CHAPTER I. HOW THE LAND RECEIVED THE LEGACY OF WASHINGTON. JUNE-DECEMBER 1783. ALL movements conspired to form for the thirteen states a constitution, sooner than they dared to hope and "better than they knew." "The love of union and the resistance to the claims of Great Britain were the inseparable inmates of the same bosom. Brave men from different states, risking life and everything valuable in a common cause, believed by all to be most precious, were confirmed in the habit of considering America as their country and congress as their government." * Acting as one, they had attained independence. Moreover, it was their fixed belief that they had waged battle not for themselves alone, but for the hopes and the rights of mankind; and this faith overleapt the limits of separate commonwealths with the force of a religious conviction. For eighteen years the states had watched together over their liberties; for eight they had borne arms together to preserve them; for more than two they had been confederates under a compact to remain united forever. The federation excelled every one that had preceded it. Inter-citizenship and mutual equality of rights between all its members gave to it a new character and an enduring unity. The Hebrew commonwealth was intensely exclusive, both by descent and from religion; every Greek republic grew out of families and tribes; the word nation originally implied a common ancestry. All mediæval republics, like the Roman municipalities, rested on privilege. The principle of inter-citi Marshall in Van Santvoord's Chief Justices of the United States, 314, 315. zenship infused itself neither into the constitution of the old German empire, nor of Switzerland, nor of Holland. Even when the American people took up arms against Great Britain, congress defined only the membership* of each colony; the articles of confederation first brought in the rule that any one might at will transfer his membership from one state to another. Of old a family, a sept, a clan, a tribe, a nation, a race, owed its unity to consanguinity. Inter-citizenship now took the place of consanguinity; the Americans became not only one people, but one nation. They had framed a union of several states in one confederacy, fortified and bound in with a further union of the inhabitants of every one of them by a mutual and reciprocally perfect naturalization. This intercitizenship, though only in its third year, has been so ratified by national affections, by the national acquisition of independence, by national treaties, by national interests, by national history, that the people possessing it cannot but take one step more, and from an indwelling necessity form above the states a common constitution for the whole. It was to a nation which had not as yet a self-existent government, and which needed and felt the need of one, that Washington's legacy went forth. The love which was everywhere cherished for him, in itself had become a bond of union. "They are compelled to await the result of his letter," reported Luzerne; "they hope more from the weight of a single citizen than from the authority of the sovereign body." Jonathan Trumbull, the venerable governor of Connecticut, in his prompt reply extolled "this last address which exhibited the foundation principles" of "an indissoluble union of the states under one federal head." # When in the next autumn this faithful war governor, after more than fifty years of service, bade farewell to public life, imitating Washington, he set forth to the legislature of Connecticut, and through them to its people, that the grant to the federal constitution of powers clearly defined, ascertained, and understood, and sufficient *Journals of Congress, i., 365. Bacon's speech for general naturalization, Spedding's Bacon's Letters and Life, iii., 319. Luzerne to Vergennes, 4 August 1783. # Jonathan Trumbull to Washington, 10 June 1783. for all the great purposes of union, could alone lead from the danger of anarchy to national happiness and glory. * In June the general assembly of Delaware complied with all parts of the recommendation of congress, coupling the impost with the state's quota of the federal requisition.† To Washington, Nicholas Van Dyke, the governor, on receiving the circular, reported this proof of their zeal for establishing the credit of the union, adding: "The state which declines a similar conduct must be blind to the united interest with which that of the individual states is inseparably connected.”‡ Pennsylvania, linking together the North and the South, never hesitated; then and ever after, it made the reasoning and the hopefulness of Washington its own. At a festival in Philadelphia, held near the middle of July, with Dickinson, the president of the state, in the chair, the leading toast was: "New strength to the union ;" and, when "Honor and immortality to the principles in Washington's circular letter" was proposed, the company rose twice and manifested their approbation by nine huzzas. A month later, Dickinson and the council of Pennsylvania sent to the general assembly the valedictory of the commanderin-chief, quoting and enforcing his words, saying: "We most earnestly recommend that the confederation be strengthened and improved. To advance the dignity of the union is the best way to advance the interest of each state. A