England and all New 
York east of Rochester, would she not be controlling 
our destiny ? Would she not be extending her system ? 
And when we recall how much smaller Venezuela is 
than the United States, and how much larger a part 
one hundred and nine thousand square miles is of her 
territory than of ours, we can form some rude concep- 
tion of how seriously such a loss must affect her destiny 
for all time to come. 

The Monroe Doctrine is a simple and plain state- 
ment that the people of the United States oppose the 
creation of European dominion on American soil ; that 
they oppose the transfer of the political sovereignty 
of American soil to European powers; and that any 
attempt to do these things will be regarded as " dan- 
gerous to our peace and safety." What the remedy 
should be for such interposition by European powers 
the doctrine does not pretend to state. But this much 
is certain : that when the people of the United States 
consider anything " dangerous to their peace and safe- 
ty " they will do as other nations do, and, if necessary, 
defend their peace and safety with force of arms. 

The doctrine does not contemplate forcible inter- 
vention by the United States in any legitimate contest, 
but it will not permit any such contest to result in the 
increase of European power or influence on this conti- 
nent, nor in the overthrow of an existing government, 
nor in the establishment of a protectorate over them, 
nor in the exercise of any direct control over their 



46 WITH THE FATHERS. 

policy or institutions. Further than this the doctrine 
does not go. It does not commit us to take part in 
wars between a South American republic and a Euro- 
pean sovereign when the object of the latter is not the 
founding of a monarchy under a European prince in 
place of an overthrown republic. But when a Euro- 
pean power rightfully or wrongfully attempts to ac- 
quire so immense an area as this, she does, in the lan- 
guage of Monroe, " control the destiny " of a nation ; 
she does, in the language of Polk, " interfere with the 
independent action of nations on this continent " ; she 
is, as Cass expressed it, " holding possession of that 
country " ; she is seeking " to control its political des- 
tiny " ; and we are bound, as Buchanan asserted, to re- 
sist " the attempt to deprive our neighboring republic 
of her territory, and the Monroe Doctrine does apply." 

NOTES. 

madison's letters to monroe. 

Montpellier, October 30, 1828. 
To President Monroe : 

Dear Sir : I have received from Mr. Jefferson your letter to 
him, with the correspondence between Mr. Canning and Mr. Rush, 
sent for his and my perusal and our opinions on the subject of it. 

From the disclosures of Mr. Canning it appears, as was other- 
wise to be inferred, that the success of France against Spain would 
be followed by attempts of the Holy Alliance to reduce the revolu- 
tionized colonies of the latter to their former dependence. 

The professions we have made to these neighbors, our sympa- 
thies with their liberties and independence, the deep interest we 
have in the most friendly relations with them, and the consequences 
threatened by a command of their resources by the great powers 
confederated against the rights and reforms, of which we have given 
so conspicuous and persuasive an example, all unite in calling for 
our efforts to defeat the meditated crusade. It is particularly for- 
tunate that the policy of Great Britain, though guided by calculations 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 47 

different from ours, has presented a co-operation for an object the 
same with ours. With that co-operation we have nothing to fear 
from the rest of Europe, and with it the best reliance on success 
to our laudable views. There ought not to be any backwardness, 
therefore, I think, in meeting her in the way she has proposed, 
keeping in view, of course, the spirit and forms of the Constitution 
in every step taken in the road to war, which must be the last step 
if those short of war should be without avail. 

It cannot be doubted that Mr. Canning's proposal, though made 
with the air of consultation, as well as concert, was founded on a 
predetermination to take the course marked out, whatever might be 
the reception given here to his invitation. But this consideration 
ought not to divert us from what is just and proper in itself. Our 
co-operation is due to ourselves and to the world ; and while it must 
insure success, in the event of an appeal to force, it doubles the 
chance of success without that appeal. It is not improbable that 
Great Britain would like best to have the sole merit of being the 
champion of her new friends, notwithstanding the greater difficulty 
to be encountered, but for the dilemma in which she would be 
placed. She must in that case either leave us as neutrals to extend 
our commerce and navigation at the expense of hers, or make us 
enemies, by renewing her paper blockades and other arbitrary pro- 
ceedings on the ocean. It may be hoped that such a dilemma will 
not be without a permanent tendency to check her proneness to un- 
necessary wars. 

Why the British Cabinet should have scrupled to arrest the 
calamity it now apprehends, by applying to the threats of France 
against Spain, "the small effort" which it scruples not to employ 
in behalf of Spanish America is best known to itself. It is difficult 
to find any other explanation than that interest in the one case has 
more weight in her casuistry than principle had in the other. 

Will it not be honorable to our country, and possibly not alto- 
gether in vain, to invite the British Government to extend the 
avowed disapprobation of the project against the Spanish colonies to 
the enterprise of Prance against Spain herself, and even to join in 
some declaratory act in behalf of the Greeks ? On the supposition that 
no form could be given to the act clearing it of a pledge to follow 
it up by war, we ought to compare the good to be done with the 
little injury to be apprehended to the United States, shielded as 
their interests would be by the power and the fleets of Great Britain, 
united with their own. These are questions, however, which may 



48 WITH THE FATHERS. 

require more information than I possess, and more reflection than I 
can now give them. 

What is the extent of Mr. Canning's disclaimer as to " the re- 
maining possessions of Spain in America " t Does it exclude future 
views of acquiring Porto Rico, etc., as well as Cuba? It leaves 
Great Britain free, as I understand it, in relation to Spanish posses- 
sions in other quarters of the globe. 

I return the correspondence of Mr. Rush and Mr. Canning with 
assurances, etc. 

J. Madison to Monroe. 

Montpellier, December 6, 182S. 
Dear Sir: I received by yesterday's mail your favor of the 
4th, covering a copy of the message and another copy under a 
blank cover. It presents a most interesting view of the topics se- 
lected for it. The observations on the foreign ones are well moulded 
for the occasion, which is rendered the more delicate and serious. by 
the equivocal indications from the British Cabinet. The reserve of 
Canning after his frank and earnest conversations with Mr. Rush is 
mysterious and ominous. Could he have stepped in advance of his 
superiors % Or have they deserted their first object f Or have the 
allies shrank from theirs ? Or is anything taking place in Spain 
which the adroitness of the British Government can turn against 
the allies and in favor of South America % Whatever may be the 
explanation, Canning ought in candor, after what had passed with 
Mr. Rush, not to have withheld it, and his doing so enjoins a cir- 
cumspect reliance on our own councils and energies. One thing is 
certain, that the contents of the message will receive a very close 
attention everywhere, and that it can do nothing but good every- 
where. 

(Indorsed) Monroe, Js. 

December 6, 1823. 

OPINIONS OF THE ENGLISH PRESS ON THE MONROE 
DOCTRINE IN 1824. 

From the London Courier of December 24th. 

The speech of the President of the United States is, in all its 
bearings, a document of more than usual importance. The latter 
part, which arrived so late yesterday that we were forced to omit 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 49 

it in a small part of our impression, will be found in our last page 
to-day ; and, waiving every other topic in the speech, we direct our 
whole attention to that part the most important of all to every Eu- 
ropean power. 

The question of the independence and recognition of the South 
American States may now be considered as at rest. Great Britain 
has, as we have repeatedly shown, acknowledged their independence 
de facto ; and the United States, their nearest neighbors, have not 
only acknowledged it, but have given a bold and manly notice to 
the continental powers that they shall treat "any interposition 
with a view of oppressing or controlling them in any manner as a 
manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward themselves, and 
as dangerous to their peace and safety " ; in other words, they shall 
view it as affording them just ground for war. 

After so clear and explicit a warning, there is not one of the 
continental powers, we suppose, that will risk a war with the 
United States— a war in which not only they could not expect to 
have either the aid or good wishes of Great Britain — but a war in 
which the good wishes of Great Britain (if she did not choose to 
give more efficient succor) would be all on the side of the United 
States. Thus, then, we repeat that the question may be considered 
to be set at rest ; we shall hear no more of a congress to settle the 
fate of the South American States. Protected by the two nations 
that possess the institutions and speak the language of freedom — by 
Great Britain on one side, and the United States on the other — their 
independence is placed beyond the reach of danger ; and the con- 
tinental powers, unable to harm them, will do well to establish that 
friendly and commercial intercourse with them which they could 
never have done had they remained under the yoke of Old Spain. 

From the London Morning Chronicle. 

The American papers, received yesterday, contain the accounts 
of the opening of Congress, and the message of the President of the 
United States. The communication of the chief office-bearer of the 
great Republic to the Legislature at this critical period, when the 
ambition of kings, not satisfied with the calamity which it has occa- 
sioned in Europe, threatens to rekindle the flames of war through- 
out the Western Hemisphere — was looked forward to with the ut- 
most anxiety. It is worthy of the occasion and of the people destined 
to occupy so large a space in the future history of the world. 

What a contrast between the manly plainness of this State paper 



50 WITH THE FATHERS. 

and the Machiavelism and hypocrisy of the declaration of the mani- 
festoes of the Governments of this part of the world ! 

Whatever lately were the intentions of the French Ministers re- 
specting South America, it is now asserted, from undoubted author- 
ity, that English policy has prevailed in Paris over that of Russia, 
and that not only will France not assist Spain in any attempt to 
subjugate her former American colonies, but will view, not with in- 
difference, any support which Russia or any other nation may lend 
her for this purpose. This is certainly a wise resolution on the part 
of the French Government, for this independence of the new Ameri- 
can States must extend their commerce, and thereby increase the 
prosperity of Frenchmen. Russia, blocked up nearly half the year 
by impenetrable ice, can never partake of Southern commerce until 
a port be opened for her in the Dardanelles, and hence the anxiety 
exhibited by her to involve France in the expensive and hopeless 
employment of restoring America to the yoke of the Bourbons ; for, 
without this or some other occupation for the French armies and 
the British navy, she has not the most distant chance of accomplish- 
ing the long and ardently cherished designs of her empire against 
ancient Greece, now in possession. This union of France and Eng- 
land in the great cause of American independence is another strong 
ground for expecting the continuation of the blessings of peace, 
and, consequently, an improvement in the public credit of nations. 
The speech of the President of the United States, so full of wisdom 
and just ideas, has, however, had more effect on the opinions of the 
leaders in the national securities than the abundance of money or 
the changed policy of France, for in it they see a sufficient guarantee 
for the maintenance of the freedom of the American Continent. 
There is no part, however, of this speech which can afford more 
genuine satisfaction to every civilized nation than the notice which 
it takes of the extraordinary and gallant struggle made, at present, 
by the Greeks, in the cause of general independence. 

From the Liverpool Advertiser of January 3d. 

By one short passage in it, is set at rest, we dare presume, what- 
ever may have been in agitation by the continental allies, in refer- 
ence to the late Spanish possessions in America. There will be no 
attempt made, it may be confidently affirmed, to interfere with the 
present condition of those countries, when it is known that such 
interference would be viewed by the United States as a just cause 
of war, on her part, with any power attempting such interference. 



TIIE MONROE DOCTRINE. 51 

In regard of the power, prosperity, and resources of the nation 
herself, also, the language of the speech is very interesting; her 
revenue, it is affirmed, will, on the first of this year, exceed her ex- 
penditure by no less than nine million dollars. Her population is 
estimated at ten mi] lions, and every branch of industry, every source 
of revenue, wealth, and power is flourishing. 

On its subjects of common interest to all nations, the Govern- 
ment of the United States is enabled to stand forward to suggest 
and promote what is beneficial, and to crush what is injurious. In 
the speech is developed a new idea in respect to maritime war, 
which, if adopted, on this suggestion, by other powers, will greatly 
tend to lessen the evils of national contention. It is proposed to do 
away altogether with the system of privateering in so far as it is 
countenanced by Governments. 

It is also suggested, as a means of effectually suppressing the 
slave-trade, that vessels found by the ships of any nation to be en- 
gaged in this traffic shall be treated on the same footing with ves- 
sels caught in piracy. 

While in her power and resources, as they are illustrated in this 
speech, the nation of £he United States exhibits the vigor of ripe 
years, she, in those sentiments of active humanity, seems, to our 
thought, to preserve the fresh feeling of youth, and not to be wholly 
engrossed, as older States are, in the pursuit or support of purely 
selfish interests. And we have thus a pleasure from contemplating 
her less as that metaphysical insentient thing, a State, than as an 
actual human and feeling being. 

From BelVs Weekly Messenger of December S7th. 

The main object of any interest during the week now passed is 
the arrival of the speech of the President of the United States. It 
is a document of the first interest and importance. It is interest- 
ing, because it is a brief, simple, and direct expose of republican 
government ; always true, plain dealing, and sincere. It is impor- 
tant, because, fearing nothing, it conceals nothing, and is totally 
divested of all trick, artifice, commonplace jargon which renders 
the diplomacy of Europe so much more than merely nugatory. 

Long, very long, have we wished that Canada might be sold or 
exchanged with the United States. Exchanged for what it may be 
demanded? Why, for such an annuity for a term of years as would 
redeem what remains of the English assessed taxes, and redeem 
them forever. 



52 WITH THE FATHERS. 

If America would give us enough for this purpose for five or 
seven years, the natural progress of our revenue would do what 
would be required after that time. Add to this that we should save 
upward of half a million yearly in the expense of the Canada Gov- 
ernment, and nearly as much more in the reduction of the army 
which it would allow. This has long been our own view, and we 
are persuaded that half, at least, of our best statesmen unite with 
us in it. As to the right of doing so, there can be no doubt that 
the Canadians would agree, and for that reason — because it is their 
decided interest to do so, and because (if we were Canadians) we 
should not hesitate one moment. 

The third point in the speech is where the President asserts that 
" he owes it to candor, etc., to declare that the United States would 
consider any attempt on the part of European monarchies to extend 
their system to any portion of the Western Hemisphere as danger- 
ous to their peace and safety," that "with the existing colonies or 
dependencies of any European power they have not interfered and 
will not ; but that any interposition for the purpose of oppressing 
or controlling any of the States whose independence the Republic 
has, after mature consideration, acknowledged, she would consider 
in no other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly dispo- 
sition toward herself " ; in other words, as a just cause of war. 

We have long, very long, anticipated that the United States 
would thus speak, and it puts an end at once to all apprehensions 
as to any attempt by the allied despots upon South America ; for 
how can these despots assemble any navy which for an instant can 
meet the American navy, or the South American navy, when manned 
and commanded by American seamen and American naval officers % 

From the Paris Etoile — A Ministerial Paper. 

Mr. Monroe, who is not a sovereign, who has himself told us that 
he is only the first delegate of the people, has taken in his message 
the tone of a powerful monarch whose armies and fleets are ready 
to go forth on the first signal. He does more ; he prescribes to the 
potentates of Europe the conduct they are to pursue in certain cir- 
cumstances if they do not wish to incur his displeasure. Such is 
the prohibition which he issues against their ever thinking of any 
new colonization in the two Americas. 

Mr. Monroe is the temporary President of a Republic situated on 
the Eastern Continent of North America. This Republic is bounded 
on the south by the possessions of the King of Spain, and on the 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 53 

north by those of the Queen of England. Its independence has only- 
been acknowledged for forty years ; by what title, then, are the two 
Americas to be under his immediate dependence, from Hudson's Bay 
to Cape Horn % What clamors did he not raise in the United States 
when the Emperor of Russia wished to trace the demarcation of the 
part of territory which he claims on the northeast coast as discov- 
ered by his subjects ! This monarch, however, did not presume to 
dictate laws to any of the States who have establishments on the 
same coast. It was reserved for Mr. Monroe to show us a dictator 
armed with a right of superiority over the whole of the New World. 

According to the political system he would establish it would not 
be permitted to Spain to make the least effort to re-enter on the ter- 
ritory which for three centuries she has possessed. The King of 
Portugal, as the American papers have observed themselves, could 
not act as a sovereign and father without exposing himself to the 
wrath of Mr. Monroe. England would require his previous consent 
if it suited her interest to make any new military or political estab- 
lishment either in Canada or Nova Scotia. And yet Mr. Monroe's 
message contains phrases indirectly hostile to the policy and ambi- 
tion of the great powers of Europe ! But what is that power which 
professes so proudly maxims opposed to the rights of sovereignty 
and the independence of crowns % Who is that power which pre- 
tends to prescribe to subjects the limits of obedience ; who is she, 
in short, who does not fear to compromise the existence of social 
order by declaring in the face of heaven that she will not recognize 
any difference between a government de facto and government de 
jure ? 

By bringing under one point of view all the assertions and doc- 
trines contained in this message, it is satisfactory to consider that 
it has not yet received the sanction of any of the authorities, even 
of the country where it appeared ; and, in short, that the opinions of 
Mr. Monroe are as yet merely the opinions of a private individual. 

The London Times of January sixteenth has some very severe 
and spirited remarks on the extract above given from the Etoile. 
The following paragraph may serve as a specimen : 

" A direct attempt is made by the Etoile to sever the Chief Magis- 
trate of a powerful and enlightened nation from the body of a State 
which he represents. ' Not a sovereign ! ' No, but he is the acknowl- 
edged — the elected head and organ of a great sovereign people — one 
whose elevation cost his country neither a drop of blood nor a widow's 
tear, nor the beggary or banishment, the persecution or corruption 



£4 WITH THE FATHERS. 

of a single human being among ten millions of men. An eminence 
thus achieved may well appear, at first sight, of questionable origin 
to an ultra ; but let him consider his words. He calls Mr. Monroe 
a ' temporary president,' but is the power which he exercises a tem- 
porary power! It is, on the contrary, a prerogative which never 
dies, let who will be its trustee for the moment, and which, as Mr. 
Monroe has on this occasion employed it, has its sanction in the 
heart of every citizen among those millions who confided it to his 
hands. Will the Etoile venture to match the durability of any des- 
potic throne in Europe with that of the President's chair in North 
America? If so, we tell him that he is likely to lose his wager. Or 
will his patron risk the fate of an expedition on the chance of the 
policy announced by this 'private individual,' Mr. Monroe being 
disclaimed by ' the other authorities ' of the republics'? We believe 
they are not so rash. The entire commentary of the unfortunate 
fitoile is an insult on the first article of his own creed— viz., that a 
Government and the nation for which it speaks must be identified." 



THE THIRD-TEEM TRADITION. 

The f ramers of the Constitution of the United States 
never for a moment supposed that their work could re- 
main unchanged for all time to come. That new con- 
ditions which they could not then foresee would arise, 
and would have to be met by remedies they could not 
possibly devise, was as well known to them as the fact 
that such conditions have arisen is known to us. They 
provided, therefore, that the Constitution may be amend- 
ed in either of two ways. One of these ways has never 
yet been used. The other has been used so sparingly 
that although many hundreds of amendments have been 
offered in Congress, but nineteen have ever been sent 
to the States. 

That so many have been offered and so few been 
chosen is because some were trivial, because some were 
intended to cure ills that were but temporary and soon 
passed away, and because there has gradually been 
formed an unwritten constitution which in great meas- 
ure does away with the need of amendments. 

This unwritten constitution is made up of decisions 
of the Supreme Court, which are regarded as final ; of 
customs and usages which experience has shown to be 
good and useful ; and of certain interpretations and con- 
structions of the written Constitution by the people. 
In the Constitution, for instance, we read that the Presi- 
5 55 



56 WITH THE FATHERS. 

dent " may require the opinion, in writing, of the prin- 
cipal officer in each of the Executive departments, npon 
any subject relating to the duties of their respective of- 
fices." It is by no means obligatory on him to do so. 
The language is " he may " — not " he must." Yet upon 
this slender authority has been founded a council utterly 
unknown to the Constitution. The first President be- 
gan the custom of never adopting any policy, never 
taking any important step, till he had gathered about 
him for consultation his Attorney-General and his Sec- 
retaries of State, Treasury, and War. Every succeed- 
ing President has followed his example till the Cabinet 
— a piece of political machinery the Constitution did not 
create, nor its framers contemplate — has come to be 
looked upon as a prime necessity in our system of Fed- 
eral Government. On no part, again, of the Constitu- 
tion did the Convention spend more pains than on the 
sections which define the manner of electing a Presi- 
dent. Some members were for having him chosen 
by the Governors of the States ; some by the Senate ; 
some by the legislatures of the States ; some by a body 
of electors especially appointed for the purpose ; some 
wanted an Executive of three men — one from the East- 
ern, one from the Middle, and one from the Southern 
States. All were agreed that the choice should not be 
left to the people — to do which, as one member of the 
Convention expressed it, would be as foolish as to leave 
the selection of colors to a blind man. At length they 
adopted the method of choosing by electors, and, taking 
the system by which Maryland chose her State senators, 
modelled after it the Electoral Colleges of the States. 
Their plain intention was that the presidential electors 
should do two things — select a suitable man to be Presi- 



THE THIRD-TERM TRADITION. 57 

dent, and then elect him to the office. The people were 
to have no direct part in the matter. But our Consti- 
tution was not very old when the need of unity of 
action among the electors of the same party became 
apparent, and presidential candidates began to be nomi- 
nated first by the Congressional Caucus, then by State 
legislatures, and at last by the National Nominating 
Convention. As every elector is expected to give his 
vote for the nominee of his party, the Electoral Col- 
leges are practically stripped of all power in the elec- 
tion of a President, are reduced to mere boards for 
registering and formally transmitting the result of the 
popular vote, and a highly important provision of the 
written Constitution is reversed and nullified by a cus- 
tom which forms a part of the unwritten constitution. 

Much the same thing has taken place with regard to 
the President's term of office. Every phase of that 
question, from the expediency of a short term with re- 
election to a long term without re-election, seems to 
have been carefully considered. At the outset the gen- 
eral opinion of the delegates was that Congress should 
elect the President ; that his term of office should be 
three years ; and that he should be re-eligible, as the 
doctrine of rotation would tend, it was said, to throw 
out of office the men best fitted to execute its duties. 
On the other hand, many of the members were very 
earnest for a term of seven years and no re-election. 
The Executive, said they, is to be chosen by the Legis- 
lature, and will be absolutely dependent on it, as its 
creature and the Executive of its will and of the laws it 
passes. A long term with no succession to office will 
prevent a false complaisance on the part of the Legisla- 
ture toward an unfit man, and the temptation on the 



58 WITH THE FATHERS. 

part of a bad Executive to intrigue with the Legislature 
for reappointment. One member begged hard for tri- 
ennial election with ineligibility after nine years : but 
the States by a vote of live to four decided that the 
President's term should be seven years, and by a vote 
of seven to two made him ineligible to re-election. 
Later on in the debate the members changed their 
minds, struck out this prohibition, and, by a vote of six 
States to four, declared him to be eligible to re-election. 
Ten days later, however, on the motion of Mason of 
Virginia, this decision was set aside, and the resolution 
passed that the " Executive be appointed for seven 
years, and be ineligible a second time." 

This seemed to be final. But when the Committee 
of Detail made its report there was another struggle to 
take the election from Congress. So earnest was the 
effort that the Convention could come to no conclusion, 
and in despair sent the matter, with a great many 
others, to a committee of one from each of the eleven 
States, which in time reported a plan for a choice by 
an Electoral College — or, in case the College failed to 
elect, by the Senate — and fixed the term at four years. 
In the debate which followed, a member of the com- 
mittee told the Convention that the sole purpose of the 
plan offered by the Committee of Eleven was to get 
rid of the provision, in the report of the Committee of 
Detail, that a President could not be re-elected, and so 
make him independent of Congress. He was assured 
that the College would never elect ; that the Senate 
would always make the choice ; and that the President 
would be the creature of one branch of Congress. But 
the idea of re-election to many terms carried the day, 
and with some slight changes the recommendation of 



THE THIRD-TERM TRADITION. 59 

the Committee of Eleven was incorporated in the Con- 
stitution. 

From all this it is quite clear that the intention of 
the framers was that a President might be elected over 
and over again as many times as the electors saw fit to 
choose him. This was no carelessly formed decision, 
but was the result of a long and bitter experience under 
the old Articles of Confederation they were about to 
overthrow. At the outbreak of the Revolution the 
belief was general that the liberties of the people and 
the rights of the State would not be safe under any 
system of general government if the members of the 
Federal Legislature held their offices for a long term, 
or were repeatedly elected to it. The Articles of Con- 
federation therefore carefully provided that the mem- 
bers of the Continental Congress should be chosen 
annually ; that they might be recalled at any time by 
the States that sent them ; and that no delegate should 
hold his office for more than three years in any term of 
six. The result was disastrous. Congress was a small 
body. The duties thrust on each member were diverse 
and important. Yet the moment he began to be fairly 
familiar with his duties, the moment he began to be a 
really efficient servant of the people, his term expired, 
and he returned, in the language of the time, " to the 
body of the people," lest another term in Congress should 
" breed a lust of power." It was with the intention of 
preventing this loss of the services of valuable and ex- 
perienced men that the fathers carefully abstained from 
placing any limit on the time of service of senators and 
representatives, and, after due consideration, reversed 
their action and removed a limit they had placed on the 
number of times a citizen could be elected President. 



60 WITH THE FATHERS. 

But again their purpose has been defeated and their 
judgment condemned by that great tribunal — the peo- 
ple — before which, in our country, all public issues 
must sooner or later be tried. Again the unwritten 
constitution has amended the written, and no task is 
now quite so hopeless as that of re-electing a President 
to a third term. For much of this, precedent is alone 
responsible. Had our first President been willing to 
accept a third term — and the people would gladly have 
given it — he would in all likelihood have been followed 
by a long line of Presidents each serving for twelve in- 
stead of eight years. But he was weary of office and 
gladly laid it down. His motive for this act is so 
often forgotten that it is well to quote from his " Fare- 
well Address " : 

The acceptance and continuance hitherto in office, to which 
your suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform sacri- 
fice of inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a deference to 
what appeared to be your wishes. ... I rejoice that the state 
of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders 
the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the pursuit of duty 
or propriety. 

JSTo scruples about a third term troubled him in the 
least. He went back to private life solely because he 
was tired of the presidency, and because the state of 
the country did not demand a further sacrifice of his 
comfort. Yet this act set an example which for many 
years was followed implicitly by his successors, though 
it was long before the people saw anything wrong in 
the suggestion of a third term. Mr. Jefferson was the 
first to point this out. More than two years before his 
second term ended, the Legislature of Vermont on No- 
vember fifth, 1806, formally invited him to become a 



THE THIRD-TERM TRADITION. (Jl 

candidate for a third term, and the great Republican 
strongholds made haste to follow her. Georgia joined 
in the request in December; Maryland in January, 
180T; Rhode Island in February; New York and 
Pennsylvania in March ; and New Jersey in December. 
North Carolina joined later. So far Jefferson had 
made no reply, but the time had now come to speak 
out, for in a few weeks it would be the duty of the 
Congressional Caucus to nominate — or, as the phrase 
went, recommend — a candidate. On the tenth of De- 
cember, 1807, therefore, he replied to the invitations of 
Vermont, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and gave his 
reasons for declining a third term. He said : 

That I should lay down my charge at a proper period is as 
much a duty as to have borne it faithfully. If some termination 
to the services of the Chief Magistrate be not fixed by the Con- 
stitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally for years, 
will in fact become for life ; and history shows how easily that 
degenerates into an inheritance. Believing that a representative 
government responsible at short periods of election is that which 
produces the greatest sum of happiness to mankind, I feel it a 
duty to do no act which shall essentially impair that principle ; 
and I should unwillingly be the first person who, disregarding 
the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor, should 
furnish the first example of prolongation beyond the second term 
of office. 

The enemies of Mr. Jefferson have asserted that his 
long silence was due to policy and not to indifference, 
that the thirteen months which elapsed between the 
November day, 1806, when the Legislature of Vermont 
invited him to run again, and the tenth of December, 
1807, when he answered with his famous letter, were 
spent in a careful nursing of what in the political lan- 
guage of our time would be called " his boom " ; and 



62 



WITH THE FATHERS. 



tliat lie did not say No till lie was quite sure that it 
would be folly to say Yes. The charge is unfair and 
unjust ; yet the fact remains that he could not possibly 
have been elected. There were then seventeen States 
in the Union, casting a hundred and seventy-six elec- 
toral votes, making eighty -nine necessary for a choice. 
On the tenth of December, 1807, these votes stood : 



For Jefferson and a 
third term. 

Vermont 6 

Rhode Island .... 4 

New York 19 

Pennsylvania .... 20 

New Jersey 8 

Maryland 9 

Georgia G 

North Carolina . . 14 

86 



Federalist States. 

New Hampshire.. 7 

Massachusetts ... 19 

Connecticut 9 

Delaware 3 

Maryland 2 

40 



Republican States not 
declaring for third term, 
and supporting Madison. 

Virginia 24 

South Carolina.. . 10 

Ohio 3 

Kentucky 8 

Tennessee 5 

50 



It will be observed that in the list of third-term 
States the full electoral vote of each is given to Jeffer- 
son, except in the case of Maryland, which in 1804 and 
in 1808 cast two Federalist votes. These, therefore, 
have been taken from him in the table, leaving him 
eighty-six, or just three short of a bare majority. As a 
matter of fact, the third -term States, when the election 
took place, cast but seventy -nine Republican votes, for 
Rhode Island was carried by the Federalists, who also 
secured three votes in North Carolina. 

Mr. Jefferson's chances in the Caucus, which met on 
the twenty-third of January, 1808, were very poor. 
They were poorer still before the people, who, the 
land over, most heartily indorsed his anti-third-term 
principles. The Democratic citizens of Adams County, 
Pennsylvania, in public meeting assembled at Gettys- 
burg, approved " that manly and sublime effort which 



THE THIRD-TERM TRADITION. 63 

dictated jour determination to retire from public life at 
the close of the next elective period of your authority." 
At a meeting of delegates from the wards of Phila- 
delphia an address was drawn up in which the Presi- 
dent was assured that — 

— in yielding homage to the motives which have induced your 
voluntary retirement from public life, while surrounded by the 
warmest affections of the people, we derive consolation from the 
consideration that your example may operate on all future Presi- 
dents to pursue a course which has added lustre to your charac- 
ter, already dear to liberty and to your country. 

The Senate of Maryland in a long address told him : 

While we daily appreciate the motives which induce you 
to decline being considered among the number of those out of 
whom the choice of our next President is to be made, and while 
we revere the patriotism which dictated those motives, permit us 
still to indulge the pleasing hope that when the next period of 
presidential election approximates [1812], should the united 
voice of your countrymen require it, those same motives and 
that same patriotism will induce you to sacrifice your private 
wishes and convenience to your country's good. 

Even the Legislature of the far-away Territory of 
Orleans was moved to address the President and to 
heartily commend his wise decision. Their address 
said : 

However we may regret, in common with our fellow-citi- 
zens of the United States, this determination to decline being a 
candidate for the highest office in the gift of the people, the 
motives which induce it afford another proof of your patriotism, 
and must command the approbation of the country. 

The Tammany Society of Philadelphia, while cele- 
brating its anniversary in May, 1808, drank to the 



64 WITH THE FATHERS. 

toast, "President Jefferson — Rotation in office is the 
bulwark of freedom. His precedent deserves onr hom- 
age and our gratitude, and traitors would alone refuse 
them." On the Fourth of July his conduct was very 
generally approved in some such toast as this : " Jeffer- 
son — May his successor imitate his virtues and follow 
his motto, rotation in office." 

That his virtues had any influence on his successors 
is exceedingly doubtful ; but his bold assertion that two 
terms were all that it was safe to give any President 
had a deep and lasting influence on the people, and did 
far more than the example of Washington to establish 
the unwritten law which for more than sixty years 
none of his successors was hardy enough to defy. 

It must not be supposed, however, that during these 
sixty years the third-term tradition was forgotten. In- 
deed, it was rarely lost sight of. Presidents referred to 
it in their messages ; senators, representatives, political 
parties called for a constitutional amendment embody- 
ing it, and on more than one occasion it seemed not un- 
likely that such an amendment might be secured. The 
question first came up in 1823, when the absolute cer- 
tainty of a contested election in 1824 led to a desperate 
attempt to defeat certain candidates by means of an 
amendment to the Constitution. One that was offered 
provided that no man could be President or Vice-Presi- 
dent if he had held any office under the Constitution 
within four years of the day of election. This would 
have cut off Adams, Crawford, and Calhoun. Another 
was to the effect that no member of Congress could be 
a candidate. This would have cut off Clay. A third 
was designed to take the choice of presidential electors 
from the State legislatures and give it to the people. 



THE THIRD-TERM TRADITION. 65 

This would have assured the election of Jackson. While 
the friends of the various candidates differed as to who 
should be President, they agreed most heartily on one 
point, and in 1824, by a vote of 36 to 3, the Senate sent 
a joint resolution to the House providing that no Presi- 
dent should have more than two terms. The House 
did not act ; but the failure of the Electoral Colleges in 
1824 to choose a President, and what it pleased many to 
consider the defeat of the will of the people by the 
House of Representatives in 1825, brought about an- 
other serious effort to change the constitutional provis- 
ions regarding the President. Some wanted a method 
by which he could be elected without the intervention 
of the House of Representatives ; some were for an 
election by a direct vote of the people ; others, as the 
whole question of the presidency was under discussion, 
proposed to so amend the Constitution as to make it 
read : " ~No person who shall have been elected to the 
office of President of the United States a second time 
shall again be eligible to that office." 

This was popular in the Senate, and passed, with no 
opposition, by a vote of 25 to 4. In the House the 
joint resolution was sent to a committee and never 
heard from. Still, the idea would not clown, but year 
by year, session after session, came up as vigorous as 
ever. In 1828, in 1829, in 1830, in 1831, in 1832, in 
1833, in 1835, during both Jackson's terms, it was never 
absent from the journals for a session. Indeed, as Jack- 
son's administration progressed, as his popularity grew 
stronger on the one hand, and hatred of him became 
more intense on the other, men began to think that one 
term was enough, and joint resolutions providing for 
such a limitation were introduced over and over again. 



66 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Of our later Presidents, Jackson was the only one 
who could have defied the tradition. He was the first 
" man of the people "to be raised to the office of Chief 
Magistrate. In his day Democracy was indeed triumph- 
ant, and he was the ideal Democrat. No one else has 
ever closed a second term more honored, more truly be- 
loved by the people than on the day whereon he begun 
his first term. He had but to say the word, and he 
would surely have been thrice President of the United 
States. But he, too, would not break through the un- 
written law, and with the beginning of his first term 
we enter on a long period which might well be called 
the one-term era. Joint resolutions providing for such 
a term limitation were introduced into Congress in 
1828, 1829, 1830, and 1832. Jackson proposed such a 
restriction in his message in 1S33, and the House and 
Senate again listened to demands for such a constitu- 
tional amendment in 1835, 183(3, 1838, and 1810. When 
the Whigs in 1811 read John Tyler out of the party 
they asserted in the manifesto that " one term for the 
President " was Whig doctrine, and they put the same 
pledge into their national platform in 1811. 

About this time a reaction set in, and in 1811 and 
1810 the constitutional amendments proposed in Con- 
gress provide for a term of six years and no re-election. 
Then follows a blank period during which nothing is 
heard of it, for the custom of giving even a second term 
had gone out of fashion. From Jackson to Lincoln no 
President was given a second term, and none save Van 
Buren were ever renominated. But at length, in 1872, 
the third-term question came up in a very definite form. 
The second election of Grant, it will be remembered, 
took place in the autumn of that year, and was scarce- 



THE THIRD-TERM TRADITION. 67 

ly over when the New York Herald raised the cry of 
Csesarism, and loudly proclaimed that our Republican 
institutions were threatened with ruin by the probable 
re-election of Grant in 1876. The possibility of such 
an event was four years away; yet so great was the 
dread of it that the third-term question became a real 
political issue. Other newspapers echoed the cry. Pub- 
lic men were called on to define their position. Polit- 
ical conventions declared against it in their platforms, 
and finally, as the presidential year drew near, Mr. 
Springer, of Illinois, moved this resolution in the House 
of Representatives : 

Resolved, That, in the opinion of this House, the precedent 
established by Washington, and other Presidents of the United 
States, in retiring from the presidential office after their second 
term, has become, tyy universal concurrence, a part of our Repub- 
lican system of government, and that any departure from this 
time-honored custom would be unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught 
with peril to our free institutions.* 

How perfectly the resolution expressed the senti- 
ments of the people is made manifest by the treatment 
it received at the hands of their representatives, who, 
without a moment's hesitation, suspended the rules and 
passed it, on the very day it was introduced, by a 
yea-and-nay vote of 234 to 18. Thirty-seven did not 
vote. 

This ended for the time being all hope of renomi- 
nating Grant, who retired at the close of his term and 
began his famous journey around the world. But it 
was only for the time being, and, as that journey drew 

* Journal of the House of Representatives, December 15, 1875, 
pp. 66, 67. 



68 WITH THE FATHERS. 

to a close, the masters of the Republican party — Mr. 
Conkling, Mr. Cameron, and Mr. Logan — determined 
to renew the old effort to re-elect him. The time 
seemed opportune. One of those periods of despond- 
ency — of political blues — which occasionally afflict us, 
had set in. The contested election of 1876 ; the trou- 
bles in the South; the pacific policy of Hayes; the 
attempt to steal the State government in Maine ; and, 
above all, the desperate condition of the Republican 
party — had aroused serious doubts as to the permanency 
of "our free institutions." Men were beginning to 
talk of a strong government, or at least of a govern- 
ment administered by a strong man — such as Grant, 
who just at this time landed on the Pacific coast. The 
reception given him by his countrymen was such as has 
never been accorded to any other citizen, and, mistak- 
ing this outburst of gratitude for a sure sign that the 
people had again turned to Grant for political leader- 
ship, the effort of the machine to renominate him began 
in serious earnest. The struggle which followed is too 
recent to need description. We all remember how the 
dominating power of Conkling in New York, of Cam- 
eron in Pennsylvania, and of Logan in Illinois extorted 
from the conventions of those States a demand for the 
nomination of Grant ; how other States followed this 
lead ; how the friends of the movement were denounced 
as " Restorationists " and " Imperialists " ; how they 
persisted in their effort to the very last ; how in the 
Chicago Convention they never cast less than 303 votes 
and once cast 313 ; and how by their persistence they 
forced that compromise which resulted in the nomina- 
tion of Garfield. All these things are still fresh in our 
memories, and, being so, it is not a little strange that a 



THE THIRD-TERM TRADITION. 69 

serious effort should be on foot to give a third term to 
Mr. Cleveland. 

The fears which tormented the founders of the Re- 
public have long since vanished. We do not believe 
that our democratic institutions can ever be subverted 
by any occupant of the White House. We stand in no 
dread that the day will come when some successful gen- 
eral or some unscrupulous politician will first seize the 
presidency and then use its great power to set up a 
life-long dictatorship, or establish a kingdom, on the 
ruins of the Republic. Yet there is no reason to be- 
lieve that the old-time antipathy to a third term is one 
whit less strong than it ever was. Any sane man will 
admit that the bank, or the railroad conrpany, or the 
corporation of any sort that should dismiss a tried and 
able president merely because the stockholders had 
twice placed him in the executive chair, would deserve 
financial ruin. ]S r o tendency in the business world is 
more marked than the constant effort to find men pre- 
eminently fitted to carry on certain lines of business, 
and to place the management of such concerns entirely 
in their hands. But the common-sense rules which 
govern the selection of the president of a corporation 
do not apply in the election of a President of the 
United States. Our Presidents are not chosen because 
of their fitness, but because of their availability. Some 
are dark horses ; some are nominated because they 
alone can reconcile contending factions ; some because 
they can carry pivotal States. Others are forced on 
the voters by the machine. In theory this is all 
wrong. In practice no harm comes from it. Under 
our system of government we do not want, we do not 
need, a President of extraordinary ability. The average 



70 WITH THE FATHERS. 

man is good enough, and for him two terms is ample. 
We want a strong government of the people by the 
people, not a government of the people bj a strong 
man, and we ought not to tolerate anything which has 
even the semblance of heredity. The advocates of a 
third term for Mr. Cleveland will do well to remember 
the doctrine of the illustrious founder of their party, 
that " in no office can rotation be more expedient." 



THE POLITICAL DEPRAVITY OF THE 

FATHERS. 

In times like the present, when the boss is every- 
where, and when the high places of many State and 
municipal governments are filled by men who have 
secured them by methods greatly to be condemned, it 
may affcrd the honest citizen some consolation to know 
that these evils have always existed. Whoever reads 
the magazines and newspapers, whoever listens to the 
oratory of the pulpit and the after-dinner speeches of 
political reformers, is well aware of the existence of a 
widespread belief that politicians and legislators and 
public men are more corrupt to-day than they were in 
the time of our ancestors three generations ago, and 
that the cause of our political debasement is a free 
and unrestricted ballot. This, most happily, is a pure 
delusion. A very little study of long-forgotten politics 
will suffice to show that in filibustering and gerryman- 
dering, in stealing governorships and legislatures, in 
using force at the polls, in colonizing and in distribut- 
ing patronage to whom patronage is due, in all the 
frauds and tricks that go to make up the worst form of 
practical politics, the men who founded our State and 
national governments were always our equals, and often 
our masters. Yet they lived in times when universal 
6 71 



72 WITH THE FATHERS. 

suffrage did not exist, and when the franchise was 
everywhere guarded by property and religious qualifica- 
tions of the strictest kind. In New England, ninety 
years ago, a voter must have an annual income of three 
pounds, or a freehold estate worth sixty pounds. In 
New York he must be possessed of an estate worth 
twenty pounds York money, or rent a house for which 
h6 paid forty shillings annually. In New Jersey the 
qualification was real estate to the value of fifty pounds, 
in Maryland and South Carolina fifty acres of land, and 
in Georgia ten pounds of taxable property. But many 
a man who could vote was hopelessly debarred from 
ever holding office. No citizen could be a Governor in 
Massachusetts who did not own a thousand pounds 
of real estate, nor be a senator unless he had a freehold 
worth three hundred. In North Carolina senators 
must own three hundred acres of land, and a Governor 
lands and tenements to the value of a thousand pounds. 
Here the qualification for a representative was one 
hundred pounds of real property; there it was one 
hundred acres of land ; elsewhere it was two hundred 
and fifty acres of land, and open profession of the 
Protestant religion. 

Eeligious restrictions were almost universal. In 
New Hampshire, in New Jersey, in North Carolina, in 
South Carolina and Georgia, the Governors, the mem- 
bers of legislatures, and the chief officers of State must 
all be Protestants. In Massachusetts and Maryland 
they must be Christians. In North Carolina and 
Pennsylvania they must believe in the inspiration of 
the Old and New Testaments, in South Carolina in a 
future state of rewards and punishments, and in Dela- 
ware in the doctrine of the Trinity. 



THE POLITICAL DEPRAVITY OF THE FATHERS. 73 

From the standpoint of those who, in our day, dis- 
approve of universal suffrage, this ought to have been 
a time of great political purity. The voters were tax- 
payers, Christians, and owners of property. The office- 
holders were men of substance, while the qualifications 
for holding office increased with the dignity of the 
place. Yet it was, in truth, a period of great political 
depravity. Indeed, it may well be doubted whether, 
in all our annals, there can be found a finer example 
of filibustering than that afforded by the Assembly of 
Pennsylvania in 1787. 

The Legislature of that State then consisted of one 
House, which met at Philadelphia, and at the session 
in the autumn of 1787 had resolved to adjourn, sine 
die, on the twenty -ninth of September. As the ques- 
tion of the day was the ratification of the Federal Con- 
stitution, just framed, a member of the Assembly, on 
the morning of the twenty-eighth, moved that a Con- 
vention be called to consider the Constitution, and that 
a time be fixed for the choice of delegates. The ene- 
mies of the Constitution opposed the motion, and, in 
the midst of the debate which followed, the Assembly 
adjourned for dinner. The opponents of the call were 
in the minority ; but without the presence of at least 
three of them there would be no quorum. All re- 
solved, therefore, to stay away, and when the Assembly 
met again, at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the 
clerk called the roll, no quorum was present. The 
sergeant-at-arms was thereupon sent to summon the 
absentees ; but not one would obey, and the Assembly 
was forced to adjourn till the following morning. One 
of the reasons given for objecting to a call for a Conven- 
tion was that Congress, to which the Constitution had 



74: WITH THE FATHERS. 

been transmitted by the trainers, had not submitted it 
to the States, and that to act before it was sent out by 
Congress was indecent and disrespectful. It so hap- 
pened, however, that Congress, then in session at New 
York, had submitted the Constitution to the States, 
and that an express, riding post-haste, brought the 
resolution to a member of the Assembly early on the 
morning of the twenty-ninth. 

When the Assembly met on that morning, the fac- 
tious members being still absent and no quorum present, 
the sergeant and the clerk were again sent to bid them 
attend, and were ordered to show the resolution of 
Congress, in hope of removing their objections. But 
every one the sergeant summoned replied, " I will not 
attend." Meantime a report of their conduct had 
spread abroad, and the people, hearing that there was 
no quorum, went to the tavern, seized two of the ab- 
sentees, dragged them to the State-House, thrust them 
into the Assembly Chamber, and blocked the doors. 
This completed a quorum, and the Convention was 
called. 

But it must not be supposed that all that was good 
was confined to one party, and all that was bad to the 
other. The Convention then called met in the State- 
House late in November, 1787, and took the Constitu- 
tion into consideration. As the members would not 
bear the expense of employing an official stenographer, 
the labor of reporting the debate from day to day was 
undertaken by two young men. One, Alexander 
James Dallas, attended in behalf of the Pennsylvania 
Herald. The other, Thomas Lloyd, announced that he 
would take down the proceedings " accurately in short- 
hand," and when the Convention had adjourned would 



THE POLITICAL DEPRAVITY OF THE FATHERS. 75 

publish them in one small octavo volume. But the de- 
bate had not gone on very long before the reports of 
Dallas in the Herald attracted attention, were copied 
far and wide, and furnished such material for opposition 
in States yet to consider the Constitution that the Fed- 
eralists became alarmed and suppressed them. To do 
this it was necessary to buy the Pennsylvania Herald, 
which was done, and the report of the debate stops 
abruptly with November thirtieth. The Convention sat 
till December fifteenth, but not another word of its pro- 
ceedings nor a line of explanation appears in the Herald. 
It was necessary, in the next place, to dispose of Mr. 
Lloyd, who, though he had published nothing as yet, 
had promised to do so, and had secured subscriptions. 
But he too succumbed, and when, to satisfy his sub- 
scribers, he issued his book, in place of the debate accu- 
rately taken in short-hand, as he had promised, there 
appeared but two speeches — one by Thomas McKean 
and one by James Wilson, both ardent supporters of 
the Constitution. As a consequence, there does not 
exist to-day anything more than a fragment of the pro- 
ceedings of the Pennsylvania Convention which ratified 
the Constitution. 

When ten other States had followed the example 
of Pennsylvania, the Continental Congress, sitting at 
New York, selected the first Wednesday in January, 
1789, as the day when the electors of President should 
be chosen in the eleven ratifying States. 

In most instances the business of choosing them was 
easily and rapidly transacted. But the Legislature of 
New York was the scene of a bitter contest. The As- 
sembly had passed a bill defining the manner of elect- 
ing senators and presidential electors, according to 



76 WITH THE FATHERS. 

which each House was to nominate two men to be 
United States senators, and then the Houses were to 
meet in joint session and compare lists. If there was 
either complete or partial disagreement, a joint ballot 
was to be held on the names of the unsuccessful candi- 
dates. Now, in the Assembly, the Antifederalists 
had a great majority, while in the Senate the Federalists 
had a small majority. Had the bill passed the Senate 
and become a law, the nominees of each House would 
have been different, a joint session would have been 
necessary, and at that joint session the Antifederalists 
of the Assembly, greatly outnumbering the Federalists 
of the Senate, would have elected both senators. 

For this reason the Senate disliked the bill, and so 
amended it that, in case the nominees of the House 
were not those of the Senate, the House should choose 
one from the two offered by the Senate, and the Senate 
one from the two proposed by the House. To this the 
House refused to agree, and a conference followed ; but 
as neither would yield, New York had no senators during 
the first session of the first Congress. 

By another section of the same bill provision was 
made for the choice of presidential electors in a manner 
similar to that for the election of senators. Each House 
was to prepare a list of eight names, a joint session 
was to follow, the lists were to be compared, and men 
whose names were on both were to be declared elected. 
If the two fists were utterly different — and they were 
absolutely certain to be so — eight of the sixteen nomi- 
nees were to be chosen by joint ballot, in which event 
the eight proposed by the Assembly would have been 
elected. The Senate, of course, refused to hear of such 
a plan ; and as the Assembly would not yield, no elec- 



THE POLITICAL DEPRAVITY OF THE FATHERS. 77 

tors were chosen, and New York cast no vote for Presi- 
dent in 1789. 

This stubborn contest between the two Houses over 
the choice of electors and senators was followed, three 
years later, by the theft of the governorship. The 
candidates were, John Jay for the Federalists and 
George Clinton for the Republicans. Each had been 
long in public life ; each had rendered many and dis- 
tinguished services to the State ; and, as a consequence, 
the election was close — so close, indeed, that the loss of 
a few votes would decide it either way. 

In those days, when men were without the tele- 
graph, the railroad, or the steamboat, and when the 
centre of New York State was the frontier, the count- 
ing and canvassing of a State vote was a slow and tedi- 
ous matter. The law required that as soon as the vote of 
a town was counted the inspectors should send the ballots 
to the sheriff of the county, who should put them in a 
box, and, when every town in the county had been 
heard from, should carry the box to Albany and deliver 
it to the Secretary of State. As the votes in the east- 
ern and southern counties were announced one by one, 
the majority for Clinton dwindled till it stood at one 
hundred and eight, with two strong Jay counties to be 
heard from. If Clinton was not to be defeated, it was 
clear that an excuse must be found for throwing out 
the returns of some Federalist county, and, happily for 
the Republicans, an opportunity to do so existed. The 
box from Tioga County, which contained a good ma- 
jority for Jay, had been given by the sheriff to his 
deputy to carry to Albany. But the deputy fell sick 
by the way, and sent the box on by a sub -deputy of his 
own appointment. This the Clintonians decided was 



7S WITH THE FATHERS. 

illegal, and insisted that the vote of Tioga should not 
be counted. But even with Tioga left out, Jay would 
have a majority if Otsego was counted. 

JSow, in Otsego, the sheriff had been appointed in 
February, 1791, to serve one year, and just before the 
close of his first term had written to the Council of 
Appointment declining a second. One month after the 
end of his year a successor was appointed, but had not 
qualified nor acted when the election took place. In 
this state of things the old sheriff continued to act, and, 
gathering up the ballots cast in the towns of -his county, 
sent them by his deputy to Albany. Scarcely had he 
done this when he found that the ballots of one town 
had been left out, and these he sent wrapped up in 
paper. The Clintonians, availing themselves of these 
irreonlarities. insisted that the returns of Otsego should 
not be counted. There was, in the first place, no sheriff. 
In the second place, the law required that the vote of 
every town should go in the box ; but as one had not 
gone into it, all the others must be lost. To this the 
Federalists made an elaborate answer, and supported 
their reasoning by the published opinion of eight of the 
most distinguished lawyers then practising in Xew 
York city. 

The votes, after being received by the Secretary of 
State, were to be canvassed by a joint committee of six 
members of the Senate and six members of the As- 
sembly. As some were Federalists and some Republi- 
cans, they very naturally differed as to receiving and 
canvassing the votes of Otsesro and Tioora, and, after 
many stormy sessions, agreed to refer the whole matter 
to a commission consisting of the United States sena- 
tors from ]S"ew York, Eufus King and Aaron Burr. 



THE POLITICAL DEPRAVITY OF THE FATHERS. 79 

Colonel Burr, knowing that the Clintonians had a ma- 
jority of the canvassing board, proposed to give no 
opinion. But when King declared that he should ad- 
vise the canvassers to count the votes of Tioga and Ot- 
sego, Burr immediately advised them not to do so. 
Thus left to themselves, the majority rejected the 
returns from the two counties as irregular, and declared 
Clinton Governor. 

A storm of indignation swept over the State. The 
Federalists, in their fury, held public meetings, de- 
nounced the Governor as a usurper, declared the board 
of canvassers was corrupt, and described the policy of 
the Republicans as Machiavellian. But when the next 
election gave them the House and Senate, they showed 
very quickly that they too could be Machiavellian when 
it was expedient. By the Constitution of New York 
as it then was, every office not expressly elective was 
filled by appointments made by a board of five men, 
known as the Council of Appointment. These five 
men were the Governor and four senators chosen by 
the Assembly, one from each group of six senators 
from the four senatorial districts into which New York 
was divided. As the elective offices were confined to 
the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, State Treas- 
urer, members of the Legislature, and congressmen, 
the list of appointments was a long one, and included 
the Secretary of State, the comptroller, the judges, the 
Attorney- General, the clerks of the courts, the sheriffs of 
the counties, the coroners, the mayors of the cities, the 
county court judges, and the justices of the peace. In 
making these appointments the Governor had merely 
the casting vote ; but as the law said he must " with 
the advice and consent of the said Council appoint all 



80 WITH THE FATHERS. 

the said officers," the Governor had always held that he 
alone could nominate. While the Governor and the 
Council were of the same political stripe, this claim was 
freely allowed. But in 1794 the revolt against Clinton 
made the Council a Federalist body, which naturally 
declined to put into office Republicans named by the 
Governor, and for the first time in its history the mem- 
bers asserted an equal right to nominate. Clinton pro- 
tested, and the matter was dropped, to come up again 
during the administration of John Jay. In 1795, while 
Mr. Jay was in London, where he had just concluded 
the treaty that still bears his name, he was trium- 
phantly elected Governor, without his consent and 
almost without his knowledge, and was re-elected in 
1798. But the Federalist success of this latter year 
was followed by the sweeping Democratic victory of 
1800, and in 1801 Jay found himself in a condition 
similar to that of Clinton in 1794 : a majority of his 
Council of Appointment were Democratic. 

This was no trifling matter, for in February, 1801, 
the civil commissions of the office-holders in eleven 
counties and of the mayors of four cities expired, and 
it may well be believed that the workers in the vic- 
torious party became clamorous for their rewards. 

The Assembly having elected the Council, the Gov- 
ernor convened it in February to fill the vacancies, 
and, according to custom, asserted his sole right to 
nominate. But at the board sat De Witt Clinton, and, 
led on by him, the Eepublicans rejected in rapid suc- 
cession eleven of the Governor's nominations, refused 
to vote on several more, and then began to make nomi- 
nations of their own. This was too much for Jay, who 
adjourned the Council, and, as it could not meet un- 



THE POLITICAL DEPRAVITY OF THE FATHERS. 81 

less summoned by him, the places went unfilled. Jay 
then appealed to the Legislature, which called a con- 
vention, that amended the Constitution and gave to 
each member a right to nominate. Thus was the spoils 
system introduced into "New York, and from that day 
a change in the political complexion of the Council of 
Appointment was sure to be followed by a proscription 
of office-holders. 

But it is to Massachusetts that we owe the introduc- 
tion of the most infamous piece of party machinery 
this century has produced. In 1812 the Jeffersonian 
Republicans of that State elected not only a Governor 
and a majority of the House, but, after years of per- 
sistent effort, secured control of the Senate. By the 
Constitution of Massachusetts it was decreed that the 
Senate should /consist of forty men, chosen annually 
from such districts as the General Court should mark 
out, and that until such districts were created the sen- 
ators should be chosen from the counties. But the 
General Court had never used this power, and the tem- 
porary provision that each county should be a senatorial 
district became in time an established usage, with all 
the force of law. This usage, however, the Repub- 
licans now laid violent hands on, rearranged the dis- 
tricts without regard to county lines, overcame Feder- 
alist strongholds by connecting them to Republican 
strongholds, cut Worcester County in two, joined Bris- 
tol and Norfolk, attached some of the towns of Suffolk 
to those of Essex, and in the next General Court had 
twenty-nine senators out of forty. 

