This feeling was shared by other members; but it is not to be doubted, that the proceeding was a legitimate exercise of the authority vested in the Commander-in-chief. He had been expressly empowered to arrest and confine persons disaffected to the American cause; and the requiring them to attend at his head-quarters was clearly within the scope of this authority. Moreover, although no confederation or political union of the States had been formed under a written compact, yet the United States were waging war, as a government regularly constituted by its representatives in a congress, for the very purpose of carrying on such war. They had an army in the field, whose officers held continental commissions, and were paid by a continental currency. They were exercising certain of the attributes of sovereignty as a belligerent power; and in that capacity they had a complete right to exact such an obligation not to aid the enemy, as would separate their friends from their foes. It was a military measure; and the tenor of the proclamation shows that General Washington exacted the oath in that relation. To pause at such a moment, and to consider nicely how much sovereignty resided in each of the States, and how much or how little belonged to the United States, was certainly a great refinement. But it marks the temper of the times, and the extreme jealousy with which all continental power and authority were watched at that period.1 tion of Independence. Mr. Sparks has preserved a curious letter written by this gentleman on the sub ject. Writings of Washington, IV. 298. 1 The whole of this alarm evi We have seen that the powers conferred upon General Washington authorized him to raise, in the most speedy and effectual manner, sixteen battalions of infantry, in addition to those before voted by Congress, three regiments of artillery, and a corps of engineers; and also to apply to any of the States for dently arose from the use of the words "oath of allegiance" in General Washington's proclamation. Probably this phrase was used by him as a convenient description of the obligation which he intended to exact. He did not use it as a jurist, but as a general and a statesman. In a letter written by him on the 5th of February (1777) to the President of Congress, desiring that body to urge the States to adopt an oath of fidelity, he said: "From the first institution of civil government, it has been the national policy of every precedent state to endeavor to engage its members to the discharge of their public duty by the obligation of some oath"; and he then observes, with his characteristic wisdom, that "an oath is the only substitute that can be adopted to supply the defect of principle." He advised that every State should fix upon some oath or affirmation of allegiance, to be tendered to all the inhabitants without exception, and to outlaw those that refused it. (Writings, IV. 311, 312.) Afterwards, when the Legislative Council of New Jersey- where some of the people had refused to take the oath required by his proclamation-ap plied to him to explain the nature of the oath, and to be furnished with a copy of it, that they might know whether it was the oath prescribed by the General Assembly of that State, he informed them that he had prescribed no form, and had reverted to none prescribed by them; that his instructions to the brigadiers who attended to that duty were, to insist on nothing more than an obligation in no manner to injure the States; and that he had left the form to his subordinates; but that if he had known of any form adapted to the circumstances of the inhabitants, he would certainly have ordered it. (Ibid. 319, note.) This explanation makes it quite certain, that what General Washington called in his proclamation an oath of allegiance was merely a military exaction of an obligation in favor of a belligerent power against the enemy; and his advice on the subject of a general civil oath of allegiance, to be exacted by the States, shows that he understood the niceties of the subject as well as any casuist in or out of Congress. This topic may be dismissed by reverting here to the fact, that in February, 1778, Congress prescribed an oath or At the period the aid of their militia when wanted.1 when he addressed himself to this great undertaking of forming a new army, for the third time, the existing force which he had with him in and around New Jersey was about to be dissolved. The additional regiments of the regular line were to be raised by the States, and upon them alone could he depend for the supply of a new army, with which to commence the campaign in the spring of 1777. He had labored, he said, ever since he had been in the service, to discourage all kinds of local attachments and distinctions of country, denominating the whole by the greater name of AMERICAN; but he had found it impossible to overcome prejudices. Two causes especially embarrassed his efforts in the formation of the new army; and both of them show how powerful were the centrifugal forces of our system at that period, and how little hold that great central name had taken upon the people of the different States. One of these causes was the persistence of some of the States in giving extra bounties to encourage enlistments into their quotas of the original eighty-eight battalions not yet raised. The bounty allowed by Congress was twenty dollars to every soldier enlisting into the new establishment for affirmation, to be taken by the officers of the army, and all others holding office under Congress, which was simply a renunciation of allegiance to the King of Great Britain, an acknowledgment of the independence of the United States, and a promise to support, main tain, and defend them against King George III. and his successors, and to serve the United States in the office mentioned with fidelity, and the best skill and understanding of the party taking the oath. Journals, IV. 49. 1 Ante, three years or during the war. The additional boun ty offered by Massachusetts was sixty-six dollars and two thirds. There was thus an inducement of eightysix dollars and two thirds offered to the men then in the service of the United States, not to reënlist in their old regiments, as fast as their time of service expired, but to go to Massachusetts and enlist in the fresh quotas which were forming in that State, and which were to be afterwards mustered into the continental service. The same inconsiderate and unpatriotic policy was pursued in all the Eastern States, and before the spring opened, the consequences began to be felt in the state of the new continental battalions which General Washington was endeavoring to procure from some of the Middle States, and in which he would not sanction the allowance of an extra bounty, regarding it as an indirect breach of the union, and of the agreement entered into by the delegates of the States in Congress to give a bounty of twenty dollars only for service in the continental army.1 The month of April arrived, and he had not received a man of the new levies, except a few hundreds from Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, while the few old regiments which remained, after the dissolution of the army in January, were reduced to a handful of men, the enemy being in great force, and making every preparation to seize upon Philadelphia. Nor did the allowance of these irregular bounties 1 Letter to General Knox, February 11, 1777. Writings, IV. 316. help the States, in raising the old levies, as had been anticipated. They rather caused the soldiers to set a high price upon themselves, and to hold back from enlisting; while the second cause, to which I have alluded, as embarrassing the Commander-inchief, was a great hinderance to his efforts to plan and carry out a campaign, having for its object the general benefit of the whole Union. This cause was the inability of many local authorities to comprehend the necessity of such a campaign. General Washington was, at this period, harassed by numerous applications to allow the troops, which had been raised in the States for the service of the continent, to remain for the defence of particular neighborhoods against incursions of the enemy. Nothing, he said on one of these occasions, could exceed the pleasure which he should feel, if he were able to protect every town and every individual on the continent. But as this was a pleasure which he never should realize, and as the continental forces were wanted to meet and counteract the main designs of the enemy on the principal theatre of the war, he could not consent to divide them and detach them to every point where the enemy might possibly attempt an impression; "for that," he added, "would be in the end to destroy ourselves and subjugate our country."1 From the operation of these and other causes connected with the political system of the country, the army with which Washington was obliged to take 1 Letter to Governor Trumbull, May 11, 1777. Writings, IV. 413. See also Letter to Major-General |