federal supremacy, with a competent national revenue, to govern firmly general and relative concerns," can alone "ensure the respect, tranquillity, and safety, that are naturally attached to an extensive and well-established empire. All the authorities before mentioned may be vested in a federal council, not only without the least danger to liberty, but liberty will be thereby better secured." # The house on the twenty-fifth, joining together the impost and the quota of the state, unanimously ordered the grant of them both, and at a later session thanked Washington specially for his final "circular letter, the inestimable legacy bequeathed to his country." *Stuart's Trumbull, 604–608. + Papers of Old Congress, lxxv. MS. Nicholas Van Dyke to Washington, 2 July 1783. #Colonial Records, xiii., 648, 649. Papers of Old Congress, lxxv. MS. In March, during a session of the legislature of South Carolina, Greene, who had received the suggestions of Gouverneur Morris, addressed a letter to the state through Guerard, the governor, representing the sufferings and mutinous temper of the army, and the need of a revenue for congress, and saying: "Independence can only prove a blessing under congressional influence. More is to be dreaded from the members of congress exercising too little than too much power. The finan cier says his department is on the brink of ruin. To the northward, to the southward, the eyes of the army are turned upon the states, whose measures will determine their conduct. They will not be satisfied with general promises; nothing short of permanent and certain revenue will keep them subject to authority." "No dictation by a Cromwell!" cried impatient members who could scarcely wait to hear the conclusion of the letter. To mark independence of congress and resistance to the requisitions of "its swordsmen," South Carolina revoked its grant to the United States of power to levy a five per cent duty on imports.* Greene consoled himself with the thought that "he had done his duty, and would await events;" but he was made wiser by the rebuff. While he perceived that without more effectual support the power of congress must expire, he saw that the movement of soldiers without civil authority is pregnant with danger, and would naturally fall under the "direction of the Clodiuses and Catilines in America." The appeal of congress in April exercised little counteracting influence; but, when the circular of Washington arrived, the force and affection with which it was written produced an alteration of sentiment in more than one quarter of the members. "Washington was admired before; now he was little less than adored." The continental impost act was adopted, though not without a clause reserving the collection of the duties to the officers of the state, and appropriating them to the payment of the federal quota of South Carolina.# 252. *Johnson's Life of Greene, ii., 387, 888. Greene to G. Morris, 3 April 1783. Sparks' Life of G. Morris, i., 251, Greene to Washington, 8 August 1783. Letters to Washington, iv., 38. #Statute No. 1,190, passed 13 August 1783, in Statutes at Large of South Carolina, iv., 570. In October, Clinton, the governor of New York, responded to Washington: "Unless the powers of the national council are enlarged, and that body better supported than at present, all its measures will discover such feebleness and want of energy as will stain us with disgrace and expose us to the worst of evils."* And in the following January, holding up to the legislature the last circular of the commander-in-chief, he charged them to "be attentive to every measure which has a tendency to cement the union and to give to the national councils that energy which may be necessary for the general welfare." + The circular reached Massachusetts just when the legislature was complaining of the half-pay and of excessively large salaries to civil officers. The senate and the house dispatched a most affectionate joint address to Washington, attributing to the guidance of an all-wise Providence his selection as commander-in-chief, adding: “While patriots shall not cease to applaud your sacred attachment to the rights of citizens, your military virtue and achievements will make the brightest pages in the history of mankind." To congress the legislature gave assurances that "it could not without horror entertain the most distant idea of the dissolution of the union;" though "the extraordinary grants of congress to civil and military officers had produced in the commonwealth effects of a threatening aspect." # John Hancock, the popular governor, commending Washington's circular, looked to him as the statesman "of wisdom and experience," teaching them how to improve to the happiest purposes the advantages gained by arms. As president of the senate, Samuel Adams officially signed the remonstrance of Massachusetts against half-pay; as a citizen, he frankly and boldly, in his own state and in Connecticut, defended the advice of Washington: "In resisting encroachments on our rights, an army became necessary. Congress were and ought to be the sole judge of the means of supporting that army; they had an undoubted right in the very nature of their appointment to make the grant of half Letters to Washington, iv., 48. * Clinton to Washington, 14 October 1783. Journals of Congress, iv., 270 |