The story is told that a map of the Essex senatorial 
district was hanging on the office wall of the editor of 
the Columbian Centinel when the artist Stuart entered. 



82 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Struck by the peculiar outline of the towns forming 
the district, he added a head, wings, and claws with 
his pencil, and, turning to the editor, said : " There, 
that will do for a salamander." " Better say a Gerry- 
mander," returned the editor, alluding to Elbridge 
Gerry, the Republican Governor who had signed the 
districting act. However this may be, it is certain that 
the name "gerrymander" was first applied to the 
odious law in the columns of the Centinel, that it came 
rapidly into use, and has remained in our political no- 
menclature ever since. Indeed, a huge cut of the mon- 
ster was prepared, and the next year was scattered 
as a broadside over the Commonwealth, and so aroused 
the people that in the spring of 1813, despite the 
gerrymander, the Federalists recovered control of 
the Senate and repealed the law; but not before the 
progeny of the monster had sprung up in New Jer- 
sey. 

At the October elections in 1812 the Federalists, 
with the aid of the peace party, elected a majority of 
both branches of the Legislature. This success was 
quite unexpected, and, greatly elated over their victory, 
they proceeded to gather its fruits when the Legislature 
met a few weeks later. As the law then stood, it would 
become the duty of the people of New Jersey, early in 
November, to choose eight presidential electors by a 
general ticket, a manner of election which would surely 
end in a Republican triumph, for the party majority on 
a State vote was twenty-five hundred. But the Feder- 
alists were determined that their opponents should not 
triumph, and six days before the election was to take 
place they repealed the old law, deprived the people of 
a vote, gave the choice of presidential electors to the 



THE POLITICAL DEPRAVITY OF THE FATHERS. 83 

Legislature, and, when the time came, chose eight Fed- 
eralist electors. 

Their next act was to gerrymander the congres- 
sional districts. The custom so familiar to us — the cus- 
tom of having in each State as many districts as the 
State has members of the House of Kepresentatives — 
was not then in general use, and the six representa- 
tives from New Jersey were elected by a general ticket. 
Here again the Republican majority in the State in- 
sured a Republican delegation ; out it was overcome on 
the eve of election by a bill which established three 
congressional districts, with boundaries so carefully 
marked out that four of the six representatives were 
secured by the Federalists. 

In New York the district system had long been in 
use. But the y apportionment of representation, under 
the census of 1810, made a redisricting act necessary, 
and the Republicans gladly seized the opportunity to 
apply the gerrymander. Two wards of New York city 
were joined to Long Island. The towns of Red Hook, 
Rhinebeck, and Clinton were taken out of Dutchess 
County and attached to the county of Columbia, and 
a number of long, rambling, irregular districts were 

laid out. 

The bad example set by Massachusetts, New York, 
and New Jersey was soon imitated by Maryland. The 
opportunities for the use of the gerrymander were very 
limited, for the House of Delegates was composed of 
four men from each county and two from Annapolis 
and Baltimore, while the Senate was elected, not by 
the people, but by a body of electors chosen in each 
county for that particular purpose. Presidential elec- 
tors however, were chosen in districts, and to these, in 



84 WITH THE FATHERS. 

order to get a Republican elector, the gerrymander was 
most shamefully applied. Montgomery County, which 
lay on the Potomac River and touched the District of 
Columbia, was cut in twain, and the piece which was 
strongly Federalist was joined to the city of Baltimore, 
which was strongly Republican, by a long and narrow 
strip of territory running the whole length of the county 
of Anne Arundel. 

"We have said that Maryland could not then have 
been gerrymandered for the purpose of securing State 
senators; but the Federalists now proved that they 
might be elected by a judicious planting of colonies. 
Once in every five years the voters of each county met 
and elected two men to be electors of the Senate. The 
inhabitants of Baltimore and Annapolis chose one for 
each city. The men so selected then assembled and 
proceeded to elect by ballot, either from their own body 
or from the people at large, fifteen senators. Now, it 
so happened that in 1816 the Federalists needed but 
one elector in order to control the College, and so secure 
a Federalist State Senate. As Annapolis sent one 
elector, and was Republican by about thirty majority, 
they decided to colonize the city, and for this purpose, 
during the last days of February and the first weeks of 
March, 1816, they hurried in bands of laborers and 
mechanics till forty men in all had arrived and put up 
at the lodging-houses and the tavern. The new-comers 
said they were in search of work. But when it was 
observed that, although no work was to be had, they 
still lingered, paying their bills and showing little con- 
cern that none were busy, the party leaders of the Re- 
publicans began to suspect that it was politics, and not 
work, that had caused this singular migration, and soon 



THE POLITICAL DEPRAVITY OF THE FATHERS. 85 

unearthed the plot. Indeed, they proved that the pre- 
tended laborers were hired, for twenty dollars a month 
and their board, to go to Annapolis, acquire residence, 
and vote the Federalist ticket. Such an outburst of 
indignation followed this discovery that the men were 
discharged and the attempt was abandoned. 

In ]STew York, meantime, the Republicans had stolen 
the Assembly. There were, in 1815, one hundred and 
twenty-six members of the Assembly ; but so close had 
the election been that each party secured sixty-three. 
Before the meeting of the Assembly one Republican 
died, another went abroad for his health, and as one 
Federalist was too sick to attend, the numbers of the 
two parties became, Federalist sixty-two, Republicans 
sixty-one. It happened, however, that Mr. Henry Fel- 
lows, a Federalist of Ontario County who had received 
seven votes more than Mr. Allen, had been refused a 
certificate of election by the county clerk, because in 
the town of Pennington forty-nine ballots were cast 
for " Hen. Fellows " when they should have been cast 
for " Henry Fellows." This gave the Republicans a 
majority of one, and they openly declared that, when 
the Assembly met, they would elect a Speaker and 
Council of Appointment and secure the patronage of 
the State, an announcement which so incensed the Fed- 
eralists that on the first day of the session they refused 
to attend, stayed out in a body, and prevented a quorum. 
On the second day, fearing their constituents would not 
approve such conduct, all were present ; but, despite 
every effort and argument they could make, the certifi- 
cate of Allen was recognized and a Republican Speaker 
and clerk were elected. It was then moved to expel 
Mr. Allen instanter. But the Republicans defeated the 



86 WITH THE FATHERS. 

motion, and, witli the aid of Mr. Allen's vote and the 
casting vote of the Speaker, chose a Republican Coun- 
cil of Appointment. Having thus secured the patron- 
age of the State, they consented to examine into Mr. 
Allen's right to a seat, and in time, by a unanimous 
vote, unseated him and gave his place to Mr. Fellows. 
The Federalist members of the Assembly now addressed 
the voters and called on them to drive from power the 
party which had been guilty of so gross a fraud. The 
voters, unhappily, were as depraved as their represen- 
tatives, and in 1816 the Republicans carried the Assem- 
bly by a large majority. 



THE KIOTOUS CAEEER OF THE 
KNOW-NOTHINGS. 

It is much to be regretted that no student of our 
history has yet seen fit to place before his countrymen 
as truthful and impartial a biography of political parties 
in the United States as it is possible for an honest man 
to write. To suppose that such a narrative would be 
dry and tedious is a mistake, for it would be the story 
of a great people made up of men from every civilized 
race and land, experimenting in self-government on a 
stupendous scale, and dealing with moral, social, finan- 
cial, and industrial issues of the gravest importance. 
But the most readable part would be the account of the 
innumerable third parties : of the conditions of national 
life from which they sprang ; of the high aims, or self- 
ish purposes, or impracticable ends they sought to ac- 
complish ; of their triumphs ; or, as has so often been 
the case, their quiet and ignominious disappearance. 
They have been the expressive features of our political 
life, and have reflected every gust of passion, every un- 
reasonable prejudice, every ennobling purpose, every 
patriotic sentiment that has appealed strongly to the 
people. Sometimes the membership has been confined 
to a single section of our country, as was that of the 
Anti -Masonic party, which never spread beyond the 
7 87 



88 WITH THE FATHERS. 

New England belt of westward emigration. Sometimes 
they have had followers everywhere, as the Greenback 
party and the Popnlists of our own day. Sometimes 
their purpose has been accomplished, as was that of the 
Liberty party, the Free Soilers, and the Abolitionists. 
Sometimes their purposes, while never accomplished, 
have never been abandoned, and they have periodically 
appeared before the country seeking support. Such a 
one is that party which under many names and at many 
times has come forward as the defender of American 
institutions when endangered by the presence of for- 
eigners. 

It is safe to say that this dread of the naturalized cit- 
izen has never been wholly absent from our political life, 
and that its outbreaks have always followed periods re- 
markable for the great numbers of new-comers to our 
shores. The Irish risings, the French Revolution, the 
massacre in San Domingo and the establishment of the 
Negro Republic, drove to this country, during the last 
decade of the eighteenth century, thousands upon thou- 
sands of Frenchmen and Irishmen, who, availing them- 
selves of the liberal naturalization laws, became citizens, 
and entered political life in the land of their adoption. 
Those were the days when the franchise was most re- 
stricted : when property qualifications and religious 
qualifications were required of every man who cast a 
vote or held an office ; when an elector must have a 
freehold estate or a specified amount of yearly income, 
or pay a certain annual rent ; and when no one could 
be a governor, or a judge, or a member of the Legisla- 
ture who was not a Christian or a member of a particu- 
lar Protestant sect, and who did not believe in the Trin- 
ity, or the divine inspiration of the Testaments, and a 



THE RIOTOUS CAREER OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 89 

future state of reward and punishment. Yet, in spite 
of these limitations, the sudden appearance in large num- 
bers of naturalized citizens to whom the past history and 
traditions of the country were as nothing, and who eager- 
ly supported the party bent on overthrowing the Feder- 
alists, aroused serious alarm for the safety of American 
institutions. Then for the first time fear was expressed 
that the founders of the Republic had been too liberal ; 
that it was not safe to invest the new citizen so early in 
his career with all the rights of the native ; and in 1798 
the term of residence prior to naturalization was changed 
to fourteen years. 

The Republicans, who secured control of affairs in 
1801, repealed this law and reduced the term to five 
years, and a whole generation passed away without any 
further signs of ^hostility to the foreigner. 

Yet this same party, which courted and invited the 
man from abroad, was no friend to the institutions he 
was supposed to leave behind him, and again and again 
broke out into open hostility to them. It attempted to 
drive the common law of England from the courts ; in 
three States it succeeded in forbidding any case, any de- 
cision, any law-book decided or made or written in Eng- 
land since the Revolution, to be cited or read in court ; 
it expelled the mace from the House of Representatives 
of Pennsylvania because it was a symbol of monarchy ; 
and it sent out to the States an amendment to the Fed- 
eral Constitution which forbade a citizen of the United 
States to receive any title of nobility or honor, or ac- 
cept any gift or office from an emperor, king, prince, or 
foreign power, under penalty of loss of citizenship. Had 
one more State approved the proposed amendment, it 
would have become law. Indeed, many persons thought 



90 WITH THE FATHERS. 

it was law, and in school-books published as late as 1860 
it may be seen at the end of the Constitution as Article 
Thirteen of the Amendments. 

Fortunately the period during which this feeling was 
strongest was that during which immigration was small- 
est. But with the end of the Napoleonic wars the tide 
again set strongly toward America ; foreigners came to 
us at the rate of twenty thousand a year ; and with their 
appearance the old spirit of Native Americanism revived 
— a spirit which many new causes tended to intensify 
and embitter. Since the days of Washington and Adams 
the franchise had been greatly extended ; religious quali- 
fications had been removed ; property qualifications had 
been abolished or reduced ; the number of elective of- 
ficers had been increased ; the free-school system had 
been established ; and the power of the naturalized citi- 
zens greatly enlarged, for they settled almost entirely in 
the cities, where they formed a class by themselves. 
Though naturalized, they were not Americanized. Our 
history, our princijues, our welfare concerned them not. 
The Declaration of Independence, the Fourth of July, 
Bunker Hill, Evacuation Day, the Constitution — were 
events and days and instruments of which they knew 
nothing, and for which they cared nothing. They cele- 
brated their own days, spoke their own language, cast a 
united vote in behalf of whichever party would buy it 
at the highest price ; and — what was far more offensive 
— were all members of the Roman Catholic Church, 
which was looked on as a foreign institution. 

The Episcopal Church in America had no connec- 
tion with the Established Church of England. The 
Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians looked up 
to no church-head resident beyond the sea. But every 



THE RIOTOUS CAREER OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. Q\ 

Roman Catholic — layman, priest, or bishop — was a mem- 
ber of a great church hierarchy whose ruler was a for- 
eign prince claiming and exercising both spiritual and 
temporal jurisdiction. That a people who could not 
abide the common law of England, and had all but for- 
bidden an American citizen to receive even a title of 
honor at the hands of a foreign ruler, should look with 
alarm on the rapid increase in the number of aliens 
strongly attached by birth, by language, and by religion 
to monarchical institutions, is not surprising. In their 
eyes this sudden and steady inflow of Catholics was not 
the work of hard times, but of a deliberate and well- 
planned purpose on the part of the Catholic powers to 
destroy the free institutions of America. 

Many well-known events encouraged and strength- 
ened this belief. The rise of the Holy Alliance ; the 
hostility which it showed toward Republican institutions ; 
the eagerness with which it stamped out popular move- 
ments in Naples in 1820 and in Spain in 1823 ; the de- 
sire of the Catholic powers to reduce the revolted prov- 
inces of Spain on this continent ; and especially the 
recent formation of the St. Leopold Foundation in Aus- 
tria, and the revival of the Order of the Jesuits, were 
all cited as indisputable evidence of the hatred felt by 
foreign governments — and by foreign Roman Catholic 
governments in particular — for the principles of free- 
dom and the rights of man. Did any one inquire the 
cause of this hostility, he was instantly referred to the 
lectures delivered in 1828 by Frederick Schlegel, a de- 
vout Roman Catholic, the prof oundest of German schol- 
ars, the friend and adviser of Metternich, and Counsel- 
lor of Legation in the Austrian Cabinet. In the course 
of his lectures Schlegel labored to prove that Protes- 



92 WITH THE FATHERS. 

tantism favored democracy, while Popery supported 
monarchy ; that the political revolutions to which Eu- 
ropean governments had so long been subject were the 
natural results of the Reformation ; that the great nur- 
sery of these destructive principles — the revolutionary 
school for France, and Spain, and all of Europe — was 
North America ; and left his hearers to draw the con- 
clusion that democracy should be destroyed in America 
by establishing Catholic missions. When, therefore, at 
the conclusion of his lectures, the St. Leopold Founda- 
tion was organized in Austria and spread to Hungary, 
Italy, Piedmont, Savoy, and France, the charge was 
openly made that its purpose was to build up the power 
of Pome in the United States by encouraging the emi- 
gration of Roman Catholics from Europe, and by estab- 
lishing missions in the various States. 

To this, color was given by the appearance of 
Roman Catholic orders, churches, and institutions in 
places where within the memory of men then living all 
such things had been proscribed. Bishops, cathedrals, 
sisters of charity, sisters of mercy, convents, nunneries, 
colleges, schools, orphan asylums, and newspapers de- 
voted to the Church of Rome, were now to be seen in 
every great city which had been the recipient of foreign 
emigration. By such arguments, supported by visible 
si^ns of the presence of a Church whose head was 
crowned and owed no allegiance to the United States, 
the Native- American spirit, which by 1830 was rising 
high against foreigners, became at the outset closely 
allied with an anti-Catholic feeling, and the two have 
never parted company. 

The decade covered by the 'thirties is unique in our 
history. Fifty years of life at high pressure had 



THE RIOTOUS CAREER OP THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 03 

brought the people to a state of excitement, of lawless- 
ness, of mob rule, such as had never before existed. 
Intolerance, turbulence, riot, became the order of the 
day. Differences of opinion ceased to be respected. 
Appeals were made not to reason but to force ; reforms, 
ideas, institutions that were not liked were attacked and 
put down by violence ; and one of the least liked and 
first to be assaulted was the Church of Rome. In 1831 
St. Mary's Church in Sheriff Street, New York, was 
robbed and burned by incendiaries. In 1833 Miss 
Rebecca Reed fled from the Ursuline Convent at 
Charlestown, Mass., and told such tales that when, in 
1834, Sister Mary John escaped from the same institu- 
tion in a dazed and hysterical condition, the people rose 
and gave the convent to the flames. 

With these oleeds of violence the anti-Catholic ex- 
citement seemed to go down. But that hostility to 
foreigners which went hand in hand with it grew 
stronger and spread wider year after year. The stream 
of immigrants that entered New York city every twelve- 
month would now seem small indeed, but it was then 
thought to be portentous. From thirty thousand in 
1830 the number grew steadily till it passed sixty 
thousand in 1836. In the decade between 1830 and 
1840 more than five hundred thousand were landed at 
New York alone, a number often greatly surpassed in 
our times by the arrivals in one year. But when it was 
asserted that one white person in every twenty of the 
population was of foreign birth, then these arrivals be- 
gan to assume an alarming significance. 

Hurrying westward, the new-comers moved into 
the Mississippi Valley and startled the men of the new 
States by the appearance of a population that could 



94 WITH THE FATHERS. 

neither read, write, nor speak our language. In Cin- 
cinnati, by 1840, half the voters were of foreign birth. 
Twenty-eight per cent, were Germans, sixteen per cent, 
were English, and one per cent. French or Italian. In 
Dubuque County, Iowa, the natives of one foreign na- 
tion cast one third of all the votes given at local elec- 
tions. In St. Louis and in New Orleans the influence 
of foreigners was felt still more, and from the men of 
the West now came the cry that they were being 
swamped by the dregs of Europe ; that their institu- 
tions, their liberties, their property were at the mercy 
of voters steeped in the ignorance, the prejudices, the 
vices of the Old World. A demand was now made for 
a reform in the naturalization laws and the extension 
of the term of residence to twenty-one years. But 
both Whigs and Democrats, in their platforms and in 
the political tracts, indorsed the cause of the immi- 
grant, and the question became, Shall a new party be 
founded or the old parties reformed ? Here and there, 
as at Germantown in 1837, at New York city, and in 
the District of Columbia, even during the campaign of 
1840, symptoms of a new party movement were visible. 
But it was not until 1841 that the people of Louisiana 
called a State Convention and founded the American 
Republican party, or, as it soon came to be called, the 
Native-American party. From that Convention issued 
an address urging national organization for the protec- 
tion of American principles and the exclusion of for- 
eigners from office — a piece of advice which found 
ready listeners, and at the next election in New Orleans 
a large part of the municipal ticket was carried by the 
American Republicans. At St. Louis, at Lexington, at 
Philadelphia, and at New York the interest in the 



THE RIOTOUS CAREER OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 95 

movement grew daily, and was once more joined with 
anti-Catholicism. The principles of the new party were : 

1. Extend the term of naturalization to twenty-one years. 

2. Nominate no man to office who is not a native born. 

3. Guard from corruption and abuse the proceedings necessary 
to obtain papers of naturalization. 

4. Prevent the union of church and state. 

5. Keep the Bible in the schools. 

6. Resist the encroachment of a foreign civil and spiritual 
power upon the institutions of our country. 

For the spread of these sentiments the naturalized 
citizens — the " patented citizens " as they now were 
called — were in large part responsible. ~No oppor- 
tunity that conld serve to remind the native of the 
presence of the unassimilated foreigner was suffered 
to go by unused. Laborers combined to force con- 
tractors to employ no Americans. Old-World ven- 
dettas were fought out in our streets, and Americans 
for the first time became familiar with such terms as 
" Orangemen," " Ribbonmen," " Corkonians," " Far- 
downs," and with such airs as " Croppies, Lie Down ! " 
and " Boyne Water." Then were seen the harp of 
Ireland and the thistle of Scotland glittering on the 
uniforms of troops enrolled by law among the citizen 
soldiery of the United States. Then were made those 
two demands of the Catholics for a share in the school 
funds, and for the exclusion of King James's Bible 
from the public schools. Then were seen at the polls 
" No Catholic Irish Ticket ! " and on the fences hand- 
bills headed " Irishmen ! To your Posts ! " " Catho- 
lics ! Vote for Mr. Lott ! " " Irishmen and all Catholic 
Voters ! " or, in one instance, the cross, and under it the 
words " In union is our strength ! " 



96 WITH THE FATHERS. 

In a community excited by reminders such as these, 
and by the foolish and intemperate appeals and abusive 
charges made by the press of both parties, some local 
incident was all that was needed to bring about the in- 
stant union of the natives, and this incident was fur- 
nished by the political leaders in New York. For 
years past the elections in that city had been closely 
contested by the Whigs and Democrats ; and when, 
with the aid of the Irish vote, the Democrats won in 
1843 and gave a large proportion of the patronage to 
citizens of foreign birth, both Whigs and Democrats 
bolted their party, joined with the feeble American 
Eepublicans, and in April, 1844, chose a native mayor 
and board of aldermen. Meantime the excitement in 
New York spread to New Jersey and to Philadelphia, 
where the efforts to organize a party produced the 
dreadful riots of May and July, during which many 
lives were lost and many churches and buildings 
burned — deeds which nothing but the coolness of the 
leaders prevented from being repeated in New York. 
In both cities the success of the Americans was due 
to a determination on the part of earnest and patriotic 
Democrats to punish therr party. The punishment in- 
flicted, they went back to their allegiance, elected a Dem- 
ocratic mayor of New York in 1845, and, after enabling 
the Americans to send six representatives to the Twenty- 
ninth Congress, so weakened the party by their deser- 
tion before 1846 that but one American Republican 
sat in the Thirtieth Congress, and he came from Penn- 
sylvania. In 1847 such districts as still maintained an 
organization went through the form of sending dele- 
gates to a national convention which met at Pittsburg 
in February, and, after nominating a Vice-President, 



THE RIOTOUS CAREER OP THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 97 

recommended Zachary Taylor for President. The 
campaign which followed served but to exhibit their 
weakness, and in the Thirty-first Congress not one 
American Republican found a seat. 

For the moment the excitement seemed over. The 
great issues raised by the Mexican War ; the attempt 
to extend slavery into the Territories ; the split which 
the Wilmot Proviso produced in both the Whig and 
Democratic parties ; the discovery of gold, and the rush 
to California ; the Free-Soil movement, and the intense 
excitement which went before and followed the Com- 
promise of 1850 — dwarfed all other issues. The result 
of that Compromise and the deaths of Clay and Web- 
ster in 1852, and the crushing defeat of Scott at the 
polls, laid the Whigs prostrate ; and in their efforts to 
reorganize they y called in the aid of what was left of the 
American Republicans, to whom a new series of events 
had given renewed life. 

The political disturbances in Europe from 1818 to 
1850, and the discovery of gold in California, once more 
turned the stream of emigration westward and poured 
such a volume of foreigners into the Eastern cities as 
had never been known. Almost as many now came in 
three years as had ever at any previous time arrived in 
ten years. From 1840 to 1850 the sum total of arrivals 
was one million five hundred thousand. But in 1851, six 
hundred thousand ; in 1852, three hundred and eighty 
thousand ; and in 1853, three hundred and seventy thou- 
sand foreigners entered the United States. The old 
feeling of dread revived, and the natives once more joined 
the anti- Catholic party and some time, and somewhere 
in ISTew York city, in 1852 founded a secret oath-bound 
association which spread over the country like wildfire. 



98 WITH THE FATHERS. 

The state of affairs was ripe for such a growth. In 
the first place, the fugitive-slave law, and the man- 
hunting, mobbing, and rioting it produced, had de- 
stroyed the Whig and badly injured the Democratic 
organizations, and had released thousands of voters 
from all allegiance to party. In the next place, the 
anti-Catholic feeling had never been suffered to sub- 
side. The " awful disclosures " in 1845 concerning the 
imprisonment of Edward Wilson in a religious institu- 
tion at Cincinnati ; the founding of a " No-Popery " 
newspaper named The North American Protestant in 
1846 ; the so-called disclosures and lectures on auricular 
confession by Giustiniani — did their work so thoroughly 
that from 1846 to 1852 many an aspirant for office was 
called on to purge himself of the accusation of hostility 
to Catholics. The charges made by the Democrats 
against Scott in 1852, that he had been an American 
Republican in 1841 ; that in 1840 he had taken part in 
the attempt made at the Astor House in New York to 
found a Native-American party ; and that neither in 
1844 nor in 1848 had he been a friend of Catholics — 
were among the most serious that his supporters had to 
answer, were the subject of elaborate pamphlets, and 
cost him the vote of many a Whig State. No task was 
found harder by the Democrats than to explain why 
New Hampshire, the native State of Pierce, would not 
amend her Constitution and admit Catholics to office. 

In the next place, the arrival of Father Gavazzi, an 
apostate Barnabite monk, marked the beginning of a 
new anti-papal crusade. He described the priests as 
given to every form of low debauchery ; he declared 
that sisters of charity were prostitutes the world over, 
and declared that parents who sent their daughters to a 



THE RIOTOUS CAREER OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 09 

convent sent them to a brothel. Under his influence 
street preaching was revived, and by 1854 there was no 
city of any importance but had an anti-popery preacher 
holding forth from curbstones and barrel-tops. That 
those denounced should turn upon the traducer was no 
more than human, and a new era of mob violence opened 
— in Boston, in New York, in Pittsburg, in Cincinnati, 
in Louisville, in Baltimore — directly due to the anti- 
popery preachers. 

That nothing might be wanting to increase the ex- 
citement, the Papal Nuncio, Mgr. Gaetano Bedini, 
landed at New York in the autumn of 1853 and gave 
a new opportunity to Gavazzi to stir up hatred and 
strife. The apostate priest, putting himself at the head 
of the movement against Bedini, travelled the country 
over, making charges no rational man ever for a mo- 
ment believed, and which were soon proved to be ut- 
terly false. But the people were in no frame of mind 
to be reasoned with ; the priest was believed, and the 
Nuncio was insulted, abused, mobbed, burned in efRgy, 
and threatened with assassination. As he travelled 
westward the excitement grew more and more intense, 
and, when Cincinnati was reached, became so great that 
the militia were called out to keep order. A howling 
mob two thousand strong paraded the streets, carrying 
transparencies inscribed " No Priests ! No Kings ! No 
Popery ! " " Down with Bedini ! " and when, as they 
drew near the home of the Archbishop, the police at- 
tempted to interfere, a running fight began. 

To the northward and eastward the agitation was 
carried on by a street preacher who called himself the 
" Angel Gabriel." He began his career in the streets 
of Boston, holding forth against popes, priests, nuns, 



100 WITH THE FATHERS. 

and Catholics generally, and so excited a crowd that 
heard him one night in May, 1854, that it attacked the 
Irish settlement at Chelsea and the Bellingham Catholic 
Church, and set an example that was followed wher- 
ever he went. In June the Catholic church at Coburg 
was burned ; on July third an armed mob attacked the 
Irish quarter of Manchester, N. H., and expelled a 
peaceful population. On July fourth the Catholic 
church at Dorchester was blown up by gunpowder, and 
on the fifth the " Angel Gabriel," by preaching, caused 
the sacking and destruction of the Catholic church at 
Bath. But the list is too long to complete. It is enough 
to know that such was the state of the public mind 
when " The Supreme Order of the Star-Spangled Ban- 
ner" began its invisible, resistless, mysterious career. 
It was a network of local secret associations or councils, 
whose members were bound together by secret oaths, 
and recognized one another by signs, grips, and pass- 
words. The councils of each State were arranged in 
four degrees, and over these degrees presided a Grand 
Council of the United States of North America, with 
its President, its Yice-President, Secretaries, Inside Sen- 
tinel, Outside Sentinel, and Chaplain. Every member 
of a council was required to be twenty -one years old, 
to believe in the existence of a God, and to obey with- 
out question the will of the Order. Highly organized, 
thoroughly in earnest, it did its work with a precision 
of movement and a concert of action hitherto unknown 
in American politics. Its nominations were made by 
secret conventions of delegates from the various lodges 
in the city or the district the candidate was to repre- 
sent ; they were generally of the best men irrespective 
of party, and were voted for by the members of the 



THE RIOTOUS CAREER OF THE KNOW-NOTHIXGS. 101 

Order under penalty of expulsion. No public indorse- 
ment was ever made ; but the result, when viewed the 
day after the election, left no doubt that a powerful 
secret body of voters was at work defeating the schemes 
and setting at naught the calculations of the politicians. 

To the old party leaders the situation was embar- 
rassing, and became most serious when in 1854 the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill split the Northern Whigs and 
sent those who opposed, not slavery, but slavery in the 
Territories (and who could not therefore join either the 
Democrats or Republicans), into the ranks of the new 
and secretly working party. The charm of mystery 
brought others, and in 1854 the accession of voters was 
believed to be live thousand a week. With them went 
in that element which was at once the strength and the 
weakness of the y party ; for hundreds of thousands of 
the new-comers had no sympathy with the movement 
against the Catholics, and, after contributing to success 
at many an election, split off and formed a wing derided 
as the " Mountain Sweets." 

At first all was harmony, and in 1854 the new Na- 
tive-American party carried the elections in Massa- 
chusetts and Delaware, and in New York State secured 
some congressmen and polled 122,282 votes. By this 
time the party had thrown off much of its secrecy. 
The name of the Order had been discovered. Its se- 
cret alphabet was known. It did not hesitate to in- 
dorse men and to put forth candidates of its own. The 
meeting places of its councils were no longer concealed, 
and it had received from its opponents the popular 
name of Know-Nothings. It is said that the true name 
and purpose of the Order were known to none save 
those who reached the highest degree ; and that, as 



102 WITH THE FATHERS. 

members of the lower degrees, when questioned about 
their party, always answered, " I don't know," the nick> 
name " Know-Nothings " was given it, and at once ac- 
cepted. But its avowed purposes were well known, 
and in the Know-Nothing almanacs of 1855 were de- 
clared to be — 

anti-Romanism, anti-Bedinism, anti-Papistalism, anti-Nunnery- 
ism, an ti- Winking- Virginism, anti-Jesuitism. Know-Nothingism 
is for light, liberty, education, and absolute freedom of con- 
science, with a strong dash of devotion to one's native soil. 

As described in more sober and responsible publica- 
tions, the Know-Nothing was a man who opposed not 
Komanism, but political Eomanism ; who insisted that 
all church property of every sect should be taxed ; and 
that no foreigner under any name — bishop, pastor, 
rector, priest — appointed by any foreign ecclesiastical 
authority, should have control of any property, church, 
or school in the United States ; who demanded that no 
foreigner should hold office; that there should be a 
common-school system on strictly American principles ; 
that no citizen of foreign birth should ever enjoy all 
the rights of those who were native-born; and that 
even children of foreigners born on the soil should not 
have full rights unless trained and educated in the 
common schools. 

These were the principles which appealed to the South. 
That great section of our country was almost without a 
foreign-born population, was full of nativist feeling in 
its best form, and when, in 1854,. the Whig party was 
wrecked by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the remnant of it 
in the South turned willingly to its Native Americans. 
So strengthened, the new party in the elections of 1855 



THE RIOTOUS CAREER OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 103 

secured the Land Commissioner of Texas, the Legisla- 
ture and Comptroller of Maryland, and all but carried 
the States of Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana, and Texas. In the North the triumph was 
complete, and the governors and legislatures of New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 
New York, California, and Kentucky were Know- 
Nothings. That this victory in the North was largely 
due to a great uprising against Catholicism is beyond 
dispute. The demand for a part of the school funds 
for the purpose of supporting Catholic schools; the 
vast accumulation of property by the Church, and the 
peculiar manner of holding it; the ease with which 
church legislation was secured; and the long contro- 
versy between Senator Brooks, of New York and " John, 
Archbishop of t}ie Province of New York," went far 
to arouse even the cool-minded. "Who gave John 
Hughes this title ? " it was asked ; " Who was it that 
had so kindly marked out the ' Province of New 
York ' ? " — who but the Pope and " King of the States 
of the Church " ? and " Is not this just the course to 
make America another State of the Church ? " As the 
time was one of intense political excitement over Kan- 
sas, over slavery, over the fugitive-slave law, over the 
attempt to secure Cuba, the elections were attended by 
Know-Nothing riots, in which life and property were 
destroyed. But it was an age of riot, and what was 
then done to Catholics and their churches was no more 
than many a Catholic had been doing for years past to 
Abolitionists and Free-Soilers, or than foreign-born 
citizens have in our day done to Chinamen. 

The success at the elections in 1855 encouraged the 
Grand Council to prepare the Order to enter the presi- 
8 



104 WITH THE FATHERS. 

dential campaign of 1856 as a national party. A secret 
meeting was accordingly held at Philadelphia in Feb- 
ruary, and there the first and only native platform of the 
Know-Nothings was adopted. Horace Greeley had de- 
scribed them as possessing abont " as many elements of 
persistence as an anti-cholera or anti-potato-rot party 
would have," and the proceedings of that one Conven- 
tion proved that his description was correct. Into it 
had by this time been drawn men of every shade of 
opinion on every question of the day, and to frame such 
a platform as would satisfy these was hopeless. As 
presented by the Grand Council and adopted by the 
Convention, the platform declared the following prin- 
ciples : 

3. Americans must rule America ; and to this end native-born 
citizens should be selected for all State, Federal, and municipal 
offices of Government employment in preference to all others. 

5. No person should be selected for political station who rec- 
ognizes any allegiance or obligation of any description to any 
foreign prince, potentate, or power. 

6. The unqualified recognition and maintenance of the re- 
served rights of the several States . . . and to this end the non- 
interference by Congress with questions appertaining solely to 
the individual States. 

7. The recognition of the right of native-born and naturalized 
citizens of the United States, permanently residing in any Terri- 
tory thereof, to frame their constitution and laws. 

9. A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued 
residence of twenty-one years an indispensable requisite for citi- 
zenship. 

10. Opposition to any union between church and state ; no 
interference with religious faith or worship; and no test -oath 
for office. 

12. The maintenance and enforcement of laws constitutionally 
enacted until said laws shall be repealed or declared null and 
void by judicial authority. . ... 



THE RIOTOUS CxVREER OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 105 

The third, seventh, and ninth planks were put in to 
please the old-time Native- Americans ; the fifth and 
tenth were for the anti-Catholics ; the sixth and twelfth, 
which related to the enforcement of the fugitive-slave 
law, were to satisfy the South; the seventh, and a 
hearty condemnation of the President and the Kansas 
Bill, it was expected would win votes in the North. In 
reality it pleased no one, and after a short struggle fifty 
" North- American " delegates, from seven free States, 
quit the Convention, which then nominated Millard Fill- 
more and Andrew Jackson Donelson. The Whigs, a 
few months later, indorsed the nominees. But it was 
too late : a wave of Kepublicanism was sweeping east- 
ward from the Northwest, and in November, 1856, 
swept Know-Nothingism out of the North. In a pop- 
ular vote of 4,0,53,967, the American party cast but 
874,534 ; of 296 electors it secured but eight, and sent 
but twenty representatives and five senators to Con- 
gress. In 1858 it suffered still more, and to the Con- 
gress which met in December, 1859, not one Native- 
American came from any State north of the Potomac 
and the Ohio save Maryland. There it was still an 
anti-Catholic party, and in Baltimore, drawing to itself 
all the ruffians, " plug-uglies," and "tigers," held the 
polls, and for three years gave such an exhibition of 
lawlessness as can be found in the history of no other 
city. 

A lingering trace of the Know-Nothings is to be 
seen in the Constitutional party of 1860, and in those 
secret, oath-bound Ku-Klux-Klan and White-Cap or- 
ganizations which have terrorized the South since re- 
construction days. But it has been reserved for the 
present to witness a true revival of the American Prot- 



106 WITH THE FATHERS. 

estant Association of 1840 in the American Protective 
Association of 1894, with the secret methods of the 
Know-J^othings thrown in. Never was the name 
" American " more misapplied. Such parties and such 
methods are wholly foreign. They belong to the days 
of the Inquisition, the Star Chamber, the Bastille, and 
the poisoned flower ; not to the close of the nineteenth 
century in America. 



THE FEAMEES AND THE FEAMING 
OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

On the eleventh of June, 1776, the Continental Con- 
gress, then sitting at Philadelphia, chose two committees 
to perform two pieces of important work. One was to 
draw a declaration of independence ; the other was to 
frame articles of perpetual union. The Committee on 
the Declaration finished their work and gave it to the 
world on July fourth, 1776 ; the Committee on Articles 
of Confederation reported a plan four days later ; but 
it was not till March first, 1781, that the articles were 
finally adopted. 

The government that went into effect on that day 
was bad from beginning to end. There was no execu- 
tive, no judiciary, and only the likeness of a legislature. 
Congress consisted of one House presided over by a presi- 
dent chosen each year by the delegates from among their 
number. The delegates could not be more than seven 
nor less than two from any State, were elected yearly, 
and could serve but three years in any term of six. On 
the floor of Congress all voting was done by States, and 
the assent of nine was necessary to declare war, to make 
peace, to coin money, to pass any ordinance of the least 
importance. To such trivial questions as came up from 
day to day — when should the House rise ; who should 

107 



10S WITH THE FATHERS. 

be geographer for the next year ? — the assent of the ma- 
jority of the States was enough, and it was a white day 
whereon six did not make a majority. 

To this body the States had given a few powers, and 
had given them grudgingly as of necessity. Congress 
had power to declare war, make peace, issue bills of 
credit, keep up a navy and army, contract debts, enter 
into treaties of commerce and alliance, and settle dis- 
putes between the members of the confederation. But 
it could not enforce a treaty nor a law when made, nor 
impose any restriction on commerce, nor lay a tax of 
any kind for the purpose of raising a revenue. Bad as 
the articles were, they were made worse yet by the pro- 
vision that to amend them required the consent of each 
one of the thirteen members of the Union. 

The evils of this system were not slow to appear. 
Acting on States, and not on individuals, Congress never 
secured a hold on the people, was always looked on as 
a revolutionary body, and was treated, first with indif- 
ference, and then with contempt. 

The large vote needed to pass a weighty measure 
often made it impossible to legislate at all. Two States, 
Georgia and Rhode Island, were seldom represented. 
Of the eleven others, more than eight were rarely pres- 
ent, and Congress was thus forced to adjourn again and 
again for want of a quorum. Repeatedly these adjourn- 
ments covered a space of thirteen consecutive days. As 
nine of the eleven States had but two delegates each, the 
powers of Congress passed into the hands of three men, 
who, by their negative votes, could defeat any measure 
requiring the assent of nine. 

Lacking power to enforce its acts, Congress made 
treaties which the States set at naught, called for money 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 109 

which the States never paid, and saw article after arti- 
cle of the confederation broken in the most defiant way. 
The States were forbidden to wage war and make trea- 
ties. Yet Georgia waged war and made a treaty with 
the Creeks. The States were forbidden to keep troops 
in time of peace. Yet Pennsylvania sent troops that 
drove the Connecticut settlers from the valley of Wyo- 
ming ; Massachusetts raised an army and put down 
Shays' s rebellion. The States were forbidden to enter 
into compacts. Yet Maryland and Yirginia made a 
compact. Indeed, Congress itself was more than once 
driven to exercise powers to which, by the articles, it 
had no right whatever. 

Having no power to manage trade, Congress could 
not, by commercial restrictions, force Great Britain to 
enter into a tracje treaty. British goods came over in 
immense quantities, the balance of trade turned against 
us, and, to settle the balance, the coin of the country 
went over to England in boxes and barrels. The States, 
deprived of a circulating medium, put out paper money ; 
with paper money came tender laws and force acts, and 
in Massachusetts open rebellion against the Common- 
wealth. 

Many of these evils had long been felt. Indeed, the 
Articles of Confederation were not in force before it 
was proposed to amend them. The Hartford Conven- 
tion of 1780 urged the States to suffer Congress to tax 
them according to population and spend the revenue so 
raised in paying the interest on the public debt. Con- 
gress accordingly asked for such an amendment, and 
twelve States consented. But Rhode Island would not, 
and it failed. Again a little while and Congress asked 
for specific duties and a permanent revenue, and again 



HO WITH THE FATHERS. 

twelve States consented. But this time New York stood 
out, and the second proposed amendment was a failure. 
At last, made desperate, Congress asked for power to 
regulate trade for twenty -five years. Once more twelve 
States consented. Once more New York refused. Once 
more the attempt to amend the articles was a failure. 
Then, every other means having been tried, Congress 
approved the call already sent out for a Convention of 
the States at Philadelphia. 

Such a Convention had twice been asked for. New 
York wanted one in 1782 ; Massachusetts was equally 
eager in 1785. But the origin of the Constitutional 
Convention of 1787 goes back to the action of a joint 
commission which sat at Mount Yernon in March, 1785. 
There were then no concerted regulations between 
Maryland and Yirginia touching the jurisdiction and 
navigation of Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. 
Trouble had arisen in consequence, and the commission 
had been chosen to frame a compact that would serve 
as a remedy. But they had not been very long at work 
when they saw that common duties and common prin- 
ciples for explaining the meaning of commercial laws 
and settling disputes about the currency were just as 
necessary as well-defined rights on the river and bay. 
AYith these things, however, the commissioners had no 
right to meddle. Yet they ventured to draw up a sup- 
plementary report setting forth the need of legislation 
on the currency, the duties, and commerce in general, 
and urging the appointment each year of two commis- 
sioners to arrange such matters for the next year. 

Maryland readily accepted the report, and asked 
Delaware and Pennsylvania to come into the scheme. 
But Yirginia went further, and asked all the States to 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. m 

a trade Convention at Annapolis in September, 1786. 
New York and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
and Virginia alone attended, spent two days in discuss- 
ing the low state of trade and commerce, in lamenting 
their want of powers, and then called a new Convention, 
to meet at Philadelphia in May, 1787. This was the 
call that Congress approved in February, 1787 ; and it 
was high time, for seven States had already chosen dele- 
gates. 

Virginia was first to act, and sent up her seven most 
noted citizens. Jefferson was then Minister to France ; 
Patrick Henry and Pichard Henry Lee would not 
serve ; but in their places came George Washington 
and James Madison, Edmund Randolph, the Governor, 
George Mason, George Wythe, John Blair, and James 
McClurg, a professor in William and Mary College. 

New Jersey came next, and on November twenty- 
third chose William. Livingston, eleven times her Gov- 
ernor ; William Paterson, ten times her Attorney- Gen- 
eral ; David Brearley, her Chief -Justice, and William 
Houston, her delegate to Congress. Houston fell sick, 
and Jonathan Dayton took his place. Scarce a month 
went by but the name of some State was added to the 
list. In December came Pennsylvania ; in January 
came North Carolina ; in February came Delaware, 
Massachusetts, and New York. South Carolina and 
Georgia came in April, and Connecticut in May. New 
Hampshire would gladly have acted promptly, but her 
treasury was empty, her delegates could not bear the 
cost of the journey themselves, and the Convention was 
half through its work when John Langdon and Nicho- 
las Gilman appeared in her behalf. Rhode Island 
alone refused to attend. 



112 WITH THE FATHEIiS. 

The day chosen for the meeting of the Convention 
was the second Monday in May, which, in that year, 
fell on the fourteenth of the month. But so tardy 
were the delegates in setting out, and so great were the 
hindrances met on the way, that the twenty- fifth of 
May came before seven States were present in the 
State-House. This made a quorum. The Convention 
at once called Washington to the chair, chose William 
Jackson secretary, appointed a committee to prepare 
rules, and adjourned, to meet again on the twenty- 
eighth. Nine States then answered to their names. 
The doors were then closed, a solemn pledge of secrecy 
was laid on the members, and thenceforth for many 
years what took place in the Convention was never fully 
known. 

The delegates thus bound to secrecy were assuredly 
a most remarkable body of men. Hardly one among 
them but had sat in some famous assembly, had signed 
some famous document, had filled some high place, or 
had made himself conspicuous for learning, for scholar- 
ship, or for signal services rendered in the cause of 
liberty. One had framed the Albany plan of union ; 
some had been members of the Stamp-Act Congress of 
1765 ; some had signed the Declaration of Rights in 
1774; the names of others appear at the foot of the 
Declaration of Independence, and at the foot of the 
Articles of Confederation ; two had been presidents of 
Congress ; seven had been, or were then, governors of 
States ; twenty-eight had been members of Congress ; 
one had commanded the armies of the United States ; 
another had been Superintendent of Finance ; a third 
had repeatedly been sent on important missions to Eng- 
land and had long been Minister to France. 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 113 

Nor were the future careers of many of them to be 
less interesting than their past. Washington and Madi- 
son became Presidents of the United States ; Elbridge 
Gerry became Vice-President ; Charles Cotesworth 
Pinckney and Rufus King became candidates for the 
presidency, and Jared Ingersoll, Rufus King, and John 
Langdon candidates for the vice -presidency ; Hamilton 
became Secretary of the Treasury ; Madison, Secretary 
of State ; Randolph, Attorney-General and Secretary 
of State, and James McIIenry, a Secretary of War ; 
Ellsworth and Rutledge became Chief- Justices ; Wilson 
and John Blair rose to the supreme bench ; Gouver- 
neur Morris, and Ellsworth, and Charles C. Pinckney, 
and Gerry, and William Davie became ministers abroad. 
Others less fortunate closed their careers in misery or 
in shame. Hamilton went down before the pistol of 
Aaron Burr ; Robert Morris, after languishing in a 
debtor's prison, died in poverty ; James Wilson died a 
broken-hearted fugitive from justice ; Edmund Ran- 
dolph left the Cabinet of Washington in disgrace ; Wil- 
liam Blount was driven from the Senate of the United 
States. 

Blount sat for North Carolina, and with him were 
Alexander Martin, a soldier of the Revolution ; Richard 
Dobbs Spaight, a native of Ireland ; Hugh Williamson, 
and William Davie. South Carolina sent Pierce But- 
ler, John Rutledge, and the two cousins, Charles and 
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Butler was an Irishman, 
was descended from the Dukes of Ormond, and, when 
the Revolution opened, was a major in the Twenty-ninth 
Regiment of Foot. The Twenty-ninth was one of the 
regiments stationed at Boston, and furnished the sol- 
diers who did the shooting in the famous Boston mas- 



114 WITH THE FATHERS. 

sacra Disgusted at tlie treatment of 1 lie colonists, and 
convinced that justice was on their side, lie threw up 
his commission when the war opened, joined the Con- 
tinental army, fought through the war, and then settled 
in South Carolina. Another man of Scotch-Irish an- 
cestry was John Eutledge. He too had been educated 
abroad, had studied law at the Temple, and had been 
sent at the age of twenty-six to the Stamp-Act Con- 
gress of 1765. Nine years later he sat in the first 
Continental Congress, and was pronounced by Patrick 
Henry the most eloquent speaker in that body. Fear- 
less, resolute, a man of fine parts, he was unquestion- 
ably the foremost man South Carolina produced till she 
produced Calhoun. 

Georgia sent up William Houston, "William Pierce, 
a Yirginian, William Few, and Abraham Baldwin, a 
Connecticut man. The Connecticut delegation was, as 
a whole, the ablest on the floor. Save Benjamin Frank- 
lin, no man who came to the Convention had made for 
himself so instructive and so useful a career as Roger 
Sherman. He was a man of the people. Born near 
Boston, he got his education at the common school, and 
was early apprenticed to a shoemaker. His apprentice- 
ship over, he set out on foot, with his tools on his back, 
for New Milford, in Connecticut. There he kept store 
and read law till he was admitted to the bar, when he 
moved to New Haven. At New Haven he rose rapidly 
in the estimation of his townsmen, was made treasurer 
of Yale College, represented the town in the Legisla- 
ture, and when New Haven became a city, was chosen 
first Mayor, and remained Mayor for the rest of his life. 
He was fourteen times sent to the Legislature. He 
was twenty -three years a judge. Connecticut elected 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. H5 

him to the Congress of 1774, and re-elected him re- 
peatedly till he died. He signed the Declaration of 
Rights in 1774 ; the Declaration of Independence, 
which he was one of the committee to write ; and the 
Articles of Confederation, which he helped to frame. 

With him came William Samuel Johnson and Oliver 
Ellsworth. Johnson had been a judge and a member 
of Congress ; but he enjoyed a distinction rarer still, 
for he was a scholar of high rank. Indeed, the fame of 
his learning reached England, where Oxford made him 
a Doctor of Laws, and the Royal Society a member. 

Massachusetts sent up Caleb Strong, Nathaniel Gor- 
ham, a rich Boston merchant ; Elbridge Gerry, a signer 
and a member of Congress ; and Rufus King, a con- 
gressman and a fierce hater of slavery. Alexander 
Hamilton, John, Lansing, and Robert Yates repre- 
sented New York. Yates and Lansing were men of 
ability ; but they held the narrow and selfish views then 
so prevalent in New York State, became mere obstruc- 
tionists in the Convention, and when they could not 
succeed in setting up State-rights government, left the 
Convention and went home. The departure of Yates is 
much to be lamented, for, while he stayed, he was busy 
taking notes of the debates and proceedings. Five men 
came from Delaware — Gunning Bedford, Jr., Richard 
Bassett, Jacob Broome, George Read, who signed the 
Declaration, and John Dickinson, who would not. The 
largest delegation was that from Pennsylvania. On 
her list are the names of Jared Ingersoll, who led the 
bar and whose father had been driven from New Eng- 
land for trying to serve as Stamp agent in 1765 ; George 
Clymer, another signer ; Thomas Fitz Simons, a great 
merchant; Robert and Gouverneur Morris; Thomas 



116 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Mifflin, a general of the Revolution, a member of Con- 
gress, and once a member of the infamous Conway 
Cabal ; James Wilson, a Scotchman and the best-read 
lawyer in the Convention ; and Benjamin Franklin. 
Maryland sent up Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel 
Carroll of Carrollton, John Mercer, Luther Martin, and 
James McHenry. 

It is a sure sign of the high respect in which this 
famous body of men was held, that not one word was 
uttered by the people against their secret sessions. 
Profound secrecy, it was said, could not be kept by 
men who quarrelled. Secrecy was kept, and this meant 
that the delegates were of one mind on all Federal 
measures. Had the world, it was asked, ever beheld 
such a sight ? When before had a people without 
strife and without bloodshed deputed a band of patriots, 
that would have adorned the best days of Greece and 
Rome, to cure the evils of its Government ? That evils 
existed was lamentable ; but they were unavoidable. 
The Confederacy was like a hut or a tent put up in 
time of war and fit for the needs of war. But peace 
was come, and it was now time to build a suitable and 
durable dwelling, with tight roof, substantial bolts, and 
strong bars, to shield the States from every kind of 
harm. 

The simile of a house and a roof was a favorite, and 
was used a^ain and a^ain. The United States was like 
an old man and his wife who with thirteen sons landed 
in America. There they built a spacious dwelling and 
lived happily for several years. But the sons grew 
weary of the company of their parents, and each put 
up a cabin for himself near their old home. At once 
trouble began. One had implements of husbandry 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. H7 

stolen ; another lost a crop ; a third had his sheep eaten 
by the wolves ; a fourth nearly died of cold from the 
roof of his cabin being blown away ; a fifth saw his 
flock swept off by floods. At last twelve of the broth- 
ers met on a plain and resolved to ask their father to 
take them back. He did so gladly, and the old house, 
mended and enlarged, was made more beautiful than 
ever. The thirteenth son stood out, and, after three 
years, hanged himself by his garters in the woods. 

This son was Rhode Island. His flocks, in the lan- 
guage of the simile, were indeed being eaten by wolves. 
Wholly given over to the party of Shays, the party of 
legal-tender acts, of force acts, of paper money, the 
State had sent no delegates to Philadelphia and was not 
at any tune represented in the Convention. This con- 
tempt for the wishes of the country was warmly re- 
sented. She was denounced as the cause of the failure 
of the impost. To her charge was laid the suffering of 
the soldiers in the Revolutionary War, the heavy taxes, 
the bankrupt treasury, the poverty of the whole nation. 
Let her, it was said, never again be suffered to defeat a 
Federal measure. Drop her from the Union. Turn 
her out from the company of States. Or, better still, 
apportion her to Massachusetts and Connecticut. Ver- 
mont would more than take her place. As the Fourth 
of July drew near, the Governor of 2sew Jersey was said 
to have expressly ordered that no more than twelve can- 
non be fired, and no more than twelve toasts be drunk. 
At Trenton and a few places elsewhere this was done. 
The Convention, it was asserted, was determined that 
Rhode Island should be considered out of the Union. 
The government about to be set up would hold her re- 
sponsible for a fair share of the Federal debt, and 



US WITH THE FATHERS. 

would first seek by gentle means to collect it. But, if 
these failed, the sum would be taken from her by 
force. 

As to what this new and vigorous government would 
be, the people made all manner of guesses. Many plans, 
it was thought, had been talked of. One was said to 
keep the form but not the spirit of Democracy ; another 
parted the States into three republics ; another gave a 
strong executive power without even the semblance of 
a popular constitution. The Convention was accused 
by some of having a plan to set up a king. A consti- 
tution, the knowing ones asserted, had been made, titles, 
orders, and social distinctions established, and a com- 
mission would soon be sent to offer the crown to the 
Bishop of Osnaburgh, the second son of King George. 
This idle tale was more than half believed, and each 
post brought letters to the delegates begging to know 
if it were true. The answer invariably was, " While 
we cannot affirmatively tell you what we are doing, we 
can negatively tell you what we are not doing; we 
never once thought of a king." 

For our knowledge of what they did think of doing 
we are indebted to the journals of the Convention, to 
the notes taken down by Yates and Madison, and to 
the " Genuine Information " of Luther Martin. From 
these sources it appears that the serious work of the 
Convention was opened by Randolph on the morning 
of Tuesday, the twenty -ninth of May. In a speech of 
great force he summed up the weak points of the Ar- 
ticles of Confederation, showed how unsuited they were 
to the needs of the country, and urged all present to 
join in setting up a strong national government. As a 
plan of such a government, he read fifteen resolutions 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. HO 

which the Virginia delegate had framed while waiting 
for the Convention to assemble. 

This, which came in time to be known as the Vir- 
ginia plan, provided that there should be a national Ex- 
ecutive, a national Legislature, a national Judiciary and 
Council of Revision ; that the Executive should be chosen 
by the Legislature and be ineligible a second time ; that 
the Legislature should consist of two branches, with 
power to coerce refractory States and veto all State 
laws contrary to the Articles of Union ; that the people 
should choose the members of the first branch ; that 
the first branch should choose the members of the sec- 
ond from men nominated by the Legislatures of the 
States ; that the representation of each State should be 
proportioned to the inhabitants on its soil or to the 
share it bore of the national expenses ; that the judi- 
ciary should be elected by the national Legislature ; 
that the Executive and the judges should form a council 
to revise all laws before they went into force ; that pro- 
visions should be made for admitting new States, for 
amending the Articles of Union, for assuring to each 
State a Republican form of government and a right to 
its soil. 

The resolutions read and explained, Randolph moved 
a Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, 
and to the committee the Virginia plan was sent. No 
sooner was this done than Charles Pinckney, of South 
Carolina, presented a second plan for a constitutional 
government. This too went to the committee, was 
never heard of again, and is now hopelessly lost. 

