A sharp admonition from Vergennes to the United States speedily to meet their engagements in France and Holland,* and the representations of Washington, quickened the determination of congress. In preparing the plan for a revenue, Madison was assisted by Jefferson, who passed a large part of the winter in Philadelphia. The national debt of Great Britain at the beginning of the war with America amounted to one hundred and thirty-six millions of pounds; at the close of it, including deficiencies that were still to be funded, it amounted to twice that sum. The debt of the United States did not much exceed forty-two millions of dollars; the annual interest on that debt was not far from two and a half millions, and to fund it successfully there was need of a yearly revenue of at least that sum. One million was hoped for from specific duties on enumerated imports, and a duty of five per cent on the value of all others. A million and a half dollars more were to be raised by requisitions of congress, apportioned on the states according to population. This more convenient method had hitherto failed from conflicts on the rule for counting slaves. The South had insisted on the ratio of two for one freeman. Williamson of North Carolina said: "I am principled against slavery. I think slaves an incumbrance to society instead of increasing its ability to pay taxes."+ To effect an agreement, Madison, seconded by John Rutledge, offered that slaves should be rated as five to three, and this compromise, which then affected. taxation only and not representation, was accepted almost with unanimity. + In the beginning of April, Hamilton had declared in congress that he wished to strengthen the federal constitution through a general convention, and should soon, in pursuance of instructions from his constituents, propose a plan for that purpose. In the mean time, he remained inflexible in the opinion that an attempt to obtain revenue by an application to the several states would be futile, because an agreement could never be arrived at through partial deliberations. The 158. # * Luzerne to R. Morris, 15 March 1783. Diplomatic Correspondence, xi., 157, Gilpin, 423; Elliot, 79. #Gilpin, 429, 480; Elliot, 81. Gilpin, 423, 424; Elliot, 79. vote on the report of the new financial measure, which he opposed as inadequate, was taken on the eighteenth of April. Georgia alone was absent; eleven states were fully represented; New Hampshire by a single delegate. Hamilton and the two representatives of Rhode Island, alone and for the most opposite reasons, gave their votes in the negative. New York being divided, nine states and a half against one, twenty-five delegates against three, recorded their votes for the adoption of the report. To the relentless exigencies of the moment the financial proposition of the eighteenth of April offered no relief, nor could it take effect until it should be accepted by every one of the thirteen states. To win this unanimous assent, congress, in the words of Madison, enforced the peculiar nature of their obligations to France, to members of the republic of Holland, and to the army. Moreover, "the citizens of the United States are responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society. If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude, and all the other qualities which ennoble the character of a nation and fulfil the ends of government, be the fruits of our unadulterated forms of republican government, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre which it has never yet enjoyed; and an example will be set which cannot but have the most favorable influence on the rights of mankind." New York, North and South Carolina, and Massachusetts were following the example of Virginia, and repealing their revenue acts of former years; when the address went forth, accompanied by the letter of congress to the governor of Rhode Island which Hamilton had drafted, and by various papers showing the amount and the character of the debt of the United States. Then, on the twenty-eighth, and so far as the records show never till then, congress appointed a committee on the New York resolutions of the preceding July in favor of a general convention. Its choice fell on Ellsworth, Carroll, Wilson, Gorham, Hamilton, Peters, McHenry, Izard, and Duane.* * Madison, on whom we depend for a report of the debates of congress of that period, was absent from Saturday, April the twenty-sixth, to Tuesday, May sixth. So details are wanting. That Clinton's letter and the New York resolutions were committed on the twenty-eighth of April, we know from a MS. memorandum by Charles Thomson. In October 1780, congress provided for forming new states out of the north-western territory.* A most elaborate report, read in November 1781, recommended that the lands for settlements "should be laid out into townships of about six miles square." Early in 1783 Rufus Putnam, with other officers and soldiers of the army in New England, engaged heartily in a plan to form a state westward of the Ohio, and Timothy Pickering, who had framed a complete plan for settling lands in Ohio, proposed to them that "the total exclusion of slavery from the state should form an essential and irrevocable part of the constitution." To "unite the thirteen states in one great political interest," Bland, a man of culture, who had served with credit as a colonel of dragoons, and had been a member of congress from Virginia since 1780, now, on the fifth of June 1783, brought forward an "ordinance" to accept conditionally the cession of Virginia, divide it into districts of two degrees of latitude by three degrees of longitude, and subdivide each district into townships of a fixed number of miles square; each district to be received into the union as a "sovereign" state, so soon as it could count twenty thousand inhabitants. In these embryo states, every one who had enlisted for the war or had served for three years was to receive the bounty lands promised him, and thirty acres more for each dollar due to him from the United States. One tenth part of the soil was to be reserved for "the payment of the civil list of the United States, the erecting of frontier posts, and the founding of seminaries of learning; the surplus to be appropriated to the building and equipping a navy, and to no other purpose whatever." This pioneer ordinance for colonizing the territory north-west of the Ohio was seconded by Hamilton, and referred to a grand committee.