Next day the Virginia plan came formally before 
the committee, and during two weeks was carefully de- 
bated. Each resolution was taken up. Some were 



120 WITH THE FATHERS. 

amended, some were dropped, and others put in their 
stead. But the feeling of the delegates seemed to be 
that there should be an executive, legislative, and judi- 
cial branch of government ; that the Legislature should 
consist of two Houses, and that the members of one 
should be elected by the people. When the number of 
the Executive and the way of choosing came up, there 
were almost as many opinions as States on the floor. 
Some wanted an Executive of three, one from each part 
of the country ; some were for a single Executive with 
a council of revision ; some for a single Executive with- 
out a council of revision. He was to be elected directly 
by the people. He was to be chosen by electors, or by 
State Legislatures; by the State Governors; by one 
branch of the national Legislature ; by both branches 
on a joint ballot ; by both branches on a concurrent 
vote ; he was to be chosen by lot. For three days no 
other business was done. It was then determined that 
the Executive should be chosen as the national Legisla- 
ture decided, should hold office seven years, and should 
not be re-elected. 

This decision was reached on Monday, the fourth of 
June. The debates up to that time had been most 
amicable. But, before the week ended, the delegates 
began to wrangle, sectional spirit began to appear, and 
those lines which again and again divided the Conven- 
tion before it rose became plainly visible. There were 
parties made up of individuals and parties made up of 
States. There were men who wished for a Federal 
government not much unlike that they were trying to 
better, and there were men who did not want a Confed- 
eracy at all. There were men eager to see a centralized 
government set up, and men insisting that State sover- 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 121 

eignty should be carefully maintained. There were the 
Southern States against the Northern States, the com- 
mercial States against the agricultural States ; and what 
proved far more serious still, there were the great States 
against the small. 

Out of these party divisions came in time the three 
compromises of the Constitution. The fear in which 
the little States stood of the great secured the compro- 
mise giving representation to States. The hatred felt 
by the slave States for the free caused the second com- 
promise, giving representation to slaves. The jealousy 
between States agricultural and States commercial 
brought about the third compromise, on the slave-trade 
and commerce. 

The great States were Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, 
and Virginia ; New York, New Jersey, and Delaware 
were the small. The great States were for a strong 
national government on the Virginia plan ; the little 
States were for the old confederation mended and im- 
proved, and made their first firm stand on Saturday, 
the ninth of June. The second resolution of the Vir- 
ginia plan, that suffrage in the national Legislature 
ought to be in proportion to wealth or free inhabi- 
tants, had been postponed, and this, on motion of Pat- 
erson, of New Jersey, was now taken up. 

The Convention, he said, had no power to make a 
national government. Congress had assembled them 
to amend the Articles of Confederation. The articles 
were, therefore, the proper basis for all proceeding. 
Bad as they might be in some ways, they were excel- 
lent in others. They acknowledged the sovereignty 
of the States, treated them all alike, and gave to each 
the same vote and the same weight when assembled in 



122 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Congress. On no other 'plan could a confederacy of 
States be maintained. Representation as proposed, 
representation in proportion to wealth or numbers, 
looked fair in the face ; but it was unfair and unjust at 
heart. Suppose it adopted, suppose the States to send 
delegates to the first branch according to the sums of 
money they paid to the Board of Treasury, and see 
what would happen. Virginia would have sixteen 
votes and Georgia one. Was this just ? Was it safe ? 
Did any one think New Jersey would risk her inde- 
pendence, her sovereignty, her well-being in a Congress 
in which she had but five votes while Virginia had six- 
teen ? There was no more reason for giving a State 
paying a large quota more votes than a State paying a 
small quota than there was for giving a rich man more 
votes at the polls than a poor man. New Jersey would 
never confederate on such a plan. She would be swal- 
lowed up. She would rather submit to a despot than 
to such a fate. 

The great States took a different view. It was true, 
they admitted, that each State was sovereign, and that 
all were therefore equal. It was also true that each 
man is naturally a sovereign over himself, and that 
therefore all men are naturally equal. But could he 
keep this sovereignty when he became a member of a 
civil government? He could not. Neither could a 
State keep her sovereignty when she became a member 
of a Federal government. All government came 
from the people. Equal numbers of people ought 
therefore to have an equal number of representatives, 
and different numbers of people a different number of 
representatives. The people, not the States, were to 
be represented. And did any one think that one hun- 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 123 

dred and fifty Pennsylvanians should have no more 
representation than fifty Jerseymen ? Six States 
thought not, and voted that in the first branch repre- 
sentation should be according to some equitable ratio. 
An equitable ratio was next decided to be the rule by 
which, in April, 1783, Congress fixed the quotas of the 
States. This rule was that quotas should be laid ac- 
cording to the whole number of free white inhabitants 
of both sexes, of every age, occupation, and condition, 
and three fifths of all other persons save Indians not 
taxed. 

The small States had lost the day. But they were 
not discouraged, and, led on by Connecticut, made a 
stout fight for an equal vote in the Senate. Again 
they were defeated, again population was made the 
basis of representation, and, this done, the committee 
hurried on to the consideration of the remaining reso- 
lutions of the Yirginia plan. By the thirteenth of June 
they had all been passed ; the committee had reported 
them to the House, and the House was about to name 
a day for considering the report, when Paterson rose 
and asked leave to bring in a totally different plan. 
Alarmed at the strong display of national feeling, the 
delegates from Connecticut and New Jersey, Delaware 
and New York, with Luther Martin, of Maryland, had 
framed a plan and chosen Paterson to lay it before the 
Convention ; a plan which Hamilton well described as 
" pork still, with a little change of the sauce." Con- 
gress was to consist of a single House, with power to 
regulate trade and commerce, and raise a revenue by 
duties on imports, postage on letters and newspapers, 
and stamps on paper and vellum. There was to be an 
Executive of several persons not eligible to a second 



124 WITH THE FATHERS. 

term, and removable by Congress at the request of a 
majority of the Governors of the States. There was to 
be a Supreme Court, uniform laws of naturalization, 
and, when necessary, requisitions on the States for 
money, according to the rule of April, 1783 ; officers 
were to be sworn to support the Constitution, and the 
Constitution and its laws and treaties were to be " the 
supreme law of the land." 

This plan, it was said, had two great merits — it fully 
agreed with the powers of the Convention ; it would be 
gladly accepted by the people. These were important ; 
for the duty of the Convention was not to frame such a 
government as might be best in theory, but such as the 
people expected and would approve. If the confedera- 
tion was really so bad, let the Convention say so, go 
home, and get power to make such a government as 
they wished. But to assume such power was not to be 
justified on any ground. If, as some held, the confed- 
eration had fallen to pieces, if no general Government 
really existed, then the States were once more indepen- 
dent sovereignties, and should stand on the footing of 
equal sovereignties. All then must agree or none could 
be bound. If the confederation did exist, then by the 
terms of the articles no change could be made without 
the consent of all. This was the nature of all treaties. 
What had been unanimously done must be unanimously 
undone. It was said that the great States consented to 
this equality, not because it was just, but because, at 
the time, it was expedient. Be it so. Could they, 
therefore, take back that assent ? Could a donor re- 
sume his gift without the leave of the donee ? 

It was now the turn of the great States to make an 
attack, and they did so vigorously. Wilson drew a 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 125 

long comparison between the Virginia plan and the 
Jersey plan. By the Virginia plan there were to be 
three branches of government ; by the Jersey plan but 
one. By the Virginia plan the people were to be rep- 
resented ; by the Jersey plan the States. By the one a 
majority of the people would rule ; by the other a 
minority. The Virginia plan provided for a single Ex- 
ecutive ; the Jersey plan for an Executive of many. 
The Virginia plan provided for a negative on the laws 
of the States ; the Jersey plan for the coercion of the 
States. 

Madison demanded to know in what respect the 
Jersey plan was better than the old articles. It could 
not prevent violations of the laws of nations, nor of 
treaties, nor prevent encroachments on the Federal 
authority, nor trespasses of the States on each other, 
nor secure internal tranquillity, nor give good govern- 
ments to the States, nor guard the Union from the in- 
fluence of foreign powers. It could cure none of the 
evils that had long grown intolerable. 

Hamilton, who liked neither of the plans, now read 
to the committee his own thoughts on the best form of 
Republican government. The supreme legislature, as 
he called it, was to consist of two branches — the As- 
sembly and' the Senate. Members of the Assembly 
were to be chosen by the people for three years. 
Members of the Senate were to be elected by electors 
chosen by the people and serve as long as they behaved 
well. The Executive was to be one man chosen by 
electors for good behavior. He was to have a veto on 
all laws about to be passed, was to conduct war when 
once begun, make treaties with the leave of the Senate, 
and appoint the heads of the departments of war, 



12G WITH THE FATHERS. 

finance, and foreign affairs without consulting any one. 
There was to be a supreme judiciary, and in each State 
there were to be courts to try all matters of general 
concern. State laws contrary to the laws and Constitu- 
tion of the United States were to be void. To prevent, 
if possible, such being passed, the general Government 
was to appoint the Governors of the States. 

The committee had now before them the Virginia 
plan, the South Carolina plan, the New Jersey plan, and 
the thoughts of Hamilton on government, which he 
distinctly declared were thoughts, and nothing more. 
But they gave no heed to any schemes save those sent 
in by Yirginia and New Jersey. The question, there- 
fore, at once became which of the two should be re- 
ported. We must, said the State-rights party, report 
the Jersey plan. Our powers are limited, and this is 
the only plan that comes within them. Our powers, 
said the Yirginia party, extend to everything or to 
nothing. We are free to support any plan and to re- 
ject any plan. The people are bowed down under in- 
tolerable burdens. They look up to this Convention 
with fond hopes, and expect from it a government 
that will cure the ills of which they complain. A 
strong national government alone can do so, and such 
a government the Yirginia plan will give them. The 
committee heartily agreed to this, voted the Jersey plan 
inadmissible, rose, and reported the Yirginia plan to 
the Convention. 

This much settled, the debating went smoothly on 
for a week. Put in good humor by the adoption of 
their plan, the great States now began to make some 
idle concessions to the small. The word "national" 
occurred twenty-six times in the resolutions, was hate- 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 127 

ful to the little States, and was therefore graciously 
dropped. But the questions that took up the time of 
the Convention till the last of June were : Should the 
Legislature consist of one branch or two? Should 
there be one Executive or three ? Should the members 
of the first branch be twenty-five years old or thirty ? 
Should the members of the second branch serve for 
nine years, for seven years, for five years, during good 
behavior? Then was reached that question which 
never once came up for discussion without provoking a 
violent display of sectional feeling and a long and ran- 
corous debate. The question was, Should suffrage in 
the Legislature be according to the rule established by 
the Articles of Confederation, or according to some 
other ? 

Defenders of the State-rights theory asserted that 
the general Government ought to act on States, and not 
on individuals. The States were sovereign. Being 
sovereign, they were equal, and being equal, they ought 
to have equal votes. If the large States did indeed 
have the same interests as the small, there could be no 
harm in giving equal suffrage to all. If the great States 
did not have the same interests as the small, then un- 
equal suffrage would be dangerous to the last degree. 
Once given votes in proportion to population or to 
wealth, it would be all the same whether the delegates 
were chosen by the people or by the legislatures. The 
great States would combine ; the little States would be 
enslaved. 

The defenders of the Virginia plan pronounced these 
fears and reasons absurd. It was the great States that 
fell out and the small ones that combined. This had 
always been the case in the Old World, and it would 



128 WITH THE FATHERS. 

be so in the New. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania 
and Virginia could never combine. They were far 
apart. Their manners, customs, religions, were unlike. 
They had nothing common even in trade. They were, 
however, rich, populous, and would surely be called on 
to bear the largest part of the cost and burdens of the 
Government about to be set up. If, therefore, they 
consented to equality of suffrage, they would be out- 
voted, and their money and their property would be 
completely at the mercy of the little States. 

Between these two contending parties now appeared 
for the first time a party of compromisers, made up 
chiefly of Connecticut men. Both the State-rights and 
the Virginia party went, they held, too far. One looked 
on the States as so many separate political societies ; 
the other looked on the people as one great political so- 
ciety of which the States were merely districts of people. 
The truth was, the States did exist as political beings, 
and a Government to be good and lasting must be 
formed for them in their political capacity as well as 
for the individuals composing them. The well-being 
of each was to be considered. The true plan was, 
therefore, to give the people representation in the one 
branch and the States representation in the other. New 
York, New Jersey, and Delaware were in no mood for 
a compromise and would hear nothing of such a plan. 
But the great States had their way, and voted that in 
the first branch representation ought to bear some pro- 
portion to the population of the States. This was final. 
Thenceforth no attempt was ever made to set it aside. 

Greatly elated, the compromisers now redoubled 
their efforts, and insisted that, in the second branch, 
the voting should be by States. But the defenders of 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 129 

the Virginia plan again flew into a passion, another 
rancorous debate took up two days, and when the vote 
was finally reached, the ballot stood five to five. Never 
before had the members been so angry, nor the speeches 
so personal and bitter. Beflections, recrimination, 
taunts, threats of secession, were heard on every side. 
In this pass, at the suggestion of Charles Cotesworth 
Pinckney, the whole matter of representation was sent 
to a grand committee, and the Convention adjourned 
for three days. 

But the debates in the Committee of Eleven were as 
stormy as the debates in the Committee of the Whole. 
Again a compromise was offered and again it was re- 
fused. You propose, said the State -rights party to the 
Yirginia party, to consent to an equal representation in 
the second branch of the Legislature if we will consent 
to an unequal representation in the first. We will not. 
This is merely offering, after a bitter struggle to put 
both your feet on our necks, to take one off if we will 
quietly suffer the other foot to remain. But we know 
well that you cannot keep even one foot on unless we 
are willing, and we know well that, having one firmly 
planted, you will be able to put on the second when 
you please. Biches will come to you ; population will 
come to you, and with them power. Will you not then 
force from us that equality of representation in the sec- 
ond branch which you now deny to be our right, and 
yield only from necessity ? You tell us that you will 
enter into a solemn compact with us not to do so. But 
did you not years ago enter into a solemn compact with 
us, and are you not now treating it with the utmost 
contempt ? Do you think that while we see you wan- 
tonly violate one, we will meekly enter into another ? 



130 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Franklin most happily was a member of the com- 
mittee, and brought his colleagues in time to a better 
mind and persuaded them to agree to a report. This 
recommended that each State should be given one rep- 
resentative in the first branch of the Legislature for 
every forty thousand inhabitants, and that in the sec- 
ond branch each State should have an equal vote. As 
the price of the concession by the great States, it was 
insisted that all money bills should originate in the first 
branch and not be amended in the second, and that no 
money should be drawn from the Treasury except by 
bills originating in the first branch. 

Thus was the first compromise ended. The report, 
indeed, did not pass the Convention for two weeks, and 
then by a close vote. But it was not again disputed 
that in the second branch the States should have an 
equal vote. 

Meanwhile the Committee of the Whole took up the 
report in detail. The clause fixing representation at 
one to forty thousand was recommitted, and reported 
back with the provision that in the first House of Rep- 
resentatives there should be fifty-six members, and that 
for the future representation should be based on wealth 
and population. The provision of one representative 
for forty thousand inhabitants was dropped as too un- 
safe. It would enable the West in time to outvote the 
East. By making a general and not a specific rule, the 
East would keep the Government in its own hands, take 
care of its own interests, and deal out representation in 
safe proportion to the West. 

But wealth and population were ever changing, and 
to find this change Randolph proposed an estimate and 
a census. The idea seemed a good one. There were, 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 131 

however, below the Mason and Dixon line thousands of 
human beings who might with equal justice be consid- 
ered as population or as wealth. They could be bought 
and sold, leased and mortgaged, given away, or be- 
queathed by will. They held no property, acquired no 
estates, and to the delegates from the North and East 
seemed to be of no more account in the South than a 
black horse or a black ox in New England. They in- 
sisted, therefore, that slaves should be looked on as 
property. By the delegates from the South, however, 
a slave was held to be a man, for by doing so they 
hoped to increase their representation. No sooner, 
then, was it moved to take a census, than Williamson 
moved that the census should be of all free whites and 
three fifths of all others. 

Instantly the, old division of great States and little 
States disappeared, and the Convention was parted on 
the new basis of North and South. On the one hand 
were Delaware, South Carolina, and Georgia, demand- 
ing that slaves should have an equal representation with 
the whites ; on the other hand were Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, demanding that slaves 
should not be represented at all. Between the two, but 
leaning more toward the North, were Yirginia, Mary- 
land, and North Carolina. New York was no longer 
represented. Yates and Lansing, enraged at the pas- 
sage of the Connecticut compromise, had gone home in 
a huff. Hamilton could no longer vote, and New York 
ceased to be considered a member of the Convention. 

The labor of slaves, such was the argument of dele- 
gates from the South, is as productive and as valuable 
in South Carolina as the labor of freemen in Massachu- 
setts. They put up the value of land ; they increase 



132 WITH THE FATHERS. 

the amount of imports and exports ; they may, in emer- 
gency, be turned into soldiers and used for defence; 
they ought therefore, in a Government set up chiefly 
for the protection of property and to be supported by 
property, to have equal representation with the whites. 

What, said their opponents, is the principle of rep- 
resentation ? It is an expedient by which an assembly 
of certain men chosen by the people is put in place of 
the inconvenient meeting of all the people. Suppose 
such a meeting to take place in the South, would slaves 
have a vote? They would not. Why, then, should 
they be represented ? Had a master in Virginia a num- 
ber of votes in proportion to the number of his slaves ? 
He had not. Why, then, if there is no slave represen- 
tation in the States Legislature, should there be slave 
representation in the National Legislature ? What, in 
plain language, did it mean ? It meant that the man 
from South Carolina who went to the coast of Africa, 
and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity 
dragged away his fellow-creatures from their dearest 
connections and damned them to the most cruel bond- 
age, should have more votes, in a Government formed 
for the protection of the rights of man, than a citizen 
of Pennsylvania or ISTew Jersey who viewed such a ne- 
farious practice with horror. 

Between the two was a third party, made up of men 
holding a variety of views. One could not consider the 
negro equal to the white ; yet the negro was a man, was 
a part of the whole population, and ought to have some 
representation. Another thought the Continental rule 
of three fifths about right. A third was for giving 
slaves representation in the second branch but not in 
the first. They could do nothing, however, in the way 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 133 

of compromise, and, when a vote on the resolution for 
a census was taken, every State present answered No. 

Matters were now just where they were when the re- 
port of the committee was presented. But they did not 
long remain so. Gouverneur Morris, in an evil hour, 
moved that taxation should be in proportion to repre- 
sentation. In the form of direct taxation the motion 
passed. Upon this a Southern member cried out that 
an attempt was being made to deprive the South of all 
representation of her blacks, and warned the Convention 
that North Carolina would never confederate unless she 
had at least a three-fifths representation for her slaves. 

The threat was indeed formidable. Whatever form 
of government the Convention might frame would, it 
was well known, have to be submitted to the States for 
approval. It had long seemed doubtful whether enough 
would approve to enable any plan to go into operation. 
Rhode Island had refused to join the Convention. The 
delegates from New York had gone home disgruntled. 
Massachusetts was not to be counted on. Were North 
Carolina added to the number, the Convention might as 
well break up, for their labors could accomplish nothing. 

To appease her, therefore, the lost resolution for a 
census of whites and three fifths of the blacks was again 
moved, and the whole matter of slavery was once more 
before the Convention. How it should be settled was 
for the South to say, for of the ten States present the 
North could command but four. The South decided 
on a compromise, and the compromise offered was, to 
proportion representation according to direct taxation, 
and both representation and direct taxes according to 
population, counting as population all free whites and 
three fifths of the negroes. When the ballot was taken 



13i WITH THE FATHERS. 

North Carolina and Georgia voted yea ; South Carolina 
was divided, and the second compromise was accepted. 

On the sixteenth of Jnly the report of the commit- 
tee containing the two compromises came before the 
Convention. The day was a great one, for on the vote 
then taken hung the fate of the Constitution. On one 
part of the report the States had been divided into the 
great against the small. On another part they had 
taken sides as the slaves against the free. But the vote 
was now on the whole report, and the States were 
forced to take their stand accordingly. The four little 
States supported it because of the compromise giving 
equal representation in the Senate. Two of the large 
States opposed it for the same reason, and were joined 
by South Carolina and Georgia, who still insisted on a 
full representation of slaves. Massachusetts was di- 
vided, for King and Gorham stoutly refused to support 
any plan of government that gave recognition and en- 
couragement to slavery. Everything, therefore, turned 
on the vote of North Carolina, who, to save the Consti- 
tution, deserted the great States, joined with the small, 
and the report passed by five votes to four. 

Now each party grew very angry. Randolph was 
for an adjournment, that the great States might have 
time to decide what steps to take next, and that the 
small States might arrange some plan of conciliation. 
He was sharply answered by Paterson that it was high 
time to adjourn, and to adjourn sine die. The rule of 
secrecy ought to be taken off and the people consulted. 
As for conciliation, the small States would never con- 
ciliate except on the basis of equality of representation. 

The indignation of the members from the great 
States at this was extreme, and early the next morning 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 135 

a number of them met to consider what to do. It was 
clear that the little States were fixed in their opposition. 
They had again and again asserted that they would 
never give way, and they were still showing a front as 
determined as ever. Since, then, this partition of the 
Convention into two parties of opposite opinions seemed 
inevitable, the duty of the great States was, some said, 
quite plain. They represented the majority of the peo- 
ple of the United States. Let them, then, make ready 
a plan of government of their own. If the small States 
agreed to it, well and good. If not, so much the worse 
for them. Others were for yielding, though, by so 
doing, they did give way to a minority rule. But the 
conference came to nothing, and when the hour for the 
meeting of the Convention arrived the members went 
to their seats in no amiable frame of mind. 

The next ten days were spent in distributing power 
between the States and the General Government ; in 
determining how the judges should be appointed ; 
where impeachments should be tried ; what jurisdic- 
tion the Supreme Court should have ; how many sen- 
ators should be given to each State ; whether a man 
must own land before he could be eligible to Congress, 
to the Supreme Bench, to the Executive office ; in what 
manner the Constitution should be ratified. This done, 
the Jersey plan, the South Carolina plan, and the 
twenty-three resolutions of the Convention on a na- 
tional government were sent on July twenty-sixth to a 
committee with instructions to report a constitution. 
The Convention then adjourned for two weeks. 

On the committee were Gorham, Ellsworth, James 
Wilson, Randolph, and John Rutledge. Of their do- 
ings nothing is known save that, when the Convention 
10 



136 WITH THE FATHERS. 

assembled on the morning of Monday, August sixth, 
each member was given a copy of a draft of the Con- 
stitution, neatly printed on a broadside. The type was 
large. The spaces between the lines were wide, that 
interlineations might be made, and the margin broad 
for noting amendments. A few of these broadsides 
have been preserved, and, when compared with the Con- 
stitution, show that the amendments were many and im- 
portant. The draft provided that the President should 
be chosen by Congress, should hold office during seven 
years, and should never, in the whole course of his life, 
have more than one term ; the Constitution intends the 
President shall be chosen by a body of electors, and 
puts no limit to the number of his terms. By the 
draft he was given a title and was to be called " His 
Excellency " ; the Constitution provides for nothing of 
this kind. By the draft he could be impeached by the 
House of Representatives, but must be tried before the 
Supreme Court ; by the Constitution he must, when 
impeached, be tried before the Senate. By the one he 
need not be a native of the United States ; by the 
other he must. The one made no provision for a Vice- 
President ; the other does. The one provided that 
members of Congress should be paid by the States that 
sent them ; the other provides that they shall be paid 
out of the National Treasury. In the draft, senators 
were forbidden to hold office under the authority of the 
United States till they had been one year out of the 
Senate ; the Constitution makes no such requirement. 
By the draft, Congress was to have power to emit bills 
of credit, to elect a Treasurer of the United States by 
ballot, to fix the property qualifications of its members, 
to pass navigation acts, and to admit new States if two 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 137 

thirds of the members present in each House were will- 
ing ; none of these powers are known to the Constitu- 
tion. The draft provided but one way of making 
amendments ; the Constitution provides two. Nothing 
was said in the draft about the passage of ex post facto 
laws, about the suspension of the habeas corpus, about 
granting patents to inventors and copyrights to authors, 
about presidential electors, or about exclusive jurisdic- 
tion over an area ten miles square. Provision was made 
for a clumsy way of settling quarrels between States 
concerning jurisdiction and domain. 

As soon as the delegates had read their broadsides 
the work of the revision began. To the Government 
was now given the name " United States of America." 
The Legislature was called " The Congress " — the first 
branch the " House of Representatives," and the second 
branch the " Senate." The Executive was named the 
" President." Power to emit bills of credit was stricken 
out. An attempt to limit representation to free inhabi- 
tants failed. An attempt to secure the return of fugi- 
tive slaves succeeded. A long series of resolutions 
giving Congress power to regulate affairs with the In- 
dians ; set up temporary governments for new States ; 
grant charters of incorporation ; establish a university ; 
give a copyright to authors ; encourage discoveries ; ad- 
vance the useful arts ; have exclusive jurisdiction over 
the seat of government ; provide for departments of 
war, marine, finance, commerce, domestic affairs, for- 
eign affairs, and State ; assure the payment of the pub- 
lic debts ; guarantee the right of habeas corpus and 
the liberty of the press ; prevent the quartering of 
troops on the people in time of peace ; and give a privy 
council to the President — were readily agreed to. In- 



138 WITH THE FATHERS. 

deed, but little debate was provoked till the fourth and 
sixth sections of the seventh article were reached. 

These sections forbade Congress to lay a tax on ar- 
ticles exported from any State, or to tax slaves im- 
ported, or to hinder the importation of slaves in any 
way whatever, or pass a navigation act, unless two 
thirds of the members present in each House were will- 
ing. So much as related to a tax on exports was quickly 
disposed of. Southern members, indeed, protested. 
They declared that if the power to tax exports was not 
given to the General Government it would remain with 
the States ; that if it remained with the States, those 
agricultural would be at the mercy of those commer- 
cial ; that the whole South would be made tributary to 
the North. Bat their fears were pronounced unreason- 
able, the power was not given to Congress, and another 
relic of the political economy of the ancients was swept 
away forever. So much as related to taxing and hin- 
dering the importation of slaves had been put in to 
please South Carolina and Georgia. Except these two, 
every State was willing and eager to stop the importa- 
tion of slaves. But the Convention was reminded that 
the staples of South Carolina and Georgia were indigo 
and rice ; that these could not be raised without slave 
labor ; that the toil in the rice swamp and the indigo 
field was more than even the brawniest neo;ro could 
long endure ; that, if they could not bring in negroes 
from abroad, their industry and their property were 
gone ; and that, sooner than submit to this, they would 
quit the Union. 

The moment, therefore, that Luther Martin moved 
that the fourth section be so changed that the importa- 
tion of slaves could be taxed, South Carolina declared 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 139 

that she would never agree to it. If the men from 
other States thought she would, they were greatly mis- 
taken ; they were, indeed, simply standing in their own 
light. Let the South have more slaves, and more rice, 
more indigo, more pitch and tar would be produced ; 
and the more produced, the more for the ships of the 
New England men to carry. In this demand for the 
free importation of slaves South Carolina was joined 
by Connecticut. Ellsworth and Sherman both declared 
that the clause ought to be left as it was. The old Con- 
federation had not meddled with slavery, and they did 
not see any reason why the new one should. What 
enriched a part of the Union enriched the whole, and 
as to what enriched them, the States were the best 
judges. 

That slavery could enrich any land was flatly denied. 
Wherever it existed, Gouverneur Morris asserted, the 
arts languished and industry fell into decay. Compare 
New England, it was said, with Georgia ; compare the 
rich farms and prosperous villages of Pennsylvania with 
the barren and desolate wastes of Maryland and Vir- 
ginia, and see what a difference it made whether a land 
was cultivated by freemen or by slaves. The wealth, the 
strength, the prosperity of the country depended on the 
labor of whites, and there could be no white labor where 
slavery existed. 

Convinced of this truth, Maryland and Virginia had 
forbidden slaves to be carried to their ports. North 
Carolina had done almost as much. But all this would 
be useless if South Carolina and Georgia were free to 
bring in as many as they chose. Already the settlers 
in the growing West were clamorous for slaves to till 
their new lands, and would fill that country with ne- 



140 WITH THE FATHERS. 

groes if they could be had through South Carolina. 
But did any one suppose they would stop when every 
farmer had a full supply ? Were not slaves to be rep- 
resented ? Were not five negroes to be counted as 
three whites ? Would not the political power of the 
South increase with the increase of her slaves ? Here, 
then, was a new incentive for a free importation, a new 
encouragement to the traffic. More than this, slavery 
corrupted manners, turned masters into petty tyrants, 
and was utterly inconsistent with the principles of the 
American Revolution and dishonorable to the American 
character. 

All this, it was admitted, might be so. But honor, 
religion, humanity, had nothing to do with the question. 
The question was, Shall or shall not the Southern 
States be parties to the Union ? With the slave-trade 
prohibited, South Carolina, for one, never would. To 
this it was answered, If two States will not take the Con- 
stitution, if the importation of slaves is taxed, there are 
other States that will not take the Constitution if the 
importation of slaves is not taxed. The exemption of 
slaves from duty when every other import is taxed is 
an inequality to which the commercial States of the 
North and East will not submit. 

At this point Gouverneur Morris proposed that the 
taxation of exports, of slaves imported, and the question 
of a navigation act should be sent to a committee. 
They were, he said, fit subjects for " a bargain among 
the Northern and Southern States." Sherman, and 
Randolph, and Pinckney, and Ellsworth, and a dozen 
more thought so too, and the fourth and fifth sections 
went to a Committee of Five. 

The sixth section soon followed them. This pro- 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 141 

vided that no navigation act should be passed without 
the assent of two thirds of the members present in each 
House, and was as hateful to the East as a restriction 
on the importation of slaves was to the South. The 
committee, therefore, had not been long in session be- 
fore it was apparent that the New England States, de- 
spite the sentiments they held on slavery, were ready 
to make just such a bargain as Morris proposed. If 
the South would consent to strike out the sixth section 
and give Congress power to pass navigation acts, the 
East would consent to the importation of slaves for a 
limited time. The South did consent. The bargain 
was struck, and the committee advised that the sixth 
section should be stricken out, that the fifth should be 
left as it was, and that the fourth should be so changed 
that the importation of slaves should not be forbidden 
before 1800. 

Having obtained so much, the South wanted more, 
and insisted that the time should be extended till 1808. 
The East readily agreed, and so made good their part 
of the bargain. It now remained for the South to do 
likewise ; but the South began to object. Much was 
said about being in the minority, about being bound 
hand and foot, about having Southern trade at the 
mercy of the ship-owning States. If a majority of 
Congress could pass a navigation act, the New Eng- 
enders would shut out foreign ships, get all the carry- 
ing trade of the country for themselves, and then de- 
mand ruinous prices for carrying tobacco, rice, and 
indigo to Europe. Congress ought not to have any 
power over trade. The most, therefore, that the South 
would yield was that a two -thirds vote should be neces- 
sary for the exercise of this power. 



142 WITH THE FATHERS. 

The Eastern States protested that the restriction 
must be taken off ; that it would ruin them not to be 
able to defend themselves against foreign regulations. 
If the new Government were to be so fettered as to be 
unable to relieve the commerce of the Eastern States, 
what motive could there be for them to join it ? Dis- 
union was to be lamented ; but, if it came, the South 
would be the chief sufferer. 

The majority of the Southern members had been 
put in good humor by the two concessions of the East, 
that exports should not be taxed and that slaves should 
be imported till 1808, and by their influence the third 
compromise was carried. 

The Convention then went on for a week striking 
out words here, putting in resolutions there, and bring- 
ing the draft nearer and nearer the Constitution as 
we now have it. On the last day of August the post- 
poned sections and the parts of committee reports not 
acted on were sent to a Committee of Eleven. This 
committee reported from time to time till September 
eighth, when all that had been done was sent to a Com- 
mittee on Arrangement and Style. Saturday, the fif- 
teenth, their work was accepted and ordered to be 
engrossed. On that day, as the question was about to 
be put for the last time, the delegates who disliked the 
Constitution began to make excuses for withholding 
their support. Mason lamented that a bare majority of 
Congress could pass a navigation act, and moved that 
no such act should be passed prior to 1808. But noth- 
ing came of it. Randolph asked that the State conven- 
tions to which the Constitution was to be submitted 
might submit amendments to a second Federal Conven- 
tion. Mason approved this. The Constitution, he said, 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 143 

had been formed without the knowledge of the people. 
It was not right to say to them, Take this or nothing. 
A second convention would know their wishes. Gerry 
named nine features which he especially disliked. 

Alarmed at this opposition, Franklin spent Sunday 
in preparing a little speech to be read to the dissenters. 
But, when Monday came, when the members were in 
their seats, and the Constitution, ready for signature, 
lay upon the table, he found himself too weak, and 
James Wilson read the paper for him. He was, he 
said, an old man, and had often, in the course of a long 
life, been forced to change opinions he was once sure 
were right. As he grew older, therefore, he had learned 
to doubt his own judgment and to pay more respect to 
the judgments of others. Steele in one of his dedica- 
tions told Pope, that the only difference between the 
Church of England and the Church of Rome in their 
opinion on the certainty of their doctrine was this : The 
Church of Rome was infallible ; the Church of Eng- 
land was never in the wrong. He had heard of a cer- 
tain French lady who, in a quarrel with her sister, said : 
" I do not know how it is, sister, but I meet with no- 
body but myself that is always in the right." Doubt- 
ing his own opinion, he agreed to the Constitution with 
all its faults, if it had any. He had expected no better, 
and he was not sure that it was not the best. He hoped 
that each member who still had objections would do 
likewise — doubt a little of his own infallibility and sign 
the document. As a good form he would propose, 
" Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the 
States present, etc." Gouverneur Morris drew up this 
form, in hopes that men who would not sign as indi- 
viduals would sign as State delegates. He gave it to 



144 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Franklin to bring before the Convention, thinking that, 
supported by him, it would have great weight. 

As soon as Wilson had finished reading, Gorham 
rose and moved that the ratio of representation be 
changed from one for every forty thousand to one for 
every thirty thousand. No debate followed, and as 
Washington was about to put the question, he expressed 
a hope that the change would be made. The smallness 
of the proportion of representatives had always seemed 
to him an objectionable part of the plan. 

The change was made, the form of ratification pro- 
posed by Morris was carried, the journals and papers 
deposited in the hands of the President, and toward 
evening the members began to sign. Sixteen refused. 
Luther Martin had followed the examples of Yates and 
Lansing, had quit the Convention and gone home to 
Maryland in disgust. Gerry feared a civil war ; Kan- 
dolph was convinced the consent of nine States could 
never be obtained ; Mason was sure they were about to 
set up a monarchy or a tyranny, he did not know which, 
and none of them would sign. The rest of the sixteen 
carefully kept out of the room. 

Washington was first to sign. When he had done 
so, the other delegates went up one after another in the 
geographical order of their States, beginning with the 
East. Hamilton alone signed for New York. As the 
Southern members were affixing their names, Franklin, 
looking toward the President's chair, on the back of 
which was cut a sun, said to those about him that 
painters had found it difficult to distinguish a rising 
from a setting sun. " I have," said he, " often and 
often in the course of the session, and the solicitude of 
my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that be- 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 145 

hind the President without being able to tell whether it 
was rising or setting. But now at length I know that 
it is a rising and not a setting sun." 

When the Convention rose that evening, it rose never 
to sit again. 

As early as possible on the eighteenth of Septem- 
ber, Major Jackson, the Secretary, set out for New 
York to lay the Constitution, the accompanying resolu- 
tions of the Convention, and the letter of Washington 
before Congress. But that body was not to be the first 
to receive it. The Legislature of Pennsylvania was in 
session, and to it the Constitution was read on the 
morning of the eighteenth. Copies were at once given 
to the printers in the city, and on the nineteenth, long 
before Major Jackson reached New York, the people 
of Philadelphia were reading it in the Packet, the Jour- 
nal, and the Gazetteer. September twentieth, the docu- 
ments were laid before Congress and the next day 
were published in the newspapers at New York. 

Meanwhile such delegates to the Convention as were 
members of Congress were hurrying back to New York ; 
and well they might, for in Congress the enemies of the 
Constitution were many and bitter. The delegation 
from New York opposed it to a man ; and with them 
were joined Nathan Dane, William Grayson, of Vir- 
ginia, and R. H. Lee. Congress, they held, could give 
no countenance to the Constitution. That document 
was a plan for a new government. A new government 
could not be set up till the old Confederation had been 
pulled down, and to pull down the Confederation was 
not in the power of Congress, for that body could not 
destroy the Government by whose authority it owed 
existence. The answer was that Congress had sane- 



146 WITH THE FATHERS. 

tioned the Convention, and that, if it conld sanction the 
call for the Convention, it could sanction the work the 
Convention did. But Lee and his followers would not 
listen to argument, and on September twenty-sixth he 
moved that a bill of rights and a long list of amend- 
ments should be added to the Constitution. He would 
have no Vice-President, more congressmen, more than 
a majority to pass an act regulating commerce, and a 
council of state to be joined with the President in mak- 
ing all appointments. Congress, however, would not 
seriously consider his amendments, and the next day it 
was moved that the Constitution be sent to the execu- 
tives of the States, to be by them submitted to their 
respective legislatures. Instantly it was moved to acid 
the words, " in order to be by them submitted to a con- 
vention of delegates to be chosen agreeably to the said 
resolution of the Convention," and the motion was car- 
ried. It was now quite clear that neither party could 
have all that it wanted. The Federalists wished to 
send the Constitution to the States by the unanimous 
vote of Congress ; but this they could not do so long 
as the delegates from New York held out. The Anti- 
federalists wished to send it to the States without one 
word of approval ; but this they could not do unless the 
Federalists consented. When, therefore, Congress met 
on the twenty-eighth, each party gave up something. 
The Antif ederalists agreed to unanimity ; the Federal- 
ists agreed to withhold all marks of approval. The 
amendments offered by Lee on the twenty-sixth, and 
the vote on the twenty-seventh, were then expunged 
from the journal, and the Constitution, the letter of 
Washington, and the resolution of the Convention, were 
sent to the States. Twenty hours later the Legislature 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 147 

of Pennsylvania called a State Convention to consider 
the Constitution. 

By the provisions of that instrument the ratification 
by nine States was to pnt it in force. Before the year 
closed, Delaware and Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
had done so. Georgia and Connecticut followed in 
January, 1788. In February came Massachusetts with 
nine amendments. In April came Maryland, and in 
May South Carolina with four amendments. In June 
New Hampshire ratified with twelve amendments, and 
the list of nine States was complete. " The Good Ship 
Constitution," as the Federalists delighted to call that 
instrument, was now fairly launched. " The New 
Poof " was up, finished, and firmly supported by nine 
stout pillars, and, while the rejoicings over its comple- 
tion were still going on, news came that it was to be 
upheld by two pillars more. Virginia and New York 
had ratified. Virginia offered twenty amendments and 
a bill of rights ; the amendments offered by New York 
numbered thirty-two. 

Nowhere else had the contest been so long and so 
bitter. In some States the people disliked the Consti- 
tution because the liberty of the press was not secured, 
because there was to be no trial by jury in civil cases, 
because the name of God was not to be found in it, be- 
cause there was to be no more rotation in office, because 
there was no bill of rights, because there was no relig- 
ious qualification for office, because there were to be 
slave representation and the importation of slaves for 
one-and-twenty years. But in New York the Constitu- 
tion was hated from beginning to end. Nor would the 
Convention ratify it till the Federal members solemnly 
agreed that the States should be invited to a new Fed- 



148 WITH THE FATHERS. 

eral Convention, to which it should be submitted for 
amendment. Clinton accordingly issued the call. But 
the States most happily did not favorably respond. 
Some malcontents of Pennsylvania did, indeed, hold a 
Convention at Harrisburg in September, 1788, and there 
drew up some amendments which they referred to the 
Convention called by New York. But of this action, 
also, nothing came. September thirteenth, 1788, Con- 
gress fixed upon the first Wednesday in January, 1789, 
as the day for choosing presidential electors, the first 
Wednesday in February for the meeting of the electors, 
and the first Wednesday in March as the day the Con- 
stitution was to become law. Five weeks later the 
Congress of the Confederation expired ignominiously 
for want of a quorum. 

As yet the Constitution was without amendments. 
But the first session had not closed when Virginia sent 
in a petition begging Congress not to rise till action 
had been taken on those offered by the States. Madi- 
son accordingly drew up and presented to the House 
nine amendments, which are almost identically the nine 
suggested by the minority of the Pennsylvania Conven- 
tion in an address to their constituents. Of these in 
time the House made seventeen. Of the seventeen the 
Senate made twelve, and of the twelve, the States 
adopted ten, which were declared in force December 
fifteenth, 1791. Another was added in 1798, and still 
another in 1804 ; after which, though many were 
offered, none were accepted till the close of the civil 
war. 

The amendments proposed by the first Congress re- 
moved, in great part, the objections of the Antifederal- 
ists, and the two States that were still refractory began 



FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION. 149 

to show signs of giving way. In November, 1789, 
North Carolina consented to join the Union. Bnt six 
months passed, and Rhode Island held out. Then, 
when the United States was about to treat her as a for- 
eign power, when the revenue laws were about to be 
enforced against her, when it seemed likely that a great 
exodns of her most worthy citizens would take place, 
the Federalists carried the ratification of the Constitu- 
tion by a vote of thirty -four to thirty-two. But the 
victory was not with them alone, for their opponents 
added a long bill of rights and twenty amendments, 
which, it was jeeringly said elsewhere, was more than 
one for each town in the State. 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGUKATION. 

The Constitution of the United States, as every 
one knows, was framed by a Convention of delegates 
from twelve States, sitting behind closed doors in the 
old State-House at Philadelphia. After a stormy ses- 
sion of four months the " Dark Conclave," as the Anti- 
federalists delighted to call the Convention, ended its 
labors September seventeenth, 1787, signed the Consti- 
tution, and sent the document to Congress, to be in turn 
transmitted to the States. This done, the States began to 
act at once, and, when the year closed, Delaware, Penn- 
sylvania, and New Jersey had accepted the Constitu- 
tion without amendments. Georgia and Connecticut 
ratified in January, 1788, and were followed in quick 
succession by Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, 
New Hampshire, and Virginia. Under the Articles of 
Confederation the assent of nine States in Congress 
assembled was necessary to pass an ordinance of any 
importance. This rule the Convention had adopted, 
and had provided that the assent of nine States should 
dissolve the old Confederation, should set up the Con- 
stitution, and make it the supreme law for each of the 
ratifying States. When, therefore, on July second, 1788, 
the President of Congress rose and announced the rati- 
fication by New Hampshire, he reminded the members 

150 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 151 

that the needed number was complete, that the new 
plan of government was approved, and that it remained 
for Congress to make snch provisions and to take such 
steps as were necessary to put it into force. An ordi- 
nance was thereupon passed, and a committee chosen 
to examine the notices of ratification and report an act 
for putting the Constitution into operation. 

The duty of the committee-men seemed simple 
enough. They were to name a day on which the States 
should choose electors of President and Yice-President, 
a day on which the electors should vote, and a day and 
a place for the meeting of the Senate and House, and 
the beginning of government under the new plan. But, 
simple as it seemed, the committee found it hard to 
perform. Indeed, two weeks went by before they re- 
ported an act providing for the needed days, but leav- 
ing the place of meeting blank. Nor did Congress suc- 
ceed in filling that blank till a great display of sectional 
feeling had been made, and a long and bitter contest 
ended. Every one agreed that the place should be cen- 
tral, and that central should mean somewhere between 
the shores of Chesapeake Bay and the mouth of the Hud- 
son Piver. Within these limits, however, were many 
large and opulent towns, and which had the best claim 
to be considered central, Congress was long unable to 
say. Some members insisted that population should be 
considered, pointed out that more people dwelt south 
of the Potomac than north of it, and thought Balti- 
more or Annapolis would be a good town. Others were 
for considering distances, and urged Wilmington and 
Lancaster and Philadelphia as places no farther from the 
eastern border of the province of Maine than the south- 
ern border of Georgia. Still others, on the ground of 
11 



152 WITH THE FATHERS. 

policy and economy, stood out for New York. To be 
constantly shifting the government from place to place 
was to make it seem weak and unstable, and sure to 
bring it into contempt among the people. To pack up 
cart-loads of books and tons of papers and drag them 
over the country, unless they went forth to that Fed- 
eral city which was to be the lasting home of the new 
Congress, was a piece of wanton extravagance. 

These arguments fell on dull ears. For a time all 
was jealousy, local bias, petty spite. September was 
almost half gone when Congress finally decided that 
the States should choose electors on the first Wednes- 
day in January, 1789, that the electors should cast their 
votes on the first "Wednesday in February, and that the 
new Congress should meet on the first Wednesday in 
March in the city of New York. 

The history of the Congress thus about to expire is 
worth recalling. It begins with the meeting of the 
fifty-three colonial delegates who, in September, 1774, 
assembled at Philadelphia. Gathered in response to 
the call of Massachusetts, they passed the non-inter- 
course, non-importation, non-consumption agreement ; 
issued the colonial Declaration of Rights; drew the 
famous address to the King and the address to the Peo- 
ple of Great Britain, and after a session of eight weeks 
called a new Congress to meet in May, 1775, and ad- 
journed. But long before the tenth of May arrived 
the crisis in the quarrel with the mother country was 
reached, the stores at Concord were destroyed, the bat- 
tle of Lexington was fought, and the new Congress, 
seizing authority that had not been given, entered at 
once on the conduct of the war. 

Between the day when this Congress met and the 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 153 

clay when the Articles of Confederation were pnt in 
force a period of seventy months went by. During 
these seventy months the Congress of the United States 
acted under no constitutional authority whatever. The 
States were parties to no instrument of government, 
and every act committed by their delegates was done 
with the tacit or express consent of the States. ISTo sys- 
tem of representation was in use. To the secret delib- 
erations of the little body that bore the name of the 
Congress came delegates chosen in such a way and in 
such numbers aud bearing such instructions as best 
pleased the States that sent them. Once seated in Con- 
gress, these men found themselves members of what a 
few years later would have been denounced as a " dark 
and secret conclave." The doors were shut, no specta- 
tors were suffered to hear what was said, no reports of 
the debates were taken down in short-hand or long- 
hand ; but under a strict injunction of secrecy they went 
on deliberating day after day. From month to month 
so much of the journal as Congress thought fit was in- 
deed given to the people ; but Congress thought fit to 
give merely a dry record of ordinances passed, of mo- 
tions made, of reports read, of committees chosen. 
Over these deliberations presided a President elected 
by the Congress, and looked up to as the representative 
of the sovereignty of the States united for common de- 
fence. As such, his house, his table, his servants, were 
all provided at public cost. But the expense of every 
other delegate was borne by the State that sent him. 

Thus formed, the Continental Congress no sooner 
met in 1775 than it proceeded, without any authority, 
to raise armies, equip navies, to borrow money, to set 
up a post-office, to send out ministers, to make treaties, 



154 WITH THE FATHERS. 

and to do innumerable acts of sovereignty in the name 
of the States. It was the Continental Congress that 
commissioned Washington ; that sent Franklin to the 
court of France ; that voted the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence ; that framed the Articles of Confederation ; 
that advised the colonies to throw off all allegiance to 
the King and " take up civil government." 

The Articles of Confederation went out to the States 
in 1777, hut it was not till the first of March, 1781, 
that the thirteenth State signed and put them into force. 
Meanwhile the Congress was fast sinking into open 
contempt among the people. The great things which 
it did were soon forgotten ; the things which it did not 
do were long remembered. Most of its dealings were 
with the States. In but a few ways did it touch the 
people, and in the most delicate of these its record is 
that of disaster after disaster. The bills of credit 
which no one would take, the loan offices set up in 
every State, the Congress lottery that failed so mis- 
erably, the forty for one act, the old tenor and the new 
tenor, commissary certificates, quartermaster certificates, 
hospital certificates, interest indents, were constant re- 
minders of the financial imbecility of Congress, and 
did far more to bring it into contempt than any of its 
great acts did to bring it into honor. Every other ex- 
pression of contempt, " not worth a farthing," " not 
worth a tinker's dam," gave way to the new expression 
of worthlessness, " not worth a continental." 

Happily, at this juncture, the Confederation was fin- 
ished, and Congress, for the first time in its history, met 
under the shadow of constitutional authority. Great 
things were expected of the Union, and for a time it 
seemed likely that the expectations would be fulfilled. 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 155 

But when Congress organized under the newly ratified 
Articles of Confederation in November, 1781, Cornwal- 
lis had surrendered, the war had virtually ended, and 
the Confederation began at once to fall in pieces. By 
the Articles the character of the Congress was little 
changed. The President was still chosen by the mem- 
bers. The members were chosen annually ; could not 
serve more than three years in any term of six ; could 
not be more than seven nor less than two from any 
State, and were paid by those who sent them. As the 
charge of maintaining them was not light, as no dele- 
gation, however large, could cast more than one vote, 
a strong incentive was created to keep the delega- 
tions down to two, and in time to send none at all. 
Twenty delegates, representing seven States, were pres- 
ent when Washington resigned command of the army. 
Twenty-three delegates, from eleven States, voted to 
ratify the treaty of peace with Great Britain. Thence- 
forth, to the end of its career, Congress rarely consisted 
of twenty -five members. Again and again it was forced 
to adjourn day after day for want of a quorum. Once 
these adjournments covered thirteen consecutive days. 
Ordinances of trifling importance could be passed by 
the assent of a majority of the States. But no meas- 
ure of importance, no ordinance to provide for the 
issue of money, the payment of the debt, the ratifica- 
tion of a treaty, the raising of a body of troops, could 
pass unless nine States assented. Most of the time but 
eleven States were represented. Of these eleven it 
often happened that nine had but two delegates each, 
and it thus became possible for three men to defeat the 
weightiest measures. 

Acting on the States and not on the people, Con- 



156 WITH THE FATHERS. 

gress. never won tlie affections of the people, bnt was 
looked on, was spoken of, was treated, as a foreign gov- 
ernment rather than a creature of their own making. 
When a band of ploughmen gathered under the window 
of its room at Philadelphia and broke up its sitting with 
taunts and threats, not a citizen could be found willing 
to aid in defending it. Driven from the city, it fled to 
Princeton, and there found a refuge under the guns of 
fifteen hundred soldiers. From Princeton it soon ad- 
journed to Annapolis. There, disgusted at the perpet- 
ual sitting of Congress, the Ehode Island delegates, act- 
ing under instructions from their Legislature, moved a 
recess. This was carried, and, as the Articles of Con- 
federation required, a committee of the States was chosen 
to sit during the recess. But the members quarrelled, 
separated with bitter words, and for two months the 
country was without a general government of any kind. 
In November, 1784, the Congress reassembled at Tren- 
ton, and from Trenton in time they adjourned to New 
York. In the taverns, meanwhile, the wits were ex- 
pressing their contempt in the popular toasts, " A hoop 
for the barrel," " Cement for the Union." In the news- 
papers Congress was likened to a wheel rolling from 
Dan to Beersheba and from Beersheba to Dan. Neg- 
lected by its members, insulted by the troops, a wan- 
derer from town to town, the subject of jest by the peo- 
ple, the Congress of the Confederation sank rapidly to 
the condition of a debating club. It made requisitions 
that never were heeded, voted monuments that never 
were put up, rewarded great men with sums of money 
that never were paid, planned wise schemes for the pay- 
ment of the debt that never were carried out, and looked 
on in helplessness while English troops held and forti- 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 157 

fied American forts, while State after State openly vio- 
lated the Articles of the Confederation, refused it power 
to regulate trade, refused it power to lay a tax on im- 
ported goods, and finally called that Convention which, 
in 1787, framed the Constitution and gave to Con- 
gress the duty of fixing the day when it should cease to 
exist. 

Having thus fixed the day of its death, the Conti- 
nental Congress of the Confederation began to die fast. 
"When the ordinance passed, on the thirteenth of Sep- 
tember, 1788, nine States were present. September 
eighteenth, this number had dwindled to six. October 
fourteenth, there were but two in attendance, and all 
government was ended. Day after day a few delegates 
— sometimes six, sometimes two — would saunter into the 
hall, have the secretary take down their names, and then 
go off to their favorite tavern. But no sittings were 
held, no business was done, and the Congress whose 
name is bound up with so much that is glorious in the 
annals of our country expired ignominiously for want 
of a quorum. 

While these few men, true to their trust, were striv- 
ing to keep up the semblance of a Congress, the first 
Wednesday in January, 1789, arrived, and electors were 
chosen in all of the ratifying States save Isew York. 
In that great Commonwealth the choice was to be made 
by the Legislature, and the Legislature was divided 
against itself. The Assembly was in the hands of the 
Clinton men, and strongly Antifederal. The Senate 
was in the hands of the friends of Hamilton, and was 
by a small majority Federal. The bill which the As- 
sembly framed provided that the Senate and Assembly, 
having each nominated eight electors, should meet and 



158 WITH THE FATHERS. 

compare lists, that men whose names were in both lists 
should be considered elected, and that from those whose 
names were not in both lists one half of the needed 
number should be chosen by each branch of the Legis- 
lature. The Senate amended the bill by proposing that 
the two branches of the Legislature should not meet, 
but should exchange lists, and that, if the lists differed, 
each branch should propose names to the other for con- 
currence, and should go on doing so till all the electors 
were chosen. The Assembly promptly rejected the 
amendment ; a conference followed ; the Senate stood 
firm, and no electors were chosen. New York, there- 
fore, cast no vote in the first Presidential election, and 
had no representative on the floor of the Senate during 
the first session of the first Congress under the Consti- 
tution. 

Yery similar was the quarrel that took place in New 
Hampshire. There the law gave the people the right 
of nominating, and the Legislature the power of ap- 
pointing, but was silent as to the way in which the ap- 
pointment should be made. The Assembly was for a 
joint ballot. This the Senate would not hear of, and 
stood out for a negative on the action of the Assembly 
as complete and final as in the cases of resolutions and 
bills ; a wrangle followed, and midnight of the seventh 
of January was close at hand, when the Assembly gave 
way, made an angry protest, and chose electors, each 
one of whom was a Federalist. 

In Massachusetts the General Court chose two elec- 
tors at large, and eight more from a list of sixteen names 
sent up from the eight congressional districts. In Penn- 
sylvania the choice was by direct vote of the people, and 
the counties beyond the mountains being strongly Anti- 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 159 

federal, two general tickets were promptly in the field. 
On the Lancaster ticket were the names of ten Feder- 
alists well known to be firm supporters of Washington. 
On the Harrisburg ticket were the names of men who 
had signed the address and reasons of dissent of the mi- 
nority of the Pennsylvania Convention, had been mem- 
bers of the Antifederal societies and committees of cor- 
respondence, had labored hard to defeat the Constitu- 
tion, and, even after nine States had ratified, had sat in 
the famous Harrisburg Convention which petitioned the 
Legislature to ask to have the Constitution sent for 
amendment to a new convention of the States. These 
men, the Federalists declared, were planning to make 
Patrick Henry President, and though some were given 
a great vote, not one secured election. 

In Maryland, where the choice was also made by the 
people, the excitement became intense, for the lines 
which parted the Federalists and Antif ederalists were 
precisely those which a few years before parted the 
non-imposters and the paper-money men from the men 
who wished for honest money and the prompt payment 
of the Continental debt. All over the State meetings 
were held, addresses were issued, and each party ac- 
cused of fraud. But, when the votes were counted, the 
Federalists were found to have carried the day. Vir- 
ginia likewise left the choice with the people, and in 
that State some fights took place and some heads were 
broken. But these were of common occurrence, often 
happened when members of the Llouse of Burgesses 
were elected, and were thought nothing of. In Con- 
necticut, JSTew Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, and 
Georgia the electors were chosen by the Legislatures 
of the States. In Rhode Island and North Carolina no 



160 WITH THE FATHERS. 

elections were held ; they had not accepted the Consti- 
tution, and were not members of the new Union. 

Of the sixty -nine electors thus appointed, not six 
were formally pledged to the support of any man. In 
Baltimore and Philadelphia, where the contest was close, 
a few had been charged with Antifederalist leanings, 
and had issued cards declaring that if elected they would 
cast their votes for Washington and Adams. But the 
others gave no pledges, and none were wanted. Differ 
as men might touching the merits of the Constitution, 
there was no difference of opinion touching the man 
who should fill the highest office under the Constitu- 
tion, and voters and electors alike united on General 
Washington. 

There all unanimity ceased, for no other name was 
a charmed name with Americans. That of Franklin 
stood high, but Franklin had passed his eightieth year, 
was sorely afflicted with an incurable disease, and was 
justly thought too old and feeble for the second place. 
The services and the claims of Samuel Adams were 
almost as great, but he had begun by opposing the 
Constitution, had ended by accepting it with much 
reluctance, and was accordingly passed over by the 
Federalists, who brought forward the name of John 
Adams in his stead. 

John Adams was a native of New England, and 
this was given out by some as a good and sufficient 
reason why Southern Federalists should oppose him. 
He had lived long abroad, and was declared by others 
to have come home less of a Republican than he went 
out. He had, his enemies admitted, written a book 
called " A Defence of the Constitutions of Government 
of the United States of America." But it ought, they 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 1(31 

said, to be called an insidious attack. Could any man 
read such stuff as this — " The rich, the well-born, and 
the able will acquire an influence among the people 
that will soon be too much for simple honesty and plain 
sense in a House of Representatives " — and call it Re- 
publican ? Was the author of such nonsense a fit man 
to rule over a free people ? A better reason for oppos- 
ing Adams came from the Antif ederalists of New York. 
Eleven States, these men argued, have ratified the Con- 
stitution, yet six sent with their ratifications long lists 
of proposed amendments. These amendments are not 
trivial ; they are very serious. The new Government 
will have to consider them. It is highly important, 
therefore, to have in the new Government some man 
who will do his best to further them. Such a man is 
Governor George Clinton. His name is not written at 
the foot of the Declaration of Independence ; he has 
never sat in Congress, nor gone on a mission to foreign 
parts to caper before dukes and princes, and dance 
attendance in the antechambers of kings ; he has no 
theory about the place to be given to the rich and the 
" well-born " in the State ; but he is a stanch Repub- 
lican, a friend to the liberty of the press, an enemy of 
standing armies, a hater of consolidated governments 
in every form, a man in whose hands the interests of 
the six States proposing amendments will be safe. So 
eager were his friends to see him Vice-President that 
they formed clubs, took the name of Federal -Republi- 
can, and, while electors were yet to be chosen, can- 
vassed, corresponded, and sent out a circular letter in 
his behalf. For a time his chances of success were 
good ; but when it was known that Clinton could not 
carry his own State, that New York had chosen no 



102 



WITH THE FATHERS. 



electors, all hope of success was given up. And well it 
might be, for when the electors met on the first Wed- 
nesday in February, Clinton got but three votes, and 
these three were cast by Virginia. Washington, on 
that day, was given sixty-nine ; John Adams received 
thirty-four. Thirty-five more votes were thrown away 
on ten men, no one of whom received more than nine. 























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.23 
'E 

w 


be 

■73 

3 


a 
o 

a 
o 


DO 

E 

<j 

CO 
CO 

s 

o3 


'3 

<4-l 

"3 


3 

a 
I 




5 


< 
5 


W 


w 


'-j 


o 


« 


« 


>-5 


»"5 


H 


ca 


New Hampshire .... 






10 


10 
























7 


5 


2 




















New Jersey 


(J 


1 






5 


















10 


8 




2 


















Delaware 


8 










3 




6 












Maryland 




Virginia 


10 


5 




1 


1 


3 
















7 






1 








6 












5 
















2 


1 


1 


1 


Total 


69 


34 


2 


4 


9 


3 


6 


6 


2 


1 


1 


1 







That a vote or two should be thrown away was 
necessary. As the Constitution then read, it was the 
duty of each elector to write down on his ballot the 
names of two men, without indicating which he wished 
should be President. The man receiving the greatest 
number of electoral votes was to be President, and the 
man receiving the next highest, Yice-President. Had 
every elector who voted for Washington also voted for 
Adams, neither would have been elected, and the choice 
of a President would have devolved on the House of 
Eepresentatives. So great a scattering, however, was 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 163 

unnecessary, and is to be ascribed to a fear that Wash- 
ington would not be given the vote of every elector — a 
fear Alexander Hamilton did all he could to spread. 

The choice of representatives was left with the 
people. By the Constitution, any man who could vote 
for a member of the lower branch of his State Legisla- 
ture could vote for a member of Congress. But not 
every man could on election day write a ballot and 
bring it to the polls, or stand in the crowd that shouted 
" Aye ! " when the name of his candidate was called. 
Suffrage was far from universal. The elective fran- 
chise belonged to the rich and well-to-do, not to the 
poor. The voter must own land or property, rent a 
house, or pay taxes of some sort. Here the qualifica- 
tion was fifty acres of land, or personal property to the 
value of thirty pounds ; there it was a white skin and 
property to the value of ten pounds. In one State it 
was a poll-tax ; in another, a property tax ; in another, 
the voter must be a quiet and peaceable man with a 
freehold worth forty shillings, or personal estate worth 
forty pounds. To vote in South Carolina a free white 
man must believe in the being of a God, in a future 
state of reward and punishment, and have a freehold of 
fifty acres of land ; to vote in New York, he must be 
seized of a freehold worth twenty pounds York money, 
or pay a house-rent of forty shillings a year, have his 
name on the list of taxpayers, and in his pocket a tax 
receipt. 

The effect of restrictions such as these was to de- 
prive great numbers of deserving men of the right to 
vote. Young men just starting in life, sons of farmers 
whose lands and goods had not been divided, wander- 
ing teachers of schools, doctors and lawyers beginning 



164 WITH THE FATHERS. 

the practice of their profession, might count themselves 
fortunate if at the age of twenty-eight they could com- 
ply with the conditions imposed by the constitutions of 
many of the States. Of the mass of unskilled laborers 
— the men who dug ditches, carried loads, or in 
harvest-time helped the farmer gather in his hay and 
grain — it is safe to say that very few, if any, ever in the 
course of their lives cast a vote, for they were thought 
well paid if given food, lodging, and sixty dollars a 
year. 

While such as could vote were choosing their rep- 
resentatives, fit meeting-places for the senators and 
representatives were being made ready by some public- 
spirited citizens of New York. Driven from Philadel- 
phia in 1783 by the threats of a band of mutinous sol- 
diers, the Congress of the Confederation at last found a 
refuge at New York, and had been given quarters in 
the City Hall, which then stood on the corner of Nas- 
sau and Wall. The Congress room was on the second 
story at the east end, and would not even now be 
thought mean. Travellers who came to the city and, 
prompted by curiosity, visited the room where the 
Congress sat, never failed to go away much impressed 
by the pictures, the furniture, the hangings, it con- 
tained. The railed-in platform on which the President 
sat ; the great chair of state ; the crimson silk canopy 
with its curtains of heavy damask ; the mahogany ta- 
bles ; the chairs, rich with carving and gorgeous with 
seats of crimson morocco ; the great curtains of damask 
that hung at the windows ; the long line of portraits of 
officers who died in the war ; the huge canvases from 
which, when the curtains were pulled aside, the King 
and Queen of France seemed ready to step to the floor 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 165 

beneath — drew from every visitor exclamations of ad- 
miration and surprise. Yet neither this room nor the 
building were thought fine enough for the use of the 
new Congress, and money to put the building in better 
form was soon being asked for at every coif ee-ho use in 
the city. Thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars 
was quickly collected, and the work of alteration was 
given to Major L' Enfant, who deserves to be remem- 
bered as the man to whom is due all that is good and 
nothing that is bad in the plan of the city of Washing- 
ton. 

ISTo time was lost ; yet the masons and carpenters 
were still busy when the fourth of March arrived. 
This mattered little, however, for no President was to 
be inaugurated, no Senate, no House was ready to take 
possession ; nothing was to be done to mark in any way 
the fact that the weak and crumbling Confederation 
had given place to a strong and vigorous Government. 
Toward sunset on the evening of the third a salute was 
fired at the Battery as a long farewell to the old Con- 
federation. At daylight on the morning of the fourth, 
at noon, and at six in the evening, salutes were again 
fired and all the church bells rung out a welcome to the 
Constitution. But no celebration was attempted, for 
the new Congress seemed to have inherited all the 
sloth, all the indifference, all the torpor of the old. 
The Senate was to consist of twenty-two members and 
the House of fifty-nine. Yet while the bells were 
ringing and the cannon firing there were but eight 
senators and thirteen representatives in the city. This 
seemed quite as it should be. The terrible condition 
of the roads in February, the long distances many 
would have to ride, the late day on which the elections 



16G WITH THE FATHERS. 

were held, might, it was urged, account for the absence 
of many. When, however, a week went by and not 
one more senator came, the patience of the eight gave 
way, and they issued a strong appeal to the absentees 
to hurry. 45 " But another week passed, and another ad- 
dress was issued, before the ninth senator crossed the 
Hudson to take his seat. The tenth came two days 
later, the eleventh a week later, and the twelfth, who 
made a quorum, reached the city on the fifth of April. 

The House of Representatives meanwhile had been 
more fortunate — had secured a quorum, had chosen a 
Speaker, and was hard at work on a tariff act, when a 
messenger from the Senate knocked at the door and 
informed the Speaker that the Senate was ready to 
count the electoral vote. 

This duty done, the Houses parted, and Charles 
Thomson was sent to carry a certificate of election to 
Washington, while Sylvanus Bourne went on a like 
errand to John Adams at Braintree. The journey of 
these two men from their homes to the seat of Congress 

* The following is a copy of such an appeal, sent to the Hon. 
George Read : 

New York, March 11, 1789. 
The Honorable George Read, Esqr. : 

Sir : Agreeably to the Constitution of the United States, eight 
Members of the Senate and eighteen of the house of Representatives 
have attended here since the 4th of March. It being of the utmost 
importance that a Quorum sufficient to proceed to business be as- 
sembled as soon as possible, it is the opinion of the Gentlemen of 
both houses, that information of their situation be immediately 
communicated to the absent Members. 

We apprehend that no Arguments are necessary to evince to you 
the indispensible necessity of putting the Government into immedi- 
ate operation, and therefore request that you will be so obliging as 
to attend as soon as possible. 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 167 

was one long ovation. Adams set out first, and was 
accompanied from town to town along the route by 
troops of soldiers and long lines of men on horseback, 
was presented with addresses, was met at Kingsbridge 
by members of Congress and the chief citizens of New 
York, and escorted with every manifestation of respect 
to the house of John Jay. His inauguration took place 
on April twenty-second, and was attended by one inci- 
dent, unnoticed at the time, but serious in its conse- 
quences. In the crowd that stood about the doors of 
Federal Hall to catch a glimpse of Mr. Adams as he 
went in were John Randolph, of Roanoke, and his 
elder brother Richard. The lads were students at Co- 
lumbia College, and, pressing too close to the Vice- 
President's carriage, Richard, in the language of his 
brother, " was spurned by the coachman." In a 
healthy-minded lad the wrath which the " spurning " 
called forth would surely have gone down with the 
sun. But John Randolph was far from healthy-minded. 
To hhn the act was past all forgiveness, and to the last 
day of his life he hated, with a fierce, irrational hatred, 
not the coachman, but John Adams himself. 

Washington set out on the sixteenth of April. But 
he had not gone a mile from his door when a crowd of 
friends and neighbors on horseback surrounded his car- 
riage and rode with him to Alexandria. There the 
Mayor addressed him, in the fulsome manner of the 
time, as the first and best of citizens, as the model of 
youth, as the ornament of old age, and went with him 
to the banks of the Potomac, where the men of George- 
town were waiting. With them he went on till the 
men of Baltimore met him, and led him through lines 
of shouting people to the best inn their city could boast. 

12 



168 WITH THE FATHERS. 

That night a public reception and a supper were given 
in his honor, and at sunrise the next morning he was 
on his way toward Philadelphia. 

In size, in wealth, in population, Philadelphia then 
stood first among the cities of the country, and her citi- 
zens determined to receive their illustrious President in 
a manner worthy of her greatness and of his fame. 
The place selected was Gray's Ferry, where the road 
from Baltimore crossed the lower Schuylkill — a place 
well known and often described by travellers. On the 
hi^rh rido-e that bordered the eastern bank was Gray's 
Inn and gardens, renowned for the greenhouse filled 
with tropical fruit, the maze of walks, the grottos, the 
hermitages, the Chinese bridges, the dells and groves, 
that made it " a prodigy of art and nature." Crossing 
the river was the floating bridge, made gay for the oc- 
casion with fla^s and bunting and festoons of cedar and 
laurel -leaves. Along the north rail were eleven flags, 
typical of the eleven States of the new Union. On the 
south rail were two flags: one to represent the new 
era ; the other the State of Pennsylvania. Across the 
bridge at either end was a triumphal arch, from one of 
which a laurel crown hung by a string which passed to 
the hands of a boy who, dressed in white and decked 
with laurel, stood beneath a pine-tree hard by. On 
every side were banners adorned with emblems and in- 
scribed with mottoes. One bore the words, " May com- 
merce flourish ! " On another was a sun, and under it, 
" Behold the rising empire." A third was the rattle- 
snake flag, with the threatening words, " Don't tread on 
me." On the hill overlooking the bridge and the river 
was a signal to give the people warning of the Pres- 
ident's approach. 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 169 

Toward noon on the twentieth of April the signal 
was suddenly dropped, and soon after Washington, with 
Governor Mifflin and a host of gentlemen who had gone 
out to meet him at the boundary line of Delaware, was 
seen riding slowly down the hill toward the river. As 
he passed under the first triumphal archway the crown 
of laurel was dropped on his brow, a salute was tired 
from the cannon on the opposite shore, and the people, 
shouting "Long live the President!" went over the 
bridge with him to the eastern bank, where the troops 
were waiting to conduct him on to Philadelphia. The 
whole city came out to meet him, and as he passed 
through dense lines of cheering men the bells of every 
church rang out a merry peal, and every face, says one 
who saw them, seemed to say, " Long, long, long live 
George Washington ! " 

That night he slept at Philadelphia, was addressed 
by the Executive Council of State, by the Mayor and 
Aldermen, by the judges of the Supreme Court, the 
faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, and the 
members of the Society of the Cincinnati, and early the 
next morning set out with a troop of horse for Trenton. 
On the bridge which spanned the Assanpink Creek, 
over which, twelve years before, the Hessians fled in 
confusion, he passed under a great dome supported by 
thirteen columns, and adorned with a huge sunflower, 
inscribed, " To thee alone," and was greeted by a little 
band of musicians led by a German named Pfvles. The 
music which they played had been composed for the 
occasion by Pfvles, was dedicated to Washington under 
the name of " The President's March," and became so 
popular that in the stirring times of 1798, when Hopkin- 
son wrote the words of " Hail Columbia," he set them 



170 WITH THE FATHERS. 

to the music of "The President's March" because 
everybody knew it. The women of Trenton had or- 
dered the dome put up, and just beyond the bridge 
were waiting with their daughters, who, as he passed 
under the dome, began singing : 

Y/elcome, mighty chief, once more 
Welcome to this grateful shore : 
Now no mercenary foe 
Aims again the fatal blow — 
Aims at thee the fatal blow. 

Virgins fair and matrons grave, 
Those thy conquering arms did save, 
Build for thee triumphal bowers. 
Strew ye fair his way with flowers — 
Strew your Hero's way with flowers. 

As the last lines were sung the bevy of little girls 
came forward, strewing the road with flowers as they 
sang. Washington was greatly moved, thanked the 
children on the spot, and before he rode out of town 
the next morning wrote a few words to their mothers. 

From Trenton he passed across New Jersey, escorted 
from county to county by the State militia, to Eliza- 
bethtown, where a committee, with a barge provided 
by Congress, was ready to carry him to New York. 
Howed by thirteen of the harbor pilots, the barge sped 
on through the Kill van Kull toward New York Bay, 
followed by a train of boats bearing the few officers of 
the old Confederation necessity still kept in their places. 
In one was the Board of Treasury ; in another, the Sec- 
retary of War ; the Secretary of Foreign Affairs was in 
a third. 

About the entrance to the Kill was gathered a navy 
of river craft gay with flags and brightly dressed women, 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 171 

and noisy with cheering men. As the barges of the 
President and his party passed by, snows and shallops, 
trackseouts and row-boats, with one accord took place 
in line, and the procession, stretching ont for more than 
a mile, swept on toward Xew York, past the Spanish 
war ship Galveston, which sainted with thirteen guns ; 
past the ship North Carolina, which answered the Span- 
iard's salute, while over the water to those on shore 
came the blare of conchs and trumpets, the sound of 
song and music, and the stirring notes of " Stony 
Point." As the little fleet came round the head of 
Governor s Island the shouts were taken up by the 
crowd that lined the shore or stood in a dense mass 
about the spot which, bright with flags and bunting, 
marked the landing-place at Murray's Wharf. There 
Washington wa s met by Governor Clinton and the 
members of Congress, and escorted by all the troops in 
the city to the house* made ready for his use. That 
night the revelry was louder than ever, for scarcely a 
tavern but had a son^ or an ode written for the occa- 
sion by some frequenter who passed for a poet. Of 
the few that have come down to us, one was sung to 
the air of " God save the King " : 

Hail, thou auspicious day! 
For let America 

Thy praise resound. 
Joy to our native land ! 
Let ev'ry heart expand, 
For "Washington's at hand, 

With glory crowned. 

Thrice beloved Columbia, hail! 
Behold before the gale 
Your chief advance. 



172 WITH THE FATHERS. 

The matchless Hero's nigh ; 
Applaud him to the sky, 
Who gave you liberty, 

With gen'rous France. 

Thrice welcome to this shore, 
Our leader now no more, 

But ruler thou. 
O truly good and great, 
Long live to glad our state, 
Where countless honors wait 

To deck thy brow! 

The friends to the new Government had hoped for 
a speedy inauguration. But Federal Hall was still un- 
finished, and the ceremony of taking the oath was put 
off one week. This week was spent by the President 
in receiving and returning the calls of congressmen, 
and in riding about the streets and noting the great 
change which had taken place since he saw the city last. 
Five years before, some of the same men who so lately 
welcomed him as President had gone out to the Bull's 
Head Tavern to welcome him as General, and after 
a few days had escorted him to the same wharf at 
which he so recently landed, and had there, with 
hearts full of love and gratitude, waved farewell as 
he was rowed over the bay on his journey to Congress 
at Annapolis. Then the city was a scene of desolation. 
Her commerce was gone ; her docks were empty ; two 
terrible fires had burned down nearly a thousand of her 
houses. During the seven years of British occupation 
many of her streets and buildings had been suffered to 
fall into decay, many of her churches had been dese- 
crated and turned into riding-schools and stables, and 
thousands of her citizens had been living in exile up the 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 173 

Hudson or in New Jersey. But no sooner were the 
British driven out than her citizens returned, and with 
an energy that seemed marvellous began to repair and 
more than repair the damage done by fire and war. The 
streets were better paved and better lighted ; the houses 
every year became more grand and pretentious, and the 
limits of the city extended by steady encroachments on 
the rivers and bay. Public opinion had already doomed 
Fort George, which stood just below the Bowling 
Green, and in a few months workmen were levelling 
the ramparts to make way for a house for the Presi- 
dent. One traveller described the city as a miniature 
London. Another puts down in his journal some re- 
marks on the markets, where fish were sold both dead 
and alive ; on the fine houses he saw on Dock Street 
and Queen Street and Hanover Square ; on the good- 
ness of the footways, so wide that three persons could 
walk abreast ; on the pavements, over which no dray 
drawn by more than one horse was ever allowed to 
pass ; and on the sights which he saw on Broadway. 
The buildings along it were new and poor, but the 
street was long, wide, and unpaved, and therefore a 
favorite drive. There every morning and afternoon 
" the gentry " rode in their coaches and phaetons, and 
" the common people " in open chairs. It was fashion- 
able to be seen, toward sunset, walking on the mall that 
surrounded the fort, or to go over to Brooklyn and 
stroll about the earthworks while an oyster supper was 
being made ready at the inn. 

In these amusements the President-elect took no 
part, but waited with solemn gravity for the inaugura- 
tion. At nine on the morning of that day the people 
repaired by thousands to the churches to offer up 



174 WITH THE FATHERS. 

prayers for his Divine guidance. At ten Congress 
met. 

In the Senate all was confusion, for, the moment 
the business of the day began, Mr. Adams had pro- 
pounded a question of etiquette. The House, he said, 
would soon attend them, and the President would 
surely deliver a speech. What should be done ? How 
would the Senate behave ? Would it stand or sit while 
the President spoke ? Members who had been in Lon- 
don and had seen a Parliament opened were for follow- 
ing the custom of England, which was, Mr. Lee de- 
clared, for the Commons to stand. Mr. Izard declared 
the Commons stood because there were not benches 
enough in the room for them to sit. A third was in 
the midst of a strong protest against aping the follies of 
royal governments, when Mr. Adams announced that 
the clerk of the House was at the door. A new ques- 
tion of etiquette at once arose, for the Vice-President 
was at a loss how to receive him. The sentiment of the 
admirers of England was that the clerk should never be 
admitted within the bar, but that the sergeant-at-arms, 
with the mace upon his shoulder, should march solemnly 
down to the door and receive the message. This, un- 
happily, could not be done, for the Senate had neither 
a mace nor a sergeant. What should be done was still 
unsettled when the Speaker, with the House of Kepre- 
sentatives at his heels, came hurrying into the Cham- 
ber. All business was instantly stopped, and the three 
senators, who ought to have attended the President 
long before, set off for his house. As Washington 
could not leave till they arrived, the procession, which 
had been forming since sunrise, was greatly delayed, 
and for an hour and ten minutes the senators and rep- 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 175 

resentatives chafed and scolded. At last the shouting 
in the streets made known that the President was come. 
A few minutes later he entered the room, and both 
Houses were formally presented. This ceremony over, 
Mr. Adams informed him that it was time to take the 
oath of office. He rose and, followed by the members 
of Congress, went out on the balcony of Federal Hall. 
Before him were the windows, the house-tops, the 
streets, crowded with citizens of every rank, brought 
thither from every kind of occupation by the novelty 
of the scene. Behind him were gathered many of the 
ablest and the most illustrious citizens the country had 
then produced. Among the senators stood John Lang- 
don, of New Hampshire, once President of his State, and 
long a delegate to the Continental Congress ; Oliver 
Ellsworth, soon to become a Chief -Justice of the Su- 
preme Court ; William Paterson, ten times Attorney- 
General of New Jersey ; Richard Henry Lee and Rich- 
ard Bassett and George Bead, men whose names appear 
alike at the foot of the Declaration of Independence 
and at the foot of the Constitution of the United States ; 
William Johnson, a scholar and a judge, and one of the 
few Americans whose learning had obtained recogni- 
tion abroad ; while conspicuous even in that goodly 
company was the noble brow and thoughtful face of 
Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution. 

The representatives as a body were men of lesser 
note. Yet among those who that morning stood about 
the President were a few whose names are as illustrious 
as any on the roll of the Senate : there were James 
Madison, to whom, with James Wilson, is to be ascribed 
the chief part in framing and defending the Constitu- 
tion ; and Fisher Ames, the finest orator the House 



176 WITH THE FATHERS. 

ever heard till it listened to Henry Clay ; and Elbridge 
Gerry, the Antifederalist, who pronounced the Consti- 
tution dangerous and bad, who would not sign it in 
Convention, but who lived to see his worst fears dissi- 
pated, and died a Vice-President of the United States ; 
and Roger Sherman and George Clynier, who with 
Gerry dated their public service to a time before the 
Revolution, and who in defence of that cause had 
staked "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
honor," and signed the first grand charter of our liber- 
ties. 

When the President, surrounded by men such as 
these, had taken his place before the railing of the bal- 
cony, and the shouts of welcome had died away, a scene 
occurred which has been well described by one who saw 
it. " I was on the roof," wrote Miss Eliza Quincy, " of 
the first house in Broad Street, which belonged to Cap- 
tain Prince, the father of one of my school companions, 
and so near Washington that I could almost hear him 
speak. The windows and the roofs of the houses were 
crowded, and in the streets the throng was so dense 
that it seemed as if one might literally walk on the 
heads of the people. The balcony of the hall was in 
full view of this assembled multitude. In the centre of 
it was placed a table with a rich covering of red velvet, 
and upon this, on a crimson velvet cushion, lay a large 
and elegant Bible. This was all the paraphernalia for 
the august scene. All eyes were fixed upon the bal- 
cony, where at the appointed hour Washington entered, 
accompanied by the Chancellor of the State of New 
York, who was to administer the oath ; by John Adams, 
Yice-President ; Governor Clinton, and many other 
distinguished men. By the great body of the people 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 177 

he had probably never been seen except as a military 
hero. The first in war was now to be the first in peace. 
His entrance on the balcony was announced by univer- 
sal shouts of joy and welcome. His appearance was 
most solemn and dignified. Advancing to the front of 
the balcony, he laid his hand on his heart, bowed several 
times, and then retired to an arm-chair near the table. 
The populace appeared to understand that the scene 
had overcome him, and were at once hushed in pro- 
found silence. After a few moments Washington arose 
and came forward. Chancellor Livingston read the oath, 
according to the form prescribed by the Constitution, 
and Washington repeated it, resting his hand upon the 
table. Mr. Otis, the Secretary of the Senate, then took 
the Bible and raised it to the lips of Washington, who 
stooped and kissed the book. At this moment a signal 
was given by raising a flag upon the cupola of the hall 
for a general discharge of the artillery of the battery. 
All the bells in the city rang out a peal of joy, and the 
assembled multitude sent forth a universal shout. The 
President again bowed to the people, and then retired 
from a scene such as the proudest monarch never en- 
joyed." 

Livingston was then Chancellor of the State of New 
York, and when the last words of the oath had been ut- 
tered he turned to the people and cried out, " Long live 
George Washington, President of the United States ! " 
The cry was instantly taken up, and with the roar of 
cannon and the shouts of his countrymen ringing in his 
ears, Washington went back to the Senate Chamber to 
deliver his speech. What there took place is best told in 
the language of one who was present : " This great man 
was agitated and embarrassed more than ever he was 



/ 



178 WITH THE FATHERS. 

by the levelled cannon or pointed musket. He trem- 
bled, and several times conld scarce make out to read, 
though it must be supposed lie had often read it before. 
He made a nourish with his right hand, which left 
rather an ungainly impression. I sincerely, for my 
part, wished all set ceremony in the hands of the danc- 
ing master, and that this first of men had read off his 
address in the plainest manner, without ever taking his 
eyes from the paper, for I felt hurt that he was not 
first in everything." 

The people meanwhile went off to their favorite 
taverns to drink prosperity to Washington and Adams, 
and wait with impatience for the coming night. As the 
first stars began to shine, bonfires were lighted in many 
of the streets, and eleven candles put up in the win- 
dows of many of the houses. The front of Federal 
Hall was a blaze of light. There was a fine transpar- 
ency in front of the theatre, and another near the Fly 
Market, and a third on the Bowling Green, near the 
fort. But the crowd was densest and stayed the longest 
before the figure-pieces and moving transparencies that 
appeared in the windows of the house of the Minister 
of Spain, and before the rich display of lanterns that 
hun^ round the doors and windows of the house occu- 
pied by the Minister of France. 

The country over which Washington was thus made 
ruler was not three and a half times as large as the 
present State of Texas, and did not contain as many 
people by a million as are at present living within the 
State of New York. By the treaty of peace with 
Great Britain the boundary of the United States was 
defined as the St. Croix River from its mouth to its 
source ; a meridian to the highlands parting the waters 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 1^9 

that flowed into the Atlantic from the waters that flowed 
into the St. Lawrence ; the highlands to the northwest 
branch of the Connecticut River ; down the river to 
the forty-fifth degree of north latitude ; westward along 
this forty-fifth parallel to the middle of the St. Law- 
rence ; up the St. Lawrence to the lakes ; and up the 
great lakes to the most northwestern corner of the Lake 
of the Woods. There all geographical knowledge 
ended. The Mississippi had not been explored above 
the present city of St. Paul. Where its source was no 
man knew ; but supposing it to be somewhere in Brit- 
ish America, the northern boundary was to be finished 
by a line due west from the Lake of the Woods to the 
Mississippi. Thence the line ran down the middle of 
the Mississippi to the thirty -first parallel, eastward along 
this parallel to the Appalachicola, down the Appalachi- 
cola to the Flint, and then along the northern boundary 
of the present State of Florida to the sea. 

Around their limits lay the possessions of two great 
powers with whom our relations were far from friendly. 
Spanish territory surrounded us on the south and west ; 
yet there was no treaty of any kind with Spain. The 
possessions of Great Britain bounded us on the north 
and east ; yet the only treaty with England was that of 
independence made in 1783, and, claiming this treaty to 
have been violated because the States did not repeal the 
laws forbidding the recovery of debts due her subjects, 
she held and fortified the ports on Lake Champlain, at 
Oswegatchie, at Oswego, at Niagara, at Detroit, on the 
island of Michilimackmac, in what is now Michigan, 
and continued to hold them for thirteen years. Spain 
would make no treaty unless it was distinctly agreed 
that the citizens of the United States should not navi- 



180 WITH THE FATHERS. 

gate the Mississippi River below the thirty-first de- 
gree. 

Of the eight hundred and sixty -five thousand square 
miles contained within the boundaries of the United 
States, part belonged to the eleven States and part had 
been inherited by the new Government from the Conti- 
nental Congress. Maine was still a district of Massa- 
chusetts ; Vermont had as yet no recognition as a State, 
and was not a member of the Union. Neither was 
Rhode Island, nor North Carolina, nor what is now 
Tennessee. Over these regions, therefore, the laws of 
Congress and the authority of Washington did not ex- 
tend. Pennsylvania did not own all her frontage on 
Lake Erie. Kentucky was still a part of Yirginia. 
What is now Alabama and Mississippi above the paral- 
lel of thirty-one degrees was claimed entirely by Georgia, 
and in part by the United States. The wilderness north 
of the Ohio and west of Pennsylvania had, save some 
reservations by Yirginia and Connecticut, been ceded by 
four States to the old Congress, and passed by the name 
of the Territory of the United States northwest of the 
River Ohio. 

Three fourths of the United States were uninhabited. 
The western frontier then ran close along the coast of 
Maine, crossed central New Hampshire and northern 
Vermont to Lake Champlain, passed round the shores 
of the lake, down the Hudson River, across New Jer- 
sey, and the mountains of Pennsylvania to Pittsburg, 
over Maryland and the tide- water region of Virginia, 
and along the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Altamaha 
River, and by it to the sea. 

The area of this inhabited strip was, in round num- 
bers, two hundred and forty thousand square miles, or 



WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. 181 

one square mile for eacli sixteen of the inhabitants. 
But population was by no means so equally distributed. 
One fifth were in Virginia ; one ninth in Pennsylvania ; 
almost one half in the five States that lay south of the 
Mason and Dixon line. These were the great planta- 
tion States, and, populous as they were, they did not 
contain but one city of the first class. Savannah and 
Charleston and Wilmington and Alexandria and Kich- 
mond were smart towns and nothing more. JSTot one 
of them had a population of five thousand souls. In- 
deed, the inhabitants of the six great cities of the coun- 
try summed up to but one hundred and thirty-one 
thousand. 

Sparse as the population was, the rage for emigra- 
tion had already seized it, and hundreds of emigrants 
were pouring over the mountains in three great streams. 
One, made up of !New England men, went out through 
Massachusetts and were pushing rapidly up the Mo- 
hawk Yalley ; a second, from the Middle States, was 
hastening up the Potomac River to its head waters and 
spreading over the rich valleys of West Virginia be- 
tween the Ohio and the Great Kanawha ; a third had 
crossed the mountains of North Carolina and was hur- 
rying down the valley of the Tennessee, there to begin 
that wonderful progress which is the most marvellous 
in the history of man. 



A CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL 
INTERPRETATION. 

When Major William Jackson, Secretary of the 
Constitutional Convention of 1787, set off to lay the 
signed copy of the Constitution before the Continental 
Congress, he bore with him a letter from Washington 
and a copy of three resolutions passed by the Conven- 
tion. One of these resolutions expressed the wish that, 
when nine States had ratified the new plan of govern- 
ment, the Congress should name the day when govern- 
ment should begin under the Constitution. After much 
delay and much debate the first Wednesday in March, 
1789, was chosen. 

The first Wednesday in March fell on the fourth of 
the month, and on that day the Constitution under 
which we now live became the supreme law of the land. 
Though the conventions of eleven States had then rati- 
fied, but three had done so unanimously. To thousands 
of well-meaning men in every State the new plan was of- 
fensive because it was too costly ; because it was to be a 
a Government of three branches instead of a Govern- 
ment of one ; because the power of taxing was vested in 
Congress ; because liberty of the press was not assured ; 
because trial by jury was not provided in civil cases ; be- 
cause there was no provision against a standing army, and 

182 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 183 

none against quartering troops on the people ; because 
religious toleration was not secured ; because it began 
with " We, the people," and not with " We, the States " ; 
because it was not only a Confederation, which it ought 
to be, but a Government over individuals, which it ought 
not to be. In the conventions of eight States the men 
holding these views made strong efforts to have the 
Constitution altered to suit their wishes. In Pennsyl- 
vania, in Connecticut, in Maryland, the " amendment 
mongers," as the Federalists called them, failed. But 
in five conventions they did not fail, and in these the 
ratifications were voted in the firm belief that the 
changes asked for would be made. When Washing- 
ton was inaugurated the amendments offered numbered 
seventy-oeven. But Congress was too busy laying taxes, 
establishing courts, and forming departments to give 
any heed to the fears and dreads of a parcel of country- 
men. Nor was it till the Legislature of Virginia pro- 
tested that the House of Representatives found time 
even to hear the amendments read. The language of 
the protest was of no uncertain kind. 

The members were reminded that the Constitution 
was very far from being what the people wished. Many 
and serious objections had been made to it. These ob- 
jections were not founded on idle theories and vain 
speculations. They were deduced from principles estab- 
lished by the bitter experience of other nations. The 
sooner Congress recognized this fact, the sooner it would 
gain the confidence of the people and the longer the 
new Government would last. The anxiety which the 
people felt would suffer no delay. Whatever was done 
must be done at once, and as Congress was too slow to 
do anything at once, the Virginia Legislature asked that 
13 



184 WITH THE FATHERS. 

a convention be called to propose amendments and send 
them to the States. For a while it seemed as if the 
protest from Virginia would share the same fate as the 
amendments from the States. Is the Constitution, it was 
asked, to be patched before it is worn ? Is it to be 
mended before it is used ? Let it be at least tested. 
Let us correct, not what we think may be faults, but 
what time shows really are defects. So general was 
this feeling that the House would have done nothing 
had not Madison given notice that he intended in a few 
weeks to move a series of amendments which would, he 
hoped, do away with every objection that had been 
lodged against the Constitution by its most bitter ene- 
mies. His amendments were nine in number. Out of 
them Congress made twelve. The first, which fixed the 
pay of congressmen, and the second, which fixed the 
number of the members of the House of Representa- 
tives, were rejected by the States. Ten were ratified, 
and December fifteenth, 1791, they were declared to be 
in force. 

But the framers of the amendments were doomed 
to disappointment. Their work did not prove to be 
enough. And while the States were still considering 
it, the " mongers " were clamoring as loudly as ever for 
something more. Congress had begun to exercise its 
powers. The exercise of its powers had produced 
heart-burnings and contentions and warm disputes. 
The question of constitutional right had been often 
raised, and before the Government was two years old 
the people were dividing into two great parties — the 
loose constructionists and the strict constructionists; 
the men who believed in implied powers and the men 
who believed in reserved powers ; the supporters of a 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 185 

vigorous national government and the supporters of 
State rights. 

It might seem, at first sight, that this diversity of 
opinion was but another phase of that general diversity 
of opinion which is to be found in all communities on 
all kinds of subjects — on art, on music, on dress, on re- 
ligion, on etiquette. But the history of the past hun- 
dred years goes far to show that the constitutional 
opinions held by any set of men, at any particular time, 
and in any particular place, have been very largely de- 
termined by expediency. The people, the Congress, 
the Legislatures of the States, the political conventions, 
the Presidents, the Supreme Court, have each in turn 
interpreted the Constitution. Now the dispute has 
been over the powers of Congress, now over the nature 
of the Constitution itself, now over the manner and 
meaning of its ratification. Now the contending parties 
have tormented themselves with such questions as, Is it 
a compact, or an instrument of Government ? Was it 
framed by the people, or by the States ? Is there a 
common arbiter ? May the States interpose ? May the 
General Government coerce ? May a State secede ? 
Yet the cases are few indeed where the answers to these 
questions have rested on great principles and not on 
expediency. 

The contest began in 1790 over the powers of Con- 
gress. The State debts were assumed. A national 
bank was started. The first excise was laid, and a 
round tax was put on carriages. Every one of these 
measures touched the interests of a section or a class. 
The debts of the Eastern States were larger than the 
debts of the Southern States. The bank stock was held 
by Northern men to the exclusion of Southern men. 



186 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Whiskey was the staple of western Pennsylvania. The 
cry of partial legislation was therefore raised, and the 
Legislatures of Pennsylvania, of Maryland, of Virginia, 
and of North Carolina denounced the assumption act as 
unconstitutional and infamous. The people of western 
Pennsylvania rose in open rebellion against the whiskey 
tax. A carriage owner, pleading that the carriage tax 
was direct and therefore unconstitutional, took his case 
to the Supreme Court and obtained a definition of what 
is a direct tax. Even the President had doubts as to 
the right of Congress to charter a national bank, and 
called for the opinions of his Cabinet. The great leader 
of the Federalists and the great leader of the Republi- 
cans replied, and each for himself laid down rules for 
constitutional interpretation. 

Hamilton approved of the bank, set forth the loose 
construction view, and declared the powers of Congress 
to be of three sorts — express powers, implied powers, 
and resultant powers. Express powers were, he said, 
such as are clearly stated in the Constitution, and are 
well understood. The implied powers were not indeed 
so well understood, yet they were just as clearly dele- 
gated. Nowhere did the Constitution say Congress 
shall have power to tax whiskey, Congress shall have 
power to tax rum. Yet the existence of that power 
could not be doubted, nor could it be doubted that it 
was merely a particular power implied from the general 
power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and ex- 
cises. Resultant powers were such as resulted from 
the total grant of powers. 

Jefferson disapproved of the bank, set forth the 
close construction view, and would admit but two kinds 
of powers — those expressly granted, and those abso- 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 187 

hitely necessary (not merely convenient) to carry out 
the powers expressly given. 

The loose constructionists prevailed. The bank 
charter was signed. The whiskey insurrection came to 
nothing. The Supreme Court decided that a tax on car- 
riages is not a direct tax, and the close constructionists, 
defeated and angry, fell back on their last resource, and 
before the first session of the Second Congress ended five 
constitutional amendments, defining the powers of Con- 
gress, appeared in the Senate. One pronounced every 
tax direct which was not laid on imports, excises, trans- 
fers of property, and proceedings at law. Another de- 
nied Congress the power to grant a charter of incorpo- 
ration, or to set up a commercial monopoly of any kind. 
The third excluded from Congress every man concerned 
in the direction or management of a bank or moneyed 
corporation. The fourth went further still, and pro- 
posed to shut out from the possibility of a seat in 
either House any man who sat on the board of direc- 
tors, or filled a clerkship, or owned a share of stock of 
the Bank of the United States. The fifth proposed 
that the judicial power of the United States should be 
vested not only in one Supreme Court and such in- 
ferior courts as Congress might ordain and establish, 
but in such State courts as the Congress should deem 
fit to share it. 

The fifth amendment was aimed full at the Supreme 
Court. On the bench of that court sat John Jay, the 
Chief-Justice, and James Wilson, Iredell, Cushing, 
Rutledge, and Blair, the five associate justices. But 
little business had come before them, yet they had 
handed down two decisions which seemed to every 
strict constructionist to threaten the ruin of Republican 



188 WITH THE FATHERS 

government. One declared that the tax on carriages 
was not direct, and the other asserted the right of a 
citizen to sne a State. At this even the friends of loose 
construction took fright, and once more expediency be- 
came the cause of action. The good people of Massa- 
chusetts were at that very moment being sued by an 
alien and a subject of Great Britain, and the Legisla- 
ture, alarmed by the decision of the court, bade its 
senators, and requested its representatives, to spare no 
pains to have the Constitution amended. The instruc- 
tions were obeyed, the eleventh amendment went out 
to the States in 1791, and in 1798 became part of the 
Constitution. 

With this amendment the Supreme Court drops 
from the constitutional discussions for a time, and the 
behavior of the President takes its place. In 1793 
France declared war on Great Britain, and as our coun- 
try was then bound to France by the treaty of alliance 
of 1778, and as the first Minister from the French 
Republic, Citizen Genet, had just landed on our shore, 
the day seemed not far distant when the United States 
would be called on to make good the promise of the 
treaty and defend the French West Indies. The Ad- 
ministration was for neutrality, and Washington issued 
a proclamation to that effect. This course was the only 
wise and safe one. But it was a Federal measure. As 
such it had to be opposed ; and raising the cry of un- 
constitutionality, for want of a better reason, the Repub- 
licans denounced the President in every Democratic 
newspaper and in every Democratic society the land 
over. He had, they claimed, violated the Constitution. 
He had usurped the powers of Congress. To proclaim 
neutrality was to forbid war. To forbid war included 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 189 

the power to declare war, and the power to declare war 
had been expressly delegated to Congress. The consti- 
tutionality of the act was defended by Hamilton in his 
letters of " Pacificus." What could be said against it 
Madison said in the letters of " Helvidius." 

Hardly had this dispute subsided when a new one 
arose. The President and the Senate had ratified the 
ever-memorable treaty of 1794, and the House had 
been called on to vote the money necessary to put the 
treaty in force. But the House was then in Republican 
hands. The Republicans were determined to defeat 
the treaty, and sought to do so by refusing to vote the 
money needed. This the Federalists resisted as uncon- 
stitutional. The treaty-making power was, they held, 
confined to the President and the Senate. The duty of 
the House was to vote the money and be still. A great 
debate followed, in which the right of the House to 
share in making treaties, the place of treaties with 
respect to the Constitution and the laws, the proper 
subjects of treaties, were examined with a keenness 
which makes the debate profitable reading at the pres- 
ent day. 

Offensive as the English treaty was at home, it was 
doubly so abroad. The French Directory suspended 
the old treaty of amity and commerce, recalled their 
Minister, sent the American Minister out of France, 
insulted the X. Y. Z. commissioners, and brought on 
the quasi-war of 1798 and 1799. Never 'since the days 
of the Stamp Act had the country been so enraged. 
Numbers of Republicans quit their seats in Congress 
and hastened home, and the Federalists, thus left in 
control, passed the Alien Enemy Act, the Alien Friends 
Act, the Naturalization Act, and the Sedition Bill, and 



190 WITH THE FATHERS. 

opened a new era in our constitutional history. From 
1789 to 1798 the discussions had been confined to the 
text of the Constitution. The Supreme Court had de- 
fined the meaning of certain phrases. Congress had 
wrangled over the exercise of certain powers. States 
had declared certain acts unconstitutional. Madison, 
Hamilton, and Jefferson had laid down rules for a cor- 
rect interpretation. But now a new step was taken, 
and in the resolutions of 1798 and 1799 the very nature 
of the Constitution was defined by the Legislatures of 
Kentucky and Yirginia. The substance of the Ken- 
tucky resolutions is that the Constitution is a compact ; 
that to this compact each State has assented as a State ; 
and that, as in all other cases of compact among parties 
having no common judge, each party has an equal right 
to judge for itself as well of infractions as of the mode 
and measure of redress. The substance of the Yirginia 
resolutions is the same, save that in them the right of 
judging and interposing is given, not to a single State, 
but to " the States," by which is to be understood an- 
other Federal Convention. 

This definition made, they declared the alien and 
sedition laws void and of no force, and called on the 
co- States for an expression of opinion. Delaware and 
Khode Island, and Massachusetts and ISTew York, and 
Connecticut and New Hampshire, and Yermont alone 
replied. Each one of the seven declared that no State 
Legislature ought to judge of the constitutionality of 
laws made by the General Government, and each gave 
that power solely to the Supreme Court. Such was 
their opinion in 1799 ; but the time was soon to come 
when four of the seven would abandon this doctrine, 
and when they in turn would defy the authority of 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 191 

Congress, pronounce some of its acts unconstitutional, 
and declare others null and void. To these answers 
both Virginia and Kentucky made reply, and in the 
reply of Kentucky was laid down the statement that 
when the General Government is guilty of a deliberate, 
palpable, and dangerous infraction of the Constitution a 
nullification of its acts by the sovereign State aggrieved 
is the rightful remedy. 

At this time the new century opened. The Presi- 
dential election of 1800 was held, and Adams was de- 
feated. The two parties changed places, and with the 
change of place came a change of opinions. To the 
minds of all true Republicans the experience of ten 
years had shown four serious defects in the Constitu- 
tion ; the manner of electing the President was bad ; 
the Senate was tpo independent a body ; the Supreme 
Court was breaking down State rights ; the powers of 
Congress were not well defined. These defects were 
thought to be most serious, and became during the next 
ten years the cause of a new batch of proposed amend- 
ments. 

The most prolific source of such was the contested 
election of 1801. Twelve times the proposition to 
change the constitutional provision for electing Presi- 
dent and Vice-President came before House and Sen- 
ate. Some recommended that a separate ballot for 
President and Vice-President should be cast by the 
electors. Some were for choosing the electors by the 
district system ; some for declaring no man eligible to 
the Presidency for more than four years in any term 
of eight ; some that a person who has been twice suc- 
cessively elected shall not be eligible for a third term 
till four years have passed, and then only for one term 



192 WITH THE FATHERS. 

more. From 1800 to 1804 the tables of the House 
and Senate were never free from such propositions. 
Then, after four years of reflection, the twelfth amend- 
ment went out to the States and was adopted ; and the 
next session the whole matter was up again for amend- 
ment. 

The attack on the judiciary began with the repeal 
of the Judiciary Law passed by the Federalists in 1801. 
Under this act sixteen new judgeships were created 
and filled by men who, the Constitution declared, 
should hold their places during good behavior. But 
the Republicans, asserting that abolishing the office 
was not by any means removing the man, repealed the 
law and swept the "midnight judges" out of place. 
This done, they took one step more and impeached the 
Federal judges Pickering and Chase. Pickering, a 
raving lunatic, was removed. Chase, the most hated 
Federalist alive, was not removed. He had escaped, in 
the opinions of the Republicans, because the Con- 
stitution required judges to be impeached, and because, 
on his impeachment, Federal senators from Republican 
States voted for acquittal. But his enemies hoped to 
reach him and others in time, and promptly brought in 
three constitutional amendments. Again and again it 
was proposed that judges of the Supreme and all other 
courts of the United States should be removed by the 
President on the joint address of both Houses. The 
Legislatures of Kentucky and Pennsylvania and Ver- 
mont asked that the judges of the Supreme Court and 
all other courts of the United States should hold office 
for a term of years, and in this Massachusetts joined. 
Another proposition, made by Pennsylvania, was that 
in cases of impeachment a majority vote be enough to 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. J.93 

convict. Another plan gave power to each State Legis- 
lature to recall any senator elected by it at any time. 
The Legislature of Pennsylvania, recalling the Sedition 
Law so fearlessly administered by Chase, proposed that 
the judicial power of the United States should not be 
construed to extend to controversies between a State 
and the citizens of another State, between citizens of 
different States, between citizens of the same State 
claiming lands under grants of different States, and 
between a State and the citizens thereof and foreign 
States, citizens, or subjects. 

It would have been well for Pennsylvania could the 
amendment have passed ; for in 1809 her Governor be- 
came engaged in a bitter contest with the Supreme 
Court, her troops were drawn up around the home of 
the Pittenhouse. /heirs to prevent the marshal serving 
a mandamus : and a committee of her Legislature for- 
mally resolve that in a Government such as that of the 
United States, where there are powers granted to the 
General Government and rights reserved to the States, 
conflicts must arise from a collision of powers ; that no 
provision is made by the Constitution for determining 
such disputes by an impartial tribunal ; and that to 
suffer the Supreme Court to decide on State rights is 
simply to destroy the Federal part of our Government. 
The Court triumphed. But the Legislature was not dis- 
couraged, and it framed an amendment to the Constitu- 
tion providing for the creation of an imjDartial tribunal 
to decide such disputes, and called for an expression of 
opinions by the co- States. Virginia answered, and in 
1810 asserted what in 1798 and 1799 she had denied — 
that there was a common arbiter, and that the common 
arbiter was the Supreme Court of the United States. 



194 WITH THE FATHERS. 

But Pennsylvania was still unconvinced, and in 1811 
her Legislature plainly affirmed the Virginia and Ken- 
tucky doctrine of 1798. 

But the Kepublican States were not the only ones 
with constitutional grievances. The Federal States 
found grievances in the purchase of Louisiana and in 
the long embargo. There is not in the Constitution an 
express grant of power to buy land from foreign 
countries. Up to 1803 a Republican would therefore 
have flatly denied that such a purchase could legally be 
made. But the Republicans were now in power. The 
purchase was most desirable, and they proceeded to 
defend it by arguments drawn from the " general wel- 
fare clause," from the treaty-making power, from the 
war power ; and they voted money to buy Louisiana. 

The last of men to oppose such a purchase should 
have been the Federalists. But they were then in 
opposition, and became in turn most strict construction- 
ists. They declared the treaty with France uncon- 
stitutional because the treaty-making power gave no 
right to acquire soil ; because the ports in Louisiana 
were to be more favored than ports elsewhere ; because 
the President and the Senate had regulated trade with 
France and Spain, a right the Constitution expressly 
declared to belong to Congress ; and because from this 
territory new States were to be admitted into the 
Union. New England looked with dread on the ad- 
mission of such new States, and to keep down their 
votes in the House of Representatives Massachusetts 
proposed a constitutional amendment, asking that 
henceforth representation and direct taxes be appor- 
tioned according to the number of free inhabitants. 
The resolution was read, was ordered to lie for con- 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 195 

sideration, and for eleven years seemed to be forgotten. 
It was a protest, and was not intended to be anything 
more. Seventeen States then formed the Union. The 
assent of thirteen was therefore necessary to amend the 
Constitution. But as eight States tolerated slavery, no 
amendment conld pass without the assent of at least 
four slave States ; and to suppose that four slave States 
would consent to cut down their representation at the 
request of Massachusetts was never seriously thought 
of for a moment. It was in truth but a protest, and 
the first of a series of protests which during eleven 
years continued to come from the Federal States of 
~New England. 

The next expounding of the Constitution grew out 
of the embargo and the exercise of the war powers of 
Congress during/ the war of 1812. No express power 
to lay an embargo can be found in the Constitution. 
But the Republicans had cast away much of their doc- 
trine of strict construction, deduced the right from the 
power to regulate commerce, passed the laws of 1807 
and 1808, and heard their constitutional right so to do 
denied by the very men who in 1794 had been instru- 
mental in passing an embargo. To explain this was 
easy. The Federal embargo of 1794 was laid, it was 
said, for a short time, and was a regulation of com- 
merce. The Republican embargo of 1807 was for an 
unlimited time, and was a destruction of commerce. 
Congress had power to regulate commerce, therefore 
the Federal embargo of 1794 was constitutional. Con- 
gress had no power to destroy commerce, therefore the 
Republican embargo of 1807 was not constitutional. 
This interpretation the Legislature of every Federal 
State, and the people of every Federal county and 



196 WITH THE FATHERS. 

town, accepted and asserted, and piled the table of the 
Tenth Congress high with, addresses and memorials all 
declaring that the embargo acts were oppressive, un- 
constitutional, null, and void. But the only reply to 
such remonstrance was an act, to them more infamous 
still— the " Force Act" of 1809. 

Since the days of the Alien and Sedition laws 
power so vast had never been bestowed on the Presi- 
dent. Indeed, what the Alien and Sedition acts were 
to Virginia and Kentucky in 1798 that was the Force 
Act to New England in 1809. With one voice the 
Federalists denounced it, and with one consent as- 
serted the doctrine of State interposition. The people 
of Boston voted it repugnant to the true intent and 
meaning of the Constitution, and petitioned the Legis- 
lature to interfere and save the people from the ruin- 
ous consequences of the system. From Portland came 
a call to adopt such measures as in 1776 were used 
" to dash in pieces the shackles of tyranny." The peo- 
ple of Hallowell declared that when those delegated to 
make and execute laws transcend the powers given 
them by a fair construction of the instrument whence 
their powers come, such a law is null ; they voted the 
Force Act such a law, and petitioned the Legislature 
to interfere and stop the career of usurpation. The 
New Haven meeting described the act as repugnant 
to the Constitution, oppressive, and a violation of 
the constitutional guarantees that " excessive bail shall 
not be required, nor excessive fine imposed," nor " the 
right of the people to be secure in their persons, 
houses, papers, and effects" violated. Delaware pro- 
nounced the act " an invasion of the liberty of the peo- 
ple and the constitutional sovereignty of the States." 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 197 

A committee of the Legislature of Massachusetts, to 
which the petitions were referred, reported that the 
embargo acts were oppressive, unjust, unconstitutional, 
and not legally binding on the citizens of the State. 
They too recommended interposition, but interposi- 
tion in the form of an act to protect the citizens 
against unreasonable, arbitrary, and unconstitutional 
searches of their dwellings. And now the Republicans 
gave way, and in 1809 the embargo was lifted. 

The third decade of our history under the Constitu- 
tion covers the war of 1812. A week before the war 
was formally declared General Dearborn, by order of 
the President, issued a call on the States for militia. 
In most of the States the call was promptly obeyed. 
But in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island 
the troops were flatly refused. There were, in the 
opinions of the Governors, but three purposes for which 
the militia of a State could be called out by a Presi- 
dent, and these three were : to repel invasion, to exe- 
cute the laws, to suppress insurrection. But the laws 
were everywhere executed. There were no insurrec- 
tions to put down. No enemy had invaded the soil. 
The call was therefore unconstitutional. This inter- 
pretation was approved in Massachusetts by the judges, 
in Rhode Island by the Council, and in Connecticut 
by the Assembly, which now in turn put forth a defini- 
tion of the Constitution and the rights of the States 
under it. In this she declares that the State of Con- 
necticut is a free, sovereign, and independent State ; 
that the United States are a confederacy of States ; 
that we are a confederated and not a consolidated re- 
public ; and that the same Constitution which delegates 
powers to the General Government forbids the exercise 



198 WITH THE FATHERS. 

of powers not delegated, and reserves them to the 
States respectively. 