# From the moment when it became officially known that a *Laws relating to Public Lands, 338; Journals of Congress, iii., 535. + Endorsement on the original report in the state department is: "Read in congress 3 November 1781." Pickering's Pickering, i., 546. #Papers of Old Congress, xxxvi. MS. The ordinance is in the handwriting of Theodorick Bland, and indorsed by Charles Thomson: "Motion of Mr. Bland seconded by Mr. Hamilton. June 5, 1783. Referred to the grand committee of 30 May 1783." VOL. VI.-6 preliminary treaty of peace had been concluded, Robert Morris persistently demanded the immediate discharge of the army.* The city of New York and the interior posts being still in British hands, his importunity was resisted by Gorham and Hamilton, and disapproved by the secretary of foreign affairs; but the public penury overcame all scruples. As the time drew near for the officers to pass from military service to civil life, they recalled the example of the Roman Cincinnatus, and, adopting his name, formed themselves into ཝ one society of friends," to perpetuate "the spirit of brotherly kindness" and to help officers and their families in their times of need. An immutable attachment to the rights and liberties of human nature was made the law of conduct for members, to whatever nation they might belong; and those who were Americans pledged to each other their "unalterable determination to promote and cherish union between the states."† By one grave error, which called forth from many sides in America and in Europe the severest censure, membership was made hereditary in their eldest male posterity. The commander-inchief, who had no offspring, refused to separate himself from his faithful associates in the war; but by his influence the society at its first general meeting in May 1784 proposed to its branches in the states to expunge from its constitution the clauses which had excited alarm and just complaint. The general order of the second day of June published the resolve of congress that the men engaged for the war, with a proper proportion of officers, were immediately to receive furloughs, on the reverse of which was their discharge, to take effect on the definitive treaty of peace. Washington felt the keenest sensibility at their distresses; but he had exhausted all his influence. The army, for three months' pay, received only notes exactly "like other notes issued from the office of finance." # These were nominally due in six months to the bearer, with six per cent interest till paid. Their value in the + Sparks, ix., 23, note. * Diary of Morris in Dip. Cor., xii., 357, note. Washington to Heath, 6 June 1783. Sparks, viii., 435. #Washington to Bland, 4 April 1783; Journals of Congress, for July 9 and following days, iv., 237, 238; Morris to congress, 18 July 1783, Dip. Cor., xii., 376, 380-386 and 587-389, and other letters. market was two shillings or two and sixpence for twenty shillings.* The veterans were enthusiasts for liberty, and therefore, with the consciousness of having done their duty to their native land and to mankind, they, in perfect good order, bearing with them their arms as memorials of their service, retired to their homes "without a settlement of their accounts, and without a farthing of money in their pockets." + The events of the last four months called into full action the powers and emotions of Washington. "State politics," said he, "interfere too much with the more liberal and extensive plan of government which wisdom and foresight would dictate. The honor, power, and true interest of this country must be measured by a continental scale. To form a new constitution that will give consistency, stability, and dignity to the union and sufficient powers to the great council of the nation for general purposes, is a duty incumbent upon every man who wishes well to his country." ‡ Lifted above himself, and borne on by the energy of his belief, he in June addressed the whole people through a last circular to the governor of every state, for he was persuaded that immediate and extreme danger overhung the life of the union. "With this conviction of the importance of the present crisis," such are his words, "silence in me would be a crime; I will therefore speak without disguise the language of freedom and of sincerity. Those who differ from me in political sentiment may remark that I am stepping out of the proper line of my duty; but the rectitude of my own heart, the part I have hitherto acted, experience acquired by long and close attention to the business of that country in whose service I have spent the prime of my life and whose happiness will always constitute my own, the ardent desire I feel of enjoying in private life, after all the toils of war, the benefits of a wise and liberal government, will sooner or later convince my countrymen that this address is the result of the purest intention." * Pelatiah Webster's Political Essays, 310; compare 272. #Sparks, viii., 439. The date of the circular varies with the time of its successive emission to the several states. |