Two years now passed by, and New England was 
again aflame. The cause was the refusal of the Gov- 
ernment to defend the coast, and the desperate efforts 
of the two secretaries to get troops and sailors for the 
war. The need of men for the army and the navy 
brought before Congress the conscript plan of the Sec- 
retary of War, the impressment plan of the Secretary 
of the Navy, the bill to enlist minors without the con- 
sent of their parents or guardians ; and Connecticut 
bade her Governor, if they passed, call the Legislature 
together that steps might be taken to preserve the rights 
and liberties of the people and the freedom and sover- 
eignty of the State. The refusal of the General Gov- 
ernment to defend the coast of New England drew 
from the Legislature of Massachusetts the call for the 
Hartford Convention. To it came delegates from the 
States of Massachusetts, Ehode Island, and Connecti- 
cut, chosen by the legislatures, and delegates from two 
counties in New Hampshire and one in Yermont, chosen 
by conventions of the people. Their duty was to de- 
vise and suggest for adoption, by the respective States, 
such measures as they might deem expedient, and if 
necessary provide for calling a convention of all the 
States to revise the Constitution. 

They deemed it expedient to propose seven amend- 
ments to the Constitution. They would have had rep- 
resentatives and direct taxes apportioned according to 
the number of free persons. They would have had no 
new States admitted into the Union without consent of 
two thirds of both Houses of Congress ; no embargo 
laid for more than sixty days ; no President ever re- 



CENTURY OP CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 199 

elected, and no two consecutive Presidents from the 
same State. They would have cut off naturalized citi- 
zens from seats in Congress and civil offices under the 
authority of the United States. They would have made 
a two-thirds' vote of both Houses necessary to lay a 
commercial restriction or to pass a declaration of offen- 
sive war. 

These in time were duly laid before Congress, where 
they were buried under a host of other amendments. 
The old proposition to remove judges by joint address 
of both Houses had come up three times ; to elect the 
President by district system, six times. There, too, were 
others designed to shorten the term of senators ; to give 
Congress and the States concurrent power to train the 
militia ; to prevent increase of pay of congressmen till 
after one election had ^intervened ; to declare that if any 
citizen of the United States shall accept, or receive, or 
retain, or claim any title of nobility or of honor, or 
shall, without leave of Congress, accept any present, 
any pension, any office, any emolument of any kind, 
from emperor, king, prince, or foreign power, he shall 
cease to be a citizen of the United States and be incapa- 
ble of holding office. Strange as it may seem, this last 
proposition passed each House, was approved by the 
President, went out to the States, and may be found in 
copies of the Constitution printed in Madison's term, as 
article thirteenth of the amendments. When the House 
in 1817 called on the President for an explanation, it 
came out that twelve States had ratified, that thirteen 
would have put it in force, and, supposing the thirteen 
would surely be obtained, the amendment had been in- 
serted by the Secretary of State in the copies of the 
Constitution ordered printed by Congress. 
14 



200 W1TH THE FATHERS. 

More curious still was an amendment providing for 
the abolition of the Tice-Presidency, the yearly elec- 
tion of representatives, the triennial election of sena- 
tors, and the choice of President by lot. The senators 
were to be parted into three classes, one of which was 
to go out each year. These retiring senators, called up 
in alphabetical order, were, in the presence of the 
House of Representatives, to draw each a ball from a 
box. One ball was colored, the rest were white ; and 
the man fortunate enough to draw the colored ball was 
to be President for a twelvemonth. 

Mingled with these were a few propositions which 
began to show the first results of the war. Congress 
was to have power to lay a duty of ten per cent, on ex- 
ports, build roads and canals in any State with the con- 
sent of the State, and establish a national bank with 
branches. From the President was to be taken all 
power to approve or disapprove bills. To Congress 
was to be given power to appoint heads of all depart- 
ments, fill all vacancies in the judiciary, and appoint 
all office-holders under the Government of the United 
States. 

In nothing is the spread of the loose-construction 
idea so well shown as in the feeling of the Republicans 
toward the National Bank. In 1791 they denounced 
it. In 1811 they refused to recharter it. But now in 
1816 they reprinted the arguments of Hamilton to 
prove the constitutionality of a bank, and passed the 
charter of the second bank, which Madison, the opposer 
of banks, signed, and which the Supreme Court, in 
1819, declared constitutional. But while the question 
of constitutionality thus disappeared, the ancient hatred 
remained. It was still to the popular mind a " moneyed 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 201 

monopoly," an " engine of aristocracy," a great monster 
" trampling on the vitals of the people." 

The charter of the bank marked, for a time, the 
limit of broad construction. This limit reached, a re- 
action followed, and with the opening of the fourth de- 
cade began a new contest over State rights. Ohio had 
taxed two branches of the Bank of the United States, 
and when the bank resisted had sent her officers to 
break open the vaults and carry off the tax money by 
force. The bank entered suit against the officers in the 
Circuit Court of the United States and won it, and Ohio 
in her turn affirmed her belief in State rights and nul- 
lification. She protested against the decision of the 
Court as a violation of that amendment of the Constitu- 
tion which declares that a State may not be sued. She 
protested against the doctrine that " the political rights 
of the separate States that compose the American 
Union, and their powers as sovereign States, may be 
settled and determined by the Supreme Court." She 
"approved the resolutions of Kentucky and Virginia," 
and called on each State for an expression of opinion. 
None replied. But eight soon followed her example. 
The first was Kentucky ; and from her in 1822 came a 
constitutional amendment proposing that in all suits to 
which a State was a party an appeal should lie to the 
Senate. 

New York came next. In 1824 the United States 
set up a claim to the right to require boats navigating 
canals to take out licenses and pay tonnage duty, and a 
resolution appeared in the New York Assembly declar- 
ing that the State must interfere in defence of her citi- 
zens. The Federal courts in 1822 declared unconsti- 
tutional the South Carolina acts according to which any 



202 WITH THE FATHERS. 

free negro sailor who came into the ports of the State 
could be imprisoned until he sailed again. Governor 
Wilson, when stating this decision to the Legislature, 
called on the members to preserve the sovereignty and 
independence of their State, and told them it would be 
better " to form a rampart with our bodies on the con- 
fines of our territory " than to be " the slaves of a great 
consolidated government." The Legislature replied 
that the law of self-preservation was above all laws, 
all treaties, all constitutions, and would never be shared 
with any other power. 

In 1821 Congress passed the "Woollen Bill," and 
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, 
Alabama, and Mississippi made haste to declare that 
the tariff, and the internal improvements for which 
they believed the tariff laid, were not authorized by the 
plain construction, true intent, and meaning of the Con- 
stitution. Each defined the Constitution as a compact 
into which each State had entered as a sovereign State. 
Each asserted that no common arbiter was known, and 
that each State therefore had the right to construe the 
compact for itself. Each then proceeded to construe it, 
and declared that the power to lay important duties was 
given for the purpose of revenue and revenue only, and 
that every other use of it was a palpable usurpation of 
power not given by the Constitution. 

To these resolutions Congress gave no heed, and in 
1828 passed the "tariff of abominations." Then the 
indignation of the South burst forth. On the day the 
news reached Charleston and Savannah, every British 
ship in the harbors pulled down its flag to half-mast. 
For months not a public dinner was given in the South 
but the diners drank destruction to the American sys- 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 203 

tern and prosperity to State rights. In scores of towns 
the sky was reddened by burning effigies of Henry 
Clay. ' 

In the midst of this commotion Senator Foote, of 
Connecticut, moved that the Committee on Public 
Lands be instructed to inquire whether it be expedi- 
ent to limit for a while the sale of lands to such as had 
already been offered and were then subject to entry ; 
and so brought on the Webster-Hayne debate. There 
was nothing in the motion of a constitutional nature, 
but the tariff, and the acts of South Carolina on the 
tariff, were the topics of the hour and could not be kept 
from the discussion. During three days the Senate 
and the crowd that packed the chamber heard the Con- 
stitution expounded as it was never expounded before. 
The Virginia doctrine of 1798 pronounced the Constitu- 
tion a compact between sovereign States, denied that any 
common arbiter existed, and asserted the right of inter- 
position by " the States." But the Carolina doctrine as 
now set forth by Hayne was the Kentucky doctrine of 
1798, and asserted the right of nullification by a single 
State; and asserted that right, not as a revolutionary 
right existing on the ground of extreme necessity, but 
as a sovereign right existing under the Constitution. 

Thus set forth, nullification became a favorite doc- 
trine, and in 1830 was adopted by Massachusetts, and 
in 1831 and in 1832 by Maine. William, King of the 
Netherlands, had rendered his decision on the disputed 
Northeast boundary, and had traced out a line which, 
had it been accepted, would have deprived both Maine 
and Massachusetts of large tracts of land. But Massa- 
chusetts notified the General Government that it would 
be well not to accept the decision, as any act purporting 



204 WITH THE FATHERS. 

to carry it out would be " wholly null and void, and in 
no way obligatory" on their Government or people. 
Maine declared she would never consent to give up an 
acre of her territory on the recommendation of any 
foreign power. The decision of William was not ac- 
cepted, and no chance was given the States to carry out 
their threats. But the hour was at hand when another 
State, for another reason, was to make the test. 

The " Southern movement " of 1828 and 1829, the 
burning effigies, the toasts, the remonstrances, the reso- 
lutions, the boycotts, had all been lost upon the tariff- 
men. The threat of nullification, the threat of interpo- 
sition, the threat of resistance, had been made by so 
many States, in so many parts of the Union, that they 
had lost all terrors. Virginia and Kentucky, and 
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and New York, and North 
Carolina, and South Carolina, and Mississippi, and Ala- 
bama, and Georgia, and Massachusetts, and Maine had 
each made them, and it was well known that more than 
one State had made them never intending to carry them 
out. The tariff -men therefore, quite undismayed, laid 
the great tariff of 1832. But the threat of one State 
was not idle ; and November nineteenth, 1832, a Con- 
vention of South Carolina delegates declared the tariff 
laws no longer binding on her people. 

And now the States were called on to make good 
their threats, and one by one proved wanting. A year 
before, the Legislature of Maine had declared, " Maine 
is not bound by the Constitution to submit to the de- 
cision which is or shall be made under the Convention." 
Bat she now declared nullification to be "neither a 
safe, peaceable, nor constitutional remedy." Massachu- 
setts had declared that any law to carry out the decision 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 205 

of the King of the Netherlands would be " wholly null 
and void." But she now declared that while she would 
resist a law she would not nullify. The Legislature of 
Ohio in 1820 had expressly adopted the Virginia and 
Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and 1800. But there, 
too, opinions had changed ; and Ohio now declared that 
the doctrine that a State has power to nullify a law of 
the General Government is revolutionary and " calcu- 
lated to overthrow the great temple of American 
liberty." 

But it is needless to recall the long resolutions 
passed by the States ; the proclamation of Jackson ; the 
great debate in the Senate between Webster, Calhoun, 
and Clay ; the offer of Yirginia to mediate ; the call of 
Georgia for a Southern Convention ; the Force Act 
passed by Congress ; or the compromise measures 
which persuaded South Carolina to repeal her ordi- 
nance of November, 1832. It is enough to know that 
each party held to its principles while it gave up its 
particular acts. The tariff of 1832 was altered, but the 
constitutionality of the protective tariff was not given 
up. The ordinance of nullification was repealed, but 
the right to nullify and secede was not disavowed. 
Then was the time to have secured such a disavowal. 
The States had committed themselves against the doc- 
trine and could not have refused a constitutional 
amendment forbidding it. But no such amendment 
was offered. 

Of the amendments that were offered in the House 
and Senate, one proposed to give Congress power to 
build roads and canals ; another, to carry on internal 
improvements for national purposes ; a third, that 
money used for building roads and digging canals 



oQ(5 WITH THE FATHERS. 

should be apportioned according to population. A 
fourth related to the bank ; for the charter of the sec- 
ond National Bank, in 1816, again brought up the. 
question of constitutionality, and Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
and Indiana demanded that an amendment be added 
forbidding the charter of any bank except for the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. But the amendment which was 
always present, which was rejected and tabled and post- 
poned, sent to special committees, to the Judiciary 
Committee, to the Committee of the Whole, passed in 
one House and rejected in another, yet never for a ses- 
sion absent from the journals, related to the maimer 
of electing the President. The extension of the fran- 
chise in some of the States, and the rapid growth of 
what Benton called the "demos krateo" in all the 
States, had greatly strengthened the belief that the peo- 
ple, and the people alone, should choose the President. 
From 1820 to 1825, therefore, the old amendment for 
a choice of electors by districts was urged over and 
over again. 

For twenty years the Presidents had been natives 
of Virginia, and for twenty-four years ex- Secretaries 
of State. But against these a revolt now took place. 
They also became the cause of proposed constitutional 
amendments. ~No man was to be eligible to the Presi- 
dency who had been a congressman within two years, 
or held any office under the Government within five 
years of the day of election. The States were to be ar- 
ranged in four classes and a President to be taken out 
of each class in rotation. 

With such idle schemes Congress went on amusing 
itself till the memorable election of 1821. Then the 
Electoral College a second time failed to make a choice, 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 207 

and a second time a President was chosen by the House 
of Representatives. This time the man of the people 
was beaten, the will of the people was said to have been 
defied, and senators, representatives, and State legisla- 
tures joined in one demand that the college of electors 
be swept away. 

Hardly had the election been decided in the House 
when Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, proposed that 
the election of President should never be made by Con- 
gress ; that there should be a direct vote of the people 
by districts, and that the man who carried a majority 
of the districts should be President. Buchanan was 
for giving the choice in contested elections to the State 
legislatures. Hayne was against all intervention of 
Congress. Dickerson was against a third term, and the 
Senate sent his amendment to the House. Phelps was 
for going back to the old custom abolished by the 
twelfth amendment. Sloane was for &per capita elec- 
tion throughout the United States. Benton, from the 
Senate committee, reported in favor of a popular vote 
in districts ; the abolition of the Electoral College ; a 
majority of districts necessary to a choice, and when no 
majority a re-election as before ; if no choice then, a 
choice by the Congress. So vital had the question be- 
come, that in the four years of Mr. Adams's Presidency 
thirty three amendments concerning it were offered in 
the House and Senate. Then, wearied with it all, a 
member urged giving Congress power, after 1830, to 
propose amendments every ten years and no oftener. 
But the manner of election was not changed. Jackson 
was chosen in the old way ; the dread which the Demo- 
crats had of the Electoral College ended, and the dispute 
over the manner of electing was changed to a dispute 



208 WITH THE FATHERS. 

over the length of term. Jackson, in his message to Con- 
gress, asked for a definite limit, and more amendments 
followed. Some would give a President no more than 
two terras ; some, one term of four years ; others, one 
term of five. Again nothing was done, and again the 
President returned to the subject in his message in De- 
cember, 1836. The select committee reported on it 
and were discharged, and the proposition came up reg- 
ularly each session, only to be thrust aside by others 
more pressing. 

On March fourth, 1829, Jackson began what his 
enemies have called his " reign," and the amendments 
offered during his terms were prompted more by the 
bitter hatred the Whigs felt toward him than by any 
public necessity. He removed men from office by 
hundreds; and the Whigs retaliated by offering an 
amendment that all tenure of office not otherwise pro- 
vided for by the Constitution should be regulated by 
Congress. He demanded that Duane should withdraw 
the deposits from the Bank of the United States. 
Duane refused, was removed, and for this the Whigs 
retaliated with an amendment that the Secretary of the 
Treasury should be chosen annually by the joint vote 
of House and Senate and should nominate, and by and 
with the advice of the Senate appoint, all officers whose 
duty it was to disburse the revenues. Jackson gave 
five members of Congress places in the Cabinet. 
Three more he sent to foreign courts. Four more he 
made comfortable with collectorships, appraiserships, 
and district attorneyships, and to stop him the Whigs 
proposed a third amendment. By it senators and rep- 
resentatives were not to be eligible to any office in the 
gift of President or Secretary of the Treasury during 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 209 

the term for which they were elected to sit in Con- 
gress, nor for two years thereafter. But the great 
constitutional question was the right to abolish slav- 
ery. 

The Missouri Compromise had stirred up Benjamin 
Lundy, Benjamin Lundy had stirred up Garrison, and 
Garrison in turn had roused the antislavery feeling of 
the North. Hundreds of antislavery societies had 
sprung into existence, and from these petitions, signed, 
it is said, by thirty-four thousand names, praying for the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, came 
pouring iu. Once more the interests of a section were 
attacked. Once more expediency produced the charge 
of unconstitutionality. Congress had no power to abol- 
ish slavery anywhere. To ask it to abolish slavery was 
to ask it to do an unconstitutional act, and petitions 
making such requests were themselves unconstitutional 
and ought not to be received. A motion that the 
House of Representatives would not receive any peti- 
tion for the abolition of slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia was sent to a committee. From that committee, 
in May, 1836, came a report that Congress had no 
power to interfere with slavery in any of the States ; 
that it ought not to interfere with it in the District of 
Columbia ; and that all " petitions, memorials, resolu- 
tions, or papers, relating in any way or to any extent 
whatever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of 
slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, 
be laid upon the table, and that no further action 
whatever shall be had thereon." 

Thus was the Constitution violated. Thus was the 
famous " gag rule " enacted. Thus was begun the glo- 
rious contest waged by John Quincy Adams in behalf 



210 WITH THE FATHERS. 

of the right of petition. Tims was slavery brought up 
for settlement under the Constitution. 

On March fourth, 1837, Andrew Jackson quit office 
and Martin Yan Buren began what the Whigs called 
"Jackson's Appendix," and during four years the 
amendments offered were Whig amendments, setting 
forth old Whig principles. The President was to have 
one term. Congressmen were to be ineligible to offices 
in the gift of the President for two years after the close 
of the term for which they were elected to serve in 
Congress. Judges of the Supreme Court were to serve 
for seven years and no longer. With these came up 
from time to time other amendments expressive of the 
moral sense of the community. The collector of the 
port of New York went off a defaulter for one million 
five hundred thousand dollars ; Congressman Cilley was 
murdered in a duel. 

Shocked at such enormities, the whole community 
cried out for reform, and two constitutional amendments 
promptly appeared in Congress. Embezzlers were to 
be forever disfranchised. Duellists were to be forever 
shut out from office-holding under the Government of 
the United States. 

But all of these were overshadowed by the great 
constitutional question of the hour — the right of Con- 
gress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. 
In the two years which had elapsed since the "gag 
rule " was passed a great moral awakening had begun. 
Slavery, as well as duellists and embezzlers, was grow- 
ing hateful, and the antislavery movement had en- 
tered the political field to stay. The Legislature of 
Massachusetts pronounced the " gag rule " unconstitu- 
tional, and asserted that Congress had power to abolish 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 211 

slavery in the District of Columbia. So did Vermont. 
Connecticut repealed the " black code." From a few 
hundred in 1835, the antislavery societies rose to two 
thousand in 1837. The abolition petitions which reached 
Congress in the early months of 1838 are said to have 
borne signatures traced by three hundred thousand 
hands. Then was it that Calhoun brought in five reso- 
lutions defining the powers of Congress and the States 
over slavery. Then was it that Mr. Clay moved eight 
more on slavery, the slave-trade, and the petitions. 
Then was it that Mr. Atherton moved yet another five, 
drawn up by the Democratic caucus, declaring that the 
Government of the United States was a Government 
of limited powers and had no jurisdiction over slavery 
in the States ; that petitions to abolish slavery in the 
District and the Territories were part of a plan indi- 
rectly to destroy slavery in the State ; that as Congress 
could not do indirectly what it could not do directly, 
these petitions were against the true intent and spirit 
of the Constitution, and that they ought, when pre- 
sented, to be laid on the table without being debated, 
printed, or referred. One by one they were adopted, 
and hardly were they adopted when a member moved 
an explanation. 

The States were not associated on principles of 
unlimited submission. The Federal Government was 
a Government of limited and specific powers derived 
from the people of the States, and the House of Rep- 
resentatives in adopting the "gag rule" had but ful- 
filled its constitutional duty and in no way infringed 
the right of petition or the freedom of debate. Then 
was it that John Quincy Adams moved the first anti- 
slavery constitutional amendment. Save Florida, no 



212 WITH THE FATHERS. 

slave State should ever again be admitted into the 
Union. On July fourth, 1842, hereditary slavery was 
to cease and all negroes born after that day to be for- 
ever free. On July fourth, 1845, there was to be an 
end made to slavery and the slave-trade in the District 
of Columbia. 

A week later the first half -century under the Con- 
stitution ended. The second half opened with a lull in 
constitutional discussion. During two years not an 
amendment was offered. There began a new thresh- 
ing of the old straw. The term of the judges, the 
term of the President, the manner of electing him, the 
exclusion of congressmen from office, were repeatedly 
made the subjects of proposed amendments. There 
was a long debate on the constitutionality of the pro- 
tective tariff. There was a renewal by Massachusetts 
of the old demand that representation and direct taxes 
be apportioned according to the number of free inhabi- 
tants, and of the old question of the constitutionality of 
a bank. 

The great Whig victory of 1840 turned over the 
administration of affairs to the loose-construction party. 
But the death of Harrison in 1841 gave it back again 
to the strict constructionists ; for such Tyler had always 
been and such he always remained. Still the Whigs 
were not dismayed, and one by one brought forward 
their promised reforms. They repealed the Sub-Treas- 
ury Act, and Tyler signed the bill. But he vetoed, as 
unconstitutional, the bill to establish " The Fiscal Bank 
of the United States," and the bill to establish a " Fis- 
cal Corporation." 

For this, Whig voters burned him in effigy all over 
the Union. For this, the Whig caucus read him out of 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 213 

the party, and in an earnest address to the people called 
for a lessening of the executive power by limiting the 
veto, by restricting the President to a single term, and 
by giving the appointment of Secretary of the Treasury 
to Congress. The people gave the address small heed ; 
but the great Whig leader did, and in December, 1841, 
moved three constitutional amendments. Henceforth 
a majority vote was to be enough to pass a bill over the 
veto ; henceforth the Treasurer and the Secretary of 
the Treasury were to be appointed by Congress, and no 
congressman given any office during the term for 
which he had been elected. Clay defended his amend- 
ments with all the eloquence and skill of which he was 
master. Calhoun attacked them with more than com- 
mon zeal, and the Senate laid them on the table. But 
the end was not yet. ( The last reduction provided by 
the compromise tariff was to take place June thirtieth, 
1812. The Whigs passed a bill suspending this reduc- 
tion till August first, 1842, and Tyler sent it back with 
his " I forbid." Unable to override the veto, the 
Whigs passed a new tariff act, and this also Tyler sent 
back with his " I forbid." 

The House took up the message which accompanied 
this veto — the " ditto veto," as it was nicknamed by the 
Whigs — and sent it to a Committee of Thirteen. John 
Quincy Adams was the chairman, and wrote a report 
which ended with another call for the constitutional 
amendment proposed by Clay, for a limitation of the 
veto. The report accomplished nothing ; but the ques- 
tion at issue was by no means dead, and appeared in 
both the Whig and Democratic platforms of 1844. 

The custom of laying constitutional "planks" in a 
party platform was brought in by the National Repub- 



214 WITH THE FATHERS. 

licans in 1832. Those were the days when nullification 
was rife, when the Supreme Court was defied, when 
the outlay of public money on internal improvements 
was still thought unconstitutional. But such was not 
Republican doctrine; and in their platform, the first 
ever framed by a national convention, they boldly de- 
clared for internal improvements, and pronounced the 
Supreme Court the only tribunal for deciding all ques- 
tions arising under the Constitution and the laws. 

As this was the first, so for eight years it was the 
last party platform. Then, in the campaign of 1840, 
the Democrats imitated the Republicans of 1832, framed 
their first party platform and in it laid down the party 
views on the Constitution. The Federal Government 
was declared to be one of limited powers. These pow- 
ers were derived solely from the Constitution and were 
to be construed strictly. Such a construction gave to 
Congress no power to make internal improvements, to 
assume State debts, to charter a bank, nor to meddle 
with the domestic institutions of the States. In these 
principles neither time nor experience wrought any 
changes, and for twenty years they were regularly re- 
affirmed by every Democratic convention. Four years 
later the men who nominated Clay, drew up three reso- 
lutions, which must be considered as the first Whig 
platform, and in them demanded one term for the 
President and a reform of executive usurpations, which 
every true Whig understood to mean the constitutional 
amendments supported by John Quincy Adams and 
Henry Clay. 

But the election was contested on very different 
grounds. It was under the cries of " The reannexation 
of Texas and the reoccupation of Oregon," " The whole 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 215 

of Oregon, or none," " Fifty-four forty or fight," that 
the Democrats entered the campaign. It was under 
such cries as " Texas or disunion," " Give us Texas or 
divide the spoons," that they won it. The treaty of 
annexation had failed in the Senate on constitutional 
grounds. Some denied the right to acquire foreign 
soil in any manner. Some objected to annexing it by 
treaty : to remove their scruples annexation by joint 
rule was proposed, only to be resisted by those who 
claimed that annexation by treaty was the only consti- 
tutional method of procedure. A compromise followed, 
and Tyler was left to submit to Texas the joint rule or 
open negotiations for a new treaty, as he saw fit. He 
submitted the joint rule and gave the country Texas. 
Then came the war. The war gave us new territory ; 
the new territory had ( to be governed, and the attempt 
to set up territorial governments in California, New 
Mexico, and Utah brought up the question whether 
those governments should be slave or free. 

On the one hand were the Free-soilers, holding two 
definite theories of the status of slavery under the Con- 
stitution. Slavery in the State was, they held, a purely 
domestic institution. State laws created it. State laws 
protected it, and these laws the Federal Government 
could not repeal. For slavery in the States, therefore, 
the Federal Government was not to blame. But for 
the existence of slavery in the Territories the Federal 
Government was to blame ; for over the Territories the 
States had no authority and the Congress all author- 
ity. But the Constitution expressly denied to Congress 
power to deprive any man of life, liberty, or property 
without due process of law. Congress had, therefore, 
no more power to make a slave than to make a king ; 
15 



216 WITH THE FATHERS. 

no more power to set up slavery than to set up mon- 
archy. The Congress must prohibit slavery in the Ter- 
ritories, in the District of Columbia, and wherever else 
its authority was supreme. 

On the other hand were the Democrats, resisting 
the Wilmot proviso, resisting the exclusion of slavery 
from the Territories ; demanding the fulfilment by the 
North of the constitutional obligation to return fugitive 
slaves ; asserting the doctrines of popular sovereignty 
and non-interference, and threatening disunion if every 
demand were not conceded. Non-interference meant 
the constitutional right of every slave-holder to take his 
slaves to any State or any Territory and be secure in 
their possession, and the constitutional duty of Congress 
to do nothing tending directly or indirectly to hurt 
slavery even " in its incipient stages." Popular sover- 
eignty meant the right of the people in a Territory to 
determine for themselves when they framed their State 
Constitution whether they would or would not have 
slavery. 

By 1850 these two doctrines had become so well 
defined that an attempt was made to fasten them on 
the Constitution. One amendment proposed that the 
Constitution should never be amended so as to abolish 
slavery without consent of each State in which slavery 
existed. By another resolution the Committee on the 
Judiciary were to frame an amendment setting forth 
that the people of each separate community, whether 
they do or do not reside in the Territories, have a right 
to make their own domestic laws and to establish their 
own domestic government. 

Again the proposed amendments were thrown aside ; 
but the doctrine of popular sovereignty triumphed. By 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 217 

the compromise of 1850 it was applied in the organiza- 
tion of Utah and New Mexico, and in them slavery 
was established. By the act of May twenty-second, 
1854, it was again applied in the organization of Kansas 
and Nebraska, and in Kansas slavery was desperately 
resisted. When that dreadful war was over, Clay was 
dead ; "Webster was dead ; the old Whig party was 
dead ; the Free-soil party had given place to the Re- 
publican party ; the Dred Scott decision had been made, 
and the Democratic party was rent into two sectional 
factions, holding two very different views on " sover- 
eignty." The Southern wing, led by Breckinridge and 
Lane, still held to the old form of "popular sover- 
eignty," and still declared that when the settlers in a 
Territory, having an adequate population, form a State 
Constitution, the right of sovereignty begins ; that they 
then have the right to recognize or prohibit slavery, as 
they see fit, and must then be admitted as a State with 
their Constitution free or pro-slavery, as they wish ; 
still held that the government of a Territory is provi- 
sional and temporary, and that while it lasts all citizens 
of the United States have equal rights to settle in the 
Territories without their rights or property being im- 
paired by congressional action. The Northern wing, 
led by Douglas, proclaimed the doctrine of " squatter 
sovereignty," the right of the people while still in the 
territorial condition to determine through their terri- 
torial legislatures whether they would or would not 
have slavery. 

The Republicans, on the other hand, asserted the 
normal condition of the Territories to be that of free- 
dom, and denied the authority of Congress, of the ter- 
ritorial legislatures, of territorial constitutional conven- 



218 WITH THE FATHERS. 

tions, and of any individual to give legal existence to 
slavery in the Territories. In 1860 this doctrine tri- 
umphed, and the Southern States at once began to 
carry out the threats so often made, and one by one 
seceded. 

Then came up for final settlement two questions, 
many times discussed in vague or general language : 
May a State secede ? May the Federal Government 
coerce ? The answer of Buchanan to these questions is 
given in his message to Congress in December, 1860. 
He admitted, as all men must admit, that revolution is 
a " rightful remedy " for tyranny and oppression. He 
denied that secession was a constitutional remedy for 
anything. But he asserted that the Constitution gave 
no power to coerce a State when it claimed to have 
seceded. He admitted that the Constitution did give 
the power to enforce the laws of the Union on the peo- 
ple of a so-called seceded State ; but he asserted that he 
was powerless to do so because he could not comply 
with the terms of the law of 1795, which provided for 
putting that power into effect. Having laid down these 
principles, he fell back on the old remedy and urged an 
" explanatory constitutional amendment." This amend- 
ment was to declare, not that secession was unconstitu- 
tional, not that the General Government might coerce, 
but that the right of property in slaves was recognized 
in every State where it then existed or might exist ; 
that this right should be protected in the Territories so 
long as they remained Territories ; and that all State 
laws hindering the return of fugitive slaves were un- 
constitutional, null, and void. 

The hint was taken, and men of all parties made 
haste to lay before Congress a vast mass of propositions 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 219 

and amendments. One was for urging the States to 
call a constitutional convention. Jefferson Davis was 
for declaring by amendment that property in slaves 
stood upon the same footing as other kinds of property 
and should never be impaired by act of Congress. 
Andrew Johnson had a long list of six more. Mr, 
Crittenden, a senator from Kentucky, offered seven. 
From the House Committee on the State of the Union 
came seven. From the Peace Conference came seven. 
All were compromises. The slave States had com- 
plained that they were not given equal rights in the 
Territories. They were now given rights ; and the 
public domain was parted by the old Missouri Compro- 
mise line of 30° 30'. In the Territories north of the 
line there was to be no slavery ; in the Territories south 
of the line slavery was to be protected. The slave States 
had demanded " popular sovereignty." They were now 
given popular sovereignty, and the Territories both 
north and south of 36° 30' were to be suffered, when 
they formed State constitutions, to set up or prohibit 
slavery. The free States had complained of the acquisi- 
tion of territory for the purpose of spreading slavery. 
The Federal Government was now forbidden to acquire 
any territory in any way, save by discovery, without 
the consent of a majority of the senators from the 
States where slavery was not allowed and of a ma- 
jority of the senators from the States where slavery 
was allowed. The free States had demanded the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia ; but 
this was refused, and in future neither the Constitu- 
tion nor any amendment was to be so construed as to 
give Congress power to meddle with slavery in the 
States, nor to abolish it in the District without the 



220 WITH THE FATHERS. 

consent of Maryland. The free States had demanded 
that the slave-trade between the States be stopped, and 
this was granted. The slave States had demanded a 
better enforcement of the fugitive-slave law : this too 
was granted, and the States were to have power to pass 
laws to enforce the delivery of fugitive slaves to legal 
claimants. All these amendments, and all the pro- 
visions of the Constitution touching slavery, were never 
to be changed without the consent of each State. But 
the day for compromise was gone. Congress would 
not accept them, and March second, 1861, sent out to 
the States a short amendment in their stead, providing 
that Congress should never abolish nor meddle with 
slavery in the States. Maryland and Ohio alone ratified 
it. The war made it useless, and in February, 1864, it 
was recalled, to be followed in February, 1865, by an 
amendment which the States did accept and which 
abolished slavery in the United States forever. Then 
began the days of reconstruction, and when March 
thirtieth, 1870, came, two more amendments had been 
added to the Constitution. 

With these the amending stopped ; but the rage for 
amendment went on burning with tenfold fury. State 
sovereignty was gone ; Federal sovereignty was estab- 
lished. The national Government, not the State Gov- 
ernment, was now looked up to as the righter of wrongs, 
the corrector of abuses, the preserver of morals ; and in- 
dividuals, societies, sects, made haste to lay their griev- 
ances before Congress and ask to have them removed by 
constitutional amendment. The change which the war 
has produced in this respect is most marked and curious. 
During the twenty-eight years which have passed since 
1861, three hundred and seventy-seven amendments 



CENTURY OF CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION. 221 

have been offered. Many of these, it is true, have in 
one form or another tormented Congress for ninety 
years ; bnt among them are others which indicate noth- 
ing so plainly as the belief that the Government is now 
a great national Government and that its duty is to 
provide in the broadest sense for "the general welfare " 
of the people. To Congress, therefore, have come re- 
peated calls for constitutional amendments, forbidding 
special legislation ; forbidding the manufacture and sale 
of spirituous liquors ; forbidding bigamy and polygamy ; 
forbidding the repeal of the pension laws ; giving Con- 
gress power to pass uniform marriage and divorce laws, 
and power to limit the hours of labor ; giving women 
the right to vote ; giving the States power to tax cor- 
porations ; and for amendments abolishing and pro- 
hibiting the convict-labor system and acknowledging 
the existence of a God. 



A CENTURY'S STRUGGLE FOR SILVER. 

When the articles of Confederation went into force 
in the month of March, 1781, the Continental Congress, 
for the first time in its existence, was given power to 
coin money and regulate the value thereof. The need 
of such regulation was great ; for there was at that day 
no national coinage ; no uniform circulating medium, 
no legal tender, no common money of account. In the 
towns and cities along the seaboard the currency was 
composed of paper bills put out by the States and con- 
fined in circulation to the limits of the States wherein 
they were printed; of loan-office certificates, indents, 
and continental notes issued by authority of Congress, 
and passing at different rates of discount at different 
places ; and, to some extent, of specie made up of the 
coins of England, France, Portugal, and Spain. 

Back from the seaboard, and especially along the 
frontier, debts were generally paid in produce or lum- 
ber ; barter was the chief medium of exchange ; and, if 
any standard of value existed, it was a bushel of wheat 
or a gallon of whiskey ; a bundle of skins, or a hun- 
dred-weight of tobacco. The money of account used 
by the Congress was the Spanish milled dollar and its 
fractions. The money of account used by the States, 
the merchants, and the people was the pound and its 

222 



A CENTURY'S STRUGGLE FOR SILVER. 223 

fractions. But neither the pound nor the dollar had a 
common value the country over, for each expressed a 
very different value in JSTew England and in New York ; 
in Pennsylvania and in the South. To make matters 
worse, not a doubloon nor a moidore, not a guinea nor 
a crown, not a joe, not a sixj)ence, not a gold or silver 
coin of any denomination passed current by tale ; for 
all had been so clipped or plugged that no one would 
take them save by weight. 

To cure the evils produced by so disordered a cur- 
rency, and replace it gradually by a national and uni- 
form circulating medium, was no easy matter, and was 
not accomplished in fifty years. The work, however, 
was begun in 1782 by the Continental Congress calling 
on its Superintendent of Finance to report a table of 
rates at which foreign coins should be received at the 
post-offices and the Treasury, for as Congress could not 
lay a tax of any kind no Federal custom-houses existed. 
Robert Morris was Secretary of Finance, and, instead 
of merely reporting a table of rates, he took occasion to 
lay before Congress some wholesome advice on the sub- 
ject of a national currency. He told it that credit could 
not be established, that business could not flourish, that 
industrial enterprises could not be securely carried on 
till a uniform currency existed ; that what was wanted 
was not a table of the relative values of foreign coins, 
but a standard of our own by which in future to esti- 
mate them ; in a word, a national coinage. 

Having heard the report, Congress took no action. 
But the idea was not abandoned, and by 1786 matters 
had gone so far that a unit had been chosen, the names 
and denomination of many of our present coins selected, 
and an ordinance passed establishing a mint and regu- 



224 WITH THE FATHERS. 

lating the alloy of coin. The ordinance, however, was 
never put into force. The balance of trade was heavily 
against the States. To settle this balance the foreign 
coins were gathered up and shipped to London, and the 
people, stripped of every kind of circulating medium, 
forced a majority of the States to again put forth paper 
money, and brought on that dreadful era of force acts 
and tender laws, depreciated paper and token money, 
which marked the closing years of the Confederation. 
Abandoning all attempts, under these circumstances, to 
coin the precious metals, the Board of Treasury, acting 
under an ordinance of Congress, contracted for the 
manufacture of a few copper cents, which, bearing date 
1787, are now to be found in the cabinets of collectors 
under the name of " Fugios." 

With the establishment of government under the 
Constitution, Congress once more returned to the sub- 
ject of a national coinage, and in 1791, after listening 
to the famous report of Hamilton, ordered that a mint 
be established, and that "Washington secure such artists 
and such machines as might be necessary. One year 
later another act specified the officers of the mint, 
established the unit, fixed the standard of fineness, and 
named the coins that were to be struck. Gold, silver, 
and copper, the law provided, were to be coined with- 
out charge for all coiners in the order of their arrival ; 
the gold into eagles, half -eagles, and quarter-eagles ; the 
silver into dollars, half dollars, quarter dollars, dimes, 
and half dimes ; the copper into cents and half cents. 

Having thus provided for a bimetallic currency, the 
law further ordered that the ratio between the two 
metals should be fifteen to one, or that fifteen pounds 
weight of pure silver should have the same legal value 



A CENTURY'S STRUGGLE FOR SILVER. 225 

as one pound of pure gold. The unit was the silver 
dollar, and into it were to go 371J grains of pure, or 
416 grains of standard silver. 

Though the law was passed in April, such haste was 
made to cany it out that by October a site had been 
procured in Philadelphia, a mint (the first public build- 
ing erected by the Federal Government) had been put 
up, and the coinage of silver half dimes had begun. 
Some cents and half cents were struck in 1793 ; but 
the serious work of coinage did not begin till October, 
1791. The Treasury having no authority to purchase 
bullion, the mint was forced to depend on individuals 
and the Treasury for a supply of bullion or foreign 
coins. This supply proved trivial and irregular. As 
neither gold nor silver was mined in the country, no 
private interest existed eager to avail itself of the free 
coinage offered by the mint. As foreign coin still cir- 
culated freely from hand to hand, and were still a legal 
tender for Government dues, merchants were under no 
inducement to turn them in for recoinage. The Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, it is true, was in duty bound to 
send every piece of foreign coin received on payment 
of dues to the mint to be recoined before it again 
passed into circulation. But each succeeding Secretary 
so flatly refused to obey the law that ten years after 
the establishment of the mint not a dollar had been 
coined on account of the Government. 

The chief supplies were the banks. Indeed, it was 
from one of them — the Bank of Maryland — that the 
first deposit of silver was received in July, 1794. It 
consisted of French coin worth $80,715, and from the 
same dollars and half dollars were struck and returned 
to the Treasury in October. In coining them the direc- 



226 WITH THE FATHERS. 

tor deliberately and wilfully disobeyed the law. Be- 
lieving that the prescribed standard would debase the 
coin and cause it to turn black when used, he had rec- 
ommended that a change be made, and that for every 
nine parts pure silver there should be one part alloy. 
Confident that his recommendation would be approved, 
he had ordered the dollars to be made in accordance 
with the new standard, and was not a little chagrined 
when, a year later, Congress having given no heed to 
his suggestion, he was forced to coin according to the 
old law. Meantime every depositor whose silver had 
been used had suffered a loss. Each did, it is true, re- 
ceive back all his silver ; but he received less dollars 
than he was legally entitled to. One such sufferer ap- 
plied to Congress for relief ; but his claim was disal- 
lowed. When the first silver coin was delivered at the 
Treasury in 1791, the President, as the law required, 
issued his proclamation, declaring that on the fifteenth 
day of October, 179 7, all silver coins of foreign mints, 
the Spanish milled dollar alone excepted, should cease 
to be legal tender. Some half -eagles made from gold 
bullion, deposited by a Boston merchant, having been 
sent to the Treasury in July, 1795, a like proclamation 
was issued concerning foreign gold coin, and the day 
seemed near when the people of the United States 
would have a national coinage of their own. 

But when the prescribed time expired, eagles and 
dollars, dimes and half dimes, were almost as scarce as 
if no mint existed. The reason is plain. The Adminis- 
tration was trying to do what no power has ever yet 
succeeded in doing — it was trying to put in circulation, 
side by side, a sound and an unsound currency. The 
foreign coins — old, worn, clipped, and light of weight — 



A CENTURY'S STRUGGLE FOR SILVER. 227 

drove out the new American dollars and eagles, which, 
sound and of full weight, were of far more value as a 
commodity in foreign markets than as a circulating 
medium at home. They were therefore exported in 
such numbers that enough could not be had to pay the 
dues of j merchants at the Custom-House, and in 1798 
the law was suspended, and foreign coins remained a 
legal tender till 1802. But the exportation of our coin 
still went on, and when 1802 came the country was as 
far as ever from enjoying a metallic currency of its 
own. Popular sentiment meantime turned strongly 
against the mint. It was denounced as another of the 
many costly and useless pieces of political machinery 
saddled on the people by the Federalist party. " This 
mint," it was said in 1800, "has been seven years in 
existence, yet the entire output of coins, gold, silver, 
and copper, is short of $2,600,000, while the cost of 
making them has exceeded $200,000. To coin ten 
dollars entails an outlay of one dollar, and when the 
ten are coined half of them are instantly gathered up 
and shipped to London as bullion. For the few pieces 
which remain locked up in the vaults of banks we pay, 
accordingly, twenty per cent of their value for the 
privilege of trying to have a national coinage. The 
game is not worth the candle. The burden is too 
great to be borne." In the House of Representatives 
the popular feeling was so strongly reflected that in 
1800 a committee reported in favor of abolishing the 
mint, and in 1802 a bill was passed closing it. To this, 
however, the Senate would not agree, and for twenty- 
six years the mint was continued by a long series of 
acts running from one to five years. Not till 1828 was 
it permanently established. 



228 WITH THE FATHERS. 

That the evils of an unsound currency and the ab- 
sence of a national coinage was so little felt in the 
time of Jefferson is to be ascribed to the credit cur- 
rency supplied by the banks then rapidly springing up 
all over the country. Each gave to the people of its 
neighborhood a paper currency which was in no danger 
of exportation, which passed readily from hand to hand, 
and was far more portable than specie, while the Bank 
of the United States furnished what came very near to 
being a uniform circulating medium. With branches 
in every important city in the country ready to redeem 
its notes in specie ; with every tax collector, every cus- 
toms collector ready to take them in payment of 
Government dues, the five millions of bills the bank 
put out were accepted in all parts of the country as 
readily as the national bank notes of the present day. 
But when, in 1811, Congress refused to recharter the 
bank, scores of State institutions sprang up to take its 
place. The country was flooded with paper money far 
exceeding in amount the specie in the country. Re- 
demption was not possible, and in the troubled days of 
the war every bank along the seaboard, out of New 
England, from Albany to Savannah suspended specie 
payments. Exchange was destroyed. The Federal 
Treasury, unable to move its money from the place of 
collection to the place of expenditure, was reduced to 
bankruptcy, and the days of barter and token money 
returned. Firmly convinced that a credit currency 
which neither rested on nor was redeemable in specie 
was worse than none, the people cried out for a national 
bank, and in 1816 the second Bank of the United States 
was chartered for the sole purpose of " regulating the 
currency." But specie must be had on which to rest 



A CENTURY'S STRUGGLE FOR SILVER. 229 

its paper, and to bring back specie certain foreign coins 
were, in 1816, once more made legal tender, and re- 
mained so — the gold till 1819, the silver till 1827. 

Food distress in Europe changed the balance of 
trade in favor of the United States, specie came back 
in great quantity, and some relief was given to the 
banks and the Treasury. But the people gained noth- 
ing, for the dearth of small change went on. Without 
the slightest authority by law the director of the mint 
had coined no silver dollars since 1804, no quarter dol- 
lars since 1808, and no dimes since 1810 save a few in 
1811 and 1814, and no half dimes since 1806. Two dollar 
bank bills torn in two and four pieces, tickets of 1, 2, 3, 
6J, 10, 12J, 18f, 25, 37i and 50 cents in value and is- 
sued by individuals, by stage companies, by mayors of 
cities, by corporations of every sort, constituted the 
money with which the people transacted the business of 
the market-place and the shop. To make matters worse, 
the Bank of England in 1819 resumed specie payments 
after a suspension of twenty-six years, and the tide of 
specie again turned strongly toward London. First went 
our gold pieces, which were so undervalued that $4.56 
in coin contained as much gold as an English sovereign. 
Next went our silver, driven out by the debased and 
worn products of the French and Spanish mints. Gold 
now disappeared not only from sight, but from the 
vaults of the banks, and from 1819 to 1834 the circu- 
lating medium of our country became a credit cur- 
rency based on foreign coins. The mint, indeed, con- 
tinued year by year to turn out its coin, and during 
these years $25,000,000 in round numbers in silver 
and $4,500,000 in gold pieces were struck. But nine 
tenths of them were sent awav or melted into bullion. 



230 WITH THE FATHERS. 

This state of affairs called forth much discussion, 
many reports, many plans of relief, but no legislation. 
At one time the House of Representatives thought 
seriously of prohibiting the exportation of specie. At 
another it was proposed to cut down the weight of 
the monetary unit and make American coin worth 
more for use at home than for shipment abroad. Ses- 
sion after session, however, went by and nothing was 
done till 1834. The promoters of a new industry 
then came forward and turned discussion into action. 
The United States had become a gold-producing coun- 
try, and though the amount mined (about $678,000 in 
1832 and $868,000 in 1833) seems small in these days, 
it was enough to call for legislation. Such a yield, it 
was feared, would lower the price. To keep up the 
price a market must be found, and this market it was 
the duty of the Federal Government to provide by 
putting gold coin into circulation. The time was most 
favorable. The long struggle waged by Jackson with 
the Bank of the United States was practically over, 
for his triumphant re-election in 1832 made the end of 
the bank certain. 

Millions of dollars in bills which for twenty years 
had been the real circulating medium of the country 
were soon to be called in. The place of this paper 
must be supplied, and over the kind of money that 
should replace it a lively contest now took place. 
On the one side were the friends of the State 
banks, the paper-money men, the inflationists, as 
they would be called in our day. On the other 
side were the enemies of the old bank, the friends 
of Jackson, the hard-money men, the advocates of a 
national coinage, the producers of gold. Led on by 



A CENTURY'S STRUGGLE FOR SILVER. 231 

Thomas Benton, they won and placed on the statute- 
book the Gold Coin Act of 1831. The wish and pur- 
pose of " Old Bullion," as his admirers delighted to 
call him, was to stop the importation of gold coin ; to 
restore gold and silver money of foreign nations to its 
former circulation within the United States; and to 
make the revenue laws of the United States instru- 
mental in establishing gold and silver as the common 
currency of the country. The law of 1834 was in- 
tended to accomplish the first of these ends, and to 
accomplish it by reducing the weight of the eagle, half- 
eagle, and quarter-eagle, and so raising the ratio between 
gold and silver to 1 to 16 '002. Just what this act was 
expected to do was well expressed by the Washington 
Globe, the organ of the Administration. "A great 
stream of gold," saicl the Globe, " will flow up the 
Mississippi River from New Orleans, and diffuse itself 
all over the great West. Nearly all the gold coinage 
of the New World will come to the United States. 
This will fill the West with doubloons and half -joes, 
and in eight or nine months from this time every 
substantial citizen will have a long silken purse with 
fine open network through the interstices of which 
yellow gold will shine and glisten. Every substantial 
man and every substantial man's wife and daughter 
will travel on gold." Unhappily, this fond expectation 
was not realized. The mint, indeed, went hard to work 
and in six years turned out nearly $18,000,000 of what 
the people called " Benton mint-drops," and " Jackson 
yellow-boys." But the ratio proved a false one ; silver 
had been underrated, and in its turn took flight. Then 
began, in 1840, that excess of exports over imports of 
silver which from that day to this has never been inter- 
16 



232 WITH THE FATHERS. 

rupted save in 1843, in 1846, and in 1861. When the 
fifties were reached matters had become so bad that it 
was scarcely possible to keep the fractional silver coins 
in circulation. Debased as they were, they had far 
more value as bullion than as change, and they, too, 
left us, and by 1853 silver was practically demonetized 
by the working of the law of 1834 and the discovery 
of gold in California. 

In 1853, therefore, came the second great change 
in our currency laws, by which the weight of frac- 
tional coins was lessened materially and their free 
coinage stopped. Henceforth halves and quarters, 
dimes and half dimes were made solely on Govern- 
ment account and sold for gold in sums of $100. 
This sufficed for twenty years, when new legislation 
became necessary. The act was passed in 1873, when 
not a coin had been in circulation for eleven years, and 
was rather a codification of existing laws than new 
legislation. All the provisions of sixty-odd acts re- 
lating to the mint, to its branches, to the Assay Office, 
to the coinage, passed since 1792 were arranged, classi- 
fied, simplified, stripped of all inconsistencies, and em- 
bodied in one statute. As to the coinage, three changes 
were made. The bronze two-cent piece, authorized in 
1864 but never popular ; the three-cent silver piece 
(not the three-cent nickel), authorized in 1851 and so 
little known that few persons now living could describe 
it from memory ; the half dime and the dollar, were 
dropped from the list of coins. The silver dollar may 
be said never to have been in circulation. From the 
day the first specimens came from the mint the dollars 
were the rarest of our coins, for they were shipped year 
after year to London and to the West Indies. Finding 



A CENTURY'S STRUGGLE FOR SILVER. 233 

that none of them remained at home, Jefferson ordered 
that no more should be struck, and in March, 1804, 
their coinage ceased for thirty-five years.* In 1839 
they began to be made again ; but the Gold Coinage 
Act of 1834 slowly demonetized silver ; the premium 
on the dollar rose to $1.03 in gold, and Congress, see- 
ing that the mint was a mere machine for turning 
silver into a convenient form for exportation, sanc- 
tioned the request that the coinage of dollars be dis- 
continued. At the same time a great innovation was 
made, and a new coin ordered, not for circulation, but 
for shipment. 

Want of a mint in China had left that empire de- 
pendent on the coins of foreign nations, and of such 
coins none found so ready a circulation as the dollars 
of Mexico and Spain. It was in such pieces that 
millions and millions were remitted by American 
merchants engaged in the China trade, a purchase 
which seemed quite unnecessary now that the mines 
of Colorado and Nevada were producing more silver 
than the country could well consume. The act of 
1873, therefore, provided that any owner of bullion 
might deposit it at any mint and, after paying all 
charges, receive either bars or " trade dollars " weigh- 
ing 420 grains troy. By a piece of carelessness on 
the part of Congress these new coins were made a 
legal tender in sums not greater than five dollars. 
But as each one cost much more than a dollar to 
make, none were used as money in our country 
till after 1876. In that year the legal-tender quality 



* Three hundred and twenty-one were numbered in 1805 and 
1,000 in 1836. 



234 WITH THE FATHERS. 

was taken away. The cost of manufacturing, how- 
ever, was then less than a dollar, the country was 
about to return to specie payments, the people seemed 
willing to take the dollars at their face value, and 
owners of mines found it most profitable to hurry 
their silver to the mint to be turned into trade dollars. 
Such was the rush that in 1877 more than 13,000,000 
of them were struck. This was twice as large as the 
output of any previous year, and would undoubtedly 
have been greatly surpassed in the next twelve months 
had not the act of February twenty-eighth, 1878, for- 
bidden further coinage. A few hundreds were, it is 
true, issued each year till 1883, when 35,965,924 trade 
dollars had gone from the mint. Four fifths of them 
were either exported or used in the arts. One fifth 
(7,689,036), after passing about as token money, till no 
postmaster would take them in payment of stamps, till 
no bank would receive them on deposit, till no car 
conductor would accept them for fares, till no shop- 
keeper would take them save at a discount of ten per 
cent, they were at last rejected by the people, were 
purchased by syndicates and redeemed by the Govern- 
ment in 1887 at one hundred cents on the dollar. 

The five years during which the trade-dollar act 
remained on the statute-books were years full of the 
most unforeseen and startling events. Abroad, Ger- 
many, aided by the payment of the French indemnity, 
changed her currency from silver to gold. Nation 
after nation ceased to coin silver, and even in India 
and in China the demand for it fell off. At home, 
meantime, the production of the mines went on steadily 
increasing, doubling, trebling, quadrupling, and pulling 
down the market value from $1.30 to $1.12 an ounce. 



A CENTURY'S STRUGGLE FOR SILVER. 235 

Tlie silver States cried out for relief : Congress re- 
sponded, and by the same act which stopped the 
coinage of the " trade " dollar provided the producers 
of silver with a market. Under the new law the 
Secretary was commanded to buy each month not less 
than two nor more than four million dollars' worth of 
silver and have it coined into standard silver dollars, 
to be a legal tender for any amount. Then began our 
silver era and our first serious struggle for bimetallism. 
Year by year from twenty-seven to thirty-eight mill- 
ions of " cart-wheel dollars " were struck, till at the 
close of twelve years more than 350,000,000 had been 
manufactured. That the people would willingly handle 
so vast a quantity of so heavy and clumsy a coin was 
never expected. For convenience, therefore, the law 
provided for the deposit of the dollars (when made) in 
the vaults of the Treasury, and the issue in place of 
them of silver certificates which should be receivable 
for customs, taxes, and all public dues, and when so re- 
ceived might be reissued. Under the workings of the 
law some 60,000,000 of the silver dollars were sent out 
into circulation. Of the remainder, a part is held for 
the redemption of the silver certificates which now 
form so large a portion of the paper currency in the 
pockets of our people, while a part lies idle in the 
Treasury. 

Great as was the consumption of silver in this way, 
it still proved of small avail. The yield of the mines 
went on increasing. The price went on falling, and in 
1890 another and more stringent remedy was tried. 
By the act of July fourteenth, 1890 — the ever-famous 
" Sherman Act " — the Secretary is compelled to buy 
each month 4,500,000 ounces of silver, or so much 



236 WITH THE FATHERS. 

thereof as may be offered at less than $1.29 per ounce, 
and pay for it in Treasury notes to be redeemed on 
demand in gold or silver as the Secretary shall judge 
fit. Notes so issued are legal tender at their face 
value for all debts public and private, unless otherwise 
expressly stipulated in the contract, and, when re- 
deemed, may be again reissued. 

The present year completes the century since the 
mint was fairly established and began the work of 
making coin. A review of that century makes clear 
to us that the first great currency question with which 
the country had to deal was whether there should be a 
national coinage, or a legalizing and rerating of the 
debased foreign coin of pre-revolutionary days. The 
chartering of the Banks of the United States and the 
rise of State banks settled this question and gave the 
country a paper currency based on foreign coin. The 
winding up of the second United States Bank and be- 
ginning of gold mining brought up in 1834 the second 
great currency question, which was, Shall the money 
of the country be hard or soft, metallic or paper ? 
The Gold Coin Act of 1834 was the attempt to settle 
this, and brought on the first bimetallic discussion ever 
held in Congress. The attempt was a failure. A false 
ratio and the unexpected discovery of gold in Califor- 
nia demonetized silver, and the fractional silver coin 
act of 1853 marked the second effort to preserve and 
remonetize silver. Once more the effort proved vain 
and the acts of 1873, 1878, and 1890 followed. 



IS SOUND FINANCE POSSIBLE UNDER 
POPULAR GOVERNMENT? 

"Whenever the times become hard, whenever busi- 
ness is depressed, money difficult to earn, and the 
country brought face to face with serious financial 
troubles, a feeling of despondency is sure to set in. 
Under the baleful influences of such periods of dis- 
tress as that through which we are now passing men 
of sense and judgment lose faith in the success of 
Democratic institutions and the wisdom of majority 
rule. It is easy enough, they say, for the great mass 
of our fellow-citizens to form a fairly correct judgment 
on a question of pure politics. Even if they fail to 
form a correct judgment, even if they do adopt wrong 
standards, pursue wrong methods, and put bad men in 
power, it is still possible for the community to be pros- 
perous and happy, though misgoverned. But when the 
question to be dealt with is so intricate and complex 
as to be beyond the comprehension of the great mass 
of men, is it safe to leave it to be decided by majority 
rule ? In the light of our past history the answer is, 
Yes. 

Of all the people of the earth we are the most prac- 
tical and the least theoretical. Experience, not theory, 
has ever been our guide. Nowhere else do theories of 

237 



238 WITH THE FATHERS. 

finance, theories of political economy, of government, 
of social organization, count for so little. Nowhere 
else does that wisdom gained by daily contact with the 
affairs of life count for so much. The very Constitu- 
tion under which we live is a signal illustration of this. 
It was quite as much a business as a political necessity, 
and bears all over it the marks of a bitter experience. 
The dreadful state of trade, foreign and interstate, the 
disorders of the currency, the lack of a uniform circu- 
lating medium, the hopelessness of trying to support a 
Government which could not tax — these were the con- 
siderations which outweighed all others and moved our 
ancestors to frame and adopt the Constitution. Any 
student of politics could have told them, and many 
did, that it was idle to expect that thirteen petty re- 
publics could regulate a common foreign trade as suc- 
cessfully as one central government. But not till the 
experiment had been made and failed were the people 
ready to bestow on Congress sole power to regulate 
trade with foreign countries, between the States, and 
with the Indians. Any student of finance could have 
told them that thirteen kinds of paper money issued 
on no security and maintained by tender laws and force 
acts could never become the circulating medium of a 
great people. But not until they had tried it, not un- 
til they had brought themselves to the brink of ruin 
by the experiment, were our ancestors willing to de- 
clare that no State shall coin money, emit bills of credit, 
or make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in 
payment of debts. 

The financial crisis which extorted these concessions 
from the people of the several States was the worst this 
country ever went through, and it was fully believed 



IS SOUND FINANCE POSSIBLE. 939 

that the like of it would never return. By the words 
" bills of credit " was meant what we now call paper 
money, and, under the injunction that neither Con- 
gress nor the States should issue them, it seemed cer- 
tain that the days of fiat money were over in the United 
States. That the States in time would find an instru- 
ment and authorize it to do what they could not legally 
do themselves was not thought possible, for State bank- 
ing had but just begun. On the day the Constitution 
became the supreme law of the land there were but 
three banks in the entire country. But, fostered and 
cherished by the amazing prosperity which sprang up 
under the new Government, they increased and multi- 
plied and spread over the States till, when 1812 came, 
two hundred and eight State banks were doing busi- 
ness. Each had power to issue notes to the amount 
of three times its capital, and each exceeded its power. 
Even in the East the circulating medium was not specie, 
but paper, for without it the needs of trade could not 
have been met. A mania for banks swept over the 
country, and the days of paper money, of bills of credit, 
returned again. The behavior of the people during 
this time is most instructive, and to those who put not 
their trust in the people it ought to be most consoling, 
if not convincing. Affairs on the seaboard were bad 
enough ; but it was in the wild West of those days 
that the crisis was severest and the remedies applied 
most radical. 

The dull times which followed the opening of our 
second struggle with Great Britain, and, above all, the 
hard times which came after the close of the war, were 
the immediate causes of an immense immigration from 
the seaboard to the Mississippi Valley. That the arrival 



240 WITH THE FATHERS. 

of these new-comers should be attended by speculation 
in land, in town sites, in everything of which they stood 
in need, was inevitable. But they came just at the 
time when the West was passing through a commercial 
revolution. The steamboat had appeared on the Mis- 
sissippi and the Ohio, and no event in modern times 
has surpassed that in importance. The West, in the 
opinion of its people, was no longer dependent for its 
supply of foreign goods on Baltimore, Philadelphia, and 
New York. New Orleans was to be the great port of 
entry. To it were to come all the products of the 
West Indies, all the manufactures of Europe, the cot- 
ton fabrics, the woollen cloth, the hardware, the crock- 
ery — everything which for a generation past had been 
carried at great cost over the mountains — and once at 
New Orleans, they were to be transported by steam- 
boat to St. Louis, to Louisville, to Cincinnati, and even 
to Pittsburg. The prospect of sudden commercial de- 
velopment, joined to the arrival of hundreds of thou- 
sands of new settlers, brought on an era of the wild- 
est speculation, in which the whole community was 
eager to join. One great obstacle barred the way: 
money was scarce. The new-comers brought none. 
The old settlers had but little, and that little consisted 
of cut money, or Spanish dollars cut into quarters and 
eighths to serve as small change, some foreign coin, and 
the paper notes of such banking institutions as the 
State and Territorial legislatures had chartered, or as 
had sprung up and were issuing money without a 
legal right to do so. 

This currency, which had never at any time been 
more than sufficient for the needs of the West, was 
now in the new order of things totally inadequate to 



IS SOUND FINANCE POSSIBLE. 211 

the wants of the people. The cry for money, above all 
for cheap money, for money that could be borrowed in 
large sums on the wildest security, went up from every 
part of the Mississippi Yalley, and was heard. For 
several years no Legislature ever met but new banks 
were established and a flood of paper money issued, 
which the people made haste to borrow, invest, and 
lose. Ohio chartered twenty ; Indiana, three ; Illinois, 
two ; Tennessee, twelve ; Missouri, two, and actually 
issued loan certificates and, in defiance of the Federal 
Constitution, made her paper legal tender. Kentucky 
in 1818 chartered forty-six. The history of these Ken- 
tucky banks is unquestionably the most striking chapter 
in the annals of fiat money. The honest purpose and 
the high hopes with which they were created ; the 
eagerness and universality with which their notes were 
borrowed and circulated ; the load of debt entailed ; 
the fury of the people when the day of reckoning 
came ; the wicked and unjust method of relief ; and the 
final triumph of good sense and majority rule — all com- 
bine to make it a lesson full of instruction at this 
moment. 

There were then doing business in the State the 
Bank of Kentucky, with branches wherever occasion 
really required them, and, since 1817, two branches 
(or offices of discount and deposit) of the new Bank of 
the United States. As the branches of the United 
States Bank issued drafts, but no bills, and as the Bank 
of Kentucky was compelled to redeem its notes in 
specie, neither institution could begin to supply even a 
small part of the circulating medium demanded. It 
was for the purpose of supplying such a medium, there- 
fore, that the forty-six banks were chartered. Thirty- 



24:2 WITH THE FATHERS. 

five of them actually went into operation and were 
known in the hour of their popularity as " the Inde- 
pendent Banks," but in the time of their adversity as 
"the Litter." The nominal capital of them all was 
not far from eight millions of dollars. The actual 
capital was little or nothing, for the very same specie 
went from bank to bank, remaining in each one just 
long enough for the letter of the law to be complied 
with. To have made their notes redeemable in specie 
would have been such an idle farce that it was not at- 
tempted, so Bank of Kentucky notes were substituted. 
It mattered little what they were redeemable in, for the 
people were glad to get them, and the branches of the 
United States Bank willingly took them in payment of 
drafts on the Eastern cities. As the notes of the Inde- 
pendent Banks were thus exchangeable for United 
States branch drafts, which in turn were exchangeable 
for specie or European products in Baltimore, or Phila- 
delphia, or New York, the effect was the same as if 
Kentucky paper had been made current money at the 
seaboard. They were greatly in demand, were issued 
in large quantities, and were passing freely from hand 
to hand, when suddenly the Bank of the United States 
at Philadelphia sent forth an imperative order to its 
western branches to stop all loans and hurry a great 
sum of specie eastward. They at once responded, and 
in a moment the whole West was bankrupt. Bank 
after bank suspended specie payment, and among them 
was that of Kentucky. "Well it might, for the amount 
of debts owed by the people of Kentucky to the two 
branches of the United States Bank was two million 
seven hundred thousand dollars. Public opinion 
forced it to resume almost immediately. But the harm 



IS SOUND FINANCE POSSIBLE. 243 

was done, and the community, almost as one man, rose 
against the Bank of the United States. Resolutions 
were introduced in the Legislature asking the president 
of the bank to withdraw the branches from the State, 
and when nothing came of this a tax of five thousand 
dollars a month was laid on each of them. The banks, 
it may well be supposed, refused to pay, and in Febru- 
ary, 1819, before the first instalment was due, applica- 
tion was made in the District Court of the United States 
for an injunction to stop the execution of the law, 
which did not, it was claimed, impose a tax, but inflicted 
pains and penalties, as it was on its very face intended 
to drive the two branches out of the State. The Court 
refused to consider the question of constitutionality of 
the law, because the famous case of McCulloch against 
Maryland was still pending in the Supreme Court, but 
granted a temporary injunction till the meeting of the 
Circuit Court in May. 

This afforded some satisfaction ; but no relief. In- 
deed, as the autumn of 1819 came, matters grew worse. 
The crops were abundant ; flour, hemp, and tobacco 
were plentiful. But no market existed, and the people, 
realizing that the means of settling their debts were as 
remote as ever, resorted in desperation to county meet- 
ings and took into consideration their financial situation. 
The address adopted at one of these gatherings sets 
forth that the scarcity of money, the pressure of the 
banks on individuals and of individuals on those in- 
debted to them, the difficulty of raising even moderate 
sums by enormous sacrifices of property, the usurious 
rates of interest demanded, and the general embarrass- 
ment of the business world, were hastening a general 
suspension of specie and the utter destruction of social 



244 WITH THE FATHERS. 

order and happiness. Taken together, these causes, 
threatened to bring suddenly into the market, at 
forced sales at auction, a large part of the most val- 
uable property in the State. The numerous sales, with 
few bidders, would surely shift this property from the 
many to the few, entail misery on the husbandman, and 
leave a heart-broken, dispirited population in a desolate 
land. Neither justice nor humanity should permit 
such ruin if a peaceable remedy could be found, and 
it could be found if the banks would susj>end specie 
payment, stop their calls, issue more bills, and if the 
Legislature would meet and decide how much paper 
each bank could issue and what sort of security the 
borrower should give for it. 

At some of the meetings the question was flatly put 
whether the banks should not be encouraged to sus- 
pend. Sometimes the decision was in the negative ; 
but generally the will of the majority was that they 
should. No popular encouragement to stop payment 
was needed, and the Indej^endent Banks, after seeing 
their notes steadily depreciate to a discount of twenty, 
thirty, forty per cent, were brought to such a pass that 
seventeen suspended, and by so doing lost their charters. 
The Bank of Kentucky followed, and the whole State 
was in confusion. Ten millions of dollars were owed 
the banks by the people, and from this load of debt 
the Legislature now attempted to rid the community by 
legislation. 

The law chartering the litter of independent banks 
was repealed. The senators and representatives of 
the State at Washington were called on to do their 
best to have the branches of the United States Bank 
removed from Kentucky ; and a stay law passed which 



IS SOUND FINANCE POSSIBLE. 245 

suspended all sales under executions, decrees, and re- 
plevins for sixty days after the passage of the law 
if the defendant gave bonds that the goods levied on 
would be produced at the end of that time. The 
acting Governor refused to sign it. He did not be- 
lieve, he said, that a law should delay or deny justice. 
But the Legislature passed the act over his veto, gave 
permission for the introduction of a bill to declare void 
all sales made under any execution issued in favor of 
the Bank of the United States or its branches, and, 
just before the expiration of the sixty-day stay law, 
passed a replevin act of a most shameful character. 
Thenceforth, when any execution issued, on any bond, 
judgment, or decree, from any court or justice of the 
peace, the plaintiff had the privilege of writing on the 
bill the words, " Notes of the Bank of Kentucky or its 
branches will be accepted in discharge of this execu- 
tion." If he made this indorsement the defendant 
could replevy but for one year. Should the defend- 
ant fail to replevy, the property was to be sold on 
credit for one year for what it would bring. Should 
the plaintiff refuse to make the indorsement, the de- 
fendant might replevy for two years. 

This indorsement and replevin act put off the day 
of reckoning, and for the time being saved the debtor 
from the clutches of the law. But the debts of the 
people, now far more than ten millions of dollars, still 
remained, and to liquidate them the Legislature in 1821 
put in operation a new paper-money machine which it 
called the Bank of the Commonwealth. It was the 
State treasury turned into a paper-money mill pure 
and simple. There were no stockholders, no stock, no 
capital, no redemption of notes. A president and 



2^6 WITH THE FATHERS. 

board of directors chosen annually by the Legislature 
managed its affairs. Its funds were all money paid 
in for land warrants, all revenue from the sale of land 
which the State owned west of the Tennessee River, 
the stock owned by the State in the Bank of Kentucky, 
and such unexpended balance as, at the end of the 
year, might be found in the State treasury. Its notes 
were to issue to the amount of three millions of dollars, 
were to be apportioned among the countries on the 
basis of taxable property, and were to be loaned on 
mortgage security to those and to those only who, in 
the words of the law, needed them " for the purpose 
of paying his, her, or their just debts," or intended to 
buy the products of Kentucky for shipment from the 
State. That the bank might never be under the ne- 
cessity of suspending, the notes were not redeemable 
in specie, and that nothing might be wanting to make 
them as fine specimens of fiat money as ever existed, 
they were made legal tender for all debts due by or 
to the State. 

That the people would take the new money was 
never doubted, for their debts were heavy and the 
paper gave them an easy means of liquidation. But 
that the Bank of Kentucky would refuse the new issue 
was certain. It was therefore reorganized, its old 
directors were turned out and men who favored the 
Bank of the Commonwealth put in, and the Bank of 
Kentucky almost immediately suspended. 

Meantime the constitutionality of the indorsement 
and replevin act had been tested in the courts. That 
it was a flat violation of the Federal Constitution is 
undoubted. " No State," says that instrument, " shall 
make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender 



IS SOUND FINANCE POSSIBLE. 217 

in payment of debts, nor pass any law impairing the 
obligations of contracts." It was not long, therefore, 
before a test case reached the Bourbon Circuit Court of 
Kentucky, where the question of constitutionality was 
raised and decided in the negative. The Legislature 
happening to be in session, a member moved for the 
appointment of a committee to inquire into the deci- 
sion of the judge who had " grossly transcended his 
judicial authority and disregarded the constitutional 
powers of the Legislature of this Commonwealth." 
The committee, when it reported, said that in its opin- 
ion the judge had committed a high crime and misde- 
meanor, and ought to be removed from office. That 
the judicial department had power to defeat the 
general policy of the State, deliberately adopted by 
the Legislature, was scmiething the committee could not 
admit. Such a doctrine was incompatible with the 
constitutional powers of the Legislature, subversive of 
the best interests of the people, and well calculated to 
disturb the public peace and shake public confidence 
in the whole relief system which had been called for 
by the condition and necessities of the people. An 
address to the Governor asking him to remove the 
judge from office was accordingly brought in ; but 
though it secured a great majority of the House it 
failed to pass for want of two thirds. But the end 
was not yet. A year later a case involving the ques- 
tion of the constitutionality of the relief laws reached 
the Court of Appeals, a body composed of three judges 
who held office during good behavior. Two agreed 
that the indorsement and replevin laws were binding 
on all transactions occurring after their passage, but 
null and void as to anything which had transpired be- 
17 



248 WITH THE FATHERS. 

fore that time. The third went further and declared 
the laws were unconstitutional and would not be ap- 
plied by the Court in any case. 

As the news of this decision swept through the 
State (though it applied only to contracts made before 
the passage of the law), excitement and alarm went 
with it. The Legislature was not then in session ; but 
the moment it met, John Adair, the Governor, sent 
in a most excited message. He accused the Court of 
showing an open disregard for the ancient distinction 
between right and remedy, with striking at the sover- 
eignty of the State and the right of the people to 
govern themselves, and committed its decision to the 
Legislature's most solemn consideration. The Senate 
was eager to destroy the Court, and was prevented only 
by a tie vote from calling a State convention to amend 
the Constitution and change the judiciary. The House 
by a large majority declared the decision of the Court 
of Appeals to be erroneous ; voted that the indorse- 
ment and replevin laws were constitutional and valid ; 
and resolved to do something in support of them. 
But they did nothing, for an election was at hand 
and the matter went down to the people, to whom an 
earnest appeal was made to choose men who would vote 
for an address of removal. The people responded in 
part and sent back a Legislature of which only a majori- 
ty were relief men, and again removal of the judges by 
the Governor was defeated. Nevertheless, a majority 
could do much, and, following the example set them by 
Congress in the early months of Jefferson's adminis- 
tration, it repealed the act creating the Court of Ap- 
peals, and legislated all the judges out of office. A 
new court was then established by another act, and on 



IS SOUND FINANCE POSSIBLE. 249 

the bench were placed men who would see to it that 
the relief laws were sustained and administered in ac- 
cordance with their plain intent and meaning. But 
the judges of the old court firmly refused to submit, 
denied the constitutionality of the repeal of the judici- 
ary act, and continued to hold sittings and to deliver 
judgments. 

There were thus two courts in the State, and two 
parties ranged around them. The " new court party " 
protested that liberty, republicanism, democratic in- 
stitutions, State rights, self-government, were all at 
stake. The "old court party" admitted that liberty, 
rejmblicanisni, and self-government were indeed at 
stake. The question, said its leaders, is, Can right 
and justice be secured under all circumstances in a 
land where the will of the people rules ? Is it pos- 
sible for an independent judiciary to protect the rights 
of a minority against the will of an interested, excited, 
and ill-disposed majority ? The answer of the people 
was, Yes ; and when the Legislature met in 1825 the 
House was in the hands of the old court party, and 
voted to abolish the new court. The Senate which held 
over was in the control of the new court party, and 
refused to agree. Once more the question went down 
to the people, and in the elections of 1826 the contest 
was again between the old court party and the new. 
This time the triumph was a signal one. The friends 
of the old court carried both House and Senate ; the 
replevin law was repealed, the " new court " was abol- 
ished, the old court was reinstated, and justice once 
more done to debtor and creditor alike. 

The history of Ohio during these trying times 
affords another instance of the final triumph of ma- 



250 WITH THE FATHERS. 

jority rule after a period during which it seemed im- 
possible to bring the community to a sense of right and 
justice. In that great State the people had entered 
with enthusiasm on the manufacture of money, had 
chartered their banks and were in the full enjoyment 
of a cheap and plentiful paper currency, when they 
heard with dismay that the Bank of the United States, 
that regulator of the currency, was about to open 
branches at Chillicothe and Cincinnati. In the hope 
of shutting out what, in the language of its enemies, 
was called " the hydra-headed foreign shaving shop," 
the Legislature threatened to impose a heavy tax. But 
the threat was disregarded ; the banks came, and in 1819 
an annual tax of fifty thousand dollars was laid on each 
of them, and the auditor commanded to issue his war- 
rant on a certain day for the collection of it. Should 
the banks refuse, the agent was to seize any specie, 
bank-notes, goods and chattels found in the banking 
house, and, if necessary, break open every vault, room, 
closet, drawer, and box, search them, and carry away 
their contents. The demand for payment of the tax 
was made in the office at Chillicothe, at the close of a 
business day in September, 1819. As was expected, the 
money was refused ; whereupon the agent, forcing his 
way into the vaults, broke open the boxes, carried off 
more than the amount of the tax, and deposited the 
money in the State treasury at Columbus. 

For this act the auditor, his agents, and the State 
treasurer were sued by the bank, and while the suits 
were still pending the Legislature assembled and began 
an investigation. The times were now hard indeed. 
All the fine visions of the speculators, the paper-money 
men, the bank men, had vanished. Bankruptcy and 



IS SOUND FINANCE POSSIBLE. 251 

debt were everywhere. Stay laws, replevin laws, in- 
dorsement laws, relief laws of every sort, were the 
order of the day. Nothing was so hateful now as a 
bank, and, above all, the Bank of the United States. 
The Supreme Court had decided that a State could not 
tax it. But Ohio adopted and affirmed the Yirginia 
and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and 1800 ; hurled a 
defiance at the Supreme Court, told it that acquiescence 
was not the necessary consequence of its decisions, and 
passed "an act to withdraw from the Bank of the 
United States the protection of the laws of this State 
in certain cases." If the bank gave notice to the Gov- 
ernor of its willingness to stop the suits against the 
State officers, and to submit to a four-per-cent tax on 
its dividends, or leave the State, the Governor might 
suspend the law by proclamation. If it did not, then 
every jailer was forbidden to receive into his custody 
any person committed at the suit of the bank, or for 
any injury done to it. Every judicial officer was pro- 
hibited to take acknowledgment of conveyances when 
the bank was a party, and every recorder from receiv- 
ing and entering them. Notaries public were pre- 
vented from protesting bills or notes held by the bank 
and made payable to it ; and justices of the peace, 
judges, and grand juries could no longer take cogni- 
zance of any wrong committed on the property of the 
bank, though it were burglary, robbery, or arson. The 
bank would not discontinue the suits nor leave the 
State, so the law went into effect, and in September, 
1820, the Bank of the United States became an outlaw 
in Ohio. 

Here again, as in Kentucky, extreme measures pro- 
duced their inevitable result. A reaction set in. The 



252 WITH THE FATHERS. 

good sense of the plain people prevailed over the folly 
of the legislators, and the law was erased from the 
statute-book. Both in Kentucky and Ohio the cases 
were extreme ; yet they are striking illustrations of the 
fact that in this country all questions of great im- 
portance are finally settled not by Presidents, nor by 
Congresses, nor by the legislatures of the States, but 
by the hard common sense of the people, who in their 
own good time and way have heretofore adjusted all 
difficulties wisely. 



FRANKLIN IN FKANCE. 

Those who have never seen the Franklin alcove in 
the Boston Public Library, nor examined the catalogue 
of Frankliniana so carefully prepared by Mr. Lindsay 
Swift, can have no conception of the vast mass of 
literature of which Benjamin Franklin is the subject. 
Cooper and Mrs. Stowe alone excepted, our country 
has produced no writer whose works have been so 
generally translated and read abroad. For some of his 
shorter pieces a strange infatuation seems to exist, and 
one, Father Abraham's Address, may be read in 
French, in German, in Spanish, in Italian, in Bohe- 
mian, in Gaelic, and in modern Greek. Since the April 
day, 1790, when he expired at Philadelphia, no period 
of ten years has passed by without an edition of his 
autobiography or a new life of him appearing in some 
of the languages of civilized men. 

It has always seemed to us that the period of 
Franklin's life about which least is generally known is 
that which covers his residence in France. Every 
school-boy knows the history of his early years ; of the 
whistle for which he paid too much; of the quarrel 
that drove him from Boston ; of the memorable Sun- 
day walk through the streets of Philadelphia. Yet it 
would trouble men of wide reading to give even a 

253 



254 WITH THE FATHERS. 

tolerable account of his claims to be considered a 
statesman, or of bis famous mission to the Court of 

Louis XVI. 

Tbe story of tbat mission goes back to November, 
1775, when a stranger, lame and speaking but little 
English, appeared in Philadelphia. He put up at a 
tavern, and sent word to Congress that he had some- 
thing of weight to tell. No heed was paid to him. 
But he persisted, and sent again and again, till John 
Jay, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were 
despatched to speak with him. They met him in one 
of the rooms in the Carpenter's Hall, were assured of 
the warm sympathy of France, and were told that 
money, arms, and ammunition should all be theirs. 
When asked for his name and credentials, the stranger 
drew a hand across his throat, said he knew how to 
take care of his head, bowed himself out, and was 



never seen again. 



The committee, however, were much impressed, 
and Congress, acting on their report, named another to 
correspond secretly with the friends of America in 
Great Britain, Ireland, and France. This new com- 
mittee was active ; letters were written to Dumas and 
Arthur Lee abroad, and Story, Penet, and Silas Deane 
were sent out with letters from home. But it was long 
before any word came back. Three months went by, 
and lengthened to six months, to eight months, without 
a line from one of them. Then came the letter of 
Dubourg to Franklin, full of assurances of the most 
comforting kind, and straightway Franklin, Deane, and 
Jefferson were chosen commissioners to France. Jeffer- 
son would not go, and, in an evil hour, Arthur Lee was 
elected in his stead. 



FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 255 

The choice was made on the twenty-sixth of Sep- 
tember, 1776. On the twenty-sixth of October Frank- 
lin set out alone, for Lee and Deane were already in 
France. The weather was tempestuous ; the sea was 
boisterous and crowded with English cruisers. More 
than once the captain was forced to beat to quarters. 
But the voyage, most happily, was short, and on the 
third of December he landed at Auroy, on the coast of 
Brittany, and hastened with his two grandsons to 
l^antes. Then began such an ovation as has never 
since been given to any citizen of the United States. 
The writings of Rousseau, of Yoltaire, of Montesquieu, 
had done their work, and the moment the report of 
" the shot hearcl round the world " reached France, the 
nation rose as one man, and took sides with liberty. 
At Versailles, at Paris, in the coffee-rooms, at the 
watering-places, in the remotest province of France, 
the struggle in America became the topic of the hour. 
The Courrier d' Avignon and the Mercure de France 
gave long accounts of the tea tax, of the fight at Lex- 
ington, of the enthusiasm of the women for the cause. 
The people of Paris drew comparisons between the full 
accounts of American affairs in the Mercure and the 
meagre accounts in the official Gazette of France, and 
abused the ministry for its conduct. Yergennes was 
called a fool, a dolt, a tool of England, because he did 
not openly support the " insurgents. 1 ' 

That this state of public feeling had all to do with 
the extraordinary reception given to Franklin does not 
admit of doubt. Had he come among a people in- 
different, or but lukewarm in his cause, his reputation 
in the world of philosophy and of letters would have 
profited him nothing. But he came among a people 



256 WITH THE FATHERS. 

deeply interested in his cause, and he was from the 
hour of his arrival at Nantes an object of boundless 
curiosity. " The arrival of Dr. Franklin at Nantes," 
a lieutenant of police wrote to Yergennes, "is creat- 
ing a great sensation." Yet it was as nothing to that 
he created at Paris. Statesmen, churchmen, men of 
letters, merchants, nobles, and great ladies crowded 
his rooms, and welcomed him as no foreigner had 
ever been welcomed before. His name and his cause 
were on every lip, till Yergennes forbade the crowds 
in the coffee-houses to discuss " des insurgensP 

Meanwhile, the commissioners sent a note to Yer- 
gennes, asked an audience, and took up their abode at 
Passy, then a pleasant town on the outskirts of Paris. 
For a whole year the King could not be persuaded to 
receive them as commissioners. Franklin did not, in 
consequence, go to court, and was rarely seen at Paris. 
But he was far from idle. Day after day he was beset 
by all manner of suitors. "Women of rank, great sol- 
diers, courtiers high in favor, came to him in crowds. 
Some wanted a trifle for themselves. Some had been 
teased by others to tease him for a contract, a com- 
mission, a letter to Congress. Strangers on whom he 
had never before laid eyes had the effrontery to bring 
and introduce others as unknown as themselves. So 
incessant did this become that he never accepted an 
invitation to dine, never was introduced to a man of 
note, never heard a carriage roll into his court, nor 
opened a letter written in a strange hand, without feel- 
ing sure he was to be asked for something. One 
beggar, Dom Bernard Benedictus, sent word to the 
commissioners that if they would pay his gambling 
debts he would pray for the success of the American 



FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 257 

cause. The most persistent of all, however, were the 
gentlemen of the sword. To these must be added the 
merchants hungry for American tobacco and ship- 
owners longing for a chance to fit out privateers. Had 
their request for commissions been granted, they would 
have come to naught, for the French King was not dis- 
posed to openly befriend America. Indeed, it was 
hardly possible for an American armed ship to get 
leave to stay two days in a French port. Lambert 
Wickes was twice driven from L' Orient. At St. Malo 
the authorities attempted to seize his cannon and un- 
hang his rudder. Gustavus Conyngham and his crew 
were flung into prison. The behavior of Wickes in re- 
turning to a port from which he had just been sent was 
a most impudent act, and a shameful abuse of the 
patience of France, / and had she not been hostile to 
England, had she been really neutral, she would have 
shut her ports, as Portugal did, and Wickes would never 
have entered L'Orient a second time. 

But the behavior of Conyngham was bolder and 
more impudent still. One day in March, 1777, Wil- 
liam Hodge, a Philadelphia merchant, came to Paris, 
and struck an acquaintance with Silas Deane. Deane 
was daft on the subject of privateers, and the two soon 
had on foot a privateering venture of the boldest kind. 
A lugger was bought at Dover with Government 
money, was taken to Dunkirk, and there hastily and 
secretly fitted out by Mr. Hodge. When all was ready, 
Conyngham, with a Continental commission as captain 
in his pocket, was put in command and duly instructed 
what to do. He was to cruise in the Channel, and 
spare no pains to capture the Harwich packet-boat that 
plied between England and Holland. So well did he 



258 WITH THE FATHERS. 

obey his instructions that he was soon back in Dunkirk 
harbor, with the Prince of Orange as his prize. The 
whole of England was in a furor. Insurance rose; 
merchants made haste to put their goods on board of 
French ships, and felt for a time as if the whole coast 
were in a state of blockade. The English minister 
complained most vigorously to Vergennes, and Ver- 
gennes acted with rigor. The packet-boat was seized 
and restored, and Conyngham and his crew were flung 
into prison. 

This misadventure did not dishearten Deane and 
Hodge in the least. It taught them a little wisdom, 
and while Conyngham languished in jail they bought 
a swift cutter, armed her with twenty-two swivels and 
fourteen six-pounders, and applied to Yergennes for 
his release. The commissioners assured the Minister 
that Conyngham should sail at once for the United 
States, and Hodge gave bonds for his doing so. But 
he was scarcely at sea before he began to make prize of 
everything he met, and even threatened to lay in ashes 
the thriving town of Lynn. And now Yergennes made 
another show of harshness, and Hodge was soon in the 
Bastile. 

But the time for such harshness was nearly over. 
Every day the cause of liberty grew more popular. 
Indeed, it is impossible to take up any of the Me- 
moires, CEuvres Choisies, Correspondance, Lettres 
Inedites, of the time without meeting unmistakable 
evidence of the popularity of the American rebels. 
Songs, catches, pamphlets, caricatures, nicknames, and 
street phrases all betray it. Lafayette enlists, and the 
whole court is thrown into excitement. The Hessians 
are taken at Trenton, and the booksellers cannot supply 



FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 259 

the demand for maps of America. Burgoyne sur- 
renders, and the joy of Paris is as great as if the 
victory had been won by the French. " We talk of 
nothing but America here," wrote Madame du Def- 
fand to Horace Walpole. "When shall we arm in 
favor of the insurgents ? " became the question asked 
all over France. The answer was, " At once." News 
of the famous surrender was carried to Yergennes on 
December fourth, 1777. On the sixteenth the commis- 
sioners were told that the King would recognize the in- 
dependence of America and make a treaty at once 
and on February sixth, 1778, a day long celebrated in 
the United States, the Treaty of Alliance and the 
Treaty of Amity were duly signed. In March the 
commissioners were received at Versailles. April thir- 
teenth a French neejt commanded by D'Estaing sailed 
from Toulon. 

In the same ship with D'Estaing went Silas Deane, 
for he had been recalled by Congress, and John Adams 
had been sent in his stead. Adams landed at Bor- 
deaux, and met with a welcome that amazed him. The 
merchants, eager for free-trade with America, lit up 
their city in his honor, and he read in one of the gar- 
dens the illuminated inscription — " God save the Con- 
gress, Liberty, and Adams." At Paris the Courrier 
d' Avignon told the people that he was the brother " of 
the famous Adams, whose eloquence had been as deadly 
to the English as that of Demosthenes was to Philip," 
and ministers, courtiers, and men of letters hastened to 
pay their respects. At Passy, as he sat at the table of 
Madame Brillon, there was a fine demonstration in his 
honor. 

But he found at Passy what amazed him still more. 



260 WITH THE FATHERS. 

He found the little company of Americans torn by 
senseless disputes and distracted by causeless jealousy. 
That company had, since the arrival of Franklin, been 
much increased. To it had been added Ralph Izard, 
Minister to the Duke of Tuscany ; William Lee, Envoy 
to the courts of Yienna and Berlin ; and "William Car- 
michael, who for a time had served as secretary to 
Deane. Had Congress searched the country through, 
it could not have found six men less likely to live at 
peace than Franklin, Deane, Izard, Carmichael, and 
the two Lees. When, therefore, Adams arrived, he 
found that each of the six had fallen out with the other 
five. Deane could not abide Arthur Lee, Franklin 
had quarrelled with Ralph Izard, both of the Lees had 
quarrelled with Franklin, while William Carmichael 
was at sword's points with nearly all. Happily, these 
feuds were soon to end. Though the six could agree 
in little else, they all agreed in urging Congress to abol- 
ish the commission, and make one man Minister to 
France, and acting on this advice Izard was recalled, 
Arthur Lee was deprived of his commissi onership, 
Adams was left without an appointment, and Dr. Frank- 
lin made sole Minister to the court of France. 

Nor were the business affairs of the commissioners 
in a much better state than their private affairs. Care- 
lessness, negligence, disorder, prevailed. Method and 
order Franklin could not acquire even in his youth. 
But he was now in his seventy-third year ; had been out 
of business for more than thirty years, and, as a conse- 
quence of age and leisure, had grown more careless and 
unmethodical than ever. Men who came to see him 
were astonished to behold the weightiest papers scat- 
tered in profusion about the room. Some who knew 



FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 261 

him well ventured to protest, and reminded him that the 
French were eager to know his business, that he might 
in his own household have many spies, and even went 
so far as to suggest that his grandson should spend half 
an hour a day in putting his papers to rights. To these 
his answer was always the same. He knew that he 
was in all probability surrounded by spies ; but it was 
his practice never to be concerned in any business he 
was not willing to have everybody know, and the dis- 
order went on. All the commercial aifairs, all treaty 
matters, all money matters, all the diplomatic affairs of 
the United States abroad, were in the hands of the com- 
missioners. They made loans, bought ships, paid sala- 
ries, exchanged prisoners. Yet not a note-book, not a 
letter- book, not an account-book of any kind, had been 
kept. 

Such a shameful disregard of the first principles of 
business alarmed Adams, who turned himself into a 
drudge, introduced something like order into the office 
of the commission, and in a long letter to Samuel 
Adams drew a pretty just character of Franklin as a 
man of business : 

" The other (Franklin) you know personally, and that 
he loves his ease, hates to offend, and seldom gives any 
opinion till obliged to do it. I know also, and it is 
necessary that you should be informed, that he is over- 
whelmed with a correspondence from all quarters, most 
of them upon trifling subjects and in a more trifling 
style, with unmeaning visits from multitudes of people, 
chiefly from the vanity of having it to say that they 
have seen him. There is another thing which I am 
obliged to mention. There are so many private fami- 
lies, ladies and gentlemen, that he visits so often — and 



262 WITH THE FATHERS. 

they are so fond of him that he can not well avoid it — 
and so much intercourse with the Academicians, that 
all these things together keep his mind in a constant 
state of dissipation. If, indeed, you take out of his 
hands the public treasury, and the direction of the frig- 
ates and Continental vessels that are sent here, and all 
commercial affairs and intrust them to persons to be ap- 
pointed by Congress, at Nantes and Bordeaux, I should 
think it would be best to have him here alone with 
such a secretary as you can confide in. But if he is left 
here alone even with such a secretary, and all maritime 
and commercial as well as political affairs are left in his 
hands, I am persuaded that France and America will 
both have reason to repent it. He is not only so indo- 
lent that business will be neglected, but you know that 
although he has as determined a soul as any man, yet 
it is his constant policy never to say ' Yes ' or ' No ' de- 
cidedly but when he cannot well avoid it." . . . 

The fears of Mr. Adams were as unfounded as his 
criticism was just. Franklin was indolent, was fond of 
society, was unable to say Yes and No. But he was, at 
the same time, the most original character produced in 
America during the eighteenth century, and he accom- 
plished a work in France no other American could pos- 
sibly have done. On the March day, 1778, when, in 
buckleless shoes, wigless, and in the plainest clothes, he 
made his way through a crowd of painted beauties and 
powdered fops to the presence of the King, his position 
in France completely changed. On that day he ceased 
to be a solicitor of favor. On that day he became the 
recognized representative of the United States, and 
more than ever the centre of attraction at Paris. Mr. 
Lee and Mr. Deane were mere ciphers. What they 



FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 263 

thought, or did, or said, was, to the French people and 
the French court, of no consequence whatever. No 
paper ever mentioned their names. ~No great man 
ever darkened their doorways. The ear of Vergennes 
was never open to them till a letter from Franklin had 
prepared the way. This position Franklin reached in 
a way Mr. Adams could not understand. That a man 
who flung his papers all over the floor, kept no ac- 
counts, copied no letters, hated business, dined out six 
nights a week, and would not send away even a pester- 
ing fellow with an artgry " No ! " could really be serving 
his country well was to Mr. Adams an absurdity. Mr. 
Adams would have lived at Paris, ignored the people, 
deluged the Ministers with notes, and have been well 
snubbed before he had been six months in France. 
Franklin went to Passy, lived secluded, gave the Min- 
istry no trouble whatever, and by his tact, his shrewd- 
ness, his worldly wisdom, his wit, his skill in the man- 
agement of men, made himself the most popular man 
in France, and by his popularity overcame a reluctant 
Minister and yet more reluctant King. This done, the 
rest of his work was easy. He had but to keep the 
good- will and love of the French people, and he kept 
them completely. Hardly was the ink of the treaty 
dry when canes, hats, snuffboxes, all became "a la 
Franklin." His face appeared on rings, on snuff- 
boxes, in the window of every print-shop, and over 
the mantle-piece of every man of fashion. " 'Tis the 
fashion nowadays," sneered one of his haters, " to have 
an engraving of Franklin over one's mantle-piece, as 
it was formerly to have a jumping- jack." Of such 
portraits more than two hundred are believed to be in 
existence. A bust of him was set up in the Royal Li- 
18 



264: WITH THE FATHERS. 

brary. Medallions of him were plentiful at Versailles, 
and a large store of snch terracotta medallions, as fresh 
as on the day when they were first baked, was found 
in an old warehouse at Bordeaux in 1SS5. 

It was rare that Franklin came to Paris, yet when 
he did he was instantly recognized by the people. His 
brown suit, his fur cap, his powderless hair, his specta- 
cles, and his walking-stick betrayed him at once to men 
who had never laid eyes on him before. Crowds followed 
him in his walks and gathered about him in the public 
places. When he entered the theatre, the courts of 
justice, the popular resorts, he was greeted with shouts 
of applause. His good sayings were spread all over 
France, with countless other anecdotes amerieaints. 
Poets wrote him sonnets. ]S"oble dames addressed him 
in verse. Women of fashion crowned his head with 
flowers. Grave Academicians shouted with delight to 
see him hug Voltaire. His friend, the Abbe Morellet, 
well described him in the lines — 

Notre Benjamin 

En politique il est grand, 

A table est joyeaux et franc. 

The absurdity of the famous kissing scene at the 
Academy of Science is outdone by the absurdity of an- 
other scene, some months later, at a meeting of the ma- 
sonic lodge of the Kme Sisters. Yoltaire was then 
dead, and the business of the meeting was a eulogy of 
the old philosopher. In the hall of the lodge sat 
Madame Denis, niece to Yoltaire ; the Madame de Yil- 
lette, at whose house he died ; Greuze, who painted the 
beauties and gallants of the court of Louis ; Franklin, 
and a host of famous men. That nothing might be 



FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 265 

wanting to give solemnity to the occasion, a deep 
gloom pervaded tlie hall, and a huge sepulchral pyra- 
mid reminded the audience for what purpose they were 
gathered. The astronomer Lalande addressed Madame 
Denis. La Dixmerie read a long eulogy, and, as he 
stopped from time to time to take breath, the audience 
were kept awake by selections from the operas of Castor 
and Koland, played by an orchestra which Piccini led. 

The eulogy ended, soft music, a blaze of light, and 
claps of stage thunder followed ; the pyramid vanished 
and in its place stood a huge picture of the apotheosis 
of Voltaire. The painter represented him as rising 
from the tomb. Envy, tugging at his shroud, strove to 
hold him back, but was driven off by Minerva, while 
Benevolence and Truth introduced him to Corneille, 
Racine, Moliere, who/ hovered near. As the beholders 
sit in dumb admiration, Lalande, Greuze, and Madame 
de Villette seize each a crown and place them on the 
heads of Franklin, La Dixmerie, and Gauget, who in 
turn hasten to lay them at the feet of the picture of 
Voltaire. 

Popularity so extraordinary was not, however, un- 
mingled with contempt. One writer of memoirs de- 
scribes him as "one of the great charlatans of the 
eighteenth century." Another cannot abide his table 
manners, and despises him for putting butter in his 
eggs and eating them from a glass. A third denounces 
him in a long poem. The author of a " History of a 
French Louse " exhausts the French language in a dis- 
gusting description of him. 

Of all this Franklin knew nothing, and went on 
with the business of his office, which was, in his opin- 
ion, to keep the cause of his country before the eyes of 



206 WITH THE FATHERS. 

the people of France. His homely sayings, his bon 
mots, his republican simplicity of dress and manner, did 
mnch to accomplish this end. But he left no expedient 
whatever untried, and taking up his pen he wrote a 
dialogue between Great Britain, France, Spain, Holland, 
Saxony, and America ; a catechism relative to the Eng- 
lish national debt ; and persuaded Dubourg to make a 
translation of the constitutions of the thirteen States. 
Yergennes objected to their publication. The Govern- 
ment would not give a license. But the book came 
out, and the cause of America was more popular than 
ever. The constitutions were described as a code that 
marked an epoch in the history of philosophy; as a 
code that richly deserved to be well known ; and the 
men who framed them were pronounced superior to 
Solon and Lycurgus. 

In the midst of this discussion Lafayette returned, 
and the enthusiasm for America named higher still. 
Crowds beset him wherever he went. Magistrates 
overwhelmed him with honors. Great ladies insisted 
on kissing him. The King honored him with a recep- 
tion at court, and the Queen bestowed on him a regi- 
ment of dragoons. The Ministers even consulted him 
on American affairs ; and soon learned with pleasure 
that he had brought a commission creating Franklin 
sole Minister of the United States to the court of 
France. With it came such an injunction as a mother, 
when going out for an afternoon, might lay on a family 
of unruly boys. The American agents in Europe were 
bidden to behave themselves and quarrel no more ; but 
the injunction was not obeyed, and in a little while the 
feud between the two Lees, Ralph Izard, and Franklin 
was hotter than ever before. 



FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 267 

As for Arthur Lee, to the last hour of his stay in 
France he spared no pains to insult Franklin, thwart 
him, embarrass his affairs, and invariably met with suc- 
cess. But no success was more complete than that 
which attended the quarrel of John Paul Jones and 
Landais. Jones had come over from the United States 
in the little ship Ranger, and had set his heart on having 
command of a line vessel which the commissioners were 
building at Amsterdam. But the commissioners put 
jn off, and sent him on his ever-memorable cruise. 
First he appeared before Whitehaven, and threatened 
to burn the shipping. Then he stood over to the 
Scotch shore, harried the lands of the Earl of Selkirk, 
and carried away his plate. The next day he fell in 
with the Drake, an English ship of twenty guns, en- 
gaged and took her^ and came back with his prize to 
Brest. Emboldened by victory, Jones again besought 
the commissioners, who now began in earnest to inter- 
cede with the French court. In June he was promised 
the ship. But it was one thing to promise and another 
thing to do, and in place of the ship came excuses, delay, 
and new promises. To keep up the semblance of good 
faith, the . French Minister of Marine requested Jones 
to give up the command of the Banger and wait in 
France for something better. This he did, and at once 
the gossips fell upon him and declared that he had been 
driven from the American service. Thereupon the 
commissioners came to his relief with a certificate stat- 
ing that he had not. In the midst of his troubles, a 
copy of Father Abraham's address, which in France 
bears the title " La Science du Bonhomme Richard," 
fell in his way, and he read that piece of homely wis- 
dom, " If you would have your business done, go ; if 



268 WITH THE FATHERS. 

not, send." So well did this seem to apply to him that 
he determined to act on it, and, utterly ignoring the 
Minister of Marine, he wrote direct to the King, and 
soon had command of the Due de Duras. That the 
letter ever reached the King is very uncertain ; bnt 
Jones firmly believed it did, and, in honor of the source 
whence he got his advice, he changed the name of the 
Due de Duras to Le Bonhomme Richard. 

Jones now set sail with all the speed he could, and 
with him went the Alliance, commanded by the crazy 
Pierre Landais, the Pallas, the Vengeance, and the 
Cerf . Scarcely was he out of sight of land when new 
troubles began. The Cerf and the Vengeance left him, 
and Landais showed signs of insubordination. But 
Jones cruised along, threatened Leith, and, when off 
Scarborough, fell in with the Baltic fleet of merchant- 
men convoyed by the Countess of Scarborough and the 
Serapis. While the Bonhomme Richard engaged the 
Serapis, the Pallas engaged the Countess. But Lan- 
dais, made more crazy than ever by excitement, suffered 
the fleet to escape, while he sailed round and round the 
fighters, firing- alike on friend and foe. Out of this 
grew a bitter quarrel between Jones and Landais. For 
a time it seemed that the scandal of the affair would be 
further increased by a duel. But they appealed to 
Franklin, who removed Landais from the Alliance, and 
put Jones in command. It was a sorry day for him 
when he did, for the Frenchman now turned upon him, 
and enjoys the distinction of being one of the few men 
who ever got decidedly the better of Franklin in a dis- 
pute. Again and again Landais entreated to be restored 
to command. Franklin as often refused. Then, storm- 
ing with rage, the Frenchman hurried to L' Orient, 



FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 2G9 

where lie met that black-hearted traitor Arthur Lee, 
whom the Alliance was to cany home. What Landais 
could not think of to embarrass Franklin, Lee did, and 
between the two a most shameful piece of business was* 
concocted. They stirred up a mutiny of the crew. 
They persuaded one hundred and fifty of them to sign 
a paper that they would not lift the anchor till their 
prize money was paid, and their lawful captain, Pierre 
Landais, restored; and one day, while Jones was 
ashore, Landais boarded the Alliance and took com- 
mand. Franklin now applied to the French Govern- 
ment, and orders went down to L' Orient to blow the 
Alliance out of the water if she made an attempt to 
sail. But she did sail, and with Landais in command. 

This was in July, 1780, and from that time on the 
story of Franklin's mission has but little interest till 
negotiations were begun for a peace. Concerning the 
signing of that famous document an idle story has long 
been current, and is still believed. Narrators of this 
tale declare that when the commissioners were all as- 
sembled, and were about to affix their names to the 
treaty, Franklin excused himself and left the room, and 
that, when he came back, he was dressed in an old and 
almost threadbare suit of brown. Nothing was said by 
the commissioners. But their looks betrayed astonish- 
ment, and Franklin told them that the clothes he then 
had on were those he wore when Wedderburne so 
shamefully abused him before the Privy Council. The 
story is pure fable. It has not a scrap of truth to rest 
on. The incident never occurred. Franklin never as- 
serted it, and it was during his lifetime denied, and 
flatly denied, by one of the officials who was present at 
the signing. 



270 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Another incident in his life that is commonly mis- 
understood is the famous Strahan letter ; the letter, we 
mean, ending, "You are now my enemy, and I am 
yours." We know of no collection of his works and 
letters in which this document is not treated as a piece 
of spirited and sober writing. Yet it certainly was no 
more than a jest. Had this not been so, all friendship, 
all correspondence between the two would have ended 
the day the letter was received. But no such falling 
out took place, and they went on exchanging letters 
long after the war had seriously begun. 

With the signing of the treaty the labors of Frank- 
lin in France may be said to have ended. He contin- 
ued, indeed, to act as Minister till the summer of 1785, 
when Jefferson succeeded him. But old age was upon 
him, his infirmities were many, and his time was chiefly 
given to his friends and his pen. The work which he 
did in France is, we believe, generally unknown, be- 
cause it has never yet been fairly set forth. Borrowing 
money, fitting out ships, buying clothing, powder, and 
guns, settling disputes, writing despatches, was the least 
important and the least creditable part of what he ac- 
complished. When he landed in France, in 1776, 
neither the King, nor the Ministers, nor the mass of the 
nobility had any heart in the American cause. His 
sole support was public opinion, the most fickle and 
treacherous of all support. Yet he never for a mo- 
ment lost it. By his tact, his knowledge of men and 
the ways of men, he turned it from the wild enthusiasm 
of a day into downright admiration for the American 
people. 



HOW THE BRITISH LEFT NEW YORK. 

In* March, 1776, the British army, or, as it was then 
commonly called, the Ministerial army, sailed from Bos- 
ton, where for months past it had been closely be- 
sieged by Washington and the Continentals. Then, 
and for a few months thereafter, no English force was 
on onr soil. But that the respite was only for the time 
being, and that the enemy would snrely return and at- 
tack some other seaport, was the belief of everybody. 
In the opinion of Washington, New York city was al- 
most certain to be the place. Its splendid harbor, its 
geographical position, the easy connection which the 
Hudson and Lakes George and Champlain afforded 
with Montreal and Quebec, all tended to mark it out as 
a city so desirable for the enemy to possess and hold as 
a base of operations, both by land and sea, that when, 
in January, 1776, a rumor was current of the intention 
of Sir Henry Clinton to lead an expedition against the 
city Washington made haste to send General Charles 
Lee, with such troops as could be gathered in Connecti- 
cut, to put the city in a state of defence. And it was 
well he did, for on the very day Lee entered New York 
by land Clinton, with his contingent, appeared off Sandy 
Hook. 

Convinced that the expedition of Clinton would 

271 



272 WITH THE FATHERS. 

now be followed by a much greater one under Howe, 
Washington, as soon as the British were out of sight at 
Boston, began to prepare for the transfer of the army 
to New York. Lee was replaced by Putnam, who, in 
April, was himself superseded by the commander-in- 
chief under whom the work of defence which had been 
started by Lee was hurried on with all possible speed, 
and in a little while the water-fronts of the East and 
North Rivers, the islands in the upper bay, the Nar- 
rows, and the heights of Brooklyn were bristling with 
redoubts and earthworks. Another long line of de- 
fences ran over the hills in what is at present the heart 
of Brooklyn, and was intended to cut off the approach 
of the enemy from the lower bay by way of Long 
Island. 

For the defence of these works Washington had 
gathered some seventeen thousand troops, of whom 
ten thousand were ready for the field, when, on the 
twenty-ninth of June, the long-expected British fleet, 
amounting all told to one hundred and thirty ships, 
came in sight off Sandy Hook. No attempt to prevent 
a nearer approach was made, and without any opposi- 
tion the soldiers were landed and went into camp on 
Staten Island, where they remained unmolested until 
August twenty-second. By that time, new arrivals 
having raised their number to twenty-five thousand, 
and all offers of peace having failed, Howe determined 
to begin the attack, and on August twenty-second sent 
fifteen thousand men across the Narrows to the beach 
at Gravesend. But it was not till August twenty- 
seventh that the battle was fought and the Americans 
driven within their lines on the hills of Brooklyn. By 
a little vigorous action Howe might easily have dis- 



HOW THE BRITISH LEFT NEW YORK. 273 

lodged them, but lie chose to begin a regular siege, and 
thus suffered Washington, on the night of August 
twenty-ninth, to withdraw his army from Brooklyn to 
New York. 

Unfavorable winds had so far kept the fleet down 
the bay, but on September third a twenty -gun ship and 
some boats came up and anchored in the Wallabout. 
More ships and transports joined them on the four- 
teenth, and next morning the little fleet moved up the 
East River to the foot of what is now Thirty-fourth 
Street, where the British landed, and, driving the 
Americans across the island and up to Harlem Heights, 
took the city. 

Thenceforth, to the end of the war, New York was 
in British hands. Thousands of the inhabitants had fled 
on the approach of ; the enemy, and thousands more 
went off after the battle of Long Island, so that not 
more than nine hundred took the oath of allegiance in 
1776. But the place of those who went into exile was 
gradually supplied by men and women loyal to the 
Crown, who, as the war progressed, were driven from 
their homes in various parts of the country and sought 
a refuge in New York. There they were assigned 
quarters in the deserted houses of the old inhabitants, 
and became, to all intents and purposes, a new popula- 
tion. It is easy to imagine with what feelings these 
people beheld the happy termination of the war, and 
realized that they must soon give up not only their old 
homes and property which had been confiscated by the 
States, but must even quit their country. As early as 
November, 1782, seven officers of the King's Rangers 
called public attention to the island of St. John. They 
had been there, the officers said, and knew it to be 



214: WITH THE FATHERS. 

the very spot for a great city. The harbor was safe 
and spacious, the climate was delightful, and the idea 
that iu Canada men were starving and freezing was 
entirely erroneous. Game abounded all over the isl- 
and, while in the river were the finest shell-fish to be 
found alonsr the whole coast from Xew York to Labra- 
dor. 

To refugees not knowing where to turn for an abid- 
ing place these assurances were most comforting, and, 
with the approach of spring, numbers set off for the 
island. Other companies were preparing to follow, 
when news of peace reached this country, and the exo- 
dus became general. 

The provisional treaty had been signed at London 
in Xovember, 17S2, and, although no time was lost in 
sending tidings of the event to the United States, it was 
late in March, 17S3, when a ship bearing the treaty 
reached Philadelphia, and April before the town ma- 
jor of Xew York proclaimed the news that the war 
was over from the steps of what was then the City 
Hall. 

By the seventh article of the treaty his Britannic 
Majesty bound himself to withdraw his troops and 
forces with all convenient speed. When the time came 
to put this provision into execution only two places on 
our coast were in possession of the King — the mouth of 
the Penobscot Biver in Maine and the mouth of the 
Hudson in Xew Jersey and Xew York. How s 
the British left the Penobscot was a matter of small 
concern. But the evacuation of Xew York was eager- 
ly expected both by the old Whig inhabitants eager to 
get in and by the Tory refugees eager to get out. To 
depart was far from easy, as the snipping was not plen- 



HOW TIIE BRITISH LEFT NEW YORK. 275 

tiful, and the Tories within the lines numbered some 
thirty thousand souls. 

The British commandant announced that none but 
refugees should be transferred by the King, and defined 
a refugee as a loyal subject of the Crown who had lived 
for twelve months past within the limits of the British 
army. The first step, therefore, required of each man 
desirous of transportation at Government expense was 
to prove residence. Having thus established his claim 
to be considered a refugee, he must have the house he 
occupied by consent of the commander of the army in- 
spected and pronounced in good repair, pay his rent for 
the same at the vestry office, satisfy all his creditors, 
and make out a list of the articles he wished to take 
with him. When he had proved to the satisfaction of 
the commissioners t^iat each article on the inventory 
was really his own, his name was entered in a book in 
the office of the adjutant-general, and in time he and his 
family were assigned berths in some ship or transport. 

The first fleet sailed early in April and bore away, 
it is said, nine thousand refugees. All over the country 
this piece of news was heard with delight, and many 
Whigs, believing the evacuation of the city to be near 
at hand, quit the farms and villages where they had 
dwelt for seven years and hurried to New York to take 
possession of their old homes again. Such as were will- 
ing and able to pay a quarter's rent in advance and 
ask no questions were soon in possession of their houses 
and shops ; but such as paid no rent found their claims 
unheeded, or were forced once more to take refuge with 
the farmers without the lines. These filled the Whig 
newspapers with their lamentations and with accounts 
of the evil doings of the Tories. 



276 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Tlie city, they asserted, was in a dreadful condition. 
Every place of worship except the Episcopal church, 
the Moravian church, and the Methodist meeting-house 
was desecrated and used for secular purposes. One was 
a riding-school, another was a storehouse, a third was a 
barracks. The plain duty of Sir Guy Carleton was to 
have these buildings repaired and cleaned, the pews 
put back, and the galleries rebuilt before he left the 
city. lie ought also to stop the insults daily offered to 
the American flag and suppress the nightly raids of the 
Tories. Peace existed. The United States was an in- 
dependent power, yet no ship captain dared to enter 
New York Bav with an American flag at his mast-head. 
All within the lines was supposed to be under British 
rule, yet from towns along the lines came stories of 
bands of Tories harrying the country. They would 
come, it was said, from Long Island and iSTew York in 
the night, skulk about all day, and at night begin their 
work of burning barns and haystacks, beating men, and 
extorting money. 

But there were in the city thousands of men who 
did not come within the definition of refugees, or if 
they did, desired to go to places other than those to 
which the King would send them. These formed com- 
panies of their own and went off as fast as ships could 
be chartered. Some one who wished to go to Port 
Boseway, or St. John, to Halifax, to Annapolis, to 
Cumberland, to the Bermudas, or to Fort Frontenac, 
would pass around a paper stating the fact and asking 
for signatures. All who signed bound themselves to 
depart at the summons of the leader. Such a sum- 
mons generally consisted of a notice in the Gazette that 
a ship to carry a certain company would be ready on 



HOW THE BRITISH LEFT NEW YORK. 277 

such a day at such a dock. But as the time of depart- 
ure drew near, the hearts of many seem to have failed 
them. 

The notices then be^an to contain warnings to be 
prompt. Now a leader would assume a threatening 
tone and after reminding his company that it was un- 
reasonable to expect that his ship would lie at her 
wharf for no other reason than to oblige indolent peo- 
ple, would bid them be on board by noon of a certain 
day or their places would be given to men from the 
army. Another hoped his shipmates would not forget 
to drink to their wives and sweethearts that night, as 
he expected them, one and all, to be on board the next 
morning to turn the windlass and have a pleasant sail 
to Staten Island. 

All through the summer the press for passage went 
on, till the sloops and packets were not numerous 
enough to carry off half the refugees who wished to go. 
In one day as many as 5,539 names were registered at 
the office of the adjutant-general. During the year the 
records show that 29,2-M persons — men, women, chil- 
dren, and servants — went off never to return. In gen- 
eral their place of destination was Nova Scotia. Elver 
St. John was a favorite place, but thousands made their 
abode at Port Koseway, at Annapolis Eoyal, at Fort 
Cumberland, or at Halifax. 

Each company that departed was the cause of re- 
newed rejoicing to the Whigs. The mortality from in- 
dependence fever, as they nicknamed the eagerness of 
the Tories to leave, was said to be rapidly depopulating 
the city. Nova Scotia they called Nova Scarcity, and 
described it as a land where there was nine months 
winter and three months cold weather. When it was 



278 WITH THE FATHERS. 

known that one ship had foundered and gone down off 
Sandy Hook with all on board not a word of sympathy 
was uttered. 

A letter from New York in the autumn declares 
there was no subject of conversation but the evacuation 
and no business but thieving. Houses left vacant by 
those who had gone were, it seems, plundered by 
men and women. Hardly a neighborhood but some 
foot passenger was stopped and robbed in the streets. 
Alarmed and enraged, the Whigs who had returned ob- 
tained consent of Sir Guy Carleton, and, forming them- 
selves into a night watch, walked the streets, and in a 
week had fifteen offenders in jail. No disturbances of 
importance took place. A mob, one day in October, 
excited by the appearance of an American flag at the 
mast-head of a vessel, boarded her, tore it down, and 
carried it in triumph about the streets. On another oc- 
casion the inspector of markets pulled the bell off the 
Fly Market and carried it home, declaring that the rebels 
should never have the use of it. But Carleton interfered, 
satisfied the complaints of the ship captain, and made 
the inspector replace the bell. 

At last, on November twelfth, Sir Guy Carleton 
notified Washington that the outposts north of Mc- 
Gowan's Pass (now near the northeastern entrance to 
Central Park) and at Hempstead, Long Island, would 
be withdrawn on November twenty-first ; that Brook- 
lyn and New York would be evacuated on the twenty- 
second, and Paulus Hook (now Jersey City) and Staten 
Island as soon as possible. But a week later the order 
was changed, and Washington informed that New 
York would be evacuated November twenty -fifth at 
noon, and that Staten Island would be retained until 



HOW THE BRITISH LEFT NEW YORK. 279 

transports could be secured to carry away the sixty-five 
hundred troops remaining. 

On November nineteenth, accordingly, Washington 
and Knox and Governor Clinton and their staffs came 
down to Day's Tavern, a public house near what is at 
present One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and 
Eighth Avenue. A small detachment of troops had 
already gone on to McGowan's Pass where, on the 
twenty-fourth, orders were issued to the soldiers to be 
ready to march at eight next day. 

Meanwhile the returned Whigs in the city had 
gathered at the famous tavern of Mr. Cape, a site now 
covered by the Boreel Building, and after framing reso- 
lutions asking everybody, Whig or Tory, who had lived 
in the city during the war to leave, and pledging them- 
selves to maintain oroler, chose a committee to select a 
badge for Evacuation Day. The committee selected a 
cockade of black and white ribbon to be worn on the 
left breast and a sprig of laurel in the hat, and enjoined 
all true Whigs to appear thus decorated at the Bull's 
Head Tavern on the morning of the twenty-second, the 
day first appointed by Carleton. 

Change of date made a slight change of plan. Citi- 
zens on horseback were now requested to assemble at 
the Bowling Green, and citizens on foot at the Tea 
Water Pump. After General Knox with the troops 
had taken possession of the city the citizens were to go 
back with him and meet Washington and Clinton at 
the Bull's Head. 

The programme was fully carried out. Early on 

the twenty-fifth the troops broke camp at McGowan's 

Pass, marched down the old Post Road to the Bowery, 

and down the Bowery to the barricade, halted there till 

19 



280 WITH THE FATHERS. 

the last British guard was withdrawn, and then went on 
through Chatham Street and Pearl Street and Wall 
Street to Broadway, and drew up in front of Mr. Cape's 
tavern. Then a detachment went off to old Fort 
George to raise the Stars and Stripes, only to find the 
staff soaped and the halyards missing. A sailor was 
found, however, who climbed the pole by nailing on 
cleats as he went, and having reeved it, had his pockets 
filled with " bits " and pennies by the crowd. The flag 
was then raised and saluted with thirteen guns. The 
military ceremony over, the civic procession began, and 
the General and Governor, repairing to the Bull's Head, 
were escorted to their lodgings by a grateful people. 

Though the city was evacuated on the twenty -fifth, 
it was not until December third that the British flag 
was drawn down at Staten Island, and not till Decem- 
ber fifth did Admiral Digby with the last of the fleet 
sail down the lower bay and put to sea. 



THE STEUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 

The story of the claims of European nations to so 
much of the territory of North America as now lies 
within the limits of the United States goes back to the 
time when Henry of Portugal was urging forward 
those voyages of exploration along the coast of Africa 
which led to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope 
and a new route to Ir/dia. That no other people might 
rob him of the fruit of his labors he procured a series 
of Papal Bulls granting to him all the lands his sub- 
jects should discover from Cape Non to India. The 
right of the Pope to thus dispose of heathen lands and 
heathen people was not at that day even doubted, and 
Prince Henry was left in the undisturbed enjoyment 
of his monopoly till Columbus, sailing westward, dis- 
covered the Antilles. Then Spain in turn applied for 
a Papal Bull, and Alexander YI drew a north and 
south line one hundred leagues west of the Azores and 
confirmed Spain in the possession of every country her 
navigators might find to the west of it. In this for a 
time Portugal refused to concur. But on the sixth of 
June, 1494, a treaty was made with Spain, the line 
drawn by Alexander was then moved to three hundred 
and seventy leagues west of Cape de Yerd, and the 
earliest title of Europeans to America was established. 

281 



282 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Thus made secure in the possession of her discoveries, 
the subjects of Spain pushed boldly out into the Carib- 
bean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. It was under the 
flag of Spain that one hardy mariner discovered and 
named Florida; that another explored the peninsula 
from Key West to Pensacoia ; that a third went round 
the northern shore of the gulf to Mexico and became 
the first of Europeans to behold the Mississippi. It 
was under her flag that Ayllon sailed along the coast of 
Georgia and South Carolina ; that De Soto marched 
across the country from Tampa Bay to the Mississippi, 
and Coronado from the Gulf of California to Kansas. 

During all these years the validity of the Spanish 
claims was never once seriously disputed. Cabot was 
indeed commissioned to discover " countries which were 
before that time unknown to Christian princes." But 
his discoveries were so plainly within the grant to 
Spain that Henry YII never for a moment thought of 
asserting sovereignty over them. Verrazzano in 1524 
did indeed carry the French flag along the coast from 
Georgia to Newfoundland, and Cartier and De Roche 
at a later day explored the Gulf and River St. Law- 
rence, and even took possession of the country in the 
name of France. But at both these times a bloody war 
was raging between France and Spain, and the inva- 
sion and seizure of Spanish territory in the New World 
was as proper an act for a Catholic king as the invasion 
and seizure of Spanish territory in the Old World, and 
the attempted settlements were in no sense a question- 
ing of her title. 

Her title, indeed, was undisputed till Elizabeth was 
on the throne of England, till Protestantism was firmly 
established, and till Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Wal- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 283 

ter Raleigh set forth to " discover and search such re- 
mote heathen and barbarous lands, not actually possessed 
of any Christian prince, as to them shall seem good." 
Then was set up the Protestant doctrine that the Pope 
could not dispose of heathen lands, and that .all such 
countries belong to the prince whose subjects not merely 
discover but occupy them. The dispute thus begun as 
to the ownership of America raged with violence for 
nearly a century more, till by the treaty of 1670 Spain 
" agreed that the King of Great Britain and his sub- 
jects should remain in possession of what they then 
possessed in America," and the Protestant principle of 
discovery and occupation as the basis of title was finally 
established. 

By that time the British were in possession of the 
whole Atlantic coasjt from Maine to Georgia ; had al- 
ready marked out the bounds of Massachusetts and 
Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York, New Jer- 
sey, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and had 
already begun that movement westward which in an- 
other half century brought them to the foot of the 
Alleghanies. 

While the English were thus engaged on the At- 
lantic slope the French were equally busy exploring 
that part of our country which lies between the Missis- 
sippi and the Blue Ridge, the Great Lakes and the 
Gulf. Far back in the sixteenth century Cartier ex- 
plored the St. Lawrence, and led out a colony to settle 
on its banks. But the attempt failed, the colonists 
perished, and for sixty years the Indians seldom saw a 
white man among them. At last, in 1608, Samuel 
Champlain repeated the attempt, led a band of hardy 
adventurers to the Isle of Orleans, and hard by, on the 



284 WITH THE FATHERS. 

high bluffs which look down on the river and the island, 
marked out the city of Quebec. The colonists found 
themselves far from home, in a cheerless clirnate, in a 
vast wilderness, and in the midst of tribes of red men 
who beheld the little hamlet with no friendly eye. So 
much depended on the good-will of the Indians that 
Champlain left nothing undone to gain it. He made 
them presents, joined them in an alliance, and went 
with >>.iem on the war-path to the shores of that beauti- 
ful sheet of water which still bears his name. There a 
great battle was fought. The arms and the courage of 
the French prevailed, and a victory full of consequences 
to the white men was won. For three generations after 
the battle every Algonkin was the steady friend, and 
every Iroquois the implacable enemy, of the French ; 
and to this more than to anything else is to be ascribed 
the exploration and settlement of the Northwest. The 
Iroquois were powerful through all New York. The 
Alp'onkins ruled alon^ the St. Lawrence and the chain 
of lakes. When, therefore, the French missionaries 
began their search for proselytes and furs they shunned 
the Iroquois and travelled westward among the tribes 
of the Algonkin nations. 

Le Caron, a Franciscan, went first, and for ten years 
toiled among the Indians on the Niagara and the shores 
of Lake Huron. Brebeuf and Daniel went next, reached 
Sault Ste. Marie, and founded at St. Ignatius, St. Louis, 
and St. Joseph, villages of Christian Huron. But the 
Iroquois overwhelmed them, destroyed the villages, and 
burned the missionaries at the stake. Mesnard went 
yet farther to the west, saw the waters of Lake Superior, 
paddled in a canoe along its southern shores, built a 
church at St. Theresa Bay, and disappeared forever at 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 285 

the portage of Keweenaw. Long afterward liis breviary 
and liis cassock were found among the Sioux. Allouez 
followed him, explored both shores of the lake, and at 
the western end met the Sioux and heard for the first 
time of the great river the Indians called the Messipi. 
But all the glory of its exploration belongs to Mar- 
quette. 

He set out. in May, 1673, from Mackinaw, with six 
companions, in two birch canoes, paddled down the 
lake to Green Bay, entered Fox River, and dragging 
the boats through its boiling rapids, came to a village 
where lived the Miamis and the Kickapoos. There 
Allouez had preached and taught. But beyond it no 
white man had ever gone. The Indians would have 
dissuaded them, told them of warriors who would cut 
oif their heads, of monsters who would swallow their 
canoes, and of a demon who shut the way and drowned 
in the waters that seethed about him all who came 
within his reach. But the zeal of Marquette burned 
fiercely, and on the tenth of June, 1673, he led his little 
band, with two Indian guides, over the swamps and 
marshes that separated the village from a river which 
the guides assured him flowed into the Messipi. This 
westward-flowing river he called the Ouisconsin, and 
there the guides left him, as he says, " alone, amid that 
unknown country, in the hands of God." 

With prayers to the mother of Jesus, the little band 
shoved their canoes boldly out upon the river, and for 
seven days floated slowly downward toward the Missis- 
sippi. The stillness of the Ouisconsin River, now 
crowded with villages and towns, seemed oppressive. 
Never before had they seen such buffalo, such deer, 
such stags. The sand-bars that stopped their way, the 



286 WITH THE FATHERS. 

innumerable islands covered with vines and groves, 
and bordered with pleasant slopes, the paroquets that 
screamed in the trees, the " wingless swans " that strutted 
on the banks, the great fish that they feared would dash 
their canoes to pieces, filled them with indescribable 
awe. At last, on the seventeenth of June, they floated 
out on the bosom of the Mississippi, and turned their 
canoes to the south. Four days they followed the bends 
and twists of the river, and on the twenty -first of the 
month saw in the mud of the western bank footprints, 
and a path that disappeared in a meadow. Leaving the 
canoes with their companions on the river, Marquette 
and Joliet took the path through the meadows to a 
cluster of Indian villages, on the shore of what is now 
believed to be the River Des Moines. There they 
feasted, spent the night, and went back next morning 
to their followers, and, while the savages crowded the 
banks of the Mississippi, resumed their journey. They 
floated clown the stream, past the rocks whereon were 
painted the monsters of which they had heard so much, 
past the mouth of the Missouri, past the Ohio, and 
stopped not far from the mouth of the Arkansas, where 
the voyage ended, and whence the party went slowly 
back to the lakes. 

Taking up the work where Marquette left it, La 
Salle, in 1682, explored the Mississippi to its mouth, 
and standing on the shores of the Mexican Gulf, with 
a clod of earth in one hand and his sword in the other, 
formally took possession of the country for the King of 
France, and named it Louisiana. Two years later, when 
seeking the mouth of the Mississippi by sea, he reached 
the bay of Matagorda, and founded Fort St. Louis on 
the coast of Texas. By the custom of nations, the dis- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 287 

covery and exploration of the Mississippi gave to France 
all the country that river drained. The discovery of the 
Texas coast gave to her all the country drained by the 
rivers of that coast, while the establishment of Fort St. 
Louis carried her claim to the coast southward to a point 
midway between Fort St. Louis and the nearest Spanish 
post. The nearest Spanish post was in the Province of 
Paduco. On the rude maps of the eighteenth century 
Louisiana, therefore, extends from the Pio Grande to 
the Mobile, from the Gulf of Mexico to the country 
beyond the source of the Mississippi Itiver, and from 
the Smoky Mountains to the unknown regions of the 
"West. To the claim of discovery and the claim of ex- 
ploration was soon added a third — that of settlement ; 
and, before the first quarter of the eighteenth century 
ended, Biloxi had been founded, and Mobile ; the forts 
Posalie, Toulouse and Tombigbee, Natchitoches and 
Assumption, Chartres and Cahokia erected, and the 
streets and ramparts of New Orleans marked out by 
De la Tour. 

Thus firmly in possession of the Mississippi on the 
south and holding the St. Lawrence and the lakes on 
the north, the French began to overrun the country ; 
built Fort Lake Pepin, Fort Yincent, Niagara, Detroit, 
Toronto, Ticonderoga, and Crown Point ; strengthened 
their settlements on the Mississippi and the Illinois ; 
took formal possession of the valley of the Ohio ; built 
Presqu' Isle and Le Boeuf, and Yenango, and, when the 
second quarter of the century ended, at the gateway of 
the Ohio Piver, came face to face with the English. 

The conflict which followed has come down in his- 
tory as the French and Indian War. It ought to have 
been called the war for possession, for when it was 



288 WITH THE FATHERS. 

over, French power in America was gone. By the 
treaty of November third, 1762, France gave to Eng- 
land Nova Scotia, Acadia, Cape Breton, Canada, all the 
islands and all the coasts of the Gulf and Biver St. 
Lawrence, and divided her possessions in what is now 
our country into two parts. The line of partition ran 
down the Mississippi Biver from its source to the Biver 
Iberville, through the Iberville to Lake Maurepas, and 
along the north shore of Lakes Maurepas and Pontchar- 
train to the Gulf of Mexico. All to the east she gave 
to England ; all to the west she gave to Spain. 

The French cession to Spain was in the nature of 
compensation, for she too had taken part in the war, 
had been forced to surrender Havana to the English, 
and to get it back had given Florida in exchange. As 
indemnity for the loss of Florida, France made over to 
Spain the Island of Orleans and all the region west of 
the Mississippi. 

Thus were the French expelled from North America. 
Thus were the possessions of Spain enlarged. Thus 
was our country divided between two contestants, and 
the first stage in the struggle for possession closed. 
But the first was scarcely over when the second began. 
In less than twelve years after the signing of the Treaty 
of Paris the Bevolution opened, the hereditary enemies 
of England joined us, and in a little while Great Britain, 
France, Spain, and the United States were all four con- 
tending for the possession of the Mississippi Yalley. 
The United States, standing by the ancient colonial 
charters, demanded as her boundary the St. John 
Biver, the Quebec line from the highlands of Maine 
to Lake Nipissing, a right line to the source of the Mis- 
sissippi, the Mississippi to thirty-one degrees, eastward 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 2S9 

along that parallel to the Appalachicola, down the Ap- 
palachicola to the Flint, eastward to the head waters of 
the St. Mary's, and down the St. Mary's to the sea. But 
of such boundaries Spain would hear nothing. Her 
policy had always been to shut out rival powers from 
the waters of the Gulf. She had therefore gone into 
the war for the sole purpose of recovering Florida, and 
had succeeded beyond her expectations. Galvez, who 
governed Louisiana, had led an expedition into West 
Florida and had captured the British posts at Baton 
Rouge and Natchez, at Pensacola and Mobile. Her 
commandant at St. Louis had, in the dead of winter, 
penetrated into the heart of the Northwest, had seized 
the English post of Fort St. Joseph, had taken formal 
possession of the country it controlled, had displayed 
the Spanish standard, and had carried off the English 
colors as a title deed. That Spain would abandon the 
fruits of her victories without a struggle was not to be 
expected, and when the Commissioners met at Paris to 
frame a treaty of peace the struggle began. 

To the claim for territory set up by the United States, 
the Spanish Ambassador replied that the country beyond 
the mountains had never belonged to the States while 
colonies ; that it had never even been claimed by them ; 
that previous to the Treaty of Paris it had belonged 
to France, and that after the treaty it remained a dis- 
tinct part of the dominion of Great Britain, because by 
a proclamation in 1763 King George had drawn a line 
around the headwaters of the rivers flowino: into the 
Atlantic, had set apart the country between it and the 
Mississippi River for the Indians, and had forbidden his 
subjects to settle there ; and that now, in consequence 
of the conquests of Spain in West Florida, on the 



290 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Mississippi, and on the Illinois, the "West belonged to 
Spain. He proposed, therefore, in the name of his 
Catholic Majesty, a western boundary for the United 
States, and was good enough to trace it in red ink on a 
copy of the rude map the Commissioners had before 
them. Running up the Flint River, the line followed 
the mountains to the waters of the Great Kanawha, 
passed down the Kanawha to the Ohio, skirted Penn- 
sylvania, and passed along the south shore of the lakes 
to the Mississippi. The claim was both extravagant 
and absurd. But, extravagant as it was, the French 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the amazement of the 
American Commissioners, was far from disapproving it. 
This made it serious for the instructions given to Dr. 
Franklin, Mr. Adams and Mr. Jay were to undertake 
nothing in the negotiations for peace without the knowl- 
edge and concurrence of France. Yergennes admitted 
that the conquests of Spain did not justify her in claim- 
ing the whole eastern slope of the Mississippi Valley. 
But he asserted, and asserted positively, that the claim of 
the United States derived no support from anything in 
their colonial history, and proposed a compromise. The 
United States should be bounded on the west by the 
Chattahoochee, the mountains, and a line midway 
through the present State of Ohio. All west of this 
line and north of the Ohio River was to be left with 
England. What is now comprised in Kentucky, in 
Tennessee, in Alabama, and Mississippi, north of thirty- 
one degrees, was to be Indian Territory under the pro- 
tection of Spain and the United States. 

Widely as these two propositions differed, in some 
respects they agreed entirely in this : that the United 
States should own no territory beyond the mountains. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 291 

But the American Commissioners, determined that she 
should, broke through their instructions, and, without 
the knowledge of France, signed the preliminary treaty 
of peace in November, 1782. When the treaty, duly 
signed and sealed, was laid before the French Minister, 
he was astonished and deeply mortified. 

He stormed, he raged, he bitterly reproached Frank- 
lin and his associates for the course they had taken. Nay, 
even Congress and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs 
were for a time disposed to blame the commissioner. 
But the deed was done, the West was saved ; and when 
the definitive treaty was signed, in September, 1783, 
the western limit of the United States was irrevocably 
fixed at the Mississippi. The southern boundary was 
the thirty-first degree of latitude from the Mississippi to 
the Appalachicola, down that river to the Flint, eastward 
to the St. Mary's River, and by it to the sea. But a 
secret article declared that if Great Britain, when she 
made peace with Spain, recovered West Florida, the 
south boundary of the United States should be the line 
from the mouth of the Yazoo River due east to the 
Appalachicola — a line which since 176-1 had been the 
north boundary of West Florida. Great Britain did 
not recover West Florida. Indeed, by a treaty signed 
the same day on which she signed that with the United 
States she ceded West Florida to Spain. As no bound- 
ary was given, Spain claimed it with the boundary it 
had when the Revolution opened — that is, with the line 
from the mouth of the Yazoo River. When, therefore, 
his Catholic Majesty heard of the secret article, he 
promptly informed Congress that no treaty between the 
United States and England could settle the boundary 
between the United States and Spain ; that West Flor- 



292 WITH THE FATHERS. 

ida, with the bounds it had in 1775, was his ; and that 
until such time as the two Governments should agree 
on the limits of Louisiana and the Floridas he would 
assert his territorial claims and maintain his jurisdiction 
over the river. The threat was no idle one. The posts 
which she had taken from England during the war, and 
which lay within the limits of the United States, she 
held and fortified, and for twelve years the Spanish flag 
waved over Baton Rouge and Natchez. She built new 
forts ; she made treaties with the Indians, and suffered 
no American ships to enter or go out of the Mississippi. 
Then began yet another phase of the struggle for the 
possession of the valley. 

On the November day, 1782, when peace was made 
with Great Britain the population of the United States 
did not amount to three millions of souls, and had but 
just begun to push through the mountains into West 
Virginia and Kentucky and Tennessee. Few in num- 
ber, scattered along the banks of the Ohio and the 
streams flowing into the Ohio, joined to the East by 
no ties, commercial or political — nay, parted from it by 
the mountains and the lack of decent means of com- 
munication — having no channel by which to reach the 
markets of the world save the Mississippi River, they 
seemed destined by Nature to become some day an in- 
dependent people. 

Nor could the Confederation, while it lasted, do 
anything to hinder such a separation. A few states- 
men of the Virginia school were far-sighted enough to 
see the vast importance of protecting American inter- 
ests in the Mississippi Valley. But the East was ready 
enough to sacrifice the interests of the West ; and in 
1786, when Spain demanded as the price of a treaty of 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 203 

commerce an agreement that the citizens of the United 
States should not navigate the Mississippi for twenty- 
five years, John Jay, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs 
to Congress, readily consented. This price, however, 
was never paid. The protests of Virginia and the sol- 
emn threats of the people of Kentucky forced Congress 
to pause, and we had no commercial relation, no defini- 
tion of bounds, no treaty with Spain, till 1796. 

Long before that time, however, the movement of 
our population westward began, and the people came 
pouring over the mountains in three great streams. 
With the increase of population came an increase of 
discontent. The prohibition of the navigation of the 
Mississippi grew every year more and more galling 
till, when the French devolution opened the markets of 
the West Indies to neutrals, and produced an immense 
demand for flour, pork, and bacon — the staples of the 
West — it became unbearable, and the old spirit of dis- 
content grew rapidly to a spirit of revolution which 
every bold, daring, and reckless man labored hard to 
fan into open insurrection. At one time it seemed not 
unlikely that the people of the valley would separate 
from the States and form a union with the Spaniards. 
At another time it seemed quite probable that they 
would leave the Union, drive out the Spaniards, seize 
Florida and Louisiana, and form a new republic in the 
Mississippi Yalley. Now it was George Rogers Clark 
organizing an expedition to seize Natchez, Baton Rouge, 
New Orleans. Now it was the French Minister Genet 
sending out agents to stir up hatred of the Spaniards in 
the West and enlist troops to attack them. Now it was 
Senator William Blount, of Tennessee, expelled from 
the Senate of the United States for trying to induce 



294 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Great Britain to send a fleet to close the Mississippi 
while he led an army down the river from Canada and 
attacked Louisiana. Now it was James Wilkinson in- 
triguing with the Spanish Intendant and, under threats 
of leading an army from Kentucky, obtaining commer- 
cial concessions for himself. Rascality, corruption, in- 
trigue were on every hand. Spanish agents constantly 
travelled on various errands up and down the Ohio; 
American speculators as constantly visited New Orleans. 

It was a due sense of the dangers which thus threat- 
ened the two Governments, but chiefly a fear of Eng- 
lish conquest, that in 1796 induced Spain to make her 
first treaty with the United States. By that treaty she 
accepted thirty-one degrees from the Mississippi to the 
Appalachicola as the south boundary of the United 
States, and withdrew her troops from the posts she had 
so long held on the east bank of the river. But as she 
still owned both banks of the Mississippi below thirty- 
one degrees, she would not open it for navigation. She 
would merely suffer citizens of the United States for 
three years to come to deposit merchandise at New Or- 
leans, and, after paying enormous storage duty, reship 
them when they pleased. 

Meagre as these concessions were, they served to 
alarm the two foremost men in France— Napoleon 
Bonaparte and Talleyrand, at that time Minister for 
Foreign Affairs to the Directory. No sooner did he 
hear of the treaty than he wrote to the French Minister 
resident in Spain a letter in which is fully portrayed 
the policy of France toward America for many years to 
come. 

"The court of Madrid," said Talleyrand, "ever 
blind to its own interests and never docile to the les- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 295 

sons of experience, has again quite recently adopted a 
measure which cannot fail to produce the worst effects 
upon its political existence and on the preservation of 
its colonies. The United States have been put in pos- 
session of the forts situated along the Mississippi which 
the Spaniards had occupied as posts essential to arrest 
the progress of the Americans in those countries." 
The Americans, he then went on to say, were deter- 
mined to rule America. This ambition could only be 
stopped " by shutting them up within the limits which 
Nature seems to have traced for them." As Spain 
could not do this, she would do well to cede Florida and 
Louisiana to France, in order that the Eepublic might 
do it for her. 

The rupture between the United States and France 
followed immediately, /and Talleyrand fell from power 
on July twentieth, 1799. But in October Napoleon re- 
turned from Egypt, and November ninth, or, as the day 
was called in the French calendar, eighteenth Brumaire, 
executed the famous coup cVetat. Talleyrand was al- 
most immediately recalled, the old policy of shutting 
up America within the limits assigned to her by Na- 
ture was resumed, and in July, 1800, instructions were 
sent to the French Minister at Madrid to begin the 
negotiations which ended in the treaty of retrocession. 
He was to demand from Spain the provinces of Louis- 
iana, East Florida, West Florida, and six seventy-four- 
gun frigates. He was to offer in return a piece of 
European territory for the young Duke and Duchess of 
Palma. The Duchess of Palma was the daughter of 
Charles IV of Spain ; the Duke was his nephew. The 
offer was most tempting, and, backed up by the wishes 
of the Queen and her daughter, it was accepted, a bar- 
20 



296 WITH THE FATHERS. 

gain was struck, and October first, 1800, the secret treaty 
was signed at San Ildefonso. By that treaty Spain 
pledged herself to retrocede the province of Louisiana 
as she had received it from France. France in turn 
pledged herself to add the duchy of Tuscany to the 
dukedom of Palma, make of them the kingdom of 
Etruria, and place on this new throne the daughter and 
son-in-law of the King of Spain. 

To make good the promise was to Napoleon an easy 
matter. The battle of Hohenlinden humbled Austria. 
The treaty which followed that battle deprived the 
Grand Duke of Tuscany of his duchy, and the young 
King and Queen of Etruria were soon on their way to 
Italy. But a year sped by before Napoleon began to 
think seriously of occupying Louisiana. Then he com- 
manded an expedition to be made ready to sail in the 
last week of September, 1801. But one delay followed 
another. The First Consul failed to display his usual 
energy, and when the King of Spain on the fifteenth of 
October signed the order for the delivery of Louisiana to 
France, neither ships nor troops were ready. It was 
November before Leclerc weighed anchor and made 
for a land he was destined never to reach. His orders 
bade him stop on the way at San Domingo, destroy the 
little negro republic ruled by Toussaint L'Ouverture 
and reduce that former possession of France to its old 
allegiance. Happily for us, that work was never done. 
The attempt to reduce the negroes to subjection con- 
sumed one fine army of seventeen thousand men. Yel- 
low fever, more terrible than war, swept away a second 
while engaged in the task of holding the negroes in 
subjection, and the "West was saved. 

The treaty of San Ildefonso was supposed to be 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 297 

secret. But the news that by it Louisiana had been 
ceded to France reached this country in 1802, and the 
Spanish Intend ant at New Orleans, acting on his own 
authority, in the hope, perhaps, of winning the favor of 
Napoleon, proclaimed the right of deposit at New Or- 
leans suspended, and shut the Mississippi in October, 
1802. In a fortnight the whole West was in a furor 
and clamoring loudly for war. To see a people so 
weak, so impotent, as the Spanish in possession of the 
mouth of the river was one thing. But to see such a 
nation as France ruled by such a man as Napoleon in 
possession was another and a very different thing. Pre- 
vented it must be at all hazards, and, without waiting 
for the consent of Congress, Jefferson bade Livingston, 
our Minister at Paris, offer to purchase the Island of 
Orleans. " There is," he wrote, " on the globe one 
single spot the possessor of which is our natural and 
habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which 
must pass to market the produce of three eighths of 
that territory which from its fertility will yield more 
than half of our whole produce and contains more than 
half of our whole population." 

The Federalists, when Congress met, took up the 
cry, and Jefferson despatched Monroe to join Living- 
ston in the attempt to buy the Spanish possessions east 
of the Mississippi. 

While these things were happening in the United 
States, events of yet greater importance were happen- 
ing in Europe. The heroic struggles of fare hundred 
thousand Haytian negroes who would not be enslaved, 
the fifty thousand soldiers whose lives had been sacri- 
ficed, the millions of francs that had been squandered, 
not in subjugating but in desolating San Domingo, had 



298 WITH THE FATHERS. 

destroyed Napoleon's dream of empire in the New 
World. From the day news of Leclerc's death reached 
him all idea of a colonial system vanished. To abandon 
San Domingo and Louisiana outright would have been 
to confess defeat. Napoleon, therefore, in his charac- 
teristic way, began to cast about him for an excuse, and 
found it in that quarrel with England which broke the 
peace of Amiens and again involved Europe in war. 

Fortunately for us, at the very moment his deter- 
mination to abandon his colonies was reached, Livingston 
appeared before his minister with an offer to buy the 
Island of Orleans, and was met with the counter propo- 
sition to buy all Louisiana. No instructions authorized 
Livingston to go so far. But time was short ; Napoleon 
was imperious ; England, it was feared, would in case of 
war seize Louisiana, and to save it both Livingston and 
Monroe broke through their instructions, and in 1803 
signed the treaty and the two Conventions which se- 
cured us Louisiana. The price was hi round numbers 
fifteen millions of dollars. 

Jefferson was greatly puzzled when these three 
documents reached his hand. He had offered to buy 
an island for a dockyard and a place of deposit. He 
was offered a magnificent domain. He had been au- 
thorized to expend two millions of dollars ; the sum 
demanded was fifteen. As a strict constructionist he 
could not, and for a while he did not, consider the 
purchase of foreign territory as a constitutional act. 
But, when he thought of the evils that would follow if 
Louisiana remained with France, and of the blessings 
that would follow if Louisiana came to the United 
States, his common sense got the better of his narrow 
political scruples, and he soon found a way of escape. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 299 

He would accept the treaty, summon Congress, urge 
the House and Senate to perfect the purchase, and 
trust to the Constitution being mended so as to make 
the purchase legal. The six months allowed for delib- 
eration would expire on the thirtieth daj of October. 
The Congress was therefore summoned to meet on Oc- 
tober seventeenth. 

Nothing so finely illustrates the low state to which 
the once prosperous Federalists were fallen as the tur- 
ilent and factious opposition they now made to the 
acquisition of Louisiana. Some were worried lest the 
East should become depopulated, lest a great emigra- 
tion should set in, lest old men and young men, aban- 
doning homes and occupations, should cross the Missis- 
sippi and perhaps found there a republic of their own. 
Some feared that mere extent of territory would rend 
the Republic apart ; that no common ties of interest 
could ever bind together under one government men 
who fought Indians and trapped bears around the head 
waters of the Missouri, and men who built ships and 
caught fish in the harbors of the Atlantic coast. Some 
affected the language of patriots and lamented the enor- 
mous increase the purchase would make in the national 
debt. This, indeed, became a favorite theme, and soon 
Federal writers and printers all over the land were vy- 
ing with each other in attempts to show the people 
what an exceedingly great sum of money fifteen mill- 
ions of dollars was. 

Fifteen millions of dollars ! they would exclaim. 
The sale of a wilderness has not usually commanded a 
price so high. Ferdinand Gorges received but twelve 
hundred and fifty pounds sterling for the Province of 
Maine. "William Penn gave for the wilderness that 



300 WITH THE FATHERS. 

now bears his name but a trifle over five thousand 
pounds. Fifteen millions of dollars ! A breath will 
suffice to pronounce the words. A few strokes of the 
pen will express the sum on paper. But not one man 
in a thousand has any conception of the magnitude of 
the amount. Weigh it, and there will be four hundred 
and thirty-three tons of solid silver. Load it into 
wagons, and there will be eight hundred and sixty-six 
of them. Place the wagons in a line, giving two rods 
to each, and they will cover a distance of five and one 
third miles. Hire a laborer to shovel it into the carts, 
and though he load sixteen each day, he will not finish 
the work in two months. Stack it up dollar on dollar, 
and, supposing nine to make an inch, the pile will be 
more than three miles high. It would load twenty-five 
sloops ; it would pay an army of twenty-five thousand 
men forty shillings a week each for twenty-five years ; 
it would, divided among the population of the country, 
give three dollars for each man, woman, and child. 
All the gold and all the silver coin in the Union would, 
if collected, fall vastly short of such a sum. 

Statistics, most happily, were of no avail. The 
mass of the people approved of the purchase, the Senate 
ratified the treaty and the Conventions, and on Decem- 
ber twentieth, 1803, Louisiana was taken possession of 
by the United States. 

In the treaty of purchase no boundary was given. 
When the United States took possession in December, 
1803, the eastern boundary was the Mississippi from its 
source to the thirty-first parallel ; but where the source 
of the Mississippi was no man knew, and what was the 
boundary below thirty-one degrees was long in dispute. 
Americans claimed as far eastward as the Perdido Kiver, 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 301 

but Spain would acknowledge no claim east of the Mis- 
sissippi and south of the thirty-first parallel save the 
Island of Orleans. The south boundary was, of course, 
the Gulf of Mexico ; but whether it extended along the 
Gulf to the Sabine or the Rio Grande was not settled. 
The mountains, wherever they might be, were believed 
to bound it on the west, and the possessions of Great 
Britain, wherever they might be, were known to bound 
it on the north. 

Want of definite boundaries on the southeast and on 
the southwest now involved us in a serious dispute with 
Spain, which war abroad and at home and a suspension 
of all diplomatic relations with Spain from 1808 to 
1815, prolonged till 1819, when a treaty was made 
which secured Florida at a cost in round numbers of 
Hve million dollars,, and for the first time drew a 
boundary line on the southwest. Starting at the mouth 
of the Sabine, it passed up that river to the parallel of 
thirty-two degrees, thence due north to the Red River, 
westward along that river to the one hundredth me- 
ridian, thence due north to the Arkansas River, whose 
south bank it followed to the river's source in the moun- 
tains. As nobody knew where the source of the Arkan- 
sas was, the treaty provided that the line should be drawn 
from the source, when found, either due north or due 
south, as occasion might require, to the parallel of forty- 
two degrees north latitude, and thence westward along 
that parallel to the Pacific Ocean. 

Just before the treaty of 1819 was made with 
Spain, the Convention of 1818 was concluded with 
Great Britain, and a northern boundary was given to 
Louisiana. This line of demarcation between the terri- 
tory of the United States and the territory of his 



302 WITH THE FATHERS. 

Britannic Majesty was to begin at "the most north- 
western point of the Lake of the Woods," run " due 
north or south, as the case may be," to the forty -ninth 
parallel of north latitude, and westward along that par- 
allel to the summit of the Stony — or, as we know them, 
the Rocky — Mountains. The region which lies beyond 
the mountains, and is now comprised in the States of 
Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, was claimed by each 
nation. The claim of the United States rested on the 
discovery of the Columbia River by Captain Gray in 
1792, on the exploration of the country by Lewis and 
Clark in 1804—1806, and on the settlement built by 
the Missouri Fur Company at Fort Hall in 1808, and 
by the Pacific Fur Company at Astoria in 1810. But, 
as it was still a wilderness, to dispute about it seemed 
so idle that " the high contracting parties " agreed that 
for ten years they would hold the country in joint oc- 
cupancy, and that such occupancy should in no wise af- 
fect the claim of either. 

And now a new claimant appeared in the Emperor 
of Russia who, in 1822, put forth a ukase and asserted 
his ownership of the whole northwestern coast from 
Behring Sea southward to fifty-one degrees of north 
latitude, and warned all foreigners not to come within 
three hundred miles of the coast. 

Against this John Quincy Adams, then Secretary 
of State, protested vigorously and bade the American 
Minister at St. Petersburg admit no part of the Russian 
claims, but rest the claims of the United States on the 
Spanish treaty of 1819, which secured all the rights 
and pretensions of Spain to the coast north of forty-two 
degrees ; on the discovery of the Columbia by Grey ; 
on the exploration of the country by Lewis and Clark ; 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 303 

and on the settlement at Astoria. He might, however, 
agree that no citizen of the United States should land 
at any Russian settlement without permission of the 
Russian commander ; that no subjects of the Emperor 
should land at any American settlements without con- 
sent of the American authorities ; and that no Ameri- 
can settlements should be made north and no Russian 
settlements should be established south of fifty-five 
degrees north latitude. 

Meantime Great Britain had protested against the 
imperial ukase, and had in like manner been invited 
to an amicable negotiation for the adjustment of her 
claims. It was supposed that, as England and America 
held the country in joint occupation, the two nations 
would carry on a joint negotiation with Russia. But 
when it was found tfrat the British envoy had power to 
discuss, but not to conclude anything, and that author- 
ity to act jointly was not likely to be given him, Henry 
Middleton began the negotiation on behalf of the 
United States alone by offering fifty-five degrees as a 
boundary or line of demarcation. Russia then offered 
54° 40', which was accepted and incorporated in the 
Convention signed in April, 1824. 

The discussion thus raised by Russia made it most 
fitting that the United States and England should come 
to an understanding as to their respective pretensions. 
Adams, therefore, instructed Benjamin Rush to bring 
up the matter, and to state definitely the grounds on 
which the United States took her stand. The Russian 
application of the colonial principle of exclusion was 
not to be admitted as lawful on any part of the north- 
west coast of America. Indeed, it was to be denied 
that such a principle could be applied by any European 



304: WITH THE FATHERS. 

nation. It was true that by the Nootka Sound Con- 
vention of 1790 England had agreed that, so far as 
Spanish settlements extended in North and South 
America, Spain possessed the exclusive rights territo- 
rial, and of navigation and fishery, to a distance of ten 
miles from the coasts so actually occupied. But the 
independence of the South American nations and of 
Mexico has extinguished, said Adams, the exclusive colo- 
nial rights of Spain in North and South America, and 
the American continents henceforth will no longer be 
subjects of colonization. Occupied by civilized inde- 
pendent nations, they will be accessible to Europeans 
on that footing alone, and the Pacific Ocean and every 
part of it will remain open to the navigation of all na- 
tions in like manner with the Atlantic." 

As to the boundary, Hush was to offer to stipulate 
that no settlements be made in future by the Russians 
south of fifty-five degrees, by citizens of the United 
States north of fifty-one degrees, or by British subjects 
either south of fifty-one or north of fifty-five degrees. 
He might, however, if England insisted on it, accept 
forty-nine degrees as the boundary from the Rocky 
Mountains to the sea. These two propositions were ac- 
cordingly made by Rush, and were met the one with a 
declination and the other with a flat denial. Great 
Britain, it was answered, considered the whole of the 
unoccupied parts of America as open to her future set- 
tlements as heretofore, and would make no exception 
of the northwest coast, whether north of forty-two de- 
grees or south of fifty-one. Yet she would, from pure 
goodness, from a desire to close sources of disagreement 
which the future might multiply and aggravate, waive 
her rights, and suggest a line of demarcation. This line 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 305 

was the parallel of forty -nine degrees from the summit 
of the Rocky Mountains to the northeasternmost branch 
of the Columbia River, and thence down the Columbia 
to the Pacific Ocean. Rush rejected it as promptly as 
England had rejected that of the United States, and 
tendered forty-nine degrees from the mountains to the 
sea. Again, England declined the offer, and the nego- 
tiations came to naught.* In 1825, however, Great 
Britain made an agreement with Bussia by which she 
also accepted the fine 54° 40' as the south boundary of 
Alaska, and as such it has remained to this day. Thus 
was the country between 42° and 54° 40' once more left 
to be contended for by Great Britain and the United 
States, and when the ten years of joint occupation pro- 
vided for by the Convention drew to a close, the claim- 
ants being still unable to settle the ownership, joint 
occupation was continued indefinitely with the new con- 
dition that it could be ended by either party on one 
year's notice. 

With this agreement the Oregon country ceased to 
trouble the people till in the summer of 1832 four Flat- 
Head Indians suddenly appeared in St. Louis, sought 
out General "William Clark, and told him they had 
come from what is now the State of Washington in 
search of the white man's Bible. The Indians were 
fed and feasted, armed, blanketed, hung with orna- 
ments, but were not given the Bible. Among those 
who heard this singular request was a young clerk in 
the office of Clark. Touched by the refusal of the 
Bible, he sent an account of the whole proceeding to a 
friend in Pittsburg, who wisely gave the letter to the 

* Negotiations ended in July, 1824. 



306 WITH THE FATHERS. 

public. The heart of the country was deeply moved, 
and four missionaries, sent out by the Methodist Board 
of Missions and the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions, were soon on their way to Oregon. 
It is only with one, Marcus Whitman, that we have to 
deal. He crossed the mountains in 1835, entered the 
Columbia valley, went among the Nez Perces, and 
brought home so strong a report to the Board of Mis- 
sions that he was sent back with H. H. Spalding as a 
missionary to the Indians. With them went their wives, 
the first white women who ever passed over the Rocky 
Mountains into the Northwest. The party set out 
from the East in the early spring of 1836 for St. Louis, 
where they joined the annual expedition of the Ameri- 
can Fur Company to the fur regions of Oregon. The 
route was up the Missouri to Council Bluffs, and along 
the Platte River across Nebraska. Late in May they 
were on the South Fork; in June they were on the 
Laramie, and in July entered the famous South Pass, 
through which, since that day, tens of thousands of emi- 
grants have poured into Oregon. At this place the 
White River Mountains and the Rocky Mountains come 
close together, separated only by the pass, than which 
there is perhaps no more interesting spot to travellers 
in the whole Northwest. It is the great divide of the 
waters of the continent. The traveller who takes his 
stand on that high plateau has in plain sight, at his feet, 
within a radius of a quarter of a mile, the head waters 
of the three great rivers of the Northwest. Before him 
lies the little stream that marks the humble beginning 
of the Yellowstone, and on his right hand is the foun- 
tain of the North Platte, the waters of both of which 
rivers in time reach the Gulf of Mexico. On his left 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 307 

are the head waters of the Columbia, which finds its 
outlet in the Pacific. 

It was the fourth of July when Whitman reached 
this spot, and, recollecting the day and the work that 
lay before him, he passed a short way down the Pacific 
slope, called on the party to dismount, raised the Amer- 
ican flag, and, while they all kneeled around the Book 
it was their mission to carry to the Indians, he, with 
prayer and praise, took possession of the Western Con- 
tinent in the name of Christ and of His Church. 

In September, 1836, Whitman reached Walla Walla, 
and by the end of 1841 one hundred and thirty-seven 
emigrants had followed him from the United States. 
Such an inroad of Americans alarmed the English Fur 
Companies, who now began to hurry forward emigrants 
from Canada. Joint possession then began to mean 
the right of the people of each country to settle Oregon, 
with the fact clearly in view that whichever secured the 
greater number of settlers would end joint occupancy 
and hold Oregon forever. 

And now occurred another of those apparently 
trifling incidents on which great events so often turn. 
Four Indians begging for a Bible brought Whitman to 
Oregon. A dinner at the English trading-post, Fort 
Walla Walla, sent him back with all possible speed to 
Washington. The occasion of the dinner was the ar- 
rival at the fort of the agents of the Fur Company 
with fifteen boats loaded with goods for the Indians on 
the Frazer Kiver. Whitman was the sole representa- 
tive of the United States at the feast, which was 
scarcely begun when a messenger entered with word 
that one hundred and forty English colonists had 
crossed the mountains, had entered Oregon, and were 



308 WITH THE FATHERS. 

even then at the Columbia River. A great shout rose 
from the assembled company, and one of them, spring- 
ing to his feet and waving his cap, cried out, " Hurrah 
for Oregon ! The Americans are too late. We have 
the country now." 

That moment the policy of the English Govern- 
ment was made plain. The traders that came up from 
St. Louis in the summer brought word that a treaty 
was soon to be made to put at rest the long-vexed ques- 
tion of the boundary. Knowing this, Whitman thought 
England was attempting to settle Oregon and then hold 
it by the right of prior settlement, and, thinking so, he 
determined that the Government at Washington should 
know of it without delay. Not a moment was lost. He 
left the table instantly, galloped to his home at the 
mission station, and in twenty-four hours was on his 
way to Washington with two companions. 

A horseback ride of four thousand miles over the 
best of roads in the best of weather would have been a 
matter of no small discomfort. But he was to make it 
across a wilderness in the dead of winter. His route 
was southward across Idaho, across Utah, past Salt 
Lake, past the site soon to be occupied by the Mormon 
city, across ~New Mexico to Sante Fe, and on by the 
Santa Fe trail to St. Louis. He crossed the swollen 
rivers on improvised floats, encountered terrible storms 
on the prairie, was snow-bound for days in the gorges, 
was lost in a blizzard, lived on the bark of cotton-wood 
trees, was chased by the wolves, and once gave himself 
up for lost. But he pushed on, and, frozen, weak with 
hunger, and almost dead, readied Santa Fe January 
third, 1843. January seventh he was on his way to 
St. Louis, where, to his dismay, he learned that the 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 309 

Webster- Ashburton Treaty had been concluded August 
ninth, 1842, ratified by tbe Senate August twenty-sixth, 
and proclaimed tbe law of the land November tenth. 
But he was not too late, for the treaty said not one word 
about the boundary of Oregon. Once more he pushed 
forward, and on March third, 1843, five months from 
the day he left the Columbia, he strode into the office 
of the Secretary of State at Washington. 

He came in the very nick of time. The question 
then asked on every hand was, " Is Oregon worth hav- 
ing ? " for not one man east of the Missouri had any 
conception of what Oregon was. The existence of a 
great American desert was firmly believed, and part of 
this desert was east of Oregon. "What," exclaimed 
Mr. McDuffie in his speech in the Senate, January 
twenty-third, 1843, " is the nature of this country ? 
Why, as I understand it, seven hundred miles this side 
of the Rocky Mountains is uninhabitable, a region 
where rain scarcely ever falls, a barren, sandy soil, 
mountains totally impassable. Well, now, what are we 
going to do in this case ? How are you going to apply 
steam ? Have you made anything like an estimate of 
the cost of a railroad from here to the Columbia ? Why, 
the wealth of the Indies would be insufficient. Of what 
use will this be for agricultural purposes? Why, I 
would not for that purpose give a pinch of snuff for 
the whole territory. I thank God for his mercy in 
placing the Rocky Mountains there." 

The mission of Whitman was to dispel this igno- 
rance; and he did so. He destroyed the American 
desert of Mr. McDuffie. He told the President and 
the Secretary just what Oregon was, and obtained 
from them the solemn promise that nothing should be 



310 WITH THE FATHERS. 

done with regard to Oregon till he had led out a cara- 
van of American settlers. Encouraged by the promise, 
he now turned west in search of emigrants, and so well 
did he succeed that in June a caravan of two hundred 
wagons moved out of Westport on the Missouri and 
headed for the Northwest. As the news of the success 
of the exposition spread over the country, a rage for 
emigration broke out in the West, and grew wilder and 
wilder each year, till in the summer of 1846 five hun- 
dred and fifty-eight wagons crossed the Missouri River 
for Oregon, and raised the white population of that 
country to several thousand souls. 

Meanwhile, the people had taken the question up, 
and, under the popular cry, " Reannexation of Texas," 
" The whole of Oregon or none," " Fifty-four forty or 
fight," the Democrats entered the campaign of 1844 
and won it. Polk was inaugurated March fourth, 1845, 
and in the speech he made that day from the Capitol 
steps he declared that the American title to the country 
of Oregon was clear and unquestionable. Lord John 
Russell, when he read this remark, called it " a bluster- 
ing announcement." The Democrats, when they read 
Lord Russell's sneer, flung back the taunt, " Fifty-four 
forty or fight." 

But the Administration had no intention of fighting, 
and on July twelfth, 1845, offered to compromise on 
the line of the forty-ninth parallel. England refused. 
Polk withdrew the offer, declared he would now have 
all of Oregon or none, and in December urged Con- 
gress to give the year's notice, abandon joint occupancy, 
and protect the American settlers taken out by Whit- 
man. The Western Democrats cried out for instant 
notice. But the South deserted them, and April six- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. 311 

teenth, 1846, notice in very gentle and conciliatory lan- 
guage passed the Senate. England now offered the 
forty-ninth parallel, which was promptly accepted and 
incorporated in the treaty of 1846. 

The willingness with which the Democrats aban- 
doned the claim to " the whole of Oregon or none " was 
in great part due to the coming war with Mexico in 
consequence of the annexation of Texas. 

When the treaty of 1819 was made with Spain, and 
the Sabine, the Red, and the Arkansas Rivers were 
taken as the boundary line between the possessions of 
the United States and Spain, Mexico, then in revolt 
against Spain, assumed jurisdiction over Texas, and in 
1823, when Iturbide had made himself Emperor, with 
the title of Augustine the First, was opened to colo- 
nization by foreigners. The law, whose passage was 
chiefly due to the persistence of Stephen Austin, re- 
pealed the royal order of Philip II for the extermina- 
tion of foreigners, promised them liberty, security of 
property, and civil rights, provided they professed the 
Roman Catholic religion, offered each farmer not less 
than 177 and each stock-raiser 4,428 acres of land, and 
released them for six years to come from the payment 
of taxes, duties, and tithes. 

But the law had hardly been enacted when a revo- 
lution swept Iturbide from the throne and put " The 
United States of Mexico " in place of the empire. By 
the new Constitution, Texas was joined to the neigh- 
boring province of Coahuila, and under the name of 
" The State of Coahuila and Texas " became a member 
of the Republic, and in 1824 passed a colonization law 
of her own. Then the settlement of Texas by citizens 
of the United States began in earnest, and in time four- 

21 



312 WITH THE FATHERS. 

teen huge grants of land were taken by contractors 
pledged to bring in 5,290 families before a certain 
date. 

For a while all went well. But about 1830 trouble 
began between the Texans and Mexico, grew more and 
more serious year by year till March second, 1836, when 
Texas formally declared herself a Republic. But she had 
no idea of independent existence, and annexation to the 
United States was merely a question of time. Indeed, in 
1837 Texas made a formal offer of annexation. But the 
Legislature of eight Northern States protested, and 
Yan Buren would hear nothing about it. Tyler, who 
followed him, would hear nothing against it, and in 
1844 surprised the Senate with a treaty of annexation. 
It was rejected ; but the Democrats made it a question 
in the campaign of 1814, and, having won the election, 
annexed Texas in 1845 and brought on the Mexican 
War. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which closed 
the war, carried the boundary of the United States to 
the Gila River and added 522,900 square miles to the 
public domain. In 1853 the Gadsden purchase estab- 
lished the present south boundary of Arizona and Eew 
Mexico from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California, 
and ended the struggle for the West. Since that day 
the United States has acquired but two pieces of foreign 
soil. One was Alaska, bought from Russia in 1867. 
The other was the little island of Navassa, acquired in 
1891. 



FOUR CENTURIES OF PROGRESS. 

As we all well know, it was with no idea of finding 
a new continent that Columbus weighed anchor in 
Palos and sailed out into the " sea of darkness." That 
magnificent trade which for centuries past had been 
going on between Europe and Asia — a trade which 
built up first Constantinople, then Venice, and then 
Genoa — was hopelessly gone. The Turk had thrust 
himself across the g^eat caravan routes and throttled 
it. The crusaders had failed to throttle the Turk, 
and the cry of all Europe was for a new route to the 
Indies. Portugal attempted to find one, and, under the 
special protection of the Pope, her navigators crept 
slowly down the African coast. As league after league 
of that continent was discovered, and the flag of Por- 
tugal was carried past Cape Non, past Cape Blanco, 
past Cape Yerde, along the gold coast, and far below 
the River Congo, to the country of the Hottentots, 
yet no route eastward found, it became quite clear that 
even if such a passage did exist the length of it would 
make it hardly practicable, and the demand for a shorter 
route to the Indies became more imperative than ever. 
This Columbus undertook to satisfy. The lands both 
lie and his followers discovered in nowise resembled 
what Europe knew the East to be — the land of spices 
and costly fabrics, of magnificent cities, of palaces and 

313 



314 WITH THE FATHERS. 

treasuries heaped with gold and precious stones. Yet 
thirty years passed away and Magellan made that most 
marvellous of voyages before Europe understood that a 
New World had been discovered, and that a great 
continent blocked the way to India. Profound disap- 
pointment followed this. Europe had no use for new 
land, and one hundred and fifteen years passed away 
before the first lasting English settlement was made 
within our boundary. 

The first century after the landing of Columbus in 
the Bahamas was spent in wondering what to do with 
the New World. The Pope had given it to Spain, and 
Spain for one hundred years did her best to ruin it. 
With the second century a better era opens, and the 
period of occupation is reached at last. 

Again and again attempts had been made to estab- 
lish colonies and found States. But one and all came 
to naught till in 1607 the English landed at Jamestown. 
There were, it is true, at St. Augustine and at Santa 
Fe, and in the valley of the Gila Piver, small hamlets 
whose founding antedated that of Jamestown. But 
they were mere military posts or missionary stations, 
and formed no part of any scheme of colonization. 
Till the opening of the seventeenth century all such 
attempts had failed because they had been undertaken 
by private individuals, and because the men who came 
out as colonists were adventurers, not settlers. 

But the task in which so many had failed was made 
possible toward the close of the sixteenth century by 
the pressure of economic and religious distress. The 
increase of population ; the rise in the price of food ; 
the rapid conversion of great quantities of arable land 
to pasturage ; the destruction of the monasteries, which 



FOUR CENTURIES OF PROGRESS. 315 

threw on the communities the tramps these houses had 
so long supported; the crowds of disbanded soldiers 
from the low countries that filled the cities — produced in 
time a class so distressed that emigration even to the 
New World was gladly welcomed by them. When, 
therefore, the merchants of London and of Plymouth 
formed their companies, in 1606, they found a class 
ready at hand on which to draw for settlers. What 
economic distress did for Yirginia, religious intolerance 
did a few years later for Massachusetts ; and by the end 
of the first quarter of the seventeenth century the Eng- 
lish colonization of what is now the United States was 
fairly under way. Before the middle of the century the 
Dutch held the islands and shores of New York Bay, 
the banks of the Hudson and the Mohawk, while the 
Swedes had made a lodgment on the Delaware. But 
these colonies were short-lived, for the Swedes soon fell 
a prey to the Dutch ; the Dutch in turn were overcome 
by the English, and when the century drew to a close 
the authority of Great Britain was supreme along the 
whole Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. Florida 
and the Gulf shore as far as Pensacola were in Spanish 
hands. Beyond Pensacola, to the Bio Grande River, 
the coast belonged to France, for by that time La Salle 
had explored the Mississippi to its mouth, had taken 
formal possession in the name of his master of that 
noble valley which the great river drains, and had made 
a landing on the shores of Texas. What is now New 
Mexico, Arizona, and California belonged to Spain, 
and boasted of at least one city more than a hundred 
years old. 

Thus, two centuries after the landing of Columbus in 
the Bahamas our country was still, in the main, an un- 



316 WITH THE FATHERS. 

broken wilderness. At that time the English-speaking 
colonies were bnt ten in number, with a population not so 
great by several hundred thousand as the present popu- 
lation of the city of New York. These people dwelt in 
a fringe of towns and little hamlets which lay close to the 
seashore, or were at most one hundred and fifty miles 
from it. Of the country which lay back of this coast 
line, and stretched away to the Mississippi and the Great 
Lakes, less was then known than we now know of the 
heart of Africa. The French had lately discovered the 
Mississippi and had floated down it from the Wisconsin 
to the Gulf. But no white man living had seen the 
valley of the Ohio, or of the Susquehanna, of the Cum- 
berland, or of the Tennessee, or, indeed, of any of the 
great tributaries of the Father of Waters. 

Of the thin fringe of towns which skirted the coast 
from Maine to Carolina, not one contained as many as 
ten thousand souls. Almost all were surrounded by 
stockades or defended by block-houses, and many were 
at that time hard pressed by the Indians, for " King 
William's War," as the colonists called it, was raging. 
Falmouth, or, as we know it, Portland, and Maine east 
of the Penobscot had just been laid in ashes by the Ind- 
ians, while Schenectady, the extreme outpost of Eng- 
lish civilization in New York, had suffered the same 
fate a few years before. Coming along the coast south- 
ward we find York and Exeter and Dover and Ports- 
mouth existing. Eastern Massachusetts was fairly well 
peopled, and was just then dreadfully tormented by the 
Salem witchcraft delusion. Along Cape Cod and the 
Sound, and up the valley of the Connecticut, were 
many towns whose names are familiar to us. In New 
York, the Hudson was occupied as high up as Albany, 



FOUR CENTURIES OF PROGRESS. 317 

and the Mohawk as far up as Schenectady. In New 
Jersey, Amboy had been founded, and Elizabethtown 
and Burlington and a host of smaller towns. Penn- 
sylvania, the youngest of the colonies, was not twelve 
years old. Philadelphia was but ten, Charleston was 
not twenty-five, Baltimore, Savannah, and New Orleans 
did not exist. 

Life in the best of such towns as did exist would 
now be thought hard and unbearable. Were we to strip 
from our daily life such luxuries, such comforts, such 
conveniences — nay, such necessaries — as the progress of 
two hundred years has given us, and which the men of 
that day did not possess, we should think ourselves fast 
approaching the condition of the red men. Not a 
street in the whole land was paved, or lighted, or sew- 
ered. Every drop of water came from private wells or 
the town pump. Every peaceful citizen was expected 
to be in bed by nine at night ; those found on the streets 
after that hour were supposed not to be peaceable, and 
were sure to be stopped by the watch and questioned. 
Nowhere was there a museum or a theatre or a show 
or any place of amusement. No man in the country 
had ever seen a newspaper, or a piece of anthracite 
coal, or a stove, or a friction match. Very few had 
ever seen a printing press, for there were but two 
clumsy hand presses in the entire country. Of steam 
machinery of every kind the world was ignorant. 
From the barn of the farmer would go the reaper, the 
thresher and binder, and every kind of improved rake 
and plough. In their place would be found the cradle, 
the scythe, the hand rake, and the flail. From the ta- 
ble of the humblest man would disappear many articles 
now of common daily food, for neither the tomato, nor 



318 WITH THE FATHERS. 

the sweet potato, nor the orange were in general use. 
Indeed, save the sweet potato, none were eaten at all. 

We should miss again that humanitarian spirit 
which is one of the many blessings of our time. Sym- 
pathy for the unfortunate did not exist anywhere. The 
debtor was cast into prison. The pauper was sold to 
the highest bidder. The criminal was dragged out into 
open day and pilloried, or flogged, or placed in the 
stocks. Prison discipline and hard labor were not con- 
sidered remedies for crime. The culprit was not to be 
cured of his evil ways, but made an example of, or, if 
sent out again into the community, so marked that all 
who met him might know his character. His ear must 
be cut off. His forehead must be branded. He must 
wear a letter of bright-colored cloth sewed to his cloth- 
ing. Many things which now pass for vulgarity and 
bad manners were then serious offences, and cursing 
men and scolding women were punished publicly. 

But in nothing would the astonishing progress be so 
marked as in the daily occupations of men. Startling 
though the statement may seem, it is strictly true that 
a hundred vocations can easily be named which now 
give a comfortable livelihood to millions of our fellow- 
citizens, yet were utterly unknown in 1692. Could a 
man who witnessed the landing of Penn come back to 
life and undertake to read down the " wants " column 
of a great morning newspaper, he would find it utterly 
impossible to understand the expressions he would meet 
in every line. The district messenger, the telegraph 
operator, the "lineman," the stenographer, the type- 
writer, the "saleslady," the car driver, the gripman, 
the conductor, the brakeman, the bookkeeper, the street 
sweeper, the paver, the pork packer, the electrician, the 



FOUR CENTURIES OF PROGRESS. 319 

elevator boy, the engineer and the fireman, and the 
hosts of others whose trades and occupations are so 
well known to us, are persons concerning whose daily 
life he would not be able to form the faintest concep- 
tion. The great corporations, the railroads, the steam- 
boats, the express companies, the mills and factories of 
every sort which cover our land and give employment 
to ten times as many human beings as there were then 
in all the colonies together, are every one of them the 
creatures of our time. The opportunities for making a 
livelihood were therefore vastly restricted, for the kinds 
of occupations were not only few, but the trades at best 
yielded poor returns. What we call "the working- 
man," " the laborer," " the mechanic," " the mill hand," 
had no existence as classes. Every farm-house was a 
miscellaneous factory^ and the farmer a jack of all 
trades. He and his sons made their own shoes, beat 
out their own nails and spikes, hinges, and every sort of 
ironmongery, and made much of the furniture and all 
the implements used on the farm. The wife and her 
daughters manufactured the clothing from dressing the 
flax and carding the wool to cutting the cloth. Even 
in towns large enough to support a few artisans, each 
made with his own hands whatever he sold. Taking 
the country through, the chief occupations of the peo- 
ple were farming for a living and trade for making 
money. New Hampshire was chiefly agricultural. 
Massachusetts, Ehode Island, and New York chiefly 
commercial. The Southern colonies were wholly given 
up to planting. 

When another century had passed and 1792 came, 
these conditions had greatly changed, and changed for 
the better. By that time the Swedes had fallen a prey 



320 WITH THE FATHERS. 

to the Dutchman, the Dutchman to the Englishman, 
who had driven out the Frenchman, and in his turn 
had been expelled from the United States. 

In 1792 our country touched the Mississippi, but not 
the Gulf of Mexico, and numbered fifteen States bound 
together by a Constitution just five years old. Since 
that day we have reached the Gulf, we have crossed the 
Mississippi, we have built up two-and-twenty Common- 
wealths on the plains beyond, we have made our Con- 
stitution sure, and given to Europe such an object les- 
son in " government of the people, by the people, for 
the people," as will not be in vain. Every art, every 
science, every branch of human industry has been enor- 
mously developed by us. Whatever abridges distance, 
whatever annihilates time, whatever alleviates human 
pain, whatever extirpates disease, has nowhere been so 
fostered as in these United States. 

Scarcely had the third century of American history 
closed when Robert Fulton, following in the footsteps 
of Fitch and Rumsey, gave to the world the first suc- 
cessful steamboat, and opened not only the era of steam- 
navigation, but of American invention. Could we but 
stretch forth our hands and take out of the life of the 
world to-day every machine, every article of real neces- 
sity, every convenience, every comfort due to the in- 
genuity of our countrymen, we should bring back a con- 
dition of affairs which to us would be almost intolerable. 
"We should destroy every steamboat, pull down every 
line of telegraph, and silence every telephone on the 
face of the earth. From the bed of every ocean would 
come innumerable cables, and from the streets and 
houses of every city would go ten thousand electric 
lights. We should take from the surgeon chloroform, 



FOUR CENTURIES OP PROGRESS. 321 

discovered by Guthrie, and again inflict on the patient 
all the pain and suffering banished by the labors of Dr. 
Morton and Dr. Wells. From every house would go 
the sewing-machine, which has lightened the labors of 
millions of women and revolutionized the industries of 
the world. From every farm would go the reaper, which 
has cheapened food and made possible the great grain- 
fields of Russia, of the Argentine Republic, and of our 
own West. From every army would go the revolver, 
from the arts would be taken galvanized iron, and every 
application of India-rubber, which, till Goodyear made 
his discoveries, was little better than a useless gum. 

As we have grown more intelligent, so we have 
grown more liberal, more tolerant, more humane. When 
this century opened there was not a blind asylum, nor 
a deaf and dumb asylum, nor a lunatic asylum, nor a 
house of refuge in all our land. We have turned our 
prisons from stews and brothels and seminaries of crime 
into reformatories of crime. We have cut down the 
number of crimes punished with death from fifteen to 
two. We have ceased to use the branding iron and the 
treadmill ; we have abolished imprisonment for debt ; 
we have exterminated slavery, and raised the laborer 
from a vassal to a man. We ha^e covered our country 
with free schools and free libraries, and set up institu- 
tions for the protection not only of children but of 
dumb brutes. In the face of these facts it is wicked 
to talk of degeneration and decay. 



INDEX. 



Adams, John, chosen Vice-Presi- 
dent, 160-162; inaugurated, 166, 
167; sent to France, 259, 260; his 
sketch of Franklin, 261, 262. 

Adams, John Quincy, on the Russian 
claims, 18-20 ; on the Panama mis- 
sion, 26; constitutional amendment 
on slavery, 211, 212 ; report on veto 
power, 213. 

Aix - la - Chapelle, Congress at, 8 ; 
Spanish affairs laid before, 9. 

Alexander, Emperor of Russia, orig- 
inates Holy Alliance, 2 ; establishes 
Duchy of Warsaw, 7; abandons 
liberalism, 7 ; sends a fleet to 
Spain, 8, 9 ; meddles in affairs of 
Spain, 10; at Troppau, 11. 

Alexander VI, Pope, bull of, regard- 
ing America, 281. 

Alexandria, reception of Washing- 
ton at, 167. 

Amendments, a supposed thirteenth 
to the United States Constitution, 
89-93 ; States ask for constitution- 
al amendments, 184; Virginia 
urges, 184, 185 ; Madison proposes, 
184 ; ten declared in force, 184 ; 
attempts to amend the Con- 
stitution, 1790-'94, 187, 188; the 
eleventh amendment, 187, 188 ; re- 
garding election of President, 191, 
192, 199, 206-208, 210; twelfth 
amendment, 192; regarding the 



removal of judges, 192, 199,212; 
Pennsylvania asks for a new tri- 
bunal, 193 ; Massachusetts asks 
that representation and direct taxes 
be apportioned according to free 
inhabitants, 194, 195, 212; Hart- 
ford Convention amendments, 198, 
199; reputed thirteenth amend- 
ment, 199 : Kentucky proposes that 
suits to which States are parties 
be tried by Senate, 201 ; regarding 
power of Congress to build roads, 
canals, etc., 205, 206 ; regarding 
duellists and defaulters, 210 ; power 
of Congress over slavery, 211, 212 ; 
limit on the veto power, 213 ; sla- 
very amendments offered in 1860, 
218-220 ; since the war, 220, 221. 

Americanism, native, 88, 89 ; reason 
for, 90; is anti-Catholic, 90-92; 
anti-foreign feeling, 93, 94 ; rise of 
Native- American party, 94; prin- 
ciples of, 95 ; success of, 96 ; riots, 
96 ; rise of the Know-Nothings, 97, 
98 ; an ti- Catholic excitements, 98, 
99; Gavazzi, 98, 99; Bedini, 99; 
riots, 100 ; success of Know-Noth- 
ings, 100, 101 ; principles of, 102 ; 
national Convention of " American 
Party," 104, 105 ; split in the party, 
105 ; defeat and decline, 105. 

Annapolis, trade Convention at, 110, 
111. 



323 



32± 



WITH THE FATHERS. 



Annexation of Texas, 215. 

Appointment, the Council of, in New 
York, 79 ; struggle for control of, 
79-81, 85, 86. 

Arbiter, is there a common, for 
States; Virginia and Kentucky 
on, 189-191 ; co-States on, 190, 191 ; 
Pennsylvania and Virginia on, in 
1810, 193, 194 ; Ohio on, 201 ; nul- 
lification by South Carolina, 204, 
205. 

Area of the United States in 1789, 
178, 180. 

Bank of the United States, debate 
on constitutionality of its charter, 
186, 187 ; stops loans in the West, 
242 ; attacks on, in Kentucky, 243, 
244 ; in Ohio, 250, 251 ; outlawed, 
251. 

Bank of Kentucky, 241 ; suspends, 
242, 244. 

Banks, mania for, in the West, 240, 
241, 250. 

Bedini, Mgr. Gaetano, career of, 99. 

Bills of credit, 239. 

Blaine, James G., on Monroe Doc- 
trine, 38. 

Boundary of the United States in 
1789, 178, 179; contest for, 288, 
289. 

Bourne, Sylvanus, 166. 

British, take New York city, 271- 
273; refugees in, 273, 274; depar- 
ture of, from New York city, 275- 
280. 

Brune, Marshal, murder of, 6. 

Buchanan, James, on Monroe Doc- 
trine applied to Mexico, 33, 34 ; on 
coercion and succession, 218. 

Bulls, the papal, regarding discovery 
of America, 281. 

Cabinet, origin of the President's, 
55, 56. 



Canning, proposition to Rush, 14-16. 

Carbonari, force Ferdinand to grant 
a constitution to Naples, 10, 11 ; 
liberalism stamped out at Naples, 
12, 13. 

Cass, Lewis, on Monroe Doctrine and 
Mexico, 33. 

Castlereagh, Lord, opinion of the 
Holy Alliance, 3, 4 ; to represent 
Great Britain at Vienna, 14 ; death 
of, 14. 

Catholics, feeling against, and cause 
of it, 90-92 ; anti-Catholic riots, 93 ; 
struggle with native Americans, 
95 ; revival of the feeling against, 
97-99 ; Gavazzi, 98, 99 ; Bedini, 99, 
100 ; riots, 100. 

" Cement for the Union," 156. 

Cities, early government of, 317. 

Clay, Henry, resolution on the Mon- 
roe Doctrine, 23 ; instructions to 
Poinsett, 23, 24; on the Panama 
Congress, 25 ; on veto power, 213 ; 
on one term for President, 214. 

Clinton, De Witt, introduces the 
spoils system into New Y T ork, 80, 
81. 

Clinton, George, contest for office of 
Governor of New York, 77 ; frauds 
connected with, 77, 78; struggle 
with the Council of Appointment, 
79, 80. 

Coins, foreign, in circulation 1782, 
223 ; attempt to establish a nation- 
al coinage, 223, 224 ; ratio of gold 
to silver, 224 ; the mint, 225 ; first 
coins, 225; scarcity of, 226, 227, 
229; gold coinage act of 1834, 230, 
231 ; " Benton mint-drops," " Jack- 
son yellow- boys," 231 ; coinage act 
of 1853, 232 ; act of 1873, 232, 233 ; 
trade dollar, 233, 234 ; " Sherman 
Act," 235, 236. 

Colonization, Adams on, 19, 20 ; Mon- 
roe Doctrine on, 21. 



INDEX. 



o^5 



" Colonization " in Maryland, 84. 

Common law, efforts to drive out the 
English, 89. 

Compromises of the Constitution : the 
compromise on representation, 128- 
130 ; on slave representation in the 
House of Representatives, 130-184 ; 
on the importation of slaves till 
1808, 138-141. 

Confederation, the articles of, 
framed, 107 ; character of the Gov- 
ernment under, 107, 108 ; powers 
of, 108 ; defects of, 108, 109, 154- 
156 ; attempts to amend, 109, 110 ; 
the Annapolis Convention, 110. 
Ill ; the Constitutional Conven- 
tion called, 111. 

Congress, Monroe Doctrine an- 
nounced to, 21, 22 ; Clay's resolu- 
tion, 23 ; debate on Panama Con- 
gress, 27, 28 ; resolution of the 
House of Representatives, 29 ; 
House of Representatives and Mex- 
ico, 36 ; first, under the Constitution 
meets at New York, 154 ; Hamilton 
and Jefferson on powers of, 186, 187; 
power of the House over treaties, 
189 ; to build roads and canals, 
200; to charter a bank, 200, 201, 
205, 206; "gag rule," 209; power 
over slavery, 210, 211. 

Congress, the Continental, charac- 
ter of, 107, 108; powers of, 108; 
weakness of, 108, 109; calls the 
Constitutional Convention, 111 ; 
fixes dale for Constitution to go 
into force, 150, 151 ; character 
and work of, 152-157 ; expires for 
want of a quorum, 157 ; wander- 
ings of, 156 ; contempt for, 155- 
157; description of its room at 
New York city, 164, 165. 

Congresses at Aix-la-Chapclle, 8, 9; 
at Troppau, 11, 12; at Laybach, 
13 ; at Vienna and Verona, 14. 



Constitution of the United States, 
manner of amending, 55 ; the un- 
written, 55, 57-60 ; amendments re- 
garding the President, 64; Conven- 
tion called to frame, 111 ; delegates 
to, 111-116; Virginia plan, 118- 
123 ; New Jersey plan, 123-125 ; 
Hamilton's plan, 125, 126 ; origin of 
the Senate, 127-130 ; representa- 
tion of slaves, 130-134; importation 
of, 138-141 ; signing the Constitu- 
tion, 142-144 ; sent to Congress, 145, 
146 ; opposition to, 146 ; ratifica- 
tion, 147 ; opposition in the States, 
147, 148 ; amendments, 148, 149 ; 
Congress fixes the day for it to go 
into force, 150, 151 ; inauguration 
of, 165; objections to, 182; States 
propose amendments, 183 ; Vir- 
ginia urges amendments, 184 ; ten 
adopted, 1 84 ; strict construction- 
ists and loose constructionists, 184, 
185; Hamilton's views, 186; Jef- 
ferson's views, 186, 187; attempts 
to amend, 187, 188; the eleventh 
amendment, 187, 188 ; Virginia and 
Kentucky resolutions, 189-191 ; at- 
tempts to change manner of elect- 
ing President, 191, 192, 206-208 ; 
the twelfth amendment, 192; Penn- 
sylvania proposes a tribunal to try 
cases to which States are parties, 

193, 194; Massachusetts proposes 
that representation and direct taxes 
be according to free inhabitants, 

194, 195 ; was the embargo consti- 
tutional ? 195, 196; amendments of- 
fered by Hartford Convention, 198, 
199 ; repealed thirteenth amend- 
ment, 199; may Congress charter 
a bank ? 200, 201 ; may Congress 
engage in internal improvements 1 
202 ; is a protective tariff constitu- 
tional ? 202, 203 ; regarding slavery, 
211, 212; limit to veto power, 213 ; 



326 



WITH THE FATHERS. 



interpretation of the Constitution 
on party platforms, 214 ; how may 
foreign soil be acquired ? 215 ; may 
slavery be shut out of the Territo- 
ries ? 215-217 ; may a State secede ? 
218 ; may a State be coerced ? 218 ; 
attempts to amend in 1861, 218- 
220 ; the thirteenth amendment of 
1861 recalled, 220 ; amendments 
and interpretation of, since the 
war, 220, 221. 

Constitutions : that of Sicily over- 
thrown, 5 ; that of Spain destroyed, 
5, 6 ; promise of one to Germany, 7 ; 
of Spain, 9,10 ; of Naples, 10-13. 

Convention, the Constitutional, at 
Philadelphia called, 111 ; dele- 
gates to, 111-116 ; meeting of, 112 ; 
popular regard for, 116, 117; feel- 
ing against Khode Island, 117 ; 
sources of information regarding, 
118; the Virginia plan, 119, 120; 
Pinckney's plan, 119; parties in, 
120, 121 ; question of the Executive, 
120; of representation, 121-123; 
the New Jersey plan, 123-125; 
Madison on the New Jersey plan, 
125; Hamilton's j)lan, 125, 126; 
New Jersey plan rejected, 126 ; de- 
bate on representation, 127, 128; 
Connecticut compromise, 128-130 * 
rates of representation in House of 
Kepresentatives, 130 , representa- 
tion of slaves, 130-133; draft of 
the Constitution, 136, 137; the 
work of revision, 137, 13S; ex- 
port duty forbidden, 138 ; tax on 
slaves, 138-140 ; compromise re- 
garding, 141 ; final revision of 
draft, 142; signing the Constitu- 
tion, 142-144; sent to Congress 
and opposed there, 145, 146 ; sent 
to the States, 146; ratification of, 
147 ; opposition to, 147, 148 ; 
amendments, 148, 149. 



Convention, the Constitutional, of 
1787 : debate on the Executive, 56, 
57 ; on his term of office, 58, 59. 

Conyngham, Gustavus, 257, 258. 

Court, the Supreme of the United 
States on the carriage tax, 188 ; on 
the right to sue a State, 188 ; at- 
tack on, 187, 192, 193 ; on removal 
of justices, 192, 193 ; Pennsyl- 
vania's contest with, 193; Penn- 
sylvania asks for a new tribunal, 
193. 

Court : " Old Court " and " New 
Court " in Kentucky, 247-249. 

Crapo, resolution of, on Monroe Doc- 
trine, 1880, 38. 

Criminals, treatment of, 318. 

Cruisers, American, from France, 
257, 258. 

Currency, kind of, in 1781, 222 ; dis- 
order of, 222, 223 ; coins disappear, 
224; paper money, 224; United 
States coins, 224, 229 ; bank paper, 
rise of, 228, 229 ; condition of, in 
1816, 229; Gold Coin Act of 1834, 
231; coinage act of 1853, 232; of 
1873, 232, 233; "trade dollar," 
233, 234. 

u Cut money," 240. 

Dallas, A. J., 74, 75. 

Deane, Silas, 255, 257, 258 ; recalled, 

259. 
Debate, the Webster-Hay ne, 203. 
Delaware, religious restrictions in, 

72. 
Deposit, right of, at New Orleans 

granted, 294; suspended, 297. 
"Dollar, the trade," 233, 234, 235; 

the United States silver, adopted 

as the unit, 223 ; first struck, 225 ; 

none struck after 1804, 229, 232, 

233 ; again discontinued, 233. 
Douglas, S. A., squatter sovereignty, 

217. 



INDEX. 



327 



Duellists, proposed constitutional 
amendment regarding, 210. 

Electors of President : day for first 
vote, 152; manner of choosing in 
New York, 157 ; contest and fail- 
ure to elect, 157, 158 ; contest in New 
Hampshire, 158 ; elections else- 
where, 158, 159 ; election of Wash- 
ington, 160-162; electoral vote in 
1789, 162. 

Embargo, the : was it constitutional ? 
195, 196; excitement in JNew Eng- 
land over, 196, 197. 

Embezzlers, proposed constitutional 
amendment regarding, 210. 

Europe, state of, in 1818, 4; reaction 
against liberalism, 4; reaction in 
Italy, 5 ; in Spain, 5, 6 ; in France, 
6 ; in Germany, 6, 7 ; in Kussia, 7 ; 
in Spain, 9, 10 ; in Naples, 10, 11 ; 
in Portugal, 11. , 

Evacuation of New York city by the 
British, 273-280. 

Exploration of the United States, 
Spanish and English, 281-283; 
French, 283, 284; Marquette, 285, 
286 ; La Salle, 286, 287 ; Lewis and 
Clark, 302. 

Father Abraham's Address, 253. 

Federalists suppress the Pennsyl- 
vania Herald, 74, 75. 

Ferdinand VII of Spain destroys con- 
stitutional government in Spain, 5, 
6; rebellion of his American colo- 
nies, 8 ; seeks aid of Holy Allies, 8, 
9 ; attempts to put down rebellion, 
9 ; people force him to restore Con- 
stitution, 9, 10 ; French troops sent 
to his aid, 14. 

Ferdinand, King of Sicily, 5. 

" Fifty-four forty," 302, 303. 

" Filibustering," instance of, in 
Pennsylvania Assembly in 1787, 
73, 74. 

22 



Fish, Hamilton, report on Monroe 
Doctrine, 37, note. 

Florida bought by United States, 
301. 

" Force Act," the, of 1809, excite- 
ment in New England over, 196, 
197. 

Foreigners, feeling against, 88-90, 
92-94; rise of the Native- Ameri- 
can party, 94 ; principles of, 95. 

France, purpose of quadruple treaty 
as to, 4 ; effect of Waterloo on, 6 ; 
liberalism destroyed, 6 ; sends 
troops into Spain, 14 ; meddles in 
aiiairs of Mexico in 1860, 33, 34; 
London newspapers on, 35 ; United 
States on the action of France in 
Mexico, 35-37 ; France withdraws, 
36, 37. 

Franchise, restrictions on, 71, 72; 
163, 164. 

Francis, Emperor of Austria, one of 
the Holy Allies, 2, 3. 

Franklin, Benjamin, urges the sign- 
ing of the Constitution, 143 ; re- 
marks on the work of the Consti- 
tutional Convention, 144, 145 ; sent 
to France, 254, 255 ; popularity of 
the American cause in France, 
255, 256 ; American cruisers, 257, 
258 ; Adams joins, 259 ; business 
habits, 260; Adams's sketch of, 261, 
262 ; received by France as United 
States Minister, 262, 263 ; popu- 
larity of, 263-265 ; abuse of, 265 ; 
letter to Strahan, 270; return 
home, 270. 

Frederick William, King of Prussia, 
one of the Holy Allies, 2, 3 ; prom- 
ises constitution to Germany, 7 ; 
promise not kept, 7. 

Free-soilers, views on slavery, 215, 
216. 

French : explorations in Canada, 283, 
284 ; discovery of the Mississippi, 



328 



WITH THE FATHERS. 



285, 286 ; La Salle, exploration of 
Mississippi, 286, 287; Louisiana, 
287, 288 ; expelled from America, 
287, 288 ; regain Louisiana, 294- 
296 ; sell Louisiana to the United 
States, 296-300. 
Frontier of United States in 1789, 
180. 

Gadsden purchase, 312. 

" Gag-rule," 209. 

Gavazzi, Father, career of, 98. 

Germany, constitution promised, 7 ; 
effect of Wartburg Festival, 7. 

" Gerrymander, the," origin of, 81, 
82 ; in New Jersey, 83 ; in New 
York, 83 ; in Maryland, 83. 

Grant, U. S., attempt to give a third 
term to, 67-69. 

Great Britain declines to enter Holy 
Alliance, 4; signs quadruple 
treaty, 4 ; persuades Ferdinand to 
give constitution to Sicily, 5 ; op- 
poses intervention, 14; Canning's 
proposition to Rush, 14, 15 ; views 
on Monroe Doctrine, 24, 49-54 
the Schomburgk line, 39, 40 
claims in Venezuela, 40-42 
claims to North America, 282, 283 
expels the French, 287, 288. 

" Hail Columbia," 169. 

Hamilton, Alexander, delegate from 
New York to Constitutional Con- 
vention, 115 ; plan for new gov- 
ernment, 125 ; interpretation ot 
the United States Constitution, 
186; his "letters of Facificus," 
189. 

Hartford Convention, 198; amend- 
ments offered by, 198, 199. 

Hayne, R. Y., on Hayti and the Mon- 
roe Doctrine, 27. 

" Helvidius, letters of," by Madison, 
189. 



Herald, the Pennsylvania, sup- 
pressed by the Federalists, 74, 
75. 

Holmes, of Maine, on slavery and 
the Panama Congress, 28. 

Holy Alliance, origin of, 2 ; purpose 
of, 2, 3 ; powers invited to join, 3 ; 
Metternich on, 3 ; Lord Castle- 
reagh on, 3, 4 ; Great Britain de- 
clines to enter, 4 ; Spain appeals 
to, 8 ; Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
8, 9 ; at Troppau, 11 ; circular of 
Troppau, 11, 12 ; summon Ferdi- 
nand, 12 ; meeting at Lay bach, 12, 
13 ; at Vienna and Verona, 14. 

Holy Allies : who they were, 2-4 ; 
Great Britain declines to become 
one, 4 ; Spain appeals to, 8 ; Con- 
gress at Aix-la-Chapelle, 8, 9 ; 
Alexander attempts to meddle in 
affairs of Spain, 10 ; the meeting 
of Troppau, circular from, 11, 12 ; 
summon Ferdinand to Laybach, 
12 ; meeting at Laybach, 12 ; send 
troops to Naples, 12, 13 ; Congress 
at Laybach, 13 ; Congress at 
Vienna, 14; at Verona, 14; send 
a French army into Spain, 14. 

" Hoop for the barrel," 156. 

Immigration : arrivals of foreigners, 
93, 94, 97. 

Impeachment of justices of United 
States Supreme Court, 192, 193. 

Inauguration of the Constitution, 
165 ; of John Adams in 1789, 166, 
167 ; of Washington, 173-178. 

Internal improvements, Congress to 
engage in, 200; is this constitu- 
tional, 202 ; constitutional amend- 
ments regarding, 205. 

Jackson, Major William, 112, 182. 
Jay, John, candidate for Governor 
of New York, 77; defeated by 



INDEX. 



329 



fraud, 77, 78 ; struggle with Coun- 
cil of Appointment, 80, 81. 

Jefferson, Thomas, declines a third 
term, 60-62; his action approved 
by the people, 62-64 ; on the pow- 
ers of Congress under the Consti- 
tution, 186, 187. 

Jones, John Paul, 267; his cruise, 
267 ; gets a ship, 267, 268 ; famous 
victory, 268. 

Judiciary, the United States, attack 
on, 187 ; impeachments of Picker- 
ing and Chase, 192 ; on removal 
of United States judges, 192, 193 ; 
Pennsylvania's contest with, 193. 

King, fear that the Constitutional 
Convention was about to establish 
one, 118. 

Kentucky, mania for banks in, 241 ; 
Bank of, 241 ; " the Litter," 242 ; 
suspension of banks in, 242, 244 ; 
tax on Bank of United States, 243 ; 
animosity toward Bank of United 
States, 243, 244; stay law, 244, 
245 ; replevin law, 245 ; Bank of 
the Commonwealth, 245, 246 ; re- 
plevin act not constitutional, 246, 
247 ; " old court " and " new court " 
parties, 247-249. 

Know-Nothings, rise of, 97, 98, 100 ; 
success of, 100, 101 ; principles of, 
102 ; success of, 103 ; National 
Convention, 104; platform, 104 
105 ; split in the party, 105 ; defeat 
arid decline of, 105. 

Landais, 267-269. 

Labedoyere executed, 6. 

Lafayette, his reception in France, 

266. 
Laybach, Ferdinand summoned to, 

12; Holy Allies at, 12, 13 ; circular 

of, 12. 
Lee, Arthur, 254, 260, 267. 



L'Enfant, Major, 165. 

Liberalism, reaction against, 4, 5 ; in 
Italy, 5 ; in Spain, 5 ; arrest of 
Liberal leaders, 5; perishes in 
Spain, 5, 6 ; in France, 6 ; in Ger- 
many, 6,-7; in Bussia, 7; Spanish 
Constitution restored, 9, 10; the 
Carbonari in Naples, 10, 11 ; a 
Junta established in Portugal, 11 
the circular of Troppau, 11, 12 
stamped out at Naples, 12, 13 
and in Spain, 14. 

Lloyd, Thomas, 74, 75. 

Louisiana, origin of name, 287 ; boun- 
dary of, 287; occupation of, 287, 
288 ; divided between England and 
Spain, 287, 288 : claims of United 
States to, 288, 289 ; part acquired 
by United States, 289-291 ; France 
eager to acquire it again, 294- 
296 ; ceded to her by Spain, 296 ; 
bought by United States, 296-300; 
no boundary, 300, 301 ; treaty of 
1819, 301; north boundary, 301, 
302. 

Louisiana purchase : was it constitu- 
tional ? 194. 

Mace, the, expelled from Pennsylva- 
nia Assembly, 89. 

Madison, James, delegate to Consti- 
tutional Convention, 111 ; Madi- 
son's notes, 118 ; opposes New Jer- 
sey plan, 125; proposes amend- 
ments to Constitution, 184; his 
"letters of Helvidius," 189. 

"March,the President's," first played 
at Trenton, 169, 170 ; now called 
" Hail Columbia," 169. 

Marquette, discovery of the Missis- 
sippi, 285, 286. 

Maryland, Senate of, on third term, 
63 ; franchise in, 73 ; gerrymander 
in, 83, 84 ; colonizing, 84. 

Massachusetts, restrictions on voters 



330 



WITH THE FATHERS. 



and office holders, 72 ; the gerry- 
mander on, 81, 82; delegates to 
Constitutional Convention, 115 ; 
manner of choosing Presidential 
electors, 158 ; proposes a constitu- 
tional amendment, 194, 195, 212 ; 
resists " Force Act," 196, 197 ; 
Governor refuses militia to United 
States in 1812, 197; calls Hart- 
ford Convention, 198 ; threatens 
nullification, 203 ; answers South 
Carolina, 204, 205. 

Maximilian in Mexico, 36, 37. 

McDuffie, speech of, on Oregon, 309. 

Metternich, opinion of the Holy Al- 
liance, 3; character of,. 4, 5. 

Mexico, Cass and Buchanan on 
Monroe Doctrine applied to, 33, 34; 
agreement of the allies as to, 34, 
note ; London newspapers on, 35 ; 
Seward on, 35, 36 ; House of Rep- 
resentatives on, 36 ; Sheridan on 
the Rio Grande, 36. 

" Mint-drops, Benton," 231. 

Mint established, 224 ; free coinage, 
224 ; coins made, 225 ; supply of 
bullion, 225; work of, 226, 227; 
opposition to, 227. 

Mississippi River, discovery and ex- 
ploration of, 285-287 ; shut to navi- 
gation, 292, 293 ; right of deposit, 
294. 

Mississippi Valley occupied by 
French, 287, 288 ; divided between 
Spain and England, 287, 288 ; ac- 
quired by United States, 288-292 ; 
part ceded by Spain, 294-296 ; part 
sold to United States, 296-300. 

Money, Congress given power to coin, 
222 ; a unit chosen, 223 ; a mint or- 
dered, 224 ; national coinage estab- 
lished, 224-226 ; bills of credit, 239 ; 
demand for " cheap money," 240, 
241; "cut-money," 240; bank pa- 
per in Kentucky, 242-249. 



Monroe Doctrine,three views regard- 
ing, 1 ; origin of, 1, 2 ; the Holy 
Alliance, 2, 3 ; purpose of Holy 
Alliance, 3 ; what the Holy Allies 
did, 4-14 ; Canning's ofi'er to Rush, 
15 ; letters sent to Jefferson and 
Madison, 16 ; answer of Jefferson, 

16, 17 ; of Madison, 17, 46-48 ; 
question of Russian occupation, 
17-19 ; three questions before 
the Cabinet, 19 ; Adams on col- 
onization, 19, 20 ; the doctrine an- 
nounced, 21, 22 ; meaning of, 22 ; 
reception of, 23 ; Clay's resolu- 
tion, 23; Clay's instructions to 
Poinsett, 23, 24; London news- 
papers on, 24, 49-54 ; the doctrine 
and the South American republics, 
27 ; connection of slavery with, 
27, 28; resolution of the House 
of Representatives, 29; Polk on, 
in 1826, 30 ; in 1845, 30-32 ; and 
in 1848, 32, 33 ; Cass and Mexico, 
33 ; Buchanan and Mexico, 33, 34 ; 
the case of Mexico, 34-37 ; report 
of Secretary Fish, 37, 38, note ; reso- 
lution offered by Crapo, 38 ; by 
Burnside, 38; Blaine's view, 38; 
Salisbury's view, 42, 44; the doc- 
trine explained, 45, 46. 

Monroe, James, announces his doc- 
trine, 1, 2; sends letter of Rush to 
Jefferson and Madison, 16 ; answer 
of Jefferson, 16, 17; of Madison, 

17, 46-48 ; the Russian question, 
17, 19 ; the three questions before 
his Cabinet, 19. 

Morris, Gouverneur, on taxation and 
representation, 133 ; proposes form 
for signing the Constitution, 143, 
144. 

Naples, kinsrdom of: the Carbonari, 
10; Ferdinand forced to grant a 
constitution to, 11, 12; Ferdinand 



INDEX. 



331 



summoned to Lay bach, 11, 12; 
Austrian troops sent to, 12, 13. 

Napoleon III, conduct toward Mex- 
ico, 33-37. 

Napoleon acquires Louisiana, 295, 
296 ; attempts to occupy, 296 ; sells 
it to United States, 297, 298. 

Neutrality, Washington proclaims, 
188 ; Hamilton and Madison dis- 
cuss the constitutionality of, 188, 
189. 

New England opposes purchase of 
Louisiana, 194, 195 ; excitement in, 
over •' Force Act " of 1809, 196, 197 ; 
Governors refuse to call out militia 
in 1812, 197, 198; Hartford Con- 
vention, 198. 

New Hampshire : religious restric- 
tions on office holders, 72; dele- 
gates to Constitutional Convention, 
111 ; contest over choice of Presi- 
dential electors, 158. 

New Jersey, early franchise in, 72 ; 
religious restrictions on office hold- 
ers, 72 ; Presidential electors stolen, 
82 ; gerrymander in, 83. 

New York, condition of franchise in, 
72 ; quarrel over choice of electors 
and senators in 1789, 75, 76 ; casts 
no vote for Washington, 76, 77 ; 
the governorship stolen, 1792, 77, 
78 ; the Council of Appointment, 
79 ; struggle for control of it, 79- 
81 ; spoils system in, 80, 81 ; ger- 
rymander in, 83 ; struggle for the 
Council of Appointment, 85, 86 ; 
delegates to Constitutional Con- 
vention, 115; two leave the Con- 
vention, 115 ; city of New York the 
first capital under the Constitu- 
tion, 152; casts no Presidential 
vote in 1789, 161, 162. 
New York city, chosen to be the first 
capital, 152; description of Con- 
gress Hall, 152 , Congress Hall at, 



described, 164, 165; inauguration 
of the Constitution at, 165 ; recep- 
tion of Washington at, 170-172 i 
appearance of the city, 172, 173 ; 
inauguration of Washington at, 
173-178 ; taken by the British, 271- 
273 ; evacuation of, by British, 273- 
280. 

Ney, Marshal, shot, 6. 

" North-Americans," 105. 

North Carolina, property qualifica- 
tions for office holding, 73. 

Nullification, resolutions of Virginia 
and Kentucky in 1798, 189-191; 
Virginia in 1810 declares the Unit- 
ed States Supreme Court a common 
arbiter, 193, 194 ; Ohio affirms Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky resolutions, 
201; New York threatens, 201 
South Carolina threatens, 201, 202 
Webster-IIayne debates, 203 
threatened by Massachusetts and 
Maine, 203, 204; South Carolina 
nullifies, 204, 205. 



Ohio affirms the Virginia and Ken- 
tucky resolutions, 201 ; bank ma- 
nia, 250 ; attack on the Bank of 
the United States, 250; collects 
tax by force, 250 ; suit against, 250, 
251 ; affirms Virginia and Ken- 
tucky resolutions, 251 ; outlaws 
the Bank of the United States, 
251. 

Oregon, our claim to, 302 ; joint oc- 
cupation, 302; dispute with Rus- 
sia, 302, 303; dispute with Eng- 
land, 303-305 ; Whitman's mission 
to, 305-307 ; Whitman's ride, 807- 
309; McDuffie on, 309; boundary 
settled, 309-311. 

Oregon country, Russian claims to, 
17-19; Adams on, 19, 20. 

Orleans Territory Legislature on 
third term, 63. 



332 



WITH THE FATHERS. 



" Pacificus, letters of," by Hamilton, 
189. 

Panama Congress : the invitation, 
25 ; Clay on, 25 ; Adams's message, 
26 ; opposition to, 26, 27 ; connec- 
tion of slavery with, 27, 28 ; reso- 
lution of the House of Representa- 
tives, 29. 

Paterson, William, delegate to Con- 
stitutional Convention from New 
Jersey, 111 ; opposes Virginia plan, 
121, 122; introduces New Jersey 
plan, 123. 

Pennsylvania : instance of filibuster- 
ing in 1787, 73, 74 ; religious re- 
strictions on office holders, 72 ; de- 
bates of Constitutional Convention 
suppressed, 74, 75 ; Assembly ex- 
pels the mace, 89 ; delegates to 
Constitutional Convention, 115 ; 
choice of Presidential electors, 158, 
159 ; quarrel with United States 
Supreme Court, 193 ; wants a con- 
stitutional amendment, 193. 

Petition, violation of the right of, 209. 

Pfyles, composer of the air of " Hail 
Columbia," 169. 

Philadelphia, Congress driven from, 
156 ; reception of Washington at, 
168, 169. 

Platforms, national party, intro- 
duced, 213, 214 ; National Repub- 
lican, 213, 214 ; Democratic, 214 ; 
Whig, 214. 

Poland, Duchy of Warsaw made 
Kingdom of, 7. 

Polk, James K., on the Monroe Doc- 
trine in 1826, 30; and in 1845, 30- 
32 ; and in 1848, 32, 33. 

Population of United States in 1789, 
178, 181. 

Portugal, rise of liberalism in, 11. 

President : question of a third term, 
55-70 ; manner of electing, 56, 57 ; 
debate on his term of office, 57- 



59 ; Washington declines a third 
term, 60; Jefferson declines, 60- 
62 ; action approved, 62-64 ; at- 
tempts to change manner of elect- 
ing, 64, 65 ; plans proposed in the 
Constitutional Convention, 120, 
136 ; name, 137 ; time for choosing 
President, 152 ; Washington elect- 
ed, 162; attempts to change the 
constitutional manner of electing, 
191, 192 ; the twelfth amendment, 
192 ; to be chosen by lot, 200 ; other 
methods urged, 206-208. 

Prevost, J. B., 17. 

Progress, industrial and mechanical, 
since 1692, 318, 319; since 1792, 
320, 321. 

Quadruple treaty, purpose of, 4, 7, 8. 

Ramel, General, treatment of, 6. 

Randolph, John, at the inauguration 
of Adams, 167. 

Read, George, circular letter to, from 
United States Senate, 116, note. 

Refugees, the British, in New York 
city, 273, 274; prepare to leave, 
275; begin to go, 275-277; num- 
ber of, 277. 

Replevin, indorsement and replevin 
law in Kentucky, 245; not consti- 
tutional, 246-248; contest over, 
248, 249. 

Representation in the House, 127, 
128; origin of the Senate, 128- 
130 ; ratio of, 130 ; of slaves, 130- 
134 ; taxation and representation, 
133, 134; ratio changed, 144. 

Resolutions, Virginia and Kentucky, 
of 1798-1799, 189, 190; answer of 
the States, 190 ; affirmed by Ohio, 
201. 

Rhode Island sends no delegates to 
Constitutional Convention, 111 ; 
feeling against, 117. 



INDEX. 



333 



Eiots, anti-Catholic, 93 ; Native- 
American, 96, 99, 100. 

Kush, Richard, Canning's proposi- 
tion to, 14-16 ; answer of Rush, 
15. 

Russia, settlement in California, 17 ; 
edict of Emperor Alexander, 18; 
discussion of, 18, 19; Adams on, 
19, 20 ; claims part of Oregon, 302 ; 
" Fifty-four forty," 303. 

Salisbury, Lord, effect of his letter 
on Monroe Doctrine, 1 ; on the 
Venezuela claims, 40-42, 44. 

San Ildefonso, treaty of, 296. 

Schlegel, Frederick, effect of his lec- 
tures, 91, 92. 

Schomburgk, Robert, sketch of, 39; 
his famous " line," 39, 40. 

Secession, Buchanan on, 218. 

Senate of the United States, origin 
of, 128-130 ; no quorum on March 
4, 1789, 165, 166, note; debate on 
manner of receiving Washington, 
174, 175. 

Seward, W. H., on Monroe Doctrine 
and Mexico, 35, 36. 

" Sherman Act," 235, 236. 

Slaves, representation of, 130-133; 
taxation and importation of, 138- 
141. 

Slavery, connection of, with Panama 
Congress, 27, 28 ; Hayne on, 27 ; 
White on, 27, 28 ; Holmes on, 28 ; 
rise of the abolition movement, 
209; violation of right of petition, 
209; "gag rule," 209; power of 
Congress over, 210, 211 ; consti- 
tutional amendment regarding, 
211 ; status of, in the Territories, 
215-219; Free-soil view, 215, 216; 
Democratic, 216, 217 ; Republican, 
217, 218 ; the question in 1860, 218- 
220. 

South Carolina, restrictions on voters 



and office holders, 72; defies the 
United States Supreme Court, 201, 
202; on tariff' and internal im- 
provements, 202, 203; Webster- 
Hay ne debate, 203; nullifies the 
tariff, 204, 205. 

Spain, Constitution of, destroyed, 5 ; 
absolutism restored, 5, 6 ; revolt 
of her American colonies, 8 ; ap- 
peals to Holy Allies for help, 8, 9 ; 
attempts to collect an army, 9 ; 
rebellion in and demand for the 
Constitution, 9, 10 ; Alexander at- 
tempts to meddle in affairs of, 10 ; 
affairs considered at Congress of 
Verona, 14 ; French troops sent into, 
14; her early claim to America, 
281 ; the Papal Bulls, 281, 282 ; ex- 
plorations along the coast, 282; 
dispute with England, 282, 283; 
treaty with England, 283 ; receives 
part of Louisiana, 288 ; disputes 
our claim to Louisiana, 288-292 
closes the Mississippi, 292, 293 
cedes Louisiana to France, 296 
sells Florida to United States, 301. 

Spoils system introduced into Kew 
York, 79-81. 

" Squatter sovereignty," 217. 

States, third -term, 1807-1809, 60-62. 

Stay law, Kentucky, 244, 245. 

Steamboat, effect of the use of, on 
Western waters in 1816, 240. 

Strahan, Franklin's letter to, 270. 

Talleyrand eager to acquire Louisi- 
ana, 294-296. 

Tammany Society of Philadelphia 
on third term, 63, 64. 

Tariffs of 1824 and 1828, excitement 
over, in the South, 202, 203 ; nulli- 
fied by South Carolina, 204, 205. 

Term, question of a third, for the 
President, 55-60 ; Washington de- 
clines a third term, 60; Jefferson 



334 



WITH THE FATHERS. 



offered a third term, 60, 61 ; de- 
clines, 61 ; States approve, 62-64 ; 
the question in 1823, 64, 65, 207, 
208; Jackson on, 66, 208; the 
question in 1844, 66 ; in Grant's 
time, 67-69. 

Territories, status of slavery in, 215- 
217; Free-soil view, 215, 216; 
Democratic view, 216, 217 ; Re- 
publican, 217, 218. 

Texas, acquisition of, 311, 312; an- 
nexation of, 215. 

Titles of honor, proposed constitu- 
tional amendment regarding, 199 ; 
once thought adopted, 199. 

Thomson, Charles, 166. 

Treaties, power of the House of Rep- 
resentatives over, 189. 

Trenton, reception of Washington 
at, 169, 170. 

Troppau, meeting of the allies at, 11 ; 
circular of, 11, 12. 

Tyler, John, his vetoes and quarrel 
with the Whigs, 212, 213. 

United States, area of, in 1789, 178, 
180 ; boundary of, 178, 179 ; popu- 
lation of, 180, 181; frontier, 180, 
316; Spaniards in, 282, 294, 296, 
301 ; French in, 285-288, 296-300 ; 
Oregon, 302, 303 ; early settlement 
of, 314, 315 ; condition of, in 1692, 
315-317 ; life in, 317, 318; progress 
since 1692, 318-319; state of, in 
1792, 319, 320 ; progress since, 320, 
321. 

Venezuela, the Schomburgk line, 39, 
40 ; British claims to, 39-42. 

Verona, Congress of Holy Allies at, 
14. 

Veto, attempt to limit, 213. 

Vice-President, the twelfth amend- 
ment to the Constitution regard- 



ing, 192 ; proposal to abolish oflice 
of, 200. 

Vienna, Congress of Holy Allies at, 
14. 

Virginia, delegates to the Constitu- 
tional Convention, 111 ; Virginia 
plan, 119 ; contrasted with New 
Jersey plan, 125; adopted, 126; 
urges amendments to the Constitu- 
tion, 183, 184; resolutions of 1798, 
189-191 ; United States Supreme 
Court a common arbiter, 193. 

Voters, qualification of, in old times, 
72; in New England, New York, 
New Jersey, Maryland, South 
Carolina, 72; colonization of, in 
Maryland, 84. 

Warsaw, Duchy of, made Kingdom 
of Poland, 7. 

Washington, George, declines a third 
term, 60; chosen President, 162;no- 
tified of election, 166 ; ovations on 
his way to New York, 167-173 ; at 
Alexandria and Baltimore, 167 ; at 
Philadelphia, 168, 169 ; at Trenton, 
169, 170 ; at New York city, 170- 
173 ; inauguration of, 173-178 ; de- 
fence of New York city, 271, 272; 
re-enters New York, 279, 280. 

Whigs, constitutional amendments 
proposed by, 210, 213 ; first party 
platform, 214. 

White, on slavery and the Monroe 
Doctrine , 27, 28. 

Whitman, Marcus, mission to Ore- 
gon, 305-307 ; his ride to Wash- 
ington, 307, 308. 

Wickes, Lambert, 257. 

" Yellow- boys, Jackson," 231. 
Yucatan, Polk applies Monroe Doc- 
trine to, 32, 33. 



THE END. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 




IS TOR Y OF THE PEOPLE 

OF THE UNITED STATES, 

from the Revolution to the Civil 

War. By John Bach McMaster. 

To be completed in six volumes. 

Vols. I, II, III, and IV now ready. 

8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $2.50 each. 

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JOHN bach mcmaster. — -W- Y- Times. 

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evidences of care and skill and faithful labor, of which the old-time superficial essay- 
ists, compiling library notes on dates and striking events, had no conception ; but 
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HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 
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HE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A 

Study of the American Commonwealth, its Natural Resources, 
People, Industries, Manufactures, Commerce, and its Work in 
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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS. 

Hon. WILLIAM L. WILSON, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, 
Fifty-third Congress. 

Hon. J. R. SOLEY, formerly Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 

EDWARD ATKINSON, LL. D , Ph.D. 

Col. T. A. DODGE, U. S. A. 

Col. GEORGE E. WARING, Jr. 

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CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, LL D. 

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H. G. PROUT, Editor of the Railroad Gazette. 

F. D. MILLET, formerly Vice-President of the National Academy of Design. 

F. W. TAUSSIG, Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University. 

HENRY VAN BRUNT. 

H. P. FAIRFIELD. 

SAMUEL W. ABBOTT, M. D„ Secretary of the State Board of Health, Massa- 
chusetts. 

N. S. SHALER. 
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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

THE STORY OF THE WEST SERIES. 

Edited by Ripley Hitchcock. 

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year goes by, until presently there will be only tradition of the Sioux and Comanches, 
the cowboy life, the wild horse, and the antelope. Histories, many of them, have been 
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T 



NOW READY. 

HE STOR Y OF THE INDIAN. By George 
Bird Grinnell, author of " Pawnee Hero Stories," " Blackfoot 
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— Bost07i Commercial Bulletin. 

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"A most attractive book, which presents an admirable graphic picture of the actual 
Indian, whose home life, religious observances, amusements, together with the various 
phases of his devotion to war and the chase, and finally the effects of encroaching civ- 
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" No man is better qualified than Mr. Grinnell to introduce this series with the story 
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and association with the Indians, and membership in a tribe, combined with a high 
degree of literary ability and thorough education, has fitted the author to understand 
the red man and to present him fairly to others."— New York Observer. 

IN PREPARATION. 

The Story of the Mine. By Charles Howard Shinn. 
The Story of the Trapper. By Gilbert Parker. 
The Story of the Explorer. 
The Story of the Cowboy. 
The Story of the Soldier. 
The Story of the Railroad. 



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1212 79